Gardens

I love plants and flowers and my dream was to someday have an awesome garden of my own in my new house. wahwahwaaaaaaaah. Most of my plants have either died or are knocking at deaths door. My rose bushes are doing well and one azalea is hanging on for dear life. The other beautiful white azalea that my favorite mother in law gave me is mostly dead with one or two leaves with just a hint of green. I am praying for it to resurrect.

My dad's dad used to have beautiful flowers. My dad has beautiful flowers. My Mother in law has beautiful flowers. My flowers are not beautiful right now. I have hope.

On another note... I think my cell phone might be in Mike's car and he has been gone a long time at the store. I am worried but I can't call him cause I don't have my phone.

The end

Learning about me

I have a phobia. A true phobia is an intense irrational fear. It doesn't make sense. I have a dog ownership phobia. I literally cannot handle it. I love dogs. I love all animals. I want to own a dog. No wait...I want to be able to own a dog. I cannot own a dog. I get an adorable pup. I am fine for about an hour. I look at the dog and my heart starts pounding. My mouth goes dry. My chest closes up. I start to feel like I am going to faint. I have to have a way out. I have to have a way out. I must take the dog back. I am then consumed with getting the dog back to the owner. If I can't get a hold of that person I have a panic attack. I can't keep the dog. It makes me feel like a failure. I feel like a psycho.

O.C. 2008

Mike and I just got back from our annual family fun at Ocean City. It was fun as usual but it was better this year because we all stayed longer. We swam in the ocean, chilled in the sun, played putt putt golf(I came in 2nd and got a hole in one) played farkel and had lots of laughs. The only downside was the severe sunburn I and only I got. I did put on 45 sunblock but for some reason it didn't work. Could have been my meds. I attached a photo of me in the car with my red face. the rest of me is even worse.

How things are going

Here is a little update on my life. I started working days and nights last week and will continue doing it for the next 4 weeks. Tues-Thurs I work 8-2 and then 6-10. It is rough. Mondays I work til 2 and I don't work Fridays...which rocks.When I am not stressed about gas prices I go home in between but I work 45 minutes away and there is a small toll one way. Sometimes the 2 hours at home is worth it sometimes it isn't. I knew that it would have to be a temporary thing when I took the night class but I didn't know I would feel so bad so quickly. because of my fibromyalgia it is hard for me to recuperate and I need a lot of down time in order to feel OK. I haven't been getting that down time and my body has been yelling at me. It is kind of sad because I like my night class so far. I will explain later about the general population of my school. God is totally working on my patience and my attitude towards certain types of people. Like I said, I will explain later. Anyway, the money is nice and I will miss it when I go back to just working days.

Monetarily things are going well and I am looking forward to getting things for the house and making it feel more like home. It is cute by nature but I think some new furniture and some cool curtains and stuff will make it amazing.

I was off the wagon with losing weight but I am planning on trying a little harder since I am in the wedding of someone I love in October. That someone is Laura. Even though I will be the fattest one I don't seem to care that much because Mike loves me for who I am. That is amazing to me.

That is all I have to say for now.

Infuriating

Ok, so Lately I have been trying to be laid back and not let things get to me. Today, I lost my cool. We have been waiting for our deposit from Hampton Gardens to come in the mail and we were expecting to receive our full 690.00 back or at least most of it. Today we received the check. It was for 70.00. SEVENTY. I called them and tried to remain calm but I lost it. I lost it when the lady said that no matter what condition the apartment was left in you have to pay a 345.00 repainting fee. Apparently it was in our lease and we failed to see it there. I will be checking the lease because that is a HUGE thing to miss.

The second infuriating thing was that they charged us 125.00 to steam the carpets. Apparently there was a check list that we were given which stated that we needed to have them cleaned. We never received a check list and they have no proof that we received one. They have proof that they sent one but not that we received it. That is insane.

The last thing that really pissed me off was that they said that our appliances were disgusting and charged us 150.00 to clean them. That is the most insulting thing to say to someone who spent several hours working their ass off to clean a place. I asked for the pictures.

If I knew that they were going to keep all the money I wouldn't have cleaned it at all. I know that sounds mean but I seriously would not have wasted my time. I hate those people. I wish I didn't but I do. I still feel so angry. Obviously. Hopefully I will chill out again. Sorry for the rant.

Oh by the way, if you have something to say like...you should have read the lease better or anything else that isn't, "you are right and they are wrong" please for my sake, keep it to yourself. This is my blog and I am in the mood to rant so if it offends you...don't read it.

A new post

So here is a new post though I don't feel like I have too much to say. Mike and I are settling in to the house. We love the house and are getting used to living in the city. It is noisy and we have to pick up trash in our yard constantly but we seem to live on a good street with some nice people.

As most of you know. I don't have the puppy anymore. She is a great little pup but I started working nights at my job(plus days) and sometimes am gone for 16 hours a day. I just didn't think it was fair to her. Cats can handle being alone. Puppies can't.

Anyway, because I took on nights at the school I don't work at the chiropractic office anymore. I am happy about that because it was getting too difficult to work all day and then actually do massages at night.

So, that's it for now.

The move

Tomorrow with the help with some of the most faithful friends we will be moving into our new house. The truck is being picked up at 7:30am and we are loading all the big stuff and some boxes.

Seriously, moving is a complete drag. We have moved like 6 times since we have been married,I hate moving as I am sure most people do but it is even more horrible when no one wants to help you. It feels like you are alone in the world and no one really cares about you. I am not angry about this but just sad. Mike is a helper by nature. He offers to help people and always steps up to help even if it is something that he isn't keen on doing. He has helped several people in the church with things. We didn't ask the church for help this year because last year no one offered to help. I sent email after email begging and pleading and no one responded. At the women's retreat someone asked me if I anyone had responded and I told them no. It was embarrassing to say that no one responded. I think that that incident hurt me and actually played a roll in us kind of leaving the church this past year.

With that being said, we do have some fantastic friends helping tomorrow. People who have helped us move virtually every time we have moved. Our MVPs Bill and Elis, have moved to New York and we will miss them terribly. Not because we need the help moving but because we know that they would be here helping if they could. That means the world to us. They have literally helped us in pouring rain, sweltering heat, and without complaining. True friends indeed. Our other MVPs Jason and Susan will be here tomorrow. They have helped us so much in the past too. Collin split his calf open with a chainsaw and is helping us move. Brian has helped us move before and helped us in renting the truck. It is these faithful friends that are there through thick, thin and moving that truly make us feel loved.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that my friends that aren't helping us move don't love us and vice versa. I have some amazing friends who have been there through thick and thin and have showed us love in many other ways. I am not trying to make those people feel bad. We know people have good reasons for not helping and like I said, I am not trying to make anyone feel bad. I am just thinking out loud.

So here is to hoping that this is the last move for awhile. and here's to those who are helping us move...YOU ROCK!

More pictures of Lulu

I think she is just the cutest thing so naturally I wanted to share the pictures that were sent to me. Look at that face. Look at those white puppy paws. Don't you just want to give her a little kiss? Yeah, I thought so.

Farkel

I love games. I am always up for playing a game unless it is some game that makes me use my brain too hard and I feel stupid. In early March a couple of us DiNatale kids were spending the weekend at the Homestead AKA my parents house. Lindsay and Collin introduced us to Farkel. Farkel is this extremely fun dice game that is reminiscent of bunko and Yahtzee. It is a game of chance and risk taking and is completely addictive.I am not going to go into the details of how you play because that would be boring. Just know that it is fun and everyone must try it.

Lindsay gave me Ultimate Farkel for my birthday. We have played it with friends and we love it. There are a ton of different varieties (Linds and Col have Froggy Farkel) but they are all equally fun.

Give it a try. You will thank me.

The house

So some people have been asking about the house. What does it look like? Where is it? So I thought I would answer some questions and maybe post a picture or two.

The house is a 3 bd 1 bath townhouse in the Tacony-Wissinoming section of Northeast Philadelphia. It is the second from the last unit on the right side of a one way street. It has a little yard in the front which mainly consists of a small hill sloping down to the sidewalk. There is grass there and a rose bush that has been trimmed way back. I hope it still will bloom. There is an open porch and a storm door as well as the regular door.

You walk into the living room and the stairs are to your left. It is an oddly shaped room so it will probably be used more for a sitting room than anything else. This room leads straight to a dining room and that leads straight to the kitchen. There is a back door which leads to a smallish fenced in rear yard. Right now the yard is gravel because they had been using as a parking spot. I want a garden back there.

When you walk upstairs there is a room in front of you, a room to your right, the bathroom and then a room behind you in the front of the house. We are going to use one of these rooms as the place to watch tv and listen to music. The bathroom has a claw-foot tub.

The outside of the house is all light colored brick. The end.

Tallulah Belle AKA Lulu

I told you that I would post a better picture of my puppy and here it is. As you can see she is quite the cutie. She is so young that she will look different when I get her. She will have curly hair because it is already starting to be wavy. I am posting this because today is my birthday and she is my birthday present. I had to look at her picture again because she is just so cute.

My birthday

Wow. I am going to be 31 tomorrow. That is nuts. If you know me you know my birthday is a big deal. I am not making a big deal over my birthday this year. Usually I have a party and invite my closest friends and make them tell me what they like about me. It is called the circle of love. I love making people tell me what they like about me but apparently it was slightly stressful for some people.

My mom has been making me a cake shaped like a bunny for 31 years. Actually there was one year that I wanted a princess party with a princess cake. I think I was 6 or 7. It wasn't as good as the bunny cake. Every year my family would wake me up by singing happy birthday and bringing me presents and breakfast in bed. Angel delight donuts from dunkin donuts. Angel creme with chocolate on top. After I recovered from the sugar shock I could do whatever I wanted for the whole day. I never had to go to school. I could order my family around. Anything goes on your birthday.

I picked out a puppy for my birthday present. She is this adorable little black maltipoo with white feet and white on her nose.In the pic above you obviously cannot see how cute her face is. I will get her when we have settled into a house and she is old enough to leave her momma. She isn't even walking yet. Anyway, I am not sure what to name her. Any suggestions?

That is all I feel like writing right now. I think I need to take a nap. I am feeling kid of ill.

LIBERATION!!!!!

Yea! We are out of the Horrocks Street deal. I breathe a huge sigh of relief but the stress is not out of my body yet. Obviously this now comes with the question of where we are now going to move. The tentative answer to that is Marsden Street. Ah, Marsden Street. Let me take you back to November 15th, I believe it was, when we did our one and only day of physical house hunting. We saw this house that we really liked and wanted to put an offer in. However, the seller said that they did not want to wait until March to close. So we moved onto the Horrocks house. Now it is March and the Marsden Street house is not only still for sale but it is 3000.00 cheaper. Hoo-ray! This house is slightly smaller but completely nicer. Already painted, new kitchen, new carpets and non of the huge blatant repairs. Obviously we are still having an inspector go out on Monday but there is no WAY it is in as crappy of a condition as the Horrocks place. This is slightly more expensive but in move in condition. We are seriously praying that this will work out. You can pray too if you want!

Oh well.

It has been so stressful the past couple of days. Most of you know by now that we indeed did NOT go to settlement on the house. The first issue was that the seller decided that she was going to send over the (already signed a month ago) agreement to our agent with the appliances scratched out, meaning she decided to take them. What made her think she could just scratch out something on an official signed document and send it over like it was no big deal is beyond me or anyone else sane for that matter. So we had to tell her to compensate us monetarily and our agent(who we are now painfully aware is not particular working in our best interest) told us to ask for 500.00(WHAT??!!) to replace the stove(which is by law in the state of PA mandatory), the refrigerator, the washer and dryer. Her idea was to get stuff on Craig's list. (Again I say WHAT??!!) Uh huh, nice. How do we transport it though? Of course we would have to rent a truck, plus gas and mileage, not to mention the time and effort it would take. We decided to ask for more money. Instead of giving us the money the seller decided to take the appliances back. Who knows if they have been damaged or if they still work. That is beyond angering to me.

The second and bigger issue is that the appraiser for the loan insurance came out and said that certain things need to be fixed before they will insure the loan. Therefore we were asked by our agent (again, where are her priorities?) to fix the stuff for the seller and then be reimbursed. Ha ha ha ha ha ha...right. Put our money into a house that we don't own. Why on EARTH would we trust this seller who just tried to pull stealing the appliances? Mike told the agent that we don't trust the seller and that was the end of that. So, now we are waiting to hear if she is going to get off of her ass and fix the stuff that, if she would have just taken care of in the first place, we wouldn't be having this problem. Stupid stupid things that started off as just maintenance and now are full blown repairs because she didn't do these very small things.

Why did we just find out the night before settlement? Oh don't even get me started on the mortgage guy who has been so disorganized and nonchalant about everything that he literally just started working on our case last week. He only started working on it because I called him every 20 minutes to bug him.

You also may have heard by now that our contractor who gave us the bid for the major work that needed to be done is officially AWAL. His phone is off and he is not responding to email. Of course he probably bid low and of course he isn't around to do the work so we are probably screwed in that area too.

How did we get hooked up with these crooks and losers? Well, our agent I found through the Remax website. She then recommended both the contractor and the insurance guy. hmm. Kind of fishy.

If we had more time we would dump the lot of them and start over. However, we do have to be out of our apartment by the end of April and the mortgage guy has all of our information.

There is another house that we have been interested in am actually hoping that this house from hell falls through. Doesn't that say something? That I am praying for this deal to fall through? I personally feel like it means we should just move on. The only thing keeping us on this house is the fact that it is a great deal. (besides all the other crap that is going on).

UGH! For the love of Benji, can this just be over. I know that buying a house is stressful and everyone runs into snafus. But is this not excessive? C'mon, seriously.

Please just pray for us.

update

I know there were some things I was updating about regularly and I haven't been very good about doing that. Here is a brief update.

Weight Watchers- not much to report. Still counting points though I haven't had a very good week. I only went swimming once. This is all due to some drama we have been having with the house.

The House- Some of you knew that Jason and Collin were helping us out by investing in the house so that we could pay the upfront costs as well as get good rates on the mortgage. It turns out that I have good credit and Mike has fair credit and therefore it was a better deal financially for us to get the mortgage on our own. We are getting a really good rate and paying monthly not much more than we are now for rent. We are getting a good chunk of money for the repairs and a lot of seller assistance.One truly God ordained thing is that Mike got a big bonus on Friday that will pay for the majority of our closing cost. We go to settlement on Tuesday. One thing that is a big issue is that the contractor who gave us the estimate for the repairs is now MIA. Seriously, his phone number is out of order. We need another one in order to get the work done so we can move in.

That is all for now.

Oh Man!

Darby just sent me this. How can anyone be grumpy when there is a pensive tiger on the loose.(who's fur looks a tad too small)

Back to black

Do you know how horrible it feels to be depressed when you know that you should be happy? Everything is going well and I am getting all that I wanted,all that I thought would make me happy and because I am fucking mentally ill nothing seems good. I just want to claw at my insides. I want to take a knife to the part that is hurting right now and pop it out of my chest. Don't try to point out the good in my life because I know it is there. That is the problem. I know I should be happy.

Well, as you can tell. I am not well. I am back on the fucking lexapro.

Jealous...yet again

I am having one of those days where I feel so inadequate and mediocre. Wait let me start over.
I am a lover of the arts. I am a lover of creativity. I am a lover of money. I am a lover of compliments. Therefore I am extremely jealous of those people who are creative and make cute fun creative things and then sell them for money and have people rave about how cool they are. I am just so not extremely talented and I really just want to be. I wish someone would just teach me how to do something cool so I can amaze people and have people snatch up all the stuff I make. I want to write songs that people think are great. I want to be super good at SOMETHING.

Nice

I finally hit the 5lb lost mark on Weight Watcher's . Whew. that was tough. It will hopefully be easier without the lexapro holding me back. So I have lost about 8lbs altogether. I am happy with that and it gives me hope for the future.

In other news, we go to settlement on the house in 20 days. I am very excited.

Also, Mike said that if I stop biting my nails and let them grow out I can get a puppy. Sucka! I can do that... no sweat. We can't get a pup until we move into the house and we are looking for a small breed. Hopefully a rescue and probably older. If you know of any looking for a home give me a shout.

Jealous

I am having a jealous day. I wish I wasn't. jealousy is one of the most horrible feelings on earth and I know that I struggle with it. These are the things I am jealous of today.

1. On the Weight Watchers community board there was a lady who was disappointed that she is only losing 3lbs a week and wanted advice as to how to lose weight faster. Idiot. Jerk. Insensitive bitch. These are the horrible things that I said to her in my head. Then I realized that I was jealous that I wasn't losing weight faster. Even though I still think the idiot thing applies because losing weight faster than 2bls a week is dangerous and insensitive because no one else seems to lose that fast. However, I know my negative feelings are truly fueled by jealousy.

2. I am jealous of my pregnant friends. There are so many of them working on their second children while I am having a hard time conceiving my first. Of course I am happy for them...no really I am....it is just hard for me to really feeeeeeeel the happiness because I am jealous.

I guess that is it for now. I am trying to reconcile my feelings and be happy for what I have and to have hope for the future that I will get what I want.