Maricopa, AZ
Age 37

My starting weight is 133. Ridiculous. Absolutely sickening to weigh that much at this height! But that’s all the more motivation it’ll give me. I’ll have Tom disgust me further when he gets in by taking my pre-diet picture.

Meanwhile, just one more year, freeloaders, just one more year! Almost, anyway, though I know I can’t stop God from picking someone else to sic on me to replace the blacks. All I know is that in about 300 days from now, nothing I do, nothing I say, no place I go, no check or money order we write out, nor my schedule, will ever again be connected to these blacks.

This is the year I rid my life of the bitch forever, the year I get thin again and stay that way for a while, not allowing freeloaders or any other people/circumstances to cause me to regain the weight till I’m ready to do so. The year I, Jodi Lin S, AKA Mystery, Dawn, whatever…shall begin a career in doll making. There are 3 steps to that. One, I get the equipment/supplies and learn to make dolls. Two, I make the dolls I want to make for myself. Three, I sell dolls.

Mary was doing well there for a while with better punctuation, but it was short-lived. Some of the stuff had nothing but commas and I’d have to stop, go back, and decide whether or not that comma should be a period. Sometimes there were even commas where they shouldn’t be. I don’t understand this. Could it be a particular way of teaching at the convent? I doubt it. I can’t imagine any teacher teaching their students to write without punctuation or caps. Especially without punctuation. Anyway, it gets frustrating at times, but I know she’s trying and I understand that habits take time to change. As long as she’s working on it, though. Especially when I’m busier making dolls. That way I can type stuff twice as fast. One step at a time, though. She need not bother with caps yet, just give me periods along with the commas so I know where the ends of sentences are!

It’s a good thing we got only one Flovent inhaler cuz I may have to stop it cuz it’s making my voice hoarse. Once I suspected the Flovent was to blame for this, I checked the list of adverse reactions listed with it and hoarseness was one of them.

The other day Tom came to me and said it just hit him as far as how to fix the doors go. We’ve been going about it all wrong, he told me, and I agreed. Putting barely stickable weather stripping up just to have it fall down was a waste. Anyway, he told me that all we have to do is get some strips of wood the next time he’s at a hardware store and put it in the gap up top. The damn door’s too low and doesn’t quite meet up with the frame up top. We can do the same with the back door.

As for the front door’s leak, Tom caulked the sill from outside the other day, and when the sun comes up I’ll test it by hosing water on it, but somehow I doubt it’s fixed. It’s like we’re doomed to have something that we can’t stop from leaking no matter where we go. We could live in 100 more houses yet each one would have its share of leaks, some of which were unstoppable.

We took the rat guard out of Tom’s office doorway (the curtain rod we screwed in between the floor and underside of the door) and we’ll take the one out in the retreat door just as soon as we get wood for it to make an extension that the rats can’t get through.

Our last mollie died yesterday, and the mouse is still in the house, so I discovered yesterday while I was reading in bed. I saw it run from the bathroom and go behind the nightstand. I set up the trap by it, but just like I thought after I dropped it when I had it trapped in the utility area, I didn’t catch it. I just don’t think I’m going to catch this one. It’s too clever for some reason. Most mice are dumb, but this one remembers the trauma associated with it and avoids it. The big question is, has the mouse been in the house all along? Or is it coming and going through openings we missed? Nonetheless, it hasn’t hurt anything so it can live with us till the next time we bomb, although all it has to do is run down in the vents to escape the fumes, even if we did seal it up so it can’t get outside. I just hope it doesn’t have babies in the house. I love mice, but we don’t need a bunch of them living loose in the house or down in the vents. I miss ceiling vents!

I’m sorry to say that there might be a horse living at the renters. Tom said he heard them trying to teach a kid to ride a bike the other day when he was out working, and I was like, on dirt? What a way to learn! Not that I don’t like horses, but I hope I’m wrong. We have enough horse shit stench in the air as it is, and that’d be just one more thing to drag these people outside. They’re outside so much of the time as it is. They’re always home and always outside unless it’s hot. That’s the pattern I’ve noticed in the year that they’ve been here anyway. If the horse is theirs, that means our land has to be ridden on (till we get fences) and it’d be a wonderful way to bring loud, shrilly kids closer to the house. Besides, what are they going to do? Keep it tethered to their front tree? That’s ridiculous. Shouldn’t they have fences if they’re going to have horses? I’ll check it out when the sun comes up, but hopefully it’s just a case of them knowing someone who came to visit via their horse and it was just waiting for them.

Then again, I don’t remember seeing any saddle or ropes attached to it, so maybe it got loose. But it was there for quite a while and they’d had to have seen it, though I didn’t see any people out when I spotted the horse. Hmm… guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Later…

Oh, my God, I absolutely don’t believe it! I was right about the leak. It was seeping in under the sill. I just tested it and all is as dry as can be.

No horses in back that I can see of either.