The blue/green pickup is parked out on the street right now (to let the van in and out). Fortunately for all of us, though, they’ve been behaving well enough since our little chat and escaped another week of the city letter going out. I’ll still keep it while we’re here, just in case, then if it never gets used, I’ll put a label over the address and use it for a letter to Paula.

Still no call from Andy, and I’m not the least bit surprised. I figured as much when the weekend passed with no calls/pants. That’s because he’s now waiting for me to call him and be like, where are the pants? Well, when he sees this doesn’t happen, he’ll eventually wear down and call me, and when he does, I forgot all about it as far as he’ll be concerned. A small part of me is like - maybe he’s hurt somewhere. Just because I’m tired of him and no longer want him to be a part of my life doesn’t mean I want him to be hurt. But I know better. He’ll call any time after today.

The renters have been quiet. No dogs, no music, no kids, no door slamming, etc. It’s a little too soon to praise them that much, cuz I’ve noticed that people tend to wait a week or two after they’ve moved to get settled in and then they make a ruckus. We’ll see, though. I don’t have a bad feeling about them, but God didn’t put them next door to me, either.

I’ve been having 1500-2000 calories lately and it’s starting to catch up to me. I woke up at 112 pounds, so I’ve decided to cut my daily food intake down a bit. I’m trying to keep it around the 1000 marker, but it’s soooooo hard. What is this shit? I can quit smoking, but I can’t lose weight? Jesus! Wasn’t it always the other way around? How did I get such superhuman strength to quit smoking and how did I turn into such a wimp when it comes to losing weight? Will I ever have the willpower to get down to 100 pounds? Obviously not. And even if I could get down there at the snap of my fingers, I know I’d be back to around 110 in less than a week. Holding around 110 is fairly easy, but to drop my weight lower than that and hold it there is another story.

I looked for that Indian doll on that doll show, but they didn’t have it. I guess that’s good, though. It’d make no sense to be finding the perfect doll now at a time when it’s too soon to be buying dolls. I’m not gonna start hunting dolls on the doll show till we move, and when I do, I’m hoping it’ll be a doll that’s between 36-42 inches. So, my new goal is to aim for getting a tall doll, a real-looking doll, and those two Indian dolls from the Ashton-Drake catalog when we move, and maybe a kit doll, too. If not, I can always get the kit with any birthday/Christmas money I may get.

Mickey’s still hanging in there. He’s one tough rat. But the tumor is getting bigger. Fortunately, though, the other rats, the pig, and the mice all seem healthy.

Katie and Ashley are direct opposites. Ashley sleeps most of the time, doesn’t wheel, doesn’t play with the crinkle papers, etc. Katie, though, is really active. She wheels and plays even in the daytime. But I try to see animals as I do kids - once you have them, like them or not, want them or not, you’re committed till the end as long as no one’s life is in danger.

Just the other day I was realizing how we’ve been at an all-time low for stereos banging by. The longest stretch ever. And of course, just as I made this notation in my head, someone blasted by really, really loud. As loud as these stereos can go. It would’ve woken me up for damn sure.

Despite how wonderful Tom is, he is only human, so he isn’t flawless. He gets on my nerves at times when he gets needlessly defensive. I asked him if I looked bigger. He said no, but I look like I may be getting a little watery. I then said it was too soon for that. That’s all I said. But then he had to go on about how he was just answering my question. Yeah, so? What’s that got to do with my comment? All I was doing was commenting on his answer, not chewing him out for answering my question.

Now for my best news of the day - despite the increase in interest rates, the house we want looks promising. Same goes for getting the furniture we want. Maybe dreams really do come true after all. They weren’t kidding when they said that some of life’s best things aren’t planned. Not only did I certainly not plan on Tom, but I never dared dream of having the house/land we’re gonna have, let alone the computer, the dolls, so many animals, a stereo like I’ve got, etc. I wasn’t supposed to quit smoking, go to California, or be put in stereo either, as far as I was concerned for most of my life. So, we may get what we plan on getting if we’re lucky enough, but boy do we really get what we don’t plan on getting! We first talked with a woman named Leona. She was nice, but a bit pushy, nosy, and full of questions like all salespeople are (this guy kept popping in, too), but as Tom said, I think we’re gonna be buying a house from them. The ride was long, but not too bad at all. I handled it well and took the little computer and played some tiles games along the way. It took about 35 minutes to get to their place in Apache Junction. We saw three models. The first one was my favorite. The rooms were a little smaller than I remembered, but I’d rather have smaller rooms than fewer bigger rooms. Who needs a big bedroom anyway, although it did help when we had two beds in the huge bedroom we have here. We might put two twin beds side by side like I think we should’ve done in the first place when we move and stick the big bed in the guest room, but we’ll see. I still love Tom no matter where we sleep, but I’ll see what he wants to do when it comes time to get furniture. The master bedroom’s not as big as this one here is, and the other bedrooms are smaller than the music room (I still call it that even though Desert Dreams is out of there). The second model we saw sucked. It was a 3 bedroom with no retreat or family room. It was so open, too. The third one was pretty nice, even though it was only a 3 bedroom. It had no retreat, but it had a family room. It had a lot of cool archways and beams for plants or whatever someone wanted to put up on them. For some reason, this one was more expensive than my favorite one. Guess it was cuz of its construction. My favorite model was cheaper than I thought. I thought its base price was $68,000, but after Leona calculated the base price, along with our chosen options (they didn’t have too many options) it came to around $62,000. Options like the island in the kitchen, all-electric, R38 insulation, a skylight, 40-gallon water heater, glamour bath, 60” shower in the second bath, the retreat room door, ice maker, and vinyl in the kitchen and the bathrooms. Although I decided I’d rather have the bathrooms carpeted. It’d be better than having bath rugs. I was surprised to learn that it comes with valances for the windows but no blinds. Also, I was surprised that dual-paned windows, garbage disposals, dishwashers, heat pumps, and sliding glass doors were options. What about a washer and a dryer? That’s not on the list she made for us. She recommended we get our own decorative wall borders cuz theirs are outrageously expensive. Well, I appreciate her honesty, but it’s too bad I can’t get that for the kitchen. We’re gonna have to put the mural up, and that alone may be a bitch. Especially with those wallboards that have strips sealing the gaps every 6 feet or so. It may detract from how the mural looks, but hopefully not too much, and hopefully it won’t make it all the harder to put up. There are little things you can get for a buck. We can have the bedrooms and the living room and family room, which will be our pet room and exercise room, wired and braced for ceiling fans. I’ll probably sleep with the fan on during the hotter months, and the sound machine on during the cooler months. I won’t have to have them blaring, though, but it’s nice to have some steady background noise. That way the animals and Tom’s movements won’t bother me.

We just had an oh-my-God kind of storm! I’ve never seen it that windy or dump that much rain on us in ages! I had a bad feeling about it. One that said I don’t have the luxury of just sitting through a storm. I have to be up and about to play Leak and Bucket. Sure enough, the back room wall heater’s leaking, and there’s a spot that’s leaking by the alcove. Hopefully, it won’t get worse than that, but I don’t know. This storm was so fierce that every house had to have some sort of leaking. It also leaked through the living room window a bit cuz the storm was coming towards the front of our house. It rained in sheets! There were foot-wide sheets of rain coming off the roof and unbelievable wind, and for the most part, it was all lightning and no thunder. There was some thunder but not enough to wake Tom up and not enough to wake me up either, had I been asleep. Typically, it’d start off with a dust storm where the sky’s all brownish colored and it just gets suddenly really windy. Then the sky would turn gray and dump rain. We’ve had this for 3 nights in a row now (the humidity/monsoons sure are early this year) but we haven’t had anything like tonight in ages. It was kind of scary being in this old hexed house and it hadn’t leaked in here in a while. I’ll probably be wondering if the roof’s gonna leak whenever it rains long after we’ve moved. I know how well old patterns and hexes have a way of following us. The question is, though - how many more times is this house gonna leak while we’re still here? And will it interfere with us trying to sell it?