I first want to say that yesterday’s rant about the reverse discrimination running rampant in this country that no one seems to care about, and my lack of trust in God and belief in prayer wasn’t meant to sway anyone’s opinion one way or the other. You’re all welcome to have a mind of your own. Remember, I’m selfish. :) Meaning that I write for myself first and foremost. You readers are just an afterthought, so to speak. I’m going to say what I’ve got to say regardless of whether it’s the “norm” or things others can relate to or not simply because that’s part of what keeping a journal is all about. It’s about documenting one’s life, thoughts, feelings, opinions and beliefs, not about trying to change others. If someone happens to be influenced by anything I’ve written, however, then so be it. I can’t control the world or help what people are going to think or do. I kind of see journaling as I do walking down the street in my favorite shirt. Some will like it. Some won’t. Some won’t even notice. But I like it and that’s all that matters with no offense or persuasion intended.

Having fun making people wait on me on Ask. Nothing from Kathy today, but I got a few questions that might be from Kim. They asked if I had a lot of online friends, if I like getting email, and if I know anyone named Carol. Well, she has a sister Carol, and the other two questions seem like questions she’d ask. Just when I thought she’d forgotten about me.

We went to Walgreens yesterday to take advantage of our AARP discount. You get $10 just for signing up, so the sculpted dog I got was basically free. Getting older has its advantages, though I’m 3 years shy of my own AARP membership. It’s a very realistic-looking sculpt, which I like as opposed to cartoonish-looking things. It’s an Irish Setter holding a ‘welcome’ sign in its mouth.

“Only they’re not welcome,” Tom joked.

LOL, he’s got a point there as funny as it may sound. I’m no social butterfly. I’ll still be seeing a lot more people than I have been when I’m out and about; just not at home. I can’t wait to go swimming!!! It may be a week or two before we finally have the time to do that, but this is a great time of year to be moving. I’d hate to move in December and know I had to wait 5 months or so before I could swim.

The house isn’t as big as we thought it was, according to the appraisers and inspectors. It’s 56’ long by 24’ wide, which comes to 1344 square feet, not that that’s not more than enough room for us. The master bedroom alone is 12x20.

Tom said Jesse was blasting music on Saturday that couldn’t be heard in here. Every time he went outside, though, he could tell he was listening to a Bruce Springsteen concert. He could hear him talking in between songs. His kid is probably there now. Someone’s been there keeping the mutts quiet for the last half a year or so. I’m surprised we never heard his music before. Tom said he thinks he kept it down in the past so as not to annoy us. Well, that’s nice cuz his vehicles, power tools and mutts were certainly more than enough.

We’ve been having amazingly cool weather for June. Although I prefer it hot, it’s better for sleeping. It was nice to be able to shut the bedroom door and window and not have to wear my eye mask when I crashed yesterday afternoon. They say we’re on for rain and sun today and just rain tomorrow, but I’ll believe it when I see it. It’d be awesome if it would rain really hard if only for an hour because then the Jes pest won’t be as likely to do anything down here before we leave, particularly bulldozing and re-roofing. Oh, the work that guy’s gonna have to do in here with all the damn drippy faucets alone! I’m sure he’ll want to balance the doors, too. He may not care that the bathroom door flops open, but he’ll definitely care that I’ve had to make a hook on the wall to keep the bedroom door from flopping shut. Oh, to soon be able to place a door halfway open and see it stay there! The next place is going to have 7 interior doors. I’m not counting bedroom closets cuz those are sliders.

Later…

Tom woke up early because his mind was racing a mile a minute. We’re both excited but also nervous about the move. I’m nervous about what it’ll be like when we get there, and he’s nervous about just getting there. As he said, everything’s running smoothly and that’s the problem, which is exactly what I was thinking. Things just don’t normally go as planned for us yet as far as we know there are no delays to be expected, no one’s out to get us and to ruin our plans, and we’re still on for moving this weekend. After having things go so shitty for us for so long, and after seeing every single one of our plans, simple or complex, fall to pieces, we tend to get a little suspicious when things go well for us. Really, why is life being so good to us all of a sudden? From a logical standpoint, we deserve good things and it’s simply our compensation for the hell we went through year after year, but something up there has a way of seeing it the other way around and I worry that we’re going to pay tenfold for this good fortune we’ve been having.

For now, life is being so good to us that it’s even raining out there as I write this, LOL. That’ll keep the Jes pest at bay. I’m mostly back on days now, though, so it’s unlikely there’ll ever be a risk of him waking me up again. I’ll be setting alarms so my schedule doesn’t jump more than an hour a day. So today it’s into bed at 1pm to read for an hour, then back up at 11pm.

Although we’re not in an area where natural disasters are likely to strike, if something happened that was out of our control like that, that’d be one thing. But if any person, group, agency or whatever even thinks of turning our dreams into a living nightmare like it has in the past I will totally destroy anyone responsible. TOTALLY.

That being said I can move on to say that I’ve organized and packed a few more things. Tom can get tons of boxes at work so that’s not an issue. The issue is where to put them. We don’t have much room to pile boxes in here but some can go out on the porch if they have to. I had my emotional moments along the way thinking, wow! It’s really happening. We’re going home. Yes, we are!

The PTSD still eats at me at times, so it will be nice to finally be in a place that doesn’t have such terrifying and stressful memories attached to it, and that hopefully never will either.

Mark should be out of surgery by now and hopefully, he’ll soon learn that he’s cancer-free!