While we sometimes do end up with a pet we’re not too thrilled with and that we thought would be friendlier, it seems that house hunting is like pet hunting. You know it when you’ve found the right one. Well, although that triple-wide has its flaws and may be a bit bigger than we need and would like, I can’t seem to stop thinking about it. We’re still going to talk to people in a couple of weeks just to get a sense of what we may or may not be up against, but based on our calculations and the way they’ve been throwing so much OT at him, we could probably pay off more than half of it in September. Even if the payments were $300 a month after that, that’d be less than two years to have to pay that on top of the lot rent. That’s the only other thing I don’t like is that the lot cost is forever. Then again, it’s not literally “forever.” I can’t say for sure what’s going to happen in 11 years, but I doubt we’ll remain in NorCal forever. I don’t know if it’ll be Spain or Florida that we end up in, but doubt we’ll be here for the rest of our lives. So “forever” would really be a decade.

I really wish they’d do away with central AC/heating and install individual wall heaters and coolers in each room. That way you save energy and money, not heating rooms you don’t use often and things like that. Closing vents doesn’t cut costs; it just cuts down the airflow to a particular room.

Anyway, I can’t help but wonder if someone else will get the house before we get a chance to either hope they drop the price some more or make a play for it. And if we do, will we win it? It would probably be smarter to just forget about it and get a smaller dump on a lot that’s only $450 a month instead of $765. But I’m sick of dumps! Even if there’s money to fix it up, I’m just so sick of dumps. Yet it seems that the usual options in life unless you’re rich are to either get a cheap dump or buy something newer and nicer that may put you at risk or not allow you to save much. But with the triple-wide all paid for, the lot and utilities would be pretty comparable to this place. Here we can save an average of $500 a month and that’s without even trying, so it’s not like we wouldn’t be saving anything at all. We are going to start actually trying, though, cuz the more down payment, the merrier as it may lower the monthly payments. So no more eating out, expensive groceries or fancy nail polish for a while.

They’re OTing the hell out of him again and he just doesn’t understand why they don’t save themselves money and add a second shift to throw just a few people on. With the way California OT works, they’d save a ton of money that way. Business must be booming if they’ve got that much money to throw away. Hopefully, they won’t run out, like Tom said, for being stupid. Nonetheless, he has to work Saturday and that alone will be over $200 and buy us what will hopefully – hopefully – be the last propane fill-up.

It sure would be nice to see that house in person. A picture doesn’t always speak a thousand words. Still can’t get the house off my mind. It’s sitting there right this very moment totally empty. It’s waiting for its new owners. But who are they?

I wish the nightmares and even the dreams that are just plain old negative overall would stop. Sure I’d rather bad things happen in my dreams than in reality, but I have had dream premonitions before. Enough to rule out any coincidence. So when something broke in here in my last round of dreams (the cooler?) and Jesse said it was going to take him 10 hours to fix it when it was at the end of my day and I was ready to crash, that doesn’t exactly make for happy dreaming.

I also wish that after 3 years of pestering me that Molly would leave me the fuck alone. I still think she’s the one pestering me on Ask lately. Again, she comes to me. I don’t go to her. So if she hates me that much, based on the things she says to me, then why does she bother with me? If she’s going to keep on pestering me, though, can’t she come up with something new other than the usual 3 or 4 things she keeps telling me, like how God would be nicer to me if I were nicer to others? Besides, if this bullshit line were even true, then what about infants that are smothered by their parents? Who were they not nice to? So you see, her sense of logic is a bit twisted when you really think about it.

So much for Mommy and Daddy restricting her online privileges since they don’t seem to get that they have to ground this nut for life if they want to keep her from bothering anyone. Yes, literally for life. No amount of time off is going to change things when she’s suddenly allowed limited online access. Why don’t they get this yet??? Perhaps they just don’t want to.

This is someone who has shown to have an intense, passionate hatred for gays, bisexuals and lesbians. Well, I’ve been attracted to a few men and lots of women, so why would she want to bother with me in that case? I’ve had sex with half a dozen women in my life and sooner or later I’ll probably have sex with more. I just don’t know with who, where, when or how many there’ll be. Meanwhile, my brain is like a slut when it comes to writing the kinds of stories I write. Now why in the world should she bother wasting time with me, an “evil sinner” with a whorebag of a mind??? Really Molly, I am the unhealthiest fixation you could possibly have since you believe your conservative, hateful ways are the only correct and acceptable way to live. So instead of you and your mommy making empty threats to sue me for having the nerve to bitch about your stalkerish ways in my blog, why not actually get a life and get a job for the first time in what, 5 years? Or at least throw yourself in that group home you once mentioned so you can be with other pesky misfits like yourself.

rolls eyes and sighs I was really hoping that since Alison’s the target of her obsession, she would leave me alone since Aly deactivated on Ask, but no such luck so far. So I will only allow anonymous comments there when I think they’re less likely to come around.

I wonder why she hasn’t shown up on my blog, though. That one I just don’t get. She’s still just as obsessed with me, so if she can be curious enough to keep tabs on me on Ask, why not my blog, too? I think she is still reading it regularly but is just disabling cookies to avoid showing up on TIP, thinking it’ll make her look less stalkerish once she crosses the line enough to draw law enforcement’s attention.

looks towards Citrus Heights Hi, house, how you doing out there tonight? Feeling kind of lonely sitting all alone and empty? Aw, someone will come keep you company sooner or later. Us???

Yeah, I know, I know. Wake up and smell the coffee and look around me, right? This is reality. This was what was meant for us.

Good night, house. Sleep well.

Just had a bit of a chilling thought pertaining to a damn good cyber friend of mine that I’ve known for about 4 years now. Let’s just say that something happened that got me thinking. How well do we know our friends? How well do we really, really know them?

And who are we to say for sure just who’s on the other end of the computer? When we open ourselves to anonymous comments and questions on sites we can’t track, who can know for sure just who’s on the other side of the computer? Maybe – just maybe – it’s someone we least expect. Hell, I didn’t expect Kim was pulling the shit she was pulling on me despite knowing she wasn’t all there, and I may never have figured it out had Aly not expressed her own suspicions about the Kimbecile.

Today on Ask I got “bully” and “dont you feel guilty?” I automatically assumed it was Molly. These are her signature questions, so to speak, though I also realized it could be Kim. I’d still be willing to bet on Molly.

But right around the time I got these “questions,” Alison shut down on Ask and sent me an email saying I wouldn’t hear much from her for a while cuz things have gotten really bad for her. She said she wasn’t ready to talk about it. Just that something happened online that scared her (she said it had nothing to do with either troll) and that she would explain more when things calmed down. Meanwhile, she was taking a break from Ask and from being online as much.

I know how frustrating online trolls can be to deal with, but I hope she won’t let them get to her. I also hope she’ll eventually tell me what’s going on. I hate it when people drop hints without telling the whole story! I just hate being left in the dark and curious as hell.

Then I got to thinking about the timing of everything that happened today and while it seems like a seriously far-fetched idea, how well do we really know our friends? I’ve always considered Aly to be one of the smartest, sanest people I know. But what if? What if??? Then I say, nah, she couldn’t be “one of them” could she? God, I hope not! I’d feel even more betrayed than when I learned that after being a friend to my face, Kim was trolling me behind a mask of anonymity. That’s because she and I were even closer and shared so much more with each other. I never considered Kim a true friend in the way I considered Aly a friend. Kim was always just a borderline friend/annoyance in my eyes.

I’d still bet my money on those questions being from Molly, but again, how well do we really know our friends? It’s not something Andy would do. I’ve known the guy all my life. Whenever he plays with me he eventually lets me know it’s him. Whoever this really is, it isn’t Andy. Oh, how I would love to be able to track Ask! But that’s where the trolls go; where they know they can hide. Even if some of them make themselves obvious at times. I doubt it could be anyone else I’m close to in the U.S. or anyone in Europe. It just doesn’t seem like the type of thing they’d do… even if we can never truly know our own friends.

A group of women was bitching on Nane’s wall about how chilly it’s been lately in Germany. I said that they should come here and Christiane replied with: I’d like to come very much.

It was all I could do to keep from adding, “Would you be jealous, Nane?” LMAO!

In private, since Nane might see her as “competition” of sorts even though she’d probably never admit it, I told her that if all goes well we should be open to visitors in a few months once we have more space.

What do I like best about German ladies? They’re so tall. :) Tall, dark and lovely or not, Christiane’s always been a nice person, so why not stop by and see me when and if she visits the area? Well, because only the ugly ones would prefer to visit, that’s why.

6 pounds of muscle has now been flushed down the toilet. You definitely don’t want to build tons of muscle unless you have no body fat. Building muscle when you’re fat only makes you look and feel fatter. Oh, you could see some of the muscle through the fat, alright, but I hated being bulked out like that and not being as flexible.

In other news, thank God the dream premonitions have stopped. Sure seem to have anyway. It’s been a long time since I had one so hopefully, my dream that we were right back in the situation we were in last fall was just a nightmare and nothing more. Tom assured me it was and that it would take years to end up that way with all we’ve got saved. Well, I don’t know about that, but while the economy isn’t exactly booming, it should take even an older whitey less than 6 months to get a job these days and he’d still get unemployment for a while, too.

Mary’s release date is now pulled up to August 29th. Damn! I can just imagine the excitement she must be feeling. I just hope she isn’t going to live with any of the losers that helped put her where she’s been for the last 12 years.

I noticed a checkmark next to Nane’s message when she picked it up, then an arrow appeared. So maybe Maliheh really did pick up my message. She probably did as it makes no sense to just ignore it.

Nane had me laughing my ass off when she said that while the house I showed her looked nice, she said it looked like it was made of spit and glue. LOL! She never understood why American homes weren’t built tougher since we have our share of natural disasters here, but as I told her, even homes built to hurricane standards in Florida sometimes get taken out, and we’re pretty safe from earthquakes and other things here except for wildfires.

My weight’s been dropping like a rock since I stopped lifting and am now just sticking to running. I swear my arms are half the size they were a few days ago. I’m also dieting a little more seriously, too. It is so hard! I could eat the entire jar of Nutella straight out of the jar.

Lady Di shut down on Ask and Facebook. I guess she got sick of being harassed, though I don’t know why people picked on her so badly. I don’t think I ever saw anyone get so much shit dished at them online like she did. She probably just temporarily deactivated and will be back soon enough, though, after she’s taken a break.

Andy’s answer to Molly’s, “Why is Jodi ignoring me?” was so fucking funny, and yes, I know it was her. She makes herself rather obvious just like Kim does. Anyway, he answered with, “Because you left her hairbrush out in the sun.”

I was reading back on some of the shit I pulled in my 20s and forgot all about “Kevin H.” I not only billed calls to celebrities, but it seems I also had TV characters subpoenaed as well, LOL. In the last apartment I would ever have in Springfield, MA, Andy and I were discussing what name I should get the phone in since I was such a prankster in those days and he suggested Kevin H, a character on the Twin Peaks TV series. So he got the phone in that name since I couldn’t make myself sound like a guy when calling the phone company. The best I could do was two separate female voices. That was a few years prior to that when I was a young American female and an older English female at the same time but in a different situation. It worked, too! Anyway, being the idiot I was at the time, I got caught making prank phone calls. Only Kevin H got the subpoena and I never had to go to court! My heartfelt thanks, even after all these years, to the creator of that TV series. :)

While the Kevin H thing may be funny, the “stolen books” appearing on our credit report isn’t. I haven’t ordered introductory books and then failed to buy the required 8 or 10 books or so over the following 2 or 3 years since Phoenix! So how can it say I did this in 2010??? And where are all these books I supposedly stole??? Somebody’s fucking around somewhere and they should remember that I may not always have much muscle and I may not be very tall, but I ALWAYS have the temper from hell!!!

The overall report isn’t as bad as we thought it was, even though the two things that are on it are bullshit.

Later...

Still not sure what would be better to aim for, old and cheaper or new and costlier. Thanks to the bastard above who saw fit to curse me with a sleep disorder that would forever guarantee us two people lived on one income, it’s not like we could get just anything. Then again, it’s also not like we couldn’t get something newer and nicer and not still be able to save money. But we’d rather save close to a grand a month as opposed to just a few hundred.

Money has become much more important to me than objects after the hell we went through. So knowing the importance of money and how things could go wrong for anyone, anywhere at any given time, and seeing that I’m used to living in old dumps anyway, we should probably go for something cheap and old. It would still be better than this because it would not only be bigger and ours, but where people are hopefully made to control their dogs. It really pissed me the fuck off to hear the dogs start barking on a Monday night of all nights. I don’t know where the damn cock went, but knowing he could be out anywhere from a few minutes to all night long, I threw the sound machines on.

If we can’t escape barking in an adult community, where can we escape it??? Most have pet restrictions but so far all I’ve seen those restrictions entail is the size and the number of pets. Nothing that says you can’t toss them outside and leave them there.

You can take out a 10 and even 20-year lease that locks in the cost of the lot pretty much for the rest of your life, but again, as much as I’d love to live in something newer and nicer, we could lose it all if they laid him off. Haven’t we lost enough already? I just hate to settle (within reason) and move from one dump to another even if it may be ours, super cheap, bigger, and easy enough to fix up.

I almost want to scream when I hear 20-somethings bitch about their dishwasher or garbage disposal not working right. Well, guess what, kiddies? I’m twice your age, maybe more, and I don’t even have those little luxuries in life to complain about! Some people don’t realize how good they’ve got it till they’re reduced to such poverty and bummery as a trashy old trailer. Now that’s fucking degrading and embarrassing in some ways! Even when you know it’s not your fault and you’ve worked just as hard as others, it still has a way of really pissing the shit out of someone when you know you deserve better in life. But I didn’t ask to be born cursed with a sleep disorder any more than I asked for a lot of other shit to happen to me, and my husband didn’t ask to make a 28-month career of out unemployment. So sometimes things really are beyond our control and all we can do is make the best of it even if it’s not always easy.

There are other obstacles we may be up against too, like our lack of rent receipts. We have nothing to prove we’ve been paying rent anywhere because Jesse asked us to start paying him in cash a while back so he could hide this extra income from the Disability people he was trying to get benefits from. This was on account of a bad back that really doesn’t seem to be all that bad considering how often I see and hear him working outdoors. Hopefully, we won’t need to use him as a reference so long as we don’t take out a loan. I asked Tom why they couldn’t just call him and have him tell them we’ve lived here and rented from him, but as he said, anyone can ask anyone to say that. They want to see things on paper, not hear them from people’s mouths.

These are the kinds of things that make me wonder if our lovely God lined things up this way. Did He time Jesse’s asking us to pay him in cash with us deciding to try to buy a place? As funny as it may sound, though, buying a place, especially if it’s outright or financed through a park or an individual instead of a realtor, may actually be easier than renting. Well, so long as it wasn’t a dumpy old apartment and we certainly don’t want that. I’d still prefer the dumpy trailer to that any day!

The propane tank is down just under 20% so it looks like we’re going to have to order up another round, most of which might be left over for the next people. Why oh why must things always take longer than anticipated?

Weird just got weirder. I don’t get it. Maliheh’s changed her profile and cover photo, but my message to her is still showing up as unread. Is she ignoring it for a reason? Or is Facebook just messed up again? It just seems weird that one would change their pictures but not pick up their messages.

People are quick to be so thankful to God and to want to praise Him when good things happen, and that’s fine, but why are they hesitant to cuss Him out when bad things happen? Huh? How come He’s supposedly only responsible for the good and worthy of praise, but never responsible for the bad? Why do people “let Him off the hook,” so to speak when the shit hits the fan in our lives? Even if people aren’t comfortable with literally cussing him out, why not at least a good scolding?

Why do many give God credit where it isn’t due? God didn’t make me good with languages, I did. I did through years and years of study.

“You must be so grateful to God for the way things are going so well for you guys,” some people have said. I am, but let me point out that that same God nearly led us to our deaths last fall. Maybe there’s a God and a devil and sometimes the devil’s more powerful than God, which would mean God’s not the most powerful being in the universe most people seem to think He is. But if God and the devil are one and the same, then He’s just as responsible for allowing bad things to come our way as He is for good things. So again my question is, why don’t we hold him responsible for His part, so to speak, and let him have it when times get rough as well as praise Him when good things happen? Just wondering this is all.

Until God either had a change of heart or something more powerful like a guardian angel or our deceased loved ones stepped in and overthrew God, God toyed with our survival as if it was a fucking game that was funny as hell. And for that, I will never forgive Him. I don’t think I ever could even if I wanted to. Don’t get me wrong. I’m just as grateful for the good that’s come our way as I am angry for the past, but angry I am! Really, there’s just as much anger and hatred as there is gratitude and relief, cuz guess what? We didn’t think it was funny!

Later...

The meltdown of my muscles has begun and no, I will never do bodybuilding again! Fortunately, they start breaking down just 48 hours after your last workout. I’ll still walk and run, but no more hardcore lifting. I just hate the way the excess muscle bulks me out and cuts down my flexibility. So I stopped lifting a few days ago and my weight is dropping like a rock. I’m already much more flexible, too. I’ll just do a few ab crunches a day and that’s about it. I’ll focus mainly on cardio and not strength training.

Next, it’s on to decide if I should cut my nails off or not. They look really cool, but they really are a pain in the ass and I don’t expect them to get much longer.

I’m seeing more traces of Molly online these days and I don’t like it one bit at all. It tells me the parents are loosening their control on the sicko and that means we can expect more harassment from her soon enough. She hasn’t peeked in on my blog much lately, but I know it’s only a matter of time before there are dozens of views a day. Since I’ve got her blocked on Ask and her only choice was to ask me anonymously, I got, “Why is everyone so mean to me?” Aly got similar questions at the time as well, so it’s obvious that it’s her. That’s totally Molly’s type of “question” so she may as well sign her name to it. Anyway, I decided not to indulge in her childish shit and just deleted it.

Molly’s a sneaky little bitch, but I’m just as sneaky, hee hee. She changed her u/n on Ask so she would come unblocked and therefore able to “like” one of my answers. But I blocked her again and that automatically unliked her like. :)

I’m really surprised she doesn’t check out my blog more often unless she’s doing it in a way I’m unaware of.

Aly had me laughing my ass off the other day when we were talking about what lousy pics Kim takes. She said, “I’m no beauty queen and I know it sounds mean, but I always thought that if you added a trunk to her face she’d look like an elephant.” LMAO, that is sooo true! Funny-mean or not, it’s so true. She’s not just ugly but she’s HUGE. She’s got to be 250 pounds at the very least. I once asked her her height but didn’t get a straight answer on that one. This was before I knew what a contradictory liar she was anyway. She’s answered tall at times on Ask, then short. She claims to know Spanish, and then later says she wants to learn it. She always says she’s got blond hair too, yet clearly it’s brown.

The elephant actually surprised Aly by admitting to asking some of the crazy/mean questions on Ask, Aly told me, but another friend of hers also fessed up to some of them. I can pretty much tell who’s asking what. They make it rather obvious. The dumber and crazier they are, the more they give themselves away.

As I told Aly, who admits Kim still lies and uses her, I don’t see how she can hang onto the Kimbecile after all she’s done or even care that she doesn’t have any other friends. She doesn’t have other friends for a reason. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t care who else someone may or may not have for friends if they treated me the way she did. Maybe no friends is just what she deserves. Maybe then she’ll learn to treat people the same to their faces as well as anonymously. This isn’t “normal” playing around like she and I sometimes do to each other.

Strange how Maliheh hasn’t picked up the message I left her yesterday afternoon on Facebook. Is she just busy? Not in the mood? Sick? Dealing with naughty blacks who like to terrorize anyone that dares to make perfectly reasonable requests of them like keeping their damn racket to themselves?

Waking up to forty-fucking-two messages on MO wasn’t exactly a thrilling thing to do. I figured it was either trolls or spam, but most likely spam and I was right. Some shithead in Ghana left spam on nearly a third of my fucking blog

Why are some sites more susceptible to spam than others? Thanks to this fucker and a growing number of them on MO, I’ve had to disable anonymous commenting. Once is bad enough, but to have to take the time to go around and delete dozens of these same “comments” gets old. Sorry to those who received auto-alerts when commented after on account of this shithead.

Wish MO would also allow us to block friend requests!

And who the hell had nursing training info sent to me via postal mail? Tammy? I just wonder this cuz A, one of her mistakes got into nursing training, and B, she knows I was hesitant to give her my address for fear of her abusing it. Whoever it was, I’ll stick to writing. I prefer my line of work not to include piss, puke, poop, blood and needles unless it’s part of a story I’m writing.

In Citrus Heights there’s a 1981 3-bed, 2-bath triple-wide for 10K (the lot is $765 a month). It’s 1870 square feet and in an ideal location cuz it’s at the end of a cul de sac and no one parks alongside the place. It doesn’t have a garage, though, and has its pros and cons as with any place. It’d be 12 miles to and from work. Here it’s 18 miles.

But why do I have a feeling this is just a dream just like the “octangle” house in Roseville? Oh, maybe because something up there doesn’t like to see us get what we really want. So it’s either settle or stay here longer to save for what we want. sighs This may not be the worst place to be and the dogs may not bark every day, but man do I get sick of being so cramped in here! I’m constantly bumping and banging myself trying to make the bed in such a tiny space and other things. I can’t imagine a huge person living here. They’d be lucky enough to fit through the hallway and bedroom doorway. I can’t wait to not have to move 20 things just to get to 1. I can’t wait to be able to walk up to a full-size washer that’s always hooked up and ready to go and be able to do things like my comforter anytime I want to. I can’t wait to have a dryer instead of having to hang things. Clothes come out so much softer in the dryer. Fabric softener helps keep hang-dried clothes from being overly stiff, but still, just to be able to have a normal washer and dryer setup would be so nice!

So far this house in Roseville with an octangle-shaped bathroom window and garage and the Citrus Heights triple-wide, are the best two we’ve seen so far as park places go where you always rent the spot it’s on even after the thing is paid for. Again, though, the problem isn’t the down payment or affording the monthly lot fees, it’s paying off the house on top of all these things. Especially if it’s thousands a month till it’s all paid for. But with our bad credit, it’s unlikely we could get a loan or anyone willing to work with us. Not a realtor, that is, which is who’s selling the triple-wide. The octangle house may be through the park itself, but we can’t tell that from just looking online. If it were financed through the park that may make it easier for us. Right now, due to the way the checks fall and his getting paid every other week, we have enough for a down payment, but not enough for food, gas, closing costs, and other initial fees. So we won’t know much more till next month. Until we’re in a position to talk to people, we won’t know what’s the best deal for us.

There are also other types of parks to consider like that one where everyone owns a percentage of it, plus another where you own the land it’s on. This way the payments are either super low or nothing at all after the place is paid for. It’s just that these places are usually tiny dumps or super ritzy.

If worse comes to worst and we can’t get what we want, we’ll then have to decide if we want to pay off the $400 or so in bullshit “bills,” and settle for something that’s borderline (meaning it’s cheap enough that we could afford to make it what we wanted, or stay here and save more money). I can tell you right now that staying here won’t be our first choice. So it looks like we’ll still be out of here sometime this year. Just don’t know when or where to. There are so many options and so much more research to do.

Tom figured out why so many cars were parked in the driveways of that place in Roseville; because the garages are too short for many of these newer cars, and Andy figured out that “chirping” sound we heard at IHOP. It was the low battery indicator on the smoke detector.

Decided to put up the new shower curtain even though the butterfly curtain wasn’t in bad shape or anything like that. It’s just that from the looks of things, chances are we’ll have shower doors in the next place. So I figured that even if we’re only here a few more months, why not enjoy our new colorful neon curtain until then? It’s gorgeous! Love the new metal hooks I also got that you just hang it on, instead of those tough-to-use brittle snap-hooks that break so easily.

Some people worry that when I bitch about certain things like some personality traits I dislike in others and when I promised to dump the next person to betray me in certain ways that it’s directed at them. It’s not! I just wanted to set the record straight on that one. If I have a problem with you I promise I’ll let you know it. Anyone who knows me well enough knows I’m very outspoken and not afraid to say what’s on my mind. If you upset me in any way, you’ll be the first to know it. You can count on it. :)

I’ve always been one who likes to not only write down what’s going on but also random thoughts, plans and desires that don’t necessarily have anything to do with what’s going on at the moment. I’m just an observant kind of person. I notice things. I feel things. I think things. And I like to express them whether they do or don’t seem to have any sense of order or connection to me or my life.

The other day I said I would dump anyone else who can’t accept my word about whatever, but that was just stating a fact. I wasn’t implying that I’m planning to dump anyone in particular. I’m not. In cases like that, I don’t plan, I just do. So why tell you I’m going to dump you when I can just do it? But I will tell you what offends me and what I don’t consider a true friend. I don’t care if you don’t see God for the evil, cruel, unfair being that I see Him as. I don’t care if you don’t see pink as a lovely color. I don’t care if you think fried chicken sucks. It was never about having a problem with someone disagreeing with me. But when I’m called a liar for disclosing a disorder I may have, or I’m made to feel that my way of doing things is wrong while yours is the only acceptable and correct way, then I have a problem. Especially if it’s done over and over again after I’ve expressed my feelings to you about it.

Anger after the fact won’t cut it with me either, and no, I’m not presently pissed at anyone who later on down the road told me something I said or did pissed them off when they could’ve told me when I supposedly said or did this offense. It’s merely a fact I’m stating and nothing that’s aimed at anyone in particular. I’m not dropping any hints and trying to tell someone something in a roundabout way.

If I say I believe some of my “friends” may not really be true friends if they would leave me to starve on the streets instead of helping me only to end up saying that I just “didn’t try hard enough” after I was dead, that does not mean I’m talking to whoever may be reading this. It’s just a fact same as if I said I was chewing gum right now.

The rich get picked on just like the poor do, only not as badly. Another observation. People have picked on me for my “poorer” moments in life and the dingy little trailer we live in. I, like many others, am often blamed for circumstances beyond our control. If you’re poor it’s automatically assumed it’s your fault, you asked for it, and you must be lazy. Well, either that or a drunken druggie.

But the rich get their share of shit, too. Rich people are automatically assumed to be selfish, stingy, insensitive little snobs who only give a shit about themselves. Sometimes that may be true, especially if they never knew what it was like to struggle, but they still have their own stigmas as well.

Did I settle for Tom and give up on women? Someone asked me this and it was accidentally deleted when trying to get all that spam out of my blog. Definitely didn’t settle for Tom but I did give up on women. You can’t make be what isn’t meant to be, but I believed I was going to be alone because I’m not a settler. So when I met Tom it was an unexpected surprise. I settled a few times when I was young and felt bad for it. Solitude is better than second best. At least to me, it is. But sure enough, once I stopped trying and was taken, out of the woodwork came the women. There were a few in-person I could’ve had just for casuals and almost did have till whatever’s up there that decided it wasn’t meant to be for whatever reason came in and interfered. Either they moved away, I moved away, they were online and too far away, or whatever. It still goes to prove those right who say they come around when you least expect it and when you’re not looking. Seek and you shall not find.

It’s been so hot I’ve wished we had a pool! Soon enough we will even if it won’t literally be “ours.” I just don’t know if we’ll have it before it starts cooling down. Then again, it doesn’t cool down till November here and where we’re going is likely to be a little warmer than here.

The house we want most is both in and out of reach. We could make the down payment and we could afford the $800 a month for the lot. That’s not the problem. The problem is that until the place is paid for, things may be a bit tight. We could probably afford the mortgage, assuming they’d let us have the place, but there wouldn’t be much room for savings and that’s how you end up in risky situations. I like how they dropped the price from 42K to 24K, though.

I hope nothing’s wrong with Andy. I haven’t heard much from him. I suppose he’s just busy catching up on work after being on vacation. I hope that’s all it is. He’s usually as free as I am busy on weekends, so if I don’t hear anything over the weekend I’m going to be a bit concerned. Maybe he just met the love of his life. :)

Facebook added a really cool feature. One that MySpace has that I wished for so long Facebook would add and that’s the ability to tell when someone’s read your message that might not have time to reply to it. No more wondering if they got the message or if FB is screwed up.

How nice (and a bit surprising) it was to hear from Christiane again. We’ve been talking about various climates and how we both want to live in a tropical climate someday.

I must’ve jinxed myself when I wrote how glad I was that the troll hasn’t been playing peeping Tom on me or pestering me, cuz she was in my blog last night. :( The fact that she landed on a post that starts off welcoming Aly back to MO (remember, Aly’s the root of her obsession) leads me to believe she jumped in from Facebook. I’m not surprised. The nutjob creates new FB accounts faster than we can block them. So for the sake of protecting my friends who she can link to through their comments on my posts, it’s back to friends of friends on Facebook instead of public. I’m not saying she’s going to go back to pestering my friends. But she’s done it many times before so I didn’t think it would hurt to take precautions. I’m not changing settings on any other site, though. Anonymous comments on my blog and Ask are still allowed.

Tom saw a fire that looked like the mountainside was ablaze on his way home from work yesterday. Fortunately, it’s not too close (though it is somewhat close) and we shouldn’t be in danger but man does this place reek of smoke! It’s been that way since last night when the winds picked up. I just hope to hell they get the damn thing under control before it can spread any further! Not even incense is masking the damn smokiness. I haven’t had any nightmares signaling impending danger ahead, so hopefully we’ll be ok.

Tom and I didn’t “go home” last night in my dreams but we did go cruising.

Finally busted a nail when housecleaning yesterday, so I cut that, plus the one next to it that had a snag in it. I almost hacked them all off but decided to wait.

Later...

I can see him. I can see my dad as clearly as if he were here in this room with me even though I haven’t seen him since 1997. The tanned, weathered skin from the Florida sun sprinkled with age spots. The rings and bracelets he regularly wore. His warm smile, gray hair, and the hazel eyes I myself once had till the damn things went green on me in my early 20s.

It still blows my mind at times to know I can never see him again. Never hear his voice. Never receive any cards or notes from him, even though he was like most people and not into writing. I’ll never call him up to share good news with him or cry on his shoulder when times get tough. He is forever gone until and if we meet again in the afterlife that may or may not exist. None of us can know for sure till our own time comes.

The smoke has cleared so I’m assuming either the wind has shifted or they got the fire under control. I’m just glad, whatever the reason.

I chatted with most of my usual online buddies today and hung my wind chimes back up. I kind of missed hearing them, and if we’re not gonna get out of here for a few months since we’re not willing to settle, why miss out on hearing them? Maybe it will help “jinx” speeding up the process a bit, though I’m not really sure we can take them with us. There are several of them and they can get kind of loud. If our next neighbor’s going to be an arm’s length away, they may not appreciate them very much. I don’t know that the park even allows them. Come to think of it I don’t remember seeing them hanging anywhere in any of the places we’ve seen either on or offline. So if we can’t take them we might as well leave them here for the next people to enjoy when the dogs aren’t barking.

Tom found a site that tells what ages are accepted into the various adult communities. We just learned that one of the ones we recently looked at is all-55 and up. So that rules out the Country Villa. The Diamond K Estates requires just one of you to be 55. This really ideal community that’s too far away requires one to be 55 and the other at least 47. So it varies from community to community. What I don’t like is that all the best deals on both homes for sale and for rent (I’m still open to renting so long as the landlord didn’t live with us and we didn’t have to share the lot with anyone) just happen to be too far away. Why is it I suspect that’s not a coincidence and it’s just something up there working against us as usual?

Another cool setup we discovered is where you don’t continue to pay to rent the lot your home is on after the home is paid for. Instead, everyone who lives there owns the park. You pay 10K for your share of the land, then for your home. After your home is paid for you only pay $397 a month in Homeowner’s Association fees, plus your utilities, of course. Talk about saving money! We’d save over a grand a month that way. jumps for joy at all the nail polish, perfume and lobsters she could get Then if he were laid off before he retires, no problem. With something this cheap I totally wouldn’t mind something that was dumpy on the inside because we’d have plenty of money to make it what we wanted it to be, pink champagne carpet and all. It may be fun, and then we’d get to pick out the exact styles and colors we wanted.

Our best bet, however, is probably going to be finding a park that does its own financing so we don’t have to deal with banks and loans and all that fun stuff. The problem is while there are plenty of them out there, they don’t advertise online. They prefer people to learn of them via word of mouth. So we’re gonna have to get back out there and get the phone numbers off some of those for sale signs we saw, and now we’ll know which places not to waste time on since we can now look up the specific age requirements per park/community.

sighs That’s twice I had to yell up at the fucking mutts to shut the hell up. Really don’t want to have to put the sound machines on now. At any given moment there are dozens of pistols and shotguns within a 1-mile radius of us and hundreds of bullets yet not one of them can make my day by ending up in these mutts’ heads? Then again, why bother? The “lawn ornaments” would just be replaced in a matter of days.

So what was I saying before they interrupted my train of thought? Oh yeah, the phone numbers. We’re going to have to get a hold of those, but in a week or two, we’ll probably enlist the help of a real estate agent who can hopefully point us in the right direction. The only reason we’ve been hesitant to tell them specifically what we want is that they will do what’s best for them and what makes them the most money, and not what’s necessarily the best deal for us. No one truly does for you unless they love you or have a crush on you.

Later...

Andy says he’s been busy and angry (not at me) and Kim is being her usual crazy self. Aly received a “question” on Ask saying: concerned tweeter here ur friend “kimball” no allow anonymous questions no mor so i ask u. y she hav so many profiles? rythemraindrops, russosgirl, wassgurlie, rainrythem, weatherchick101. sur shes got others 2. but she got issues or sumfin cuz iz lyk multiple personality n jus real weird.

I first wondered if it was Kim herself until Aly told me of her reaction when she shared the “question” with her. It doesn’t seem Molly’s style, so as Aly said, it’s probably someone who’s spent an awful lot of time studying Kim’s strange online behavior. Having multiple accounts is one thing, but having multiple accounts with different names and bios is another.

Nonetheless, Kim reacted the way she always does when she’s guilty of something – deny, delete, delude, disappear. This is why I think it may not be her that asked this question. Aly’s going to text her with: If it’s not you behind all these accounts, why did they all suddenly disappear?

LOL, that’ll piss the skitzomaniac off. She also deactivated on Ask cuz of that question. rolls eyes Really, how can anyone be so stupid as to be so obvious like that???

It could also be someone whose native language is Spanish. The way they say “no allow anonymous questions,” well, in Spanish, there is no equivalent for words like don’t and doesn’t. You simply use “no” for those kinds of negatives. Yo no se = I no know. Spanish has fewer sounds and words and many more words tend to have multiple meanings. There is no “it” either. You usually use “is” instead. Es aquí = Is here.

I still can’t believe she two-faced me like she did after I was so nice to her for so long. Yet the whole time she hated my guts and I’ll never know why. Maybe she’s too crazy herself to even know why. It’s just ironic that the harassment stopped as soon as I confronted her, even though she gave me her classic reaction and became very angry, and accusatory and denied it all the way before deactivating and running off. Again, is she crazy? Or is she just so damn unbelievably stupid?

Molly still checks in on Ask periodically to answer questions she asks herself, a few she doesn’t, and to ask Aly a few of her own. Although they’re anonymous, the “how are yous” are just very Mollyish.

What I don’t get is why Molly’s been so well-behaved lately. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I’m enjoying every single second of it while it lasts. But why hasn’t she shown up on TIP? She wouldn’t be smart enough to blind a tracker. Or would she? Her friend Sarah helped her beat my Tumblr block so you never know. But I don’t see why she’d want to hide from me. That was part of the fun for her; making her presence known to those she knows would rather not have anything to do with her. And why hasn’t she pestered me anonymously on Ask or Facebook?

For now, I’m loving the freedom of not being trolled by this shithead. I can post publically now on Facebook, allow for anonymous comments on my blog and Ask and more. Es ist Wunderbar!

Nane’s brother Toby “liked” one of my funny wall posts. No one enjoys them as much as Marie and Cindy but I’ve been posting half a dozen or so a day. Some of them are quite hilarious.

I chatted with Christiane a bit today too, though all we did was exchange messages. I complimented her new profile and cover photo, saying they were all nice as long as they didn’t have snow in them. She thanked me, then asked, “Why not snow? It can be so nice.”

LOL, not to me!

The battle of the bees still wages on and unfortunately, they’re winning. The good news is that where we were at a dollar a bee based on the cost of the trap and how many bees were in it, now we’re down to 50 cents a bee cuz there are about 20 bees in the trap now. Sunrise and sunset are when they’re most active since we’re having triple-digit temps. It’s just that some of them like to stop off and torment me in the bathroom before I give them their final send-off to the pearly gates.

Ok, now listen up, folks! Our internet connection has gotten so bad and no one will help us that I’m seriously contemplating shutting down and just using our cell or the library till we get out of here in the next – IDK – 3 to 6 months based on all the hurdles our lovely God (if there is one) has thrown our way to help hold up the move. I just hate paying full price for part-time service whether we were rich, poor, or in between. I’m going to make a point of being online less often and getting more into my writing because I’m so damn fed up with it being hit or miss when I want to go online. So I’ll basically check for messages when I get up, post journals, and then check in again before bed. I just didn’t want people to think anything was wrong if it ended up taking me a while to get back to them or that I’m ignoring them or anything like that.

Later...

I’m not sure which home calls to me more. Both are doublewides with 2 beds/2 baths, but one’s cheap, ugly and far from work while the other’s more expensive, beautiful and just a couple miles from work.

Tom sent an email asking to see inside that 6K home in W. Sac that looked beautiful on the outside. I would’ve been really damn worried had they not responded, as that’d make the fourth person to blow us off. Something up there is against us enough as it is. Tom said he had no idea our credit was this bad, and while I couldn’t have told him the specifics, I could’ve told him the logistics – nothing up there likes to see me get the things I really, really want in life, and when I do get them it isn’t without a huge fight. So nothing’s going to make it easy for us and pave the way home. We are right where it wants us – in someone else’s bummy old dive. Would we have spent the last 7 years cramped into these places if that wasn’t what was “right” for us and what was “meant to be?” Ah, but bad things do tend to run in 7-year cycles, don’t they? Well, our number’s up this year! It just might take 3-6 months to get over the hurdles currently facing us and it’s not just our credit (or lack of it). Tom hasn’t been at his job for over a year. There are things we can do to boost our credit but it’s not going to happen in 5 minutes.

Anyway, they emailed pictures of the inside of the home and it’s ugly as hell. Not beat up and broken; just downright ugly. The place is not only old but it was never upgraded in any way. It also not only doesn’t have a dishwasher but it doesn’t have a refrigerator either. Still, we could buy it pretty much outright right now if we had to. This is the place we’d save about a grand a month at having to pay just $500 for the lot. So we could remodel the entire place.

But… I’d still prefer to go for the gold, even if it may be forever out of reach, and for one of the nicer places with a garage.

A Facebook friend posted a picture of a billboard in New York suggesting abortion alternatives. She wondered why blacks and Hispanics were the only ones pictured on those types of billboards since whites often struggle with their kids’ expenses as well. Well, since there just seems to be no escaping topics like God and race, she’s right. Whites do struggle with supporting their children as well. But could she perhaps be seeing racism where there isn’t any? I ask this because I think she is on this billboard because non-whites are the new majority in most places these days. In fact, I’m waiting for the moment a white is shown on some kind of billboard and someone cries racism on their behalf. Oh yes, reverse discrimination is alive and well in America today, my friend. In the courts, in the job market, everywhere. It’s real, it’s sad, and it’s unfair. But we also perceive things differently. She sees racism in that billboard, I don’t. Most people don’t take offense to the term Native American, but I do because I was born and raised here. So if I’m not a “Native American,” what am I? These days I think too many people are seeing racism where it’s not and not seeing it where it is.

Welcome back to MyOpera, Aly! I missed you there.

So what is it with some people? Why is it some don’t mind you hating groups they hate as well, but if you hate a group they don’t hate they’ve got a problem with you? Just something I’ve noticed lately in observing various people interact with each other online.

Reading back on some of my old journals from the '90s, I wonder what I am more, amused or embarrassed. But hey, I guess we’re all silly and naïve when we’re young, right? I just thank God my dreams and goals of today aren’t what they were back then. And I also thank God that the dreams I had either came true or I ended up changing my mind.

Change.

It’s amazing how our beliefs, desires, lifestyles and personalities can change with age, mine probably a little more than average. It seems the only things I’m still into are music, languages and writing, and when it comes to music I prefer to mostly listen these days as opposed to singing. Haven’t touched a musical instrument in years either. But so, so much of what I think, do, feel, believe, like, communicate, dislike, want and don’t want has changed. I still have my evil laugh, I’m still short, and I still love lobster, bright colors and rodents, but it seems so much more has changed than has not. I almost cringe at the thought of reuniting with someone I knew 20 years ago, LOL, for it’s only human nature to see a person as you last knew them to be. Only they wouldn’t be seeing “me” at all.

The fact that I would even bother with people like Fran and “Nervous” goes to show how little self-respect I once had. I would put up with so much abuse from so many people for so long. Being too forgiving can be just as bad as being too non-forgiving. Ah, but I am totally way beyond fed up with the “disbelievers” out there and have totally run out of patience and tolerance for those who can’t trust me enough to take my word for whatever. Those who feel the need to challenge and contradict me with things like, “Yes, you would,” after I’ve answered with a “no” to something they or someone else who may be present asked me really irks the hell out of me. When you do that to someone you’re basically calling them a liar. At my age, I’m getting a little too old to deal with people like that, and again, it’s a matter of respecting myself and knowing there are better things to do than sticking around and explaining or defending my word to whoever. The next person who can’t take me for face value will be forever dumped in a heartbeat with no chance of being forgiven! Why waste time fighting with a bear when you can just shoot it, you know? Really, if you think I’m “joking” or just trying to impress you by saying I’m multilingual or something like that, then I’m not the right friend for you. If you think I’m using my deformed and half-deaf ear as an excuse not to clean the bathroom, go get yourself a friend whose word you feel you can trust.

Later...

I called my mom and was glad to learn she was out of her cast and able to get around unassisted. No crutches or anything like that. She didn’t sound as depressed, but she didn’t sound happy either. She was just there, you know? Like she’s existing but not living. We didn’t have much to say to each other. I just wanted to let her know I was alive and see what was up, though sometimes I wonder why we bother. I mean, I feel sorry for the woman, but at the same time, I don’t. And does she really care about me? IDK, maybe it’s my imagination but sometimes I feel like she’s not happy to hear from me. Not mad or upset, just IDK. I really don’t know. Then again, the woman is 80 years old. Can one really be all that sure of an 80-year-old anymore than they can be sure of themselves?

One minute I’ll remember the physical but mostly emotional pain she caused me and be like, fuck it, and fuck her. Next, I’ll remember the good she’s done me, and Tammy if you see this and you mention this to mom I’ll put a nasty spell on you! I swear I will. I’ll make everything you eat turn into a cucumber for a whole month. Seriously, keep your lips sealed.

Because it’s been so hot lately, the bees are most active when the sun first comes up and when it sets. Right after Tom left for work I looked out and saw 5 newly caught bees buzzing around in the trap. That’s the most I ever saw in there at once! Just when I was thinking we weren’t getting our money’s worth. The trap was about 10 bucks, but there were only about 10 bees in the thing before today. That’s a buck a bee! Kind of a pricy trap.

But then I turned around and there is another one of them fuckers in the bathroom window. So much for spraying under the sink as we did from both inside and outside. Since we could still be here for a few more months, we should probably bomb again. That’ll back them off for a while.

The sad thing is that they can nest anywhere. Literally anywhere. In the ground, in trees, indoors, outdoors, in open spots, enclosed spots – anywhere.

Saw this incredibly cool nail polish at Sephora’s site that has iron particles in it. The cap has a magnet in it and you hold it over the nail and it creates this really cool pattern. They have a fishnet and a wave pattern, but the reviews on the fishnet weren’t good at all, so I’ll eventually try the wave.

What is it with my nail polish obsession lately? LOL, Most women would probably envy how long all my nails are right now. Not daggers but long enough. They’re getting to the point of being a bit annoying when I write, but they feel oh so good when I scratch an itch or my scalp.

I removed the Ice Queen earlier and threw on a coat of the Iceberg Lotus with stripes of Wedding Crashers over it. I don’t usually like dark colors but I really like OPI’s Play Till Midnight. It’s a deep dark satiny blue. I also like Nicole’s Cobalt Purple Passion and then there are a few neons I wouldn’t mind adding to my collection in pink, green and yellow. The one color that I’ve never had that I don’t see myself ever trying is orange, and I definitely won’t touch the gray and olive. Ew! Those two are the ugliest colors in the world!

Really getting worried about my weight. Am I simply not cutting back enough or is something wrong with me? On the one hand, most people are fat so it’s unreasonable to assume something’s wrong with them all, but on the other hand, most don’t bother to cut back and work out either. Yet here I am not just struggling to get weight off, but to keep more from coming on - WTF??? Every few weeks or so I seem to be up a few pounds. How long is this going to go on? Until I hit 150? 200? 250? It’s getting to be a bit of a scary thought.

“I’m the good Bill. I don’t come in the mail, I come in the female.” ~ Bill Clinton.

LMAO!

“You’re not going home, Jodi.” That was the message in the reoccurring dream I had for months back in Oregon. The “message” was delivered through half the damn town. I’d pass by Jan at her old store, she’d ask how I was, I’d answer, then she’d say, “I’m sorry, Jodi, but you’re not going home.”

I’d check out at the grocery store and hottie Liz would tell me to have a nice day, then, “You’re not going home, Jodi.”

Then Randy the mailman would bring me my mail, greet me with a friendly nod and smile and say, “Sorry Jodi, but you’re not going home.”

This was just a couple of years after losing our home and land in Arizona and then the land we had planned to build a home on in Oregon. It was also at a time when I was into entering sweepstakes and contests.

In real life, Randy came around shortly after this dream and started off with, “Sorry Jodi.” Just when I went stiff as a board and no doubt pale as a ghost, he said, “But I don’t seem to have any wins for you today.”

Just the way he started off so similar to the dream was one helluva creepy, freaky experience!

Backing up to the series of dreams and what they meant. To me, they represented the obvious; that we wouldn’t be homeowners again anytime soon if ever again. Well, that’s the way it has been ever since we last owned a place in 2004 and that’s the way I thought it would always be. Although it took a little time, I grew accustomed to renting once again for the first time since 1993. I was even ok with it, liking the fact that we didn’t have to pay for anything that broke that wasn’t ours. The management company, although they ripped us off in the end by denying us our deposit despite the fact that we left the place spotless and undamaged, never bothered us. They didn’t show up unannounced on a regular basis and the place didn’t have a million problems despite its age.

Then we came here and things were just the opposite. Our landlord comes down anytime he feels like it, the place has regular problems, and it has made me miss owning a place and being the boss of what happens and when so long as it isn’t urgent. The number of times we’d have to pay to fix things could never compare to how many times I’m either annoyed by the landlord himself, his dogs, or worry that he’s going to wake me up depending on what my schedule is at the moment.

The economy has also knocked what are normally 100K - 200K houses and modulars down to 15K - 100K. For the first time in years, I saw possibilities that just weren’t there before and that I thought never would be there again.

If you read my blog yesterday, you’ll know we went and checked out a rather nice 55+ park. Well, now the question is, was last night’s dream a sign of something good to come, or was it merely a reflection of my wishful thinking? The dream certainly suggests we just may get into this place, but I’d rather not state the name of the estates in public or where it is.

The dream only lasted a few seconds. I asked some woman (someone in the sales office?) about plants, trees, or something to do with landscaping. The only part of her answer I remember was the last few words… “Because of the flower arrangements.”

We also apparently had a bird we kept outdoors because it was rather loud. LOL, nothing we’d ever have in real life. I’m not a bird person anyway. But I asked if we could keep it outside and she said, “Sorry, but you won’t be able to keep anything like that outside here.”

The thing about it is that in the dream I thought to myself that I would miss the bird but would be perfectly ok with giving it up. Like I knew we were going to live there.

Christiane did “poke” me back after all. I was wondering if she would. Thanks, good looking. :)

Later...

The road home has been a long one that has required tons of research and sightseeing. We drove past a senior park here in town and wouldn’t even go into it as we didn’t like how it looked from the road; all dumpy single-wides. We love the idea of saving money, but we want to find something we can live in comfortably for the next 10 years, too. Hopefully, we will be able to find a good balance and get something between dumpy and fancy. I don’t need to have the fanciest place anyway. Just one that isn’t so damn old and ugly.

So we headed into both Rocklin and Roseville. A park we checked out in Rocklin seemed in between the dumpy Auburn park and the nice Roseville park. It was beautiful, but nothing that would take your breath away. I like the Roseville park better as it had wider streets, garages, and a little more breathing space around the homes. The Rocklin park also had modulars and not trailers, but they didn’t have garages and the streets were so narrow it was hard to believe two cars could pass each other on them. It was still very well maintained with beautiful flowers everywhere.

Saw some old folks sitting outside their places, and one guy even said good morning to us as we were slowly cruising by, and you definitely had to go slow. Not only because the roads have many curves and turns, but also because there are speed bumps in the roads. Another thing is that there’s only room for one car to park in the narrow driveways. Forget being set close to the road, these places are practically right on the road. So excessive company would hardly be a worry there since there’s no on-street parking and no place else to park all their company. No room to leave dogs outside regularly either from what I could see. It too, was walled off, so there’d be no outsiders passing through it with blasting car stereos and shit like that.

So then we came home, jumped online and found a place in a park in West Sacramento for just 6K! The catch? Well, it’d be a bit of a drive to work for Tom, and the place, although beautiful looking from the outside, is probably a dump on the inside. Especially since they didn’t show any pictures of the inside other than the living room, and they mentioned it needing some TLC. The thing is estimated to be 30-40 years old. This place is 45 years old. It was well-shaded and appeared to have a little more space around it. Loved the pink flowerbed that ran along the front of it and the bright cheery sunny yellow color of the place itself. We estimate that we could comfortably save nearly a grand a month there, which would allow us to fix the place up, but we don’t exactly want to play fix it and we don’t want Tom to have such a long drive to work, though we also looked at getting a newer car that wouldn’t guzzle as much gas. Either way, it’s there as a possibility, though at that price it may sell fast. They already reduced it from 14K.

There is still so much research to be done as there are so many possibilities, each with its own set of pros and cons. So getting out of here next month is unlikely. It could take till the end of the year, but I’d rather take longer to get it right and make a smart move this time around than act in haste and end up regretting it. We’ve done stupid enough times in the past. Now it’s time to do right.

Been doing quiet, but that’s cuz of the heat. It’s going to be around 100° all week. I was surprised at how hot I felt when we were out this morning yet it wasn’t even that hot yet. Have I really grown that sensitive to heat since leaving the desert? Or am I just that fat?

I was surprised to wake up the same weight as yesterday despite how much I ate yesterday, but I think I might be up tomorrow. I did the math twice and I don’t think I went over 1500 calories today. Still, that’s a little high for a short middle-ager. I should take it down 200-300 cals. I just don’t know if I could stand the hunger and fatigue.

The internet is out (what else is new?) so I’ll have to post this later or tomorrow. What else can I say for now? Well, the best deal we actually saw so far, though only online, was a land/house deal for 74K where they finance it themselves and you don’t have to deal with banks or anything like that. The places were also laid out more like traditional houses, set short side to short side instead of long to long. I like that better as it gives you more space around you, but that also leaves more room for people to get more dogs and leave them outside.

Anyway, the net will probably be out for hours and by then I’ll be in bed, so I’ll just post this in the morning. I really hope we have a better connection wherever we end up! This is getting really ridiculous!