My lesson of the day: Eyeshadow “stickers” that are really temp tats are a waste of money. First I was too blind to apply them since I couldn’t do it with my glasses on, then I realized they were a bit big, even though my eyes are kind of big. But it wasn’t a total waste in the end because they make good “rings.” Even toe rings. I gotta laugh when I imagine Nane’s reaction to seeing my rainbow ring on my index finger. Her BF may be stable and “normal” and all things good, but her cyber GF is a definite loon, haha.

I realize, though, that I should lay off the “young” and colorful stuff wanting to get into an adult community. They only need to know I’m over 45. They don’t need to know I’m crazy. :)

I also got the 2 pounds of acrylic fuchsia rocks today for my large bamboo, but it’s not quite enough. I need 1 more pound. So I got a pound of clear rocks (same brand) to mix in with the fuchsia rocks. Two pounds is still enough but I think it would look better with the vase filled more than it is.

Wonder when they’re going to reach a verdict in the Jodi Arias case. I also wonder how high-profile cases can expect to be tried fairly with the way the internet is today. The jurors certainly must see all the comments, theories and opinions people have on the case. What was funny was that the Arizona PD says they’re aware that she’s dictating tweets from jail but can’t do anything about it. LOL, it’s nice to see them rendered powerless for once! Yet they “thought” they could try to get me for having copies of my old Blogger blog posts auto-sent privately to an individual. Nice try, buddies, though I still doubt that was a real cop. If it was, well, I sure showed them this time around just who’s NOT going to be railroaded. :)

Anyway, I think she’s guilty. If half of what I read is true, then she wasn’t an abused GF acting in self-defense. She was a jealous monster who killed out of rage and revenge.

Later…

My pork chops came out too dry. Why am I such a shitty cook? They sure tasted good, though. Next time I’ll wet them and maybe add a touch of margarine to them before I coat them with Shake-n-Bake.

Another Jodi juror gets dismissed, this one for health reasons, unlike the last one who was dismissed for saying something biased. How could they not be biased with all the info on the net these days??? I can just imagine the cyber media frenzy my own case would’ve made had the net been what it is today, all for a fabricated letter and all because the “victim” wasn’t white. I STILL can’t believe it got the kind of attention a celebrity or a murder case gets, but yeah, I can easily see it being on the net as much as the Jodi Arias case.

Someone once asked me if I wished I’d actually written the damn letter so I could say I’d have at least gotten what I deserved, and I said no. No letter, no matter what it may say, is worth 6 months in jail. I sometimes wish I’d beaten the living crap out of some folks at times, though.

I wonder why my blogs have been getting so much attention lately. There’s been a lot of visitors that spend hours in it, and yes, I can tell they’re not BOTs. Just what am I saying that’s so damn interesting, though? LOL, I’ve been getting friend requests up the ass, but I’m really not open to more friends these days. I have enough.

Had another negative money dream that was a little disturbing, though nothing too worrisome. In the dream, Nancy, one of my meanest cellies, told me she created a bank account in my name and had 2K of our money transferred to it to use as she saw fit. I was worried about not only how I’d get the money back, but also how I’d prove that I was the real Jodi S.

When I lift the roof of the rats’ cage, Sugar now has a way of standing straight up and giving me a “hug.” It’s so damn cute.

Andy thinks he saw Brenda in Springfield and that she saw and recognized him too, though he had no desire to talk to her. That’s how I feel about a lot of people I once knew. No hard feelings, but I wouldn’t care to associate with them these days.

He said Brenda looked the same only older. Same old, sad, worn-out face. I wonder if she ever kicked the crack and got custody of her kids. Brenda wasn’t a bad person, just a loser. She had no backbone of her own and chose to try to drown her problems with drugs. Only I was too naïve to see it at first back in 1990 when we met.

Imagine if she knew I was a published author who spent 12 years in Arizona, 3 in Oregon, and 6 in Cali and was married to a guy, hahaha. She’d probably think I gave up on women and settled. Oh, I gave up on women, all right. But SHE was the settlement, not Tom. She’s one of the few who taught me that being alone was better than settling. Brenda wasn’t ugly, but there was no real spark there either. She was way more attracted to me than I was to her. It always, always seems that way with women. I could always forget about those I was hot for, but I was welcome to an unlimited supply of uglies and crazies or women who were just so-so. Kind of insulting, if you ask me. Makes me feel like I’m ugly, too. Well, I wasn’t then, but I sure am now. Fat, old and ugly for sure. Still, how did one who danced in T&A bars that don’t take just anybody end up with as much rejection as she did??? I could’ve had plenty of guys, but the women treated me like I was Tracy or Bonny kind of ugly.

Molly’s friends have been a nightmare for Alison. She’s blocked 6 of them so far, trying to get her to think Molly’s in this oh-so-horrible place because she’s not allowed online. They even restrict her cell phone usage. Finally, Aly got fed up and emailed Marbridge. I’m surprised Marbridge doesn’t monitor their online activity. These sickos are in their custody, so they should be responsible for what they do. Personally, I don’t think anyone who’s fucked in the head should have online access. Seriously, Marbridge needs to remember why these nutjobs are there in the first place and use some common sense.

Tom said that part of what a group home does is teach the people how to get along in the world and that it takes a long time to “program” them. I say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and while this may sound like a very cruel and insensitive thing to say, I think they should all be lined up and shot dead. They’re nothing but a waste of space on earth and a menace to society. I don’t know if Molly is the way she is due to something traumatic or if she was just born that way, but that’s no excuse and I know she’ll never change. I was abused as a kid too, yet I don’t go around stalking people and trying to make people like me. I give up on those who give up on me, and if I’m not good enough for you, you’re not good enough for me. It’s ok to miss someone or to wish they liked you as much as you like them, but it’s not ok to try to force them to do anything they don’t want to do.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying every moment that she’s forbidden from going online because I know it’s only a matter of time before she’s back, following us from site to site, using her friends to reach out to us, and reaching out to our friends. That’s why I try to hide them as best I can on Facebook. Really wish people would help protect themselves by not “liking” my cover photos. I can’t make those private.

Funny how the strange/rude questions on Ask stop the day Molly’s removed from cyberspace. Again I have to wonder if she’s a little smarter than I gave her credit for. I really thought most of that shit was coming from Kim. Either way, it’s wonderful not having either troll in my life… until they once again return to haunt me.

I heard Jesse roar out on the Harley at 11:00. A few hours later I thought he was going to blow off installing a new cooler pump, but he came down at 3:30. I was glad too, cuz next week my schedule will be worse for him coming down, even though it’s to be cooler out.

“Do you know what today is?” I asked him.

He said, “No, what is today?”

“Today’s the day we moved in here half a decade ago.”

He was surprised it’s been that long. It’s kinda sad that we’ve been cramped in such a dump for so long, but it’s better than an apartment and I do love these woods when they’re not assaulted with the sounds of loud equipment/vehicles.

He’s gonna run his gravity-forced pipe to the cooler so that it gets that off the well, but he says I won’t hear him. He asked what my schedule would be next week cuz he’s got to spray more Round-Up, but if all he’s doing is just coming down with a spray bottle, I won’t hear that either. I’ll have the sound machine on so that if he farts, it won’t wake me up.

I talked to my German hottie again. She still makes me laugh. :)

Tammy’s message didn’t make me laugh. Just when I was more hopeful for her than ever, the CAT scan results now show that both lungs have worsened. They still can’t figure out why, but they do know that it’s obviously not going to magically get better on its own. So the next step is to do another biopsy, then a team of doctors will then decide what to do from there.

Let’s see what else… I swapped messages with Andy and Alison and that’s about it.

Later…

Ordered the groceries for tomorrow’s pick-up, then some goodies on Amazon. I always wondered how they made such perfect dots when doing various nail designs. Then I saw an ad for dotting and marbleizing pens and tons of nail designs that were awesome. Although my nails are usually long, I have small hands and so that means small nails with not much room to play around on. I couldn’t do all of the designs, but I could do some. So I jumped on Amazon and am getting a set of 5 pens that allows you to make dots and swirls, as well as some rhinestones and special tweezers to apply them with.

I also grabbed a couple of bottles of hologram nail polish by Color Club in Cloud Nine and Angel Kiss. It supposedly reflects a rainbow of colors, and you know me and my rainbows. I just love them, haha. The rainbow eyeshadow stickers I ordered last week should be at the mail place, along with my big bamboo plant’s fuchsia gemstones that I plan to plant it in. Tom will be picking that and the groceries up on the way home from work.

Because I didn’t sleep well last night as I was expecting the Jes pest to come down to fix his damn cooler, I hope to sleep long and well tomorrow. I probably won’t crash before 2am - 3am and I don’t expect to be up before noon.

For the longest time, I thought I’d leave a note behind when we left for the Jes pest all about how much he and his mutts have annoyed me over the years, but now I just don’t care. I just want to move and be done with this place altogether. If he asks why we’re moving I’ll be honest with him and tell him that while the dogs have been amazingly quiet lately except for when anyone comes up the drive, we’re sick of the lack of space. We want a newer, bigger place that’s ours.

I also didn’t come here to listen to so many saws, hammers and loud vehicles. I’m surprised shooting hasn’t been an issue all along, though it used to be back when some asshole around here once went target practicing. I’ll never forget that first gunshot blast that sent me flying off the bed and out of a sound sleep! I was pissed! I’m all for the right to bear arms in the name of self-defense, but go to a fucking range to practice, will ya?

It’s so funny how a simple box can bring these rats to life, haha. They were just sitting there till I threw in an empty chip box, figuring it’d be small enough to remove once they made a mess, and they started bouncing with joy. Like, “Ooh, look what we got!”

Rats are so like little kids. If you don’t watch them they’ll go where they KNOW they’re not supposed to be. I was using the computer in the bedroom while letting the rats play in the living room. After a while, I thought I’d go check on them and sure enough they were hanging out by the power strip. I yelled at them and they took off running in a very guilty fashion, LOL. It was so funny, though, the way they were like, oh no, she caught us! Run!

I talked to my German hottie earlier. She makes me laugh. :)

Most of today turned out to be good with one small pisser in the mix. The dumbshit up the hill replaced the broken cooler pump with the same pump that would stop and start and stop and start before. Tom got in and switched it from fan to cool when we noticed that foul chemical odor. He got up on the roof and found it had seized up, so he called up to the Jes pest and it’s going to come down and hopefully fix it right BEFORE I’d like to get up tomorrow. He knows I know he’ll be coming down, though, and so when I hear him I’ll know it’s him and what’s going on and just go back to sleep. He knows to pound on the bedroom wall if he absolutely needs me to get up.

When I do get up, after it’s fixed, I’ll have to set it manually since we can’t have it hooked to the computer’s thermostat with him replacing it. I am sooo sick of things breaking around here! Just so sick of it, and of course Tom says it’s “normal” for an old place. No, it’s not. There’s a breakage curse on us. That’s not normal. But we learned this with our brand new Maricopa house. As long as it’s ours or shit we use, it will break. Not looking forward to being the ones to have to pay for repairs in the new place, but I’m looking VERY forward to it being ours.

I giggle to myself when I think of the surprise and disappointment Jesse’s bound to feel when we give notice in what will hopefully be just a few weeks. I got messages from both Walter and Tammy letting me know that they’re wrapping up the estate by the 15th, their deadline. At this time I will immediately be sent half of whatever’s owed to me, then they’ll have 30 days to send the rest.

Tom got a hold of our favorite park and was told he can’t fill out an application without having a specific place picked out. I still don’t think we’re going to end up in our favorite parks. I think it’ll be just a basic park with elevated homes, and I doubt we’ll be lucky enough to find a place where no one parks alongside us, but I don’t care about that anymore. I know it’s going to be hard to sleep there for the first month or two until I readapt to civilization once again and having so many people so close to me. Tom, on the other hand, could sleep in the middle of a busy freeway. Whatever we get, wherever it may be, it’s going to be a lot bigger and nicer than this place! I won’t like the car door slamming as people and their company come and go, but I’m sure I’ll love everything else.

So the new plan is to wait till we have exact figures since our hands are pretty much tied until we know precisely what we have to work with, then we can really start aggressively hunting. We’ve been watching the listings every day. Really hope my dreams start providing more clues soon, too.

Speaking of dreams; a while back I had a dream he got transferred to second shift and was given a raise. But it never happened so we thought the dream didn’t mean anything. But he recently learned he is getting a raise after all! We just don’t know how much.

Last November or December I sensed a serious change to come in April. I’d say I’m definitely going to be right on that one!

Later…

I thought Tammy sounded the best I’ve heard her sound in a long time, and what she told me gave me hope that she’ll live a full life after all. She may not always have it easy, and she may never be able to work again, but they apparently aren’t in a hurry to do the transplant. So the fact that they’re not pushing to do it ASAP makes me think she’s not that critical. She still has to undergo more testing and might even have to have another biopsy done. They’re still not 100% sure what’s wrong with her, and the only way they can narrow down the possibilities is to be able to eliminate and rule out this, this and that.

I’m looking sooo forward to the move, but not the neighbors. Even if they’re dead quiet, I know the judgment will begin as soon as they know I’m under 65 and mostly living off my husband. Most people these days think it’s just plain wrong for a husband to support his wife. You just don’t do that nowadays unless she’s disabled, but you know how people are – if they can’t “see” your problem or if they don’t get it, then you’re not disabled as far as they’re concerned. Well, I’m going to spare myself the judgments, false assumptions and whatever other bullshit by being polite but not friendly. I’ll say hello to people at the pool, but forget about playing games with them at the clubhouse. If some lady invites me to tea or asks me to play bingo with her, then she better be really damn good-looking! I just don’t want trouble too close to home, is all.

I feel bad for one of Tom’s coworker’s parents. They’re broke and being evicted, so the daughter is looking for a place for them to live. She found a place that seemed to be a really good deal on some land around here, but when she saw the place she thought it was such a dump that she wouldn’t even think of letting them live there. Then she found another place that’s really nice and really cheap. The catch? It’s attached to a bar. That’d be worse than being attached to a kennel or a playground! At least the father’s lucky enough to be deaf.

Tom was able to download something that stops his computer from crashing when he goes to use his portable drive.

It’s to be in the 70s for the next few days, then a cool spell is going to take it down to the 60s. I know it won’t be long before we’re in the 80s or higher! Love that dry heat we get, but that’s not like the oven Arizona was.

So this supposedly gay-only drunk has now bought Mary a fireplace, a fish and fish tank, a 50” HD TV, given her oodles of cash, and I guess that next comes a car. I nearly fainted when I read that in Mary’s blog earlier. I finally had to ask where the hell he gets all this money, and I guess he inherited millions of dollars from what she says.

Miss You Can Abuse Me If You Buy Me Things just better know what she’s doing. When she finally gets fed up with the abuse, there’s no saying how he’ll react. Those who are broke can react in a pretty nasty way, and having money only makes that more likely.

What kind of “friend” showers another friend with all this shit anyway unless they’re hot for them? I wouldn’t give my friends that kind of stuff/money. Then again, if I suddenly had 20 mil, I don’t see why I wouldn’t want to give a million to my top few closest friends. Why not? How much money could we need this late in life anyway?

While I still think it’s sad that she’s putting up with his shit just to get stuff, I can also understand it. She could very well be on the street now if it weren’t for him. People do what they need to do in order to survive. She’s unemployed and her monthly expenses are over a grand, and this is without yet owning a car.

When I lived back east I never drove. I had a driving phobia and couldn’t afford a car anyway. So I used “Nervous” for rides since taking the bus was a major pain in the ass. Well, I had to put up with a lot of shit for those rides that in many ways weren’t worth it, and was glad when I finally broke free of him. It was best for us both. He was never going to get what he wanted from me anyway.

I really worry about Mary. She has proven to be the same naïve fool she was before prison. The only mistake she hasn’t repeated (yet) is to get knocked up by an asshole she keeps forgiving over and over again till something tragic happens.

But her supposedly gay friend Steven could very well be a tragedy waiting to happen if she doesn’t smarten up and quit being so nice. But this is more than her being too nice and naïve, it’s about her being stupid. She’s using the guy to help support her and buy her extras. No wonder she’s been shopping like crazy while unemployed. I thought maybe she had a book deal in the works or something or was receiving money from her abusive family she claims she wants to see as “people” and not “abusers.”

Steven is a drunk with a guy that beats up on him. From what Mary’s written in her blog, Steven has shown up drunk, has been destructive, and has said mean things to Mary. Mary told him not to bring his lover around, but he does anyway, even though he’s just as bad as his lover. He may not be violent, but still… he’s clearly not someone Mary needs in her life no matter what material things he may have to offer. Not only that, but she is still on probation and if she’s caught hanging around with a drunk she could get in trouble.

One minute she’s writing that she’s done with him, the next he’s buying her something. I tried to tell her that no one’s gifts are worth the abuse and asked if he’s really just gay. Usually, it’s those who are intimate (or want to be intimate with us) as well as family that tries to buy our love or at least our forgiveness and acceptance. This is a very common tactic for abusers to abuse and then go out and buy the people they abuse a gift, thinking they can buy their forgiveness and a chance to do it all again. Why isn’t she smart enough to see this? She is a true fool at heart to put up with him just for his money and gifts.

“Well, if he wants to buy me a new HD TV I’m not going to stop him,” she says, and also mentioned something about him paying a year of her rent even if she gets a job. Although Mary is a wonderful person otherwise, she definitely has no problem asking for favors and accepting whatever people will give her for free, even if they’re ax murderers. I love money and gifts too, just like anyone else, but not if the person giving it to me is going to abuse me for it.

When I asked about Steven’s feelings for her she said she’d never pass up the chance to turn a gay man straight. rolls eyes At 34 she should be smart enough to know you can’t turn a gay person straight anymore than you can turn a straight person gay. Every now and then, though, a predominantly gay person will be attracted to the opposite sex (it happened to me with Tom), but he didn’t make me attracted to him.

I didn’t hesitate to tell her she’s being foolish and will one day tell me she wished she’d listened to me, but it’s her mistake to make. I have not only suspected that Mary’s sweet, calm nature attracts bad news, but that she still has a twisted fondness for abuse. I think she always has and that a part of her will always like “living on the edge” with abusive people. It’s all she’s ever known anyway. Well, I just hope that when she gets knocked up, she doesn’t end up doing another 15 years when the abusive father kills the kid after she forgave him and let him back into her life one too many times.

Later…

Poor Tom. The portable drive he got crashes his computer. That’s something like over a year since he’s crashed, and I can’t even remember the last time I crashed. Macs are not only tough to infect, but also tough to crash. I laughed at him, but of course I’d be pissed as hell if it were my computer, haha.

I set the alarm for 9:00 and was a little tired when it went off, but not too bad. Jesse was a half-hour late but managed to get the cooler vacuumed and re-pumped in 45 minutes. Again he mentioned the roof, promising to let me know in advance when he’s going to do it. I asked about the hammering and he said he’s building a new deck in front. I thought he already had one, but he said there’s one in the back. Oh great, so now he can hang out in front and spy on us and his future tenants, as hard as it is to see through the trees and have company hang out there with him too, that we can hear down here. Unless he got the lumber from a friend or something, he can’t be doing too badly financially these days. I just hope the next time we see him will be to tell him we’re leaving!

Andy’s all worried about me because North Korea’s threatening to nuke Cali, but they’ve been threatening us for years, so why should we believe them this time? Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen anyway. Nothing I can do about it. If they do kill me, though, then I guess I won’t have to worry about getting any fatter. Besides, if the US stops it over the ocean and it still explodes, like Andy said it would, maybe the winds will carry it right back to them.

I wish they would simply kill those they give the death sentence to and be done with it in a timely fashion. We don’t wait 13 years to send someone to prison that we sentence to prison, so why are there tons of death row inmates running around still alive and well years, even decades, after they were condemned to death? If you’re not going to kill someone, don’t sentence them to die then. If you are, just do it!

I think America needs to get a little Muslim when it comes to death row inmates, and adopt the attitude of those savage muzzie beasts – kill, kill, and kill some more.

Jodi Arias will probably get death for killing her BF, but will she really ever be executed? I doubt it. Another woman who beat and poisoned her husband to death, also in Arizona, was sentenced to die in 2000, yet she’s alive and kicking. So tell me, what is the point of giving anyone the death penalty if you’re not serious about killing them?

Today’s one of those days where I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. The scale was up. There were no updates from Walter. I had a backache. I had PMS hunger two weeks before my period. I also had dreams again of renting. Oh, but I’m supposed to believe I’ll get my money and we’ll get out of here soon, right? Well, I’ve got a feeling we not only won’t be going anywhere soon, but we won’t be going to our top parks either.

Even though I had my main meal, the one I try to reserve for the middle to end of my day, I’m still hungry. For some reason, whenever I wake up really hungry, I could stuff myself all day but nothing curbs it. If it does it’s very short-lived. For the thousandth time, I gotta wonder just what the hell’s going on in my body to make it crave so much food. I don’t run 10 miles a day and spend the day doing a physical job. So why am I always so damn hungry???

Just got up and tossed down an additional 230 calories on top of my 350-calorie meal and I’m still hungry. :( I’m ready to take a Schläger to my stomach!

Later…

I had been kind of depressed the last couple of days, impatient about the move and feeling like it was never going to happen. I was torn between taking anything we could get and just giving up. I know the bastard above is going to continue to do all He can to hold us back and that owning is totally against His wishes for us, otherwise He wouldn’t have taken two places from us already.

Then Tom got home from work, went to turn the water on to the cooler since it’s supposed to hit 80° tomorrow, and sure enough the pump that was working just fine the other day no longer worked. I just knew there had to be a fucking problem with the thing like there is every single fucking year. Apparently, the cheap pumps only last a year and that’s what Jesse put in the thing last year. I was really worried at first, until Tom reminded me that cheap pumps don’t last long and that if the so-called breakage curse was living on through other people’s new to semi-new stuff, then it would surely break our own stuff once we moved.

Anyway, this pulled me out of my about-to-give-up mood and I said fuck what any God wants! I’m tired of all the problems around here – normal for old places or not – and listening to saws, hammers and other annoyances nearly every day. I’m going to have to listen to shit even in an adult community. I know that. But at least I’ll be doing it in a place that’s ours and that’s not so damn old and small. Today was actually quiet, though, probably because it was windy.

I realize that waiting around for first best may be a waste of time, and that’s fine. After Tom takes a shot at talking to the people at our favorite park, and after they turn us down, I’m willing to settle for almost anything. Even what we don’t want is what we do want. Meaning that even a place that’s old, not that nice, and in a less-than-ideal section of the park would still be heaven compared to this. I’d rather listen to people trim trees from our own place than someone else’s.

Speaking of trees, one went down in back. Actually, it was a large branch and not a whole tree. Thankfully, it’s out of the way and didn’t hurt anything.

Tom is going to call the park people tomorrow from work. He hopes to be able to meet with them on Saturday, but knowing how much something up there loves to delay things, they probably won’t be available till next week, which means he’ll have to put in for a day off since they like a week’s notice.

“We’re giving notice by May 1st,” I said to Tom after Jesse left. “No matter what, we’re taking what we can get and we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

He agreed. Enough is enough! We won’t have as many options if I don’t get my inheritance, but that’s ok. We’ll be happy enough with whatever we can get in the non-Beverly Hills of parks.

Meanwhile, the Jes pest has to return tomorrow around 10:00 to vacuum out leaves and other debris from his fucking cooler and to install a new pump. Watch, this time he’ll probably get an expensive one so the next people in here don’t have to deal with it for a few years if they can stand to stay cramped in here with such a noisy landlord for so long.

I really realize, though, that if we keep expecting to leisurely walk out of here and into first best, we could be here for months if not a year. Instead, we need to go crashing out of here head first and into what’s more like second best, but also more realistic, if we want to get out of here anytime soon.

Well, whatever’s up there can hate us, but it can’t stop us. We’re about to go crashing out and that’s that!

It’s pretty windy today so I’m taking a chance at keeping the sound machines off and hoping I won’t get the usual hammers, saws and loud vehicles you hear around here when it’s not raining or over 90°. It’s cool today, but by Wednesday we’ll have jumped 20°. The cooler’s water, pads and pump are ready to go. And I’m still hearing people bitch about spring not arriving yet in other states/countries, LOL.

One of Mary’s wall posts said something like, “When a person tells you their problems, it doesn’t mean they’re complaining, it means they trust you.” This is so true. At least for me it is. I can’t count how many times people have gotten the wrong idea by my “complaining” by either pegging me for a liar, a wimp, a whiner or someone out for attention. Talk about being seriously offended! That’s why I’m careful who I confide in until and if the trust I had for anyone who’s taken it wrong can be restored. I wonder about people at times, though.

I also wonder how some have concluded that I’m an atheist. Believing there’s an evil God up there does not make one atheist. Believing there’s NO God up there makes one atheist. Oh, I believe there’s something up there, all right. I just don’t believe it’s what most people believe it is. I don’t believe God is mostly good and that we can all run to Him with our problems, “give” them to Him, and tell ourselves all will be ok if we give them to Him and basically do nothing about them ourselves. Nor do I believe we can simply pray for what we want no matter how fair and reasonable our requests may be or else we’d have everything we ever wanted. To each their own, but to me, saying I’m going to give my problems to God would be like saying I’m going to give them to my porcelain ballerina doll. If I don’t try to figure them out and solve them, who will? I believe something up there (I don’t know if it’s necessarily God) can help influence us to either succeed or fail same as other people can, but if I have an infected tooth, I need a dentist to help me, not God. God’s not going to drop down from the sky and say, “Open up, Ms. S,” and yank that tooth out of my mouth.

Why I don’t think God is good should be obvious enough if you look not just at what’s gone on in my life, but other lives as well. What “good” God lets innocent babies be murdered and natural disasters take the lives of millions? Even if it isn’t actually God doing the evil but some devil instead, He still lets it happen.

In fact, I think something up there is going to do all it can to delay the move even more. I worry that the park is going to turn us down. We know for sure we could get in in a year from now, but we both do NOT want to wait another year. I don’t even want to wait 2-3 months, though that’s what it’ll take to get our credit up to their standards if they’re not willing to work with us where we’re at now. We won’t know for sure till Tom talks to them hopefully within a week. That’s the next step now that we’ve seen and ruled out the co-op park. While I would never give up without trying first, I learned years ago that if we put all our time and energy into struggling for what isn’t meant to be, we miss out on what IS meant to be. So if Park A is meant to be, I don’t want to waste time trying to get into Park B and keeping us stuck here even longer unnecessarily.

If we have to settle for our runner-up parks, we will if we can’t get into our favorite parks. Life is often about settling and making the best of what you can get and we’re used to that. The runner-up parks are still plenty nice and it’s pretty much what I’m counting on in the end. Our two favorites are certainly the Beverley Hills of all parks, and so I’m not expecting to get into them what with the high standards they have. If Tom’s right, however, then they’ll take us and it’ll just be a matter of picking out the house we want and moving into it probably sometime in May. But Tom is notorious for being overly optimistic and I just don’t “feel” like we’re moving anytime soon. My dreams don’t suggest it’s going to happen that soon either.

I’m just about all out of hope inheritance-wise. Walter said he contacted the CPA this morning to see what’s up and hasn’t heard back from them yet. And yes, that’s something God would do or at least allow to be done to me; see to it that my perps not only go unpunished but that I don’t profit from them either. That’s ok, though. We don’t need their money. Tom alone makes around 4K a month. Mommy Dearest and her enabling husband would’ve just been a bonus.

Still no Molly. I did a little test and got some pretty interesting results. Since she’s been kicked offline I decided to open my old Ask account and pulled myself off the stream (that way anyone who asked me anything would have to look for me specifically or be following me) to see if I still got the same weird questions we were both getting which I had thought were from Kim or Kathy, but they’ve stopped. Just stopped. Now I’m actually wondering if she was a little smarter than I gave her credit for. I just didn’t think she’d have brains enough to change her writing style and be sure to ask us both questions to make it look like someone else. Think it could’ve been her? Makes me wonder if perhaps Kim really has gotten sick of checking my blogs.

I was shocked to learn from Andy that he not only placed an ad showing his face and dick but that this is actually a very common thing. Don’t people have any class or self-respect these days? I can see hookers, dancers and escorts doing this, but what kind of a “date” does one expect to get by posting pictures that make a person seem desperate, promiscuous and trashy?

Before I write about the co-op park which we agreed before seeing much of that we won’t even consider moving to, Tom had me laughing my ass off last night when trying to set up the microphone for the German language learning program I’ve been using. I once won a Sexy Jesus prize pack (when aiming for the first prize which was something big, though I don’t remember what) and one of the things was a little Sexy Jesus figurine on a spring with a round sticky base that you can stick wherever. Jesus sort of bounces around when any movement jars him. Well, this idiot stuck him on her microphone. The opening, which is up top, is so tiny I never even noticed it, and of course I don’t have the best of vision to begin with. So once I pried him off and tossed Jesus aside, Tom starts testing the microphone to one of the speaking exercises where you speak the name of the object in the picture you see. German commonly uses “the” before objects (der, die, das) and he didn’t know the word for pear, of course, so he just goes, “Der pear.” LOL, it was pretty funny. Andy would’ve laughed his ass off and I could picture him goofing off and trying to pronounce the words and me laughing over that, too.

We took off around 10am and arrived in Sac Shitty about 40 minutes later at a suburb of the Sac called Florin. This is where the really cheap co-op park is located. Once we saw how rundown the area was we wouldn’t even drive through the park. We saw enough of it from the outside anyway, and it was just so-so. The trailers were raised. I would much rather pay an additional 1-3 hundred a month for a safer, cleaner area and a nicer park where the tenants can’t vote against keeping dogs as household pets only.

Being there made me realize just how much nicer and safer this little town is, but we don’t see ourselves staying in Auburn. Other towns are also nice and closer to work and on bus lines if we ever need them, and have more stores and restaurants around. Besides, Sac City isn’t exactly where I want to live anyway. It was so hard to find the place, even with the navigator and printed directions due to the hilly terrain. In Arizona, it was so flat when you weren’t on a mountain that you could see landmarks way off in the distance to help guide you.

Once we returned to Auburn we hit KFC. Neither of us was ready to return home afterward, but we wanted to do something different and go someplace fun that we hadn’t been to in a while. So we went to Walgreens, which always has tons of nice things to look at without the crowds of Walmart. Some screaming kid was there when we first went in, but fortunately it left a few minutes later. All I could think was how my mother would’ve killed me if I carried on like that in public or at home as a kid. Really, I just wanted to slap it silent!

We got new AARP cards so we can get various discounts. Even though I’m under 50 being married to someone over 50 entitles me to the same benefits. Tom was lucky I was with him because I remembered that Walgreens was one of the AARP stores, not that we couldn’t afford to pay in full. It came to around $78 after the discount, but that was ok since I never ordered the incense I was going to order. That’s because they only accept PayPal and we don’t have a PayPal account at the moment, thanks to the scammers that caused us to have to shut our account down.

He got some games and a few electronic gadgets, and I got a nice sundress, a glittery overcoat for nails, a pink throw, plus some other odds and ends, like one of those air fresheners you hook to your car’s vent. I always wanted to try one of those.

Of the things he got for just $10, he got a dock/speakers for the iPod that would sit on the treadmill, since I won’t be able to blast my music when we move, and it also came with headphones and earbuds. The speakers aren’t very loud at all, though, and I don’t know if I could hear the music over the sound of the treadmill, but if not, I can just use earbuds.

The nicest thing I got is a beautiful bamboo plant with little pink flowers stuck between the 4 stalks that are supported by a gold twisty tie. They really did a good job making it look like one with the plant. Love the clear and purple rocks in the clear vase, too.

My older, bigger bamboo is just in water, but I think I may get decorative rocks for that one as well.

Tom got the water turned on to the cooler to the usual tune of saws and hammers, none of which was Jesse’s, and amazingly there were no issues with it this year. No ruptured hoses causing water to spray all over the place and no pump seizing up, so that’s good. As I said to Tom, I bet it would have something wrong with it if we were stuck here indefinitely and broke just to add to our stress, not that we’d have to pay to fix it as renters.

I took a few days off from working my arms, then did a light workout yesterday thinking my shoulder was healed, but that only aggravated it, so I’m taking a few more days off.

It’s so nice to be able to enjoy life without the stress we were under in the past, wondering if we’d be able to pay next month’s rent or even if we’d survive and be alive in a few months. But sadly, I’m hearing many of the same stories of struggling that we used to tell. So in the midst of my happiness, I do worry about the health and finances of others that I know aren’t as fortunate these days.

What else? Nothing really. I chatted with my Argentina friend for a bit and that’s pretty much it.

Later…

My new Spotlight glitter nail polish is so pretty to look at just sitting in its bottle, let alone on my nails. Instead of small specs of glitter, these are tiny strips of glitter that are about the size of a printed dash. So right now I have dashes of silver glitter that change color depending on how the light hits it over nail polish that matches apple green Tic Tacs perfectly.

Deciding that I like the bamboos planted in decorative rocks as opposed to sitting in just plain water, I’m going to be getting a bag of acrylic rocks for my big bamboo in fuchsia. This will help weigh it down and will be easier to just add new water to as it evaporates. They’re made for this sort of thing too, so I won’t have to worry about the “gems” floating.

I’m still enjoying my Instant Immersion language learning software, but it’s too soon to say if I like it better than LiveMocha’s setup. It’s different but similar. It has a memory match game that LM doesn’t have, and it helps drill in the vocabulary. So far I have yet to encounter anything as tough as LM’s magnet exercises where you form sentences from a scattering of words, but it’s still extensive enough that I think it would be tough for someone who was learning German from scratch. I think a lot of this is better for the more advanced levels. Tom read that we pretty much only use about 2500 words in any language, so the key is to learn those, plus proper grammar, but with German’s complex grammar rules, I don’t ever expect to have great grammar.

When I went into the bathroom in KFC to wash my hands after I was done eating, I glanced in the mirror. I don’t have any hair anymore, I thought to myself. All I have is fuzz. So I got some deluxe leave-in conditioner, and we’ll see if that helps it so it doesn’t look and feel so shabby. Dying it and straightening it has really done a number on it.

Been having so much fun with the new language-learning software, but it is way too soon to really judge how effective it is. It’s helping me to learn even more vocabulary. That much I can say.

I have bitched and bitched about the many ordinary, everyday abilities that I have been denied in this life, but I have definitely been blessed with the ability to learn languages quickly and easily, and that helps make up for some of my shortcomings. Although not fluently and not always correctly, I was able to read, write and speak German in less than a year after I started with knowing just a few words.

If Jesse can keep his racket to himself today, I’ll spend most of the day studying in between my workout, shower and doing a few loads of laundry.

Tomorrow we’ll change the rats’ cage, turn the water on the cooler now that we’re to be in the 80s, then enjoy the day checking out that co-op park.

Tom continues to wish he had a life while loving all the money he’s making. It’s insane and this could very well be the last time he ever makes so much. We’re certainly not going to get as much when he retires, but we’ll be much better off than we were on unemployment.

I really, really hope we really do find our home this month. One that’s nice but something we could still afford if he were laid off and we were back on unemployment.

For old-time’s sake, I’m going to order one last round of my favorites from Incense Galore.

I had a dream about Maliheh last night, but we didn’t just exchange emails, we met in person and all seemed to be fine. Does this mean I’m finally going to hear from her? I doubt it. I really believe without a doubt that she befriended me for dishonest reasons.

Our day of rain is over, so now it’s back to hammers, saws and loud vehicles. :( At least the dogs are still amazingly quiet. He’s gotta have someone staying with him. I doubt anyone’s complained on him because that’s been done before we entered the picture and it didn’t do any good then, so why would it now?

It’s gotten kind of green out there, but a month from now the browning effect will occur and that’s how the underbrush will stay till the fall.

Yesterday was dead quiet. So much so that I could get a lot of proofreading done.

Last night I had a couple of senseless dreams that weren’t very good.

One took place in the house we had when we lived in Maricopa, Arizona. Tom and I were sitting in the den when he told me I was a bad wife. I said, “I know,” then got up, crossed the kitchen, walked through the living room, and out the front door. I felt spider webs stick to me as I descended the wooden steps and quickly brushed them off. I expected it to be cool and crisp, but instead it was warm and sticky like it was the monsoon season. Instead of the ground consisting mostly of dirt, it had thick green grass. There was just enough moonlight to see that there were a few inches of water in the wash and that it was drizzling. In real life, you’d need a helluva lot more than just a drizzle to put water in that wash. I remember. Although I heard Tom open the door and call to me, I simply ignored him and walked off into the night.

In real life, Tom has never thought or told me I was a bad wife and he never would.

In the other dream we were moving, but we were going into the new place as renters with the idea in mind that we’d buy a place in a few years. Not gonna happen. It actually costs more to rent mobile homes than to buy them, and of course buying an on-site house in a retirement community is really out of the question. They’re super expensive. We considered renting first to test the waters, but when you rent mobile homes you have to pay for the space rent and the rent that the owner charges. If you own it outright, you just pay the space rent.

I briefly considered buying a few single-wides for a few grand each, figuring we’d be less likely to get assholes in a 55+ park to rent them out to, but then quickly dumped the idea when I realized that we’d be the ones to have to fix whatever broke, and if they all happened to be empty at once, we’d have to pay all that space rent.

Now it’s time to work out, shower and do some laundry and cleaning. Gotta order groceries too, to be picked up tomorrow.

Later…

Oh my, my, my. I accidentally offended cousin Sharyn, though she said it was no problem when I apologized for it, assuring her I was just joking. She made a post about being grateful to be alive as there were other people hit by cabs that day in NY that didn’t make it. She concluded the status update by saying she hoped that feeling never ended. Jokingly, I wrote: It will end January 1, 2178 :) ox

Not long afterward, I noticed the post disappeared. So I PM’d her to let her know it was meant only as a joke and not intended to offend anyone.

It’s really gotten me to realize that Sharyn has absolutely no sense of humor whatsoever, and has never really been much of a friend to me any more than the distant cousin that she is, but like Tom said, she’s a relative but not “family.” She is how she is, though, and so I just won’t comment anymore on her posts. That way I don’t take any chances of saying something seemingly innocent that she ends up taking the wrong way. She’s just too serious and too sensitive.

I noticed Renate unblocked me, though I don’t know why she ever did in the first place. When someone doesn’t want anything to do with me I respect their wishes and I back off. Really, I don’t understand why people can’t just unfriend me and leave it at that. Why do they have to go so far as to block me? I really wish they could just ignore me, though, because too many blocks could put my account in jeopardy. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to have to create a new account, but still… who needs the hassle because people have to go to extremes?

Anyway, I said hello and let her know I miss our chats. She didn’t re-block me, but she didn’t reply either. It’s amazing how unforgiving people can be, but in most cases that’s a good thing. Being too nice can get you in trouble. I wish Mary could see that. She’s come a long way, but she’s still allowing other forms of abuse into her life and as I tried to tell her, abusive friends and family aren’t any more acceptable than abusive lovers and spouses.

Again I got the word wrong as far as what Tammy has. She has sarcoidosis. Still no laughing matter. If the idiot doctors could’ve caught it early on, they could probably have gotten rid of it altogether. But because they didn’t, she has permanent damage. I hope the doctors don’t know she still smokes, even if she’s cut back because Tom said they don’t give transplants to those who smoke. According to Tom’s research, the only way sarcoidosis can turn fatal is if it affects the heart. She does have some kind of a murmur that was detected, but that may not be anything serious. I think it’s too soon to know just what her future holds. All we can do right now is hope for the best. As Norma said, she’s a strong woman. So hopefully, whenever she has the transplant, it will be successful.

Romeo gave me a good laugh yesterday in the midst of my concerns for Tammy. I was thankful for it, too. I needed it. He’s decided the dusting wand is his new toy and was chasing it like crazy. I’d swing it left to right and back and forth and he went like he was trying to do some twisted dance routine.

Rain’s in today’s forecast. That’ll shut the Jes pest up. All I should hear today is the truck coming and going.

Maliheh finally picked up my email and sure enough, she ignored it. So she’s only confirming what I’ve come to suspect and will hear from me one last time in July as that will make it the longest I’ll have gone without hearing from her.

I brought myself to go public again, including opening my old Ask account. I realized that with Molly out of the picture, it might narrow down who may’ve been playing with me. I always thought the main perp was Kim, but what if it was Molly pretending to be her? It’s unlikely, but with Molly eliminated from the scene, we’ll see what happens. Nothing came in yesterday. They may not check for me every single day, whoever they are. I’m suspecting it’s someone with an account that’s following me, in which case I’ll reappear on their friend list now that I’ve reactivated. I pulled myself off the stream so I don’t draw as much attention from random people.

No call from Tammy yet. Hopefully, it just means she was tired after her appointment and not that she got bad news. Last weekend I had really bad feelings about her not making it past another 5-10 years, but then they dissipated a few days ago. The fact that they’re looking to replace only one lung gives me hope that they can help her live at least somewhat of a normal life and that they’re doing it to give her a better quality of life vs. to save her life. But when they’re doing it I don’t know. Maybe it won’t even come to that. I have to wait till she updates me and tells me more.

Last night I vaguely remember having a quick dream about moving stuff out of here, which tells me the move, is getting closer. Damn right it’s closer cuz we’re going to make it closer! I am so fucking fed up with Jesse and his shit! On top of two hours of hammering yesterday I had to deal with an hour of loud engine gunning in the afternoon. I thought he was taking off on the motorcycle at first, but I guess he decided to work on it instead. This morning at 9:00 sharp the sound machines are going on and that’s the way they’ll stay all day. I’m not even going to bother to wait for his shit. We’re on for rain again this week, but the problem is that it almost always rains at night here. So by the time the damn cock is out and about, the ground may still be wet, but it’s plenty dry enough to go pounding away at things and gunning engines. Has this guy got some kind of phobia about being indoors when it’s light out unless it’s raining or over 90°?

What is it with the bastard above and the way He’s been so hell-bent on tormenting me with every single neighbor I’ve had since 1992??? How is it I just “happen” to end up with every extreme and fluke possible and just “happen” to get the noisiest of neighbors possible every fucking place I go? I’ve had it all from welfare bums to college kids, from large Mormon families to crazy old ladies with service dogs. What’s God gonna sic on me when we move? Sure there are enough welfare bums out there as well as large families and college kids, but what are the odds of one ending up with every fucking circus imaginable out there?

I’ve also been teased with neighbors and just when I think I finally found my dream neighbor, they turn noisy on me. It’s been very common for me to move in next to quiet neighbors who turn around and move out a few months later, or for seemingly quiet neighbors to move in next to me that turn noisy 4-6 months down the road. But my dream of having mystery neighbors remains forever elusive.

I know I’m going to have to hear home renovations, landscaping, vehicles and door slamming every day, not to mention mutts barking by as their owners walk them, but at least the place will be ours and it will have adequate space. I’d still prefer a mobile home in a mobile home park as opposed to a trailer in a trailer park, but if the fancy parks give us any hassle, there’s a cheap doublewide in an adequate enough park we should be able to grab without issues. I don’t like the idea of being in a 1970’s paneled dump with flimsy walls (they didn’t start building them like real houses till the 80s), but it beats staying here if that’s what it comes down to.

This weekend we’re going to check out the park where people own it. My only concern there is that if you don’t think dogs should be household pets and you’re the one running the show, why would you allow them indoors? Tom’s worried it may be too old and run down with no one to get on the people about keeping up on things, but we’ll see.

Later…

Got a sad update from my sister, who does need a lung transplant for sure. She just doesn’t know when, where, or how many lungs they’ll be replacing. She doesn’t have MD or MS either, after all. She has scleroderma. The idiot doctors she used to see took a piece of her lung for a biopsy a while back. Well, it turns out the biopsy was never sent. So that’s part of why she’s suffered so long without knowing what the hell was going on. I don’t blame her for being pissed. Incompetent assholes like this should be sued and stripped of their license to practice.

Other than having a landlord who can’t shut up, while things are going so well for us, they’re going downhill for her and I feel so helpless. Especially being so far away.

Although I can’t see it, Maliheh made a mobile upload 16 minutes ago but doesn’t appear to have picked up my email. Did she receive it or have cookies off? I don’t know. I only know I’m as done with her as she is with me.

I am in a rather indecisive mood right now because I can’t make up my mind as to what I want to do with my blogs. For now, I’m going to share entries (not just links) with just a few of my FB friends. I don’t know how often I’ll do this, but this way they won’t be left out of the loop no matter what I do with them. I will continue to post old excerpts on MD and LJ, only MD is private for now, unlike LJ. I can’t make LJ private, unfortunately. All I could do is make future posts friends/private and set each of my old posts that way, too. But with over 4300 posts, that wouldn’t be an easy task. If I update Tumblr it’ll only be because the trolls don’t know about that blog.

Although Molly’s mother, who’s almost as creepy as her daughter, doesn’t have the desire to view my blog dozens of times a day like Molly would if she could, I no longer like the idea of blogging for just anyone to see because of trolls like them and Kim. It was fun for a while, but I also like to have a choice. I can turn MD and MO from private to public and back and forth at will, but I can’t do that with LJ and I see no way to do that with Tumblr either. So for now I think I’ll stop updating current stuff on LJ and maybe Tumblr too, and just update MD and MO, only they won’t be public.

Sometimes I want to set things the way I would normally set them had I not been unfortunate enough to end up with these nutjobs stalking me and tell myself not to let them control how I do things, but what’s going on in my life is simply none of their business, even if what’s going on with me is the last thing they really care about. They’re looking for names. They want to see if I’ve mentioned them and anyone else they know. That’s the real reason they follow me. Not because they’re interested in my life.

I had a nightmare about them coming after me last night, but that was no doubt triggered by the discussion I had with Alison about them just before bed. I think they tried to sue me, though, not attack me or kill me or anything like that. That’s a scary dream to have after Mommy Dearest spent 17 minutes and 25 seconds bouncing between my MO and LJ blogs, though there’s nothing to sue for. I’ve been over the blogging rights with a fine-tooth comb and as long as I don’t post threats or sensitive info, I don’t see how I’d be at risk of lawsuits.

I noticed Molly suddenly disappeared from my tracker something like 4-5 days ago. Then Aly told me that one of her fellow group home members, many of whom she’s had to block, told her that her mother threatened to demand that the director keep her offline due to bashing fellow group homies. I’m kind of surprised the group home doesn’t monitor all online activity by its residents to begin with, keeping in mind the reason why they’re there in the first place - because they’re fucked in the head! People like Molly and Kim NEVER change and should NEVER be allowed online for the rest of their lives.

Later…

I had just started to make public my MO and MD blogs and even my old Ask account, determined not to let trolls spoil the fun of seeing who comes around, but couldn’t do it. I guess I not only get off on depriving them of their reading pleasure, I just don’t want these stalkers to know much about the upcoming move and where we’re going. I don’t intend to state the town we move to in public, not that it could really hurt me in any way. It’s just that I think one should be extra cautious when it comes to obsessive, hateful people who are the vengeful kind. I know I’m not doing or saying anything wrong in my blogs, but the whole world knowing certain details about my life and my whereabouts isn’t necessary. Facebook and email are one thing, but I won’t publish pics of the new place in my blog. The inside, maybe. The outside, no way.

Both mom and daughter (I don’t know about Kim), have me bookmarked for God’s sake and these are people who are supposed to hate me and not want anything to do with me. They also know I don’t want anything to do with them. I have read some of the troll’s blog just because some of it is so crazy that it’s actually funny, but I have a feeling they read mine not just because they’re curious to see if I’ve mentioned their name or those they’re familiar with, but to see what they may be able to use against me. Well, I don’t see what can be since I don’t post threats or sensitive info, but still, they’re almost like a peeping Tom peering through my window at me and it just gives me this feeling of unease. Plus there are people out there even more hateful and vengeful than they could ever be and they’re the last ones I need pouring through my shit.

A friend suggested that I just keep generic stuff in the blogs they know about, but it’s a pain to edit the entries to that degree. Some censoring is necessary, of course, but I usually find it easier to just keep private things private rather than edit each entry depending on what blog it’s going in.

Mrs. M doesn’t usually view my blog nearly as obsessively as her daughter, but whenever Molly’s craziness escalates, she runs to see what I may know/say about it.

That fucking landlord of ours has been hammering all morning. Or at least some of it. Started at 9:20 and was still going strong at 11:30. I guess he’s fixing the wooden rails on his deck. That’s my guess anyway from what it sounds like. I just wonder how many more days of this shit I’ve got to deal with. And then what? What project will he annoy me with next?

Tom said the other day that it’s normal to hear your neighbors even a couple of hundred feet away, but is it really? Andy doesn’t hear his and he’s attached to them. I can see hearing neighbors a few feet away, but is it really “normal” at 200 feet? Unless I sleep all day I always, always hear something – hammering, sawing, vehicles – something. The dogs have been the quietest they’ve ever been since we’ve been here, but still, I wonder if I’m just overly sensitive to sounds and easily distracted by them or if it really truly is normal to hear your neighbors on a daily basis, even if they’re not just an arm’s length away.

Well, they’re soon to be an arm’s length away, and they’re going to be coming and going several times a day. So is their company. Plus they’re going to be hammering their own repairs, trimming bushes, and hanging outdoors when the weather’s nice, so it’s time I get used to it.

I just worry that there’s going to be even more delays. I have my doubts about getting into our favorite parks, but we’re still curious about a couple of other options. One is that park where you own part of the park which we’re going to check out this Sunday. As Tom said, the space rent (even though it’s not really “rent”) would be so cheap that he’d be tempted to look for a job closer to the place. We hadn’t considered this place because it was so far from his job.

There’s also a dumpy old doublewide for just 6K in a park with nice wide streets and its space rent would be between the owned park and our favorite parks. This place would be very close to work, but it has no pool. I hate to take another old dump, but life is about settling and I’m used to dumps. This way we wouldn’t have to take out a loan and would still have thousands in savings from the get-go. It seems most options have their pros and cons, but I’m tired of waiting! If the fancy parks tell us we gotta do this and do that and it’ll take another half a year, I say we go ahead and settle. As long as the dump is spacious enough and undamaged, it may be our best bet. Then we could just fix it up from there however we wanted.

Our 20th anniversary is in June of 2014 and Tom’s goal is to weigh less than he did when we were married. When we married he was between 210-220. He’s down to 227 from 285. Well, I sure as hell ain’t gonna be lighter, LOL. I was just 97 pounds when we married. I’m 25 pounds overweight and am probably going to stay that way indefinitely. I keep losing and gaining the same 5 pounds every month. Now that I’m older I just can’t deal with the hunger and fatigue of hard-core dieting and that’s what it’d take at this age to make a serious loss, even with exercise.

I don’t remember one single dream I had last night.

Will this be the month we find our home? I hope so!

Later…

Telling myself to mind my own business and quit worrying about grown-up adults who can take care of themselves is easier said than done at times. The more I care about someone, the more I worry. And, well, I worry that my dear friend Mary is going to shop herself on the streets before she finds work, and I wonder if associating with negative influences from the past simply because they’re “family” is good for her. Again, I know I should mind my own business and let her take care of her own self. After all, I’m not her mother and I can’t control what she does. But I can worry. The people she’s in touch with can never hurt her in the way they once hurt her now that she’s a grown adult so that much is a good thing. For now, though, unless she’s got more money coming in than I know about, I hope she’s got someone who can hold her belongings and doesn’t mind living on the streets if worse comes to worst, cuz I don’t think she’s going to slow the shopping down anytime soon, LOL. Most young people aren’t very smart with their money, and she is still kind of young. We didn’t get it till our 40s and 50s and we may never have gotten it had hardship not turned into disaster. Hope things don’t have to get too extreme for her!

I guess we all have a way of overdoing something. Andy overdoes the sex talk/pics, I overdo the blogging, Tom overdoes the clutter, and Mary seems to overdo the live-for-the-moment thing. There’s nothing wrong with living for the moment, but I think one should live for the past and future as well because the past is what helps shape our future for the better or for the worse, depending on how we handle things.

I understand her reluctance to trust people and how her life experiences have made it damn near impossible to do so. Sometimes you get to wondering if everybody is a liar or if it’s your own paranoia making you think they might be. Eventually, I decided that while I can’t make everyone be truthful, I can at least avoid those I suspect may be dishonest about whatever. People say they don’t want to be dumped, but sometimes they push us away leaving us no choice when all they do is bullshit us or fling all kinds of false accusations at us. Sometimes I’m not sure which is worse, not being believed by those we thought trusted us, or not being able to believe those we thought we could trust.

Speaking of shopping, Tom and I may order some really reasonably priced language learning software on Amazon. Rosetta Stone is super expensive and each level costs about $400. But Instant Immersion’s 3 levels are just $25, so we thought we’d get the Spanish and the German. The reviews seemed pretty positive. The Spanish will be Tom’s 5th or 6th and probably final attempt to learn Spanish, LOL, and this way I can work toward getting fluent in German and more fluent in Spanish. If I like these programs I’ll get Italian and other languages as well. We saw languages for preschoolers and Tom joked about getting that and how that may be his only hope, hahaha.