You don’t know how much I love this house! I love this house and I love the peace and quiet! I love not having to have a fan or music on to drown out the noise unless I want them on. There’s no barking, no music, no nothing. I’m determined to enjoy every minute of it because I know that nothing stays the same forever. I’m still sure that the renters will become a problem at some point, and that it may get a little noisier as the weather warms up. Especially at dusk. It may take a hundred years, but it’s sad to know that the fate of this land is to no doubt become a subdivision similar to what we were in in Phoenix. There may not be 60 houses on our land, but there’ll be at least 30 for sure. What a sad thought to know that this peaceful, beautiful piece of land will someday be trashed and filled with hundreds of barking dogs, hundreds of screaming kids, dozens of selfish, noisy freeloaders, and God only knows what else. Oh well, I try not to let myself be saddened by the future which I can’t prevent from happening anyway. I just hope this doesn’t happen in our lifetime, cuz as it is, there should be a major difference out here in just 10 years. Within 10 years, maybe even just 5, I expect to see a house across the street and to our right. Maybe even 10 houses per lot, which would be 20 houses. Oh well again. There’s no sense in worrying about it till it happens. For now, I’m gonna enjoy every moment of peace till God feels it’s time to take that away from us and forcefully throw us back into the mainstream once again.

I’m still on a schedule, but not a highly structured one. I still want to be available during the day in case we need to go anywhere together or the cops feel like badgering me, but so far, I’m shocked and pleased to say that no one’s subpoenaed me.

I did a little cleaning today. I’ve been cleaning something or another every day, cuz I’m determined to keep up on this house from the get-go. I don’t want months and months of dust to accumulate on things, although, not everything will be dusted weekly. I’m not climbing up every week to dust the dolls that are up on top of the cabinets. I’ve decided that every Monday I’ll do the animals, every Tuesday I’ll vacuum/dust the rooms to the right of the kitchen (the kitchen’s in the middle of the house), and every Wednesday I’ll vacuum/dust the rooms to the left of the kitchen, every Thursday I’ll do the kitchen and baths, and every Friday I’ll do laundry. That is when we get a washer and dryer in two or three months. For now, we’ll be doing it whenever we can at the hotel, and also at Laundromats when we have a lot of stuff that could use more than one washer/dryer. I’m not going to bother drying clothes for the most part. They can be hung around the house to dry. I’ll just focus on getting them washed.

We went to the hotel on Monday, but Teresa wasn’t there. No one spoke to me at all as I did the clothes while he remained in the car. Thank God for letting us get in the house come January, cuz Teresa was right about January being high season. Man, was it packed! There were three people at the desk and something like half a dozen customers waiting to be served.

I said hi to Desiree, who said she and her family were leaving the next day.

I began the Slim-Fast diet, but since my stomach can’t take dairy, I’m not using their meal shakes. I’m using their meal bars. It’s supposed to have all the vitamins and minerals you need. They recommend a bar for breakfast, a bar for lunch, and a sensible dinner. So, the plan’s simple to follow, but not easy. You spend a lot of time hungry. I’m about 123 pounds and would like to be 100 pounds. I know, though, that at 34 years of age that’s just not going to happen. That’s just a dream. So, I guess I’ll have to settle for weighing between 110-115.

There’s been some flu going around that causes coughing and congestion, and of course, Tom just had to be one of the ones to get it. It’s not that bad, though. He hasn’t had to take anything for it and he’s still carrying on in life as usual.

I reformatted my typed-up journals. The books I typed up, I mean. Instead of having a file for journals 30-39, for example, I have them grouped by years. After 1995, I started writing a lot more, so I had to have two groups for 1996 because a file was too big to be backed up on floppy disks. January-June would be filed as 1996-1, and July-December would be filed as 1996-2.

Tom went to bed at 10:30 and I have to get him up at 4:00 to make the final dump of the trailer’s shit tank. Dennis and his wife are supposedly coming out this Saturday to pick up the trailer.

I began reworking my story last night.