what a difference four and a half years makes.

today is day four of my four day weekend.

four day weekend, you ask?

yes. i had the typical saturday/sunday weekend, monday for memorial day, and awesome husband @_antgas and i took off today for a very good reason.

i graduate today!

that's right, the strange journey that started back in august of 2010 with a mini nervous breakdown and a fateful trip to a psychiatrist is ending. i originally started my undergrad to get an associates just so i could put it on my resume. now i'm graduating with a bachelors in community health and human services.... and planning to go onto graduate school.

a lot of ridiculous, awesome, and horrifying things have happened since i decided to return to school. my mother was suddenly taken ill and died peacefully.

we rescued another hysterical kitten (who has turned into a maniac). we moved back to new york. i became a body piercer for a while. i decided to continue my education and realized a lot about life in the process.

taylor crossed the rainbow bridge. i fought with my gallbladder and lost and later willingly barbecued my uterus. we moved even further out in the 'burbs.

i was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and failed every medication i tried. i landed an internship. piglet was diagnosed with kidney failure and then had to have her canines removed. i also was hired as a paid counselor at my internship. and soon thereafter, i sat for my CASAC exam and was hired on as a full time counselor. i stopped taking any medications for RA and am surviving as best i can.

my little brother got married. and then we got a puppy and i started a new medication for my mental health issues.

and today, i graduate. and i've been accepted to three graduate programs and have pretty much decided on one. i will be going for my MSW and hope to complete in about three, three and a half years. it's been a ridiculous journey; sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes i can't remember what it was like before i was a counselor.

thankfully, my therapist is working today since the office was closed yesterday. i am a jumbled mass of conflicting emotions and ideas. but i am really excited to be graduating and opening a new chapter in my life. well, at the end of august when grad school starts.

decorating

now that awesome husband @_antgas and i are just about settled in to the new apartment, it's time to decorate.  i let awesome husband have free reign on hanging the pictures on the wall.  he did this staggered thingy and it looks pretty damn good.

nice work, awesome husband.

i had this neat photo of a tiger i took years ago at animal kingdom.  i made it black and white and had it put on canvas (thanks, groupon!)  it's pretty cool having a photo i took looking all professional on the wall.  i also found this cute owl photo at home goods (omg that damn store) that has these different patterns and whatnot that makes me happy.  so i got it (before @_antgas told me that hipsters ruined owls).

damn hipsters ruining cute owls

yay tigers!

when i was little, my mom had these framed crate labels.  crate labels are labels that were put on crates (OMG AMAZING ISN'T IT?).  crate labels came into use in the late 1800s and were stuck on crates filled with fruit and vegetables.  sunkist really started it with crate labels for their citrus fruit.  they ended up being pretty elaborate works of art and, for some reason, my mom liked them.  she collected them and framed them and a bunch hung in our dining room when i was a wee lass.  after we were divorced, the crate labels came from place to place with us, until we moved in with my stepfather who didn't like them i guess, because they were never hung up again.

when we moved my mom to florida, she couldn't find her crate labels.  we never new what happened to them.  when she died, we packed her stuff and moved it to lindenhurst.  and just last month, we went through a bunch of the stuff we had packed to move it again.  and we found her crate labels.  only four have frames.  @_antgas and i chose the others that we liked the most and are planning on having those framed.

crate labels

we still have some stuff to put up, but it feels good to be making this place ours.  even though we hung up pictures and whatnot at the other house, it never felt like we decorated it.  it felt like we were squatting there, just trying to make it comfortable.  this feels more like home.

surprise! i'm not dead yet.

wow.  if you're reading this, i must really give you props.  instead of seeing my crap pop up in your blogroll and saying, 'that lame bitch?  she hasn't said anything to anyone in four months, and then she comes back and wants us to pay attention to her?  fuck that!' and scrolling on, you clicked.

hi.  i'm a lame bitch who hasn't said anything to anyone in four months, and now i expect you to pay attention to me.

so in our last meeting, we discussed how crazy busy my life was: work full time.  school full time.  no time for sleep, cat cuddling, or anything really.  i mean, i had time for things.  just not as much as i wanted.  i like taking time for, you know.  nothing.  video games.  watching a movie by myself because awesome husband @_antgas won't watch 'twilight' movies with me.

since early march (when i last posted) i've had another birthday, finished my monday night class as well as another semester at school, purged a bunch of my mother's stuff that i was holding onto for some reason.... oh, i also moved and quit my job.

wait, what?  i know.

that full time job with the paycheck and the awesome benefits?  yeah, i quit.  i accepted a position with a social program at a behavioral rehab center.  about 15 hours a week and nowhere near what i was making per hour.  it's three evenings a week, and i help make juice and iced tea and dinner for a group of people who are in recovery or live in group homes or whatever.  then i help clean up from dinner and drive a bunch of them home.  there are addicts in recovery, schizophrenics, some guy that i have NO idea what is wrong with him but i've been told never to shake his hand and to wash my hands immediately if i ever do, and people who live in group homes for different reasons.  one woman has a doll that i've seen her spoon feed and talk to.  which i thought was weird at first, but the woman is actually really nice and pretty normal otherwise.

not EXACTLY in the vein of work that i'm training for, but it's in the broad field of 'helping'.  so it counts as 'in my field'.  it's the first job i've ever had that's in 'the field' of social work.  of course, i'm the only person there who's working in the field and not just a client.  but it's definitely eye-opening, as well as good hours and much less stressful.

i'm also helping out my dad one day a week at his place in queens.  it's a family owned business and his secretary administrative assistant up and quit a couple of months ago.  dad's been buried in work since then, so i offered myself up one day a week (for much better pay per hour) to help dig him out.  it's a 3 hour commute round trip, but it's nice to be able to help him out and make a few extra bucks.

and we moved.  if you didn't know, awesome husband and i lived communally in a house with my brother and his fiancee; we shared the kitchen and laundry room.  it was working out well and saving everyone a bit of money, but awesome husband @_antgas and i decided we needed to be on our own.  we were having some issues.

marriage is hard work, y'all.

we decided we needed to be on our own for so many reasons.  but when i started thinking about it, in our eight and a half years of marriage, we've lived alone for 17 months.  when we were first married, we lived with my mom and brother for a couple of years.  it was a mutually beneficial plan because my mom needed our help with crap around the house, and we couldn't afford a decent place to live on our own.  when we moved to florida, my mom was laid off and sold her house, so she came to florida and lived communally with us.  and then when my mom died, we moved back to new york and moved in communally with my brother.  so this is kind of like the first place that's ours.  we're renting a two bedroom apartment in a nice little town on the south shore of long island - not too far south.  not too close to the water - not going through that again.

we spent a few weeks moving and paying double rent.  between painting the new place, moving our crap, and cleaning the old place, it felt like MONTHS between the old and new places.  but i dropped off the old keys on monday and now we just have to see what we get back for our deposit.  we had some carpet damage that i'd like to think is in line with 'normal wear and tear' after living there for two years and being great tenants who never paid late or caused problems.

perhaps one of the most amazing things that happened during the course of the move is that i decided i was not going to cart all of mom's stuff around any more.   we realized that we wouldn't have room for some of our stuff, like my huge china closet... so we wouldn't have room for the mikasa stemware or china that we never use.  i made a list of my stuff that we were going to have to sell or donate, and realized that i had boxes upon boxes upon boxes of my mom's stuff that i didn't even know about.  when she died and we packed up the house in florida, awesome husband @_antgas took some time off work and packed for me while i worked and ignored all of my mom's stuff.  it was just too new for me. so we brought basically all of her stuff up to new york with us without going through it.  we only went through her clothes really because i wasn't about to cart around all of a dead woman's clothes.

we went through everything.  i found three boxes of quimper china that i sold for $100 to a woman who collected it (and i may have contributed to her hoarding.... ergh.)  i found a box of nancy drew books that i decided to hang onto and see what they're worth.  i found a tote full of pots and tupperware.  yes.  i found a box of candelwick that we decided to donate.  we went through it all.  and we pared it down to maybe three boxes of her things that i can't or won't get rid of.  and now i can box them back up and hide them again until i'm ready.

but it was very cathartic.  i got the feeling that it was time to purge and make changes.  and awesome husband @_antgas and i have purged a lot of crap and made a lot of changes.  and it feels pretty good.

now we're in a new apartment, in a new town.  the cats are settling in, we're down to just a couple of boxes of crap to unpack, and it feels like we're setting off on a new adventure, a new chapter of our life together.  it feels pretty good.

a real blog post! OR, welcome to new york. now learn how to fucking drive.

i mean, i know how to drive in new york.  it's where i learned how to drive.  the problem is all the other fucking new yorkers that don't know how to drive.

that statement may not make sense to you if you have not driven in new york.  and by 'new york' i mean the tri-state area of new york, not 'upstate', or 'canada'* as i like to call it.

now, i have no photos of our new place yet, because i refuse to take photos while it's still all fucking filled with stupid fucking cardboard boxes and shit like that.  BUT i do have photos of our last days in florida and our drive to new york.

awesome husband and me during out last dinner at orlando benihanas.

jake sleeping on a chair: doing it wrong, but cutely.

the girls - samantha and piglet - in their crate. they cuddles most of the time, and fought a bit of the time.  but mostly slept or stared longingly at me, imploring me to let them out.  no dice.

awesome husband driving.  somewhere.  hmmmmmm based on the angle of the sun, i'm going with georgia.

proof that i fail at estimating space. we ran out of space in the truck, we ran out of space in our car, and we ended up leaving some shit behind.  i'm okay with it.

again, i'm going with georgia because it looks to be around noontime. 

days inn, ashland VA.  not bad.  not great, but not bad.  got a discount and the room was $47.  so, you know.  sadly, the jacuzzi didn't work.  the cats definitely enjoyed it water-free though.

taylor scoping out the motel room.

the pool at the days inn.  not sure when the last time a LIVE human swam in this pool, but the fauna it exhibited were many and varied.  and frightening.

outside of ashland, va

driving around DC.  because you can't drive THROUGH DC.  and i got shitty photo opportunities because there was no fucking traffic. not really complaining because traffic around DC can be BRUTAL.

so.  there you have it.  some of our trip to new york last month.  it's been five weeks since we got to our new place and it's slowly coming together.  we had to buy almost all new furniture (this was planned - i used 'moving' as an excuse to get rid of all the furniture i didn't like any longer) and it's all here now.  we're actually hoping to hang some curtains and pictures on the walls this weekend.

we also got our new york state driver's licenses.  and those horribly ugly golden yellow license plates for my red car.  yeah, that looks AWESOME.  thanks, new york state.

and i'm back in school after a three week break.  taking another psychology class called 'i think, therefore i am?'.  seriously.  and a world religions class that seems to completely discount neo-pagan religions.  which is upsetting, but should make for an interesting class.

AND we bought an elliptical machine.  yup.  we'll see how well that works out.  awesome husband lifts weights and shit like that and only did FIVE minutes on it to start.  i'm hoping to start working out and losing some weight.  after i shake this wonderful new york summer sinus infection/cough/cold/whatever the fuck it is.  yeah.  good times, good times.



*no offense to any canadians who may be reading.

live from new york....

yup.  we've been here a week now.  it's been a hell of a week, too.  we've done nothing but unpack, eat take out or fast food, and build furniture.

and shop for furniture.  we still don't have a living room, but it should be delivered tomorrow.

my office is just about set up.  i'm writing this on my new ikea desk.  it's pretty big.  i might take photos at some point.

the cats handled the move very well.  HOWEVER jake apparently scratched his cornea and it's ulcerated and nasty and disgusting and he can't see out of it.  we were here four days before i was able to introduce jake to our long-time new york vet.  and i took taylor to the vet the monday before we left florida.  ridiculous.

really ridiculous.

anyway, jake has a follow up tomorrow.  we hope he will not permanently lose vision in that eye.  the same thing happened to one of my friend's cats and he seems fine now.  so i'm really hoping.

so i moved into this house sight unseen.  awesome husband and my brother (and sisterfromanothermister) had seen this place but not me.  it was surprising and pleasing aside from the kitchen which is WOEFULLY lacking in cabinet space.  and had no pantry.  we rectified that by buying a free standing pantry (at ikea, mais oui) and it fits TONS OF SHIT.  we've spent more money on shit at ikea than i'd like to admit.

and we still don't have lights in most rooms.  like NONE of the rooms have overhead lighting so we need lamps everywhere. 

but the cats are superhappy.  taylor is more active than i've seen him in years.  i don't know if he's superhappy to be back with our brother or what, but he bounds up and down the hallway chasing after jake or samantha.  it's very cute.  except they all think that the carpets are for scratching, so we really really really really need to get a scratching post.

i already went back to work on tuesday, and awesome husband starts his new job on june 1st.  we found out he'll be making more money than we originally thought, and we're REALLY happy about that lol.  it will be a 3:30-11:30 shift and he'll be a shop foreman.  so instead of just doing the mechanic-y things, he has to help all the other peeps in the shop.  and that late shift is made up of a lot of younger guys.  his manager said if he can whip those guys into shape in 60 days, he could be looking at even more money.  it's a really really great opportunity - very exciting.

and i have a new position with my company, which is a pain in the ass to describe but i'm happy with it.  for now.

so hopefully some other people will have moves that end up as good as mine has.  good times, people, good times. 

and i've already had some greek food in the past week.  delicious.  and happy.

ashland, va

hi.

i'm in ashland, va.  in a days inn.  with awesome husband and four cats.  all of whom are traumatized to some level.

there is also a SWEET ASS jacuzzi tub.  that doesn't work. 

hmph.

on the plus side, the gal at the desk said she wouldn't charge the $10 per cat 'pet fee'.  and the guy that was trying to check in before i got there left behind a coupon.  so a room that i originally thought would cost me a benjamin cost me $52.

so we drove like 750ish miles today from 7am to 7:40pm.  stopped for gas three times, coffee once, bathrooms twice, and food twice.

there's so much more.  like photos of our 10 linear feet of space on the truck MAXED OUT and all the shit we ended up leaving behind because i can't estimate space worth shit.  i mean, even the room in the car.  i underestimated that.  A LOT.  and we've had this car for like well over 5 years.  and moved to florida with it twice (once for us, once for mom).  so you'd think i'd have like figure it out by now.

nope.

on the plus side, no one can see the shit i have stashed in my car, like computers and televisions and shit like that.  so hopefully no one will break in and try to steal anything. 

my mom's in there too.  yup.  so i guess she's like, guarding it.

still trying to move

seriously.  it's like ridiculous.  now our buyers want five more days to close.  we've already got a truck on the way tomorrow to be loaded.  we're leaving wednesday morning.  i've had the utilities turned on at the new place in new york and have scheduled disconnects here in the FLA.

we sold a bunch of shit on saturday at a garage sale.  what we didn't sell, we called a guy from craigslist that said he'd pick anything up. 

he didn't take our couch and chair that have cat damage.  fucking cats.  like i care.  i hate that couch.  i can't wait to buy new stuff in new york.

and we bought new bedroom furniture that's still in the boxes.  a GROWN UP bedroom set.  with a dresser that has a mirror!  and nightstands that match!  OH EM GEE!

so there is some food in the fridge.  i made my bestie take a bunch of it when she came over saturday night because, hello, we can't take all those lean cuisines with us.

the only room that's kind of normal still is my office because i'm working still.  well, until 5pm today.  then i'm off for like a week. 

i'm not planning on being very active.  i know, i know.  you'll all miss me terribly.  but the next time i blog, it may well be from new york.  or from a rest stop where i'm eating fast food and trying not to kill the cats.

we'll see.

until then, keep your unit on you.

good news and why i hate most things.

unless you've been following me on the twitter (@stephgas people, get on that please) you are probably unaware that shit's been coming up roses this week.

after a crappy mother's day spent fucking hating most things and crying at a commercial about quitting smoking, monday was a refreshing change. 

seriously, this commercial is horrifying.  and i kept seeing it on mother's day.  and it kept. on. playing.  and awesome husband usually makes fun of me when i get all emotional and cry at commercials (usually publix's holiday commercials. dicks) even HE didn't crack a smile after this one.

this commercial is one of the WORST THINGS i've ever seen in my life.  apparently it's been around for some time and has even been written about by other people - about how fucking wrong it is. 

now, i'm a former smoker.  my mother died five months and five days before mother's day.  this was my first mother's day without her.  she died from lung cancer that had spread throughout much of her body.

and i had to keep seeing this fucking commercial.

the vodka helped, to be honest.  awesome husband drank rum and coke all day mother's day in honor of mom - that was what she drank.

so after multiple crying jags, a few vodka cranberries, and some cartoons, i went to bed and dreamed about two-ton 21 (one of my hermit crabs) breaking through the screen and escaping.  and coming after me.  yes, seriously.  i have no idea.

monday morning awesome husband and i woke up earlyish (8.  we had nowhere to be).  i have to work, he has to pack.  at this point, we still have NO definitive answers for housing or job situations.  we were supposed to hear back monday.  just after 9am, awesome husband's cell rings - and it's the realtor.  we have the house!  the most perfect house for us.  it used to be a mother-daughter, a high ranch.  the second kitchen in the lower apartment is now a big laundry room.  but my brother and sisterfromanothermister have the lower part which has a small living room, two bedrooms, a full bath, and the laundry room.  the upstairs part has a big living room, dining room, kitchen, full bath, and three bedrooms.  i've not seen it yet, but i'm told it's AWESOME and has navy carpeting.

which makes me a bit nervous.  awesome husband said 'blue carpet' and i said i hate blue carpet.  he said it's 'dark blue'.  i said, 'navy?' and he said 'yes'.  but he is a boy.  and boys don't always appreciate the subtleties in shades of blue.  so we'll see.

not twenty seconds after he hung up the phone, it rang again.  we were celebrating and it was a number he didn't recognize.  awesome husband answered it and it was a job offer.  more money than he was making down here and a higher position - shop foreman.  it's a great opportunity and we're superexcited about it.  it's actually at a dealership he worked at about 7 years ago before we moved to florida. 

so we had a good day yesterday.  i finally had an address to get quotes on moving our shit to new york.  now we have half a house-full of crap, us, our car, and four cats.  oh, and two hermit crabs.  and i didn't want to have to drive our car with the cats alone, and have awesome husband drive a rental truck because that would SUCK.  so we're using the same company we used to move down here.  they generally haul broadway-show type sets across country but rent out space on the tractor trailers for moving people.  we used them to move from new york to florida, we used them to move mom from new york to florida, so we're excited that they'll be able to help us out again.  i got my contract from them today and we're set to go.  it's costing us about $500 more than renting a truck and gassing it up, but it's worth it to us because we don't have to drive alone.  for 20-something hours. 

and then today, i started cancelling services here in florida.  the power will be shut off, the cable and internet, the phone, and the water.  and thursday i'll probably call to start having everything turned on in new york. 

then saturday we're having another yard sale to sell all this furniture that we're not bringing.  and my bestie is coming over saturday  night.  and sunday we're having a few friends over.  and monday i have my last day of work in florida. 

then tuesday, we load that truck.  and wednesday morning we're off on another adventure.

at least this one brings us back home.

one door opens, another slams shut in my fucking face

okay so good news/bad news sitch.  awesome husband has left me all alone (with four cats and two hermit crabs.... so not terribly alone) and gone to new york to find a house/job.

and what did he do?  he joined a fucking gym.  seriously.  i have two weight benches and a set of those fancy adjustable dumbbells that were like $300 ON SALE and p90x and the over the door thingy to do pull ups.  and he goes to new york and joins a damn gym.

yeah, that's not lasting.  if he's joining a gym, he's selling all that shit.  plus the gym is like a half hour drive from where we are probably going to live.  so it will take him an hour round trip to drive to the place where he'll work out for an hour.

men reading this, i bet you think this makes perfect sense.

women, i don't need to say anything more.


BUT we did find the PERFECT place to live!  it's actually two blocks from where we lived with my mom in new york and across the canal from where my brother lives now (doesn't that sound fancy?)  it's a high ranch so the lower floor has like two bedrooms and a bathroom and a laundry room and the upper levels have living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, and another bath.

so the lower level is basically a kitchen-less apartment.  perfect for my brother and sisterfromanothermister.  and there's room for an office.

and a workout room.  fucking awesome husband.  not like he's reading this.  DICK.

it's a little more than we were hoping to spend and has oil heat (sobbing) but we can make it work.

IF awesome husband finds a job this morning.  we don't really anticipate a problem because good mechanics are not a dime a dozen.  and awesome husband has had literally THOUSANDS of dollars of chrysler-specific training and chrysler dealers LOVE that shit.

so we're applying with the property management company today.  the realtor that showed the house doesn't think we'll have a problem.  i'm hoping she's right because IT IS PERFECT.

the door closing is the buyers for our house in florida.  the inspection came back and the inspector is like 'there are some loose shingles, a couple of missing shingles, and some puckering shingles on the roof.  so fix it and do some routine maintenance'.  the buyer's agent interpreted that to 'we want you to replace the roof'.  which is so not happening.  we're less than two weeks from closing.  so we are trying to get a roofer in here to see how much the repair/maintenance will cost and we'll offer to do that and see if they are okay with that.

legally, they have to be.  in florida once an offer is accepted the buyer only has like three times to back out of the sale without losing the escrow.  one is inspection, one is appraisal, and the other one i forget but it already passed.  now they SKIPPED the inspection and went right to the appraisal because they thought it would appraise for less than the offer/asking price and wanted us to let them have it for that price.

yeah.  not happening.

but they WAIVED their inspection contingency so they cannot use it as an excuse to back out of the purchase without penalty.

technically, my realtor tells me there are ways they can have their loan denied which would void the purchase without any penalty.  and we are motivated.  so we are going to try and work with it.  but it's just another headache that i didn't want.

so i'm eating lots of tarzipan and playing the sims medieval until awesome husband comes home tomorrow.  at the very least, until i get word that we have that house and awesome husband has a job.

that will make me happy in the pants.

why u no follow me on twitter?

hahahahaha.



seriously.  DO EEEEET.

follow me on the twitter.  @stephgas.

what else?

 notice the shiny new uptweet button and facebook share button on my blog.

use them.

because i crave more followers.  i really do.  it's like high school all over again.  i want to be as popular as the other guys and gals on the bus with me.

i mean, i'll never be a 'the bloggess' or 'aunt motherfucking becky' or 'annah' or whatever.

but i can be a KICK ASS steph gas.

and blogger,  WHY U NO BON ME?

seriously.  have you SEEN the blogs of note recently?  am i not as good, if not better, than most of them?

i think i am.  but then again, i'm a narcissistic whore.

in other news, PACKING and FINDING A PLACE TO LIVE dominate my life.  i keep taking sims medieval breaks, but it's still pretty fucking ridiculous.  especially since i am not in new york, but in florida.  and i need to find a place to live in new york.

yup.

anyway.  fucking moving.  yeah.

having a house husband

at least for a while.  awesome husband's last day of work was monday.  so he's home with me.  all day.  and he's not good at being home all day.

which means he's all cabin feverish.  and he's been home for two days.  all he wants to do is play video games and sleep. 

we finally are having the appraisal done tomorrow.  and we're still supposedly on track for closing on may 18th.  the 18th.

EIGHTEENTH.

which is, what, 20 days away?  to figure out where we're moving to, to pack up the house, transport all four cats and all our shit and ourselves up there. 

twenty days to not have a nervous breakdown.  to figure out what furniture we're not taking.  to have a garage sale.  to have a going-away party.  to meet up with all the friends one last time. 

twenty days for awesome husband to find a job.  eek.

i'd be lying if i said i could sleep without tarzipan.  i'm eating it like it was, well, marzipan?  does that make sense?

i keep thinking about stupid things.  we have to eat all the frozen food stuff because we can't bring it 1200+ miles in a car.  we should stop buying non-perishables so we don't have to transport them.  should i really buy another 20-pound bag of cat food?  will they really eat it all in 20 days?

that's a pound a day.  that seems like a lot.  i mean, there are four of them.  but a pound a day?  hmmmm.

and how is all of our shit even GETTING to new york?  we have to drive our 'crossover' (hyundai santa fe) up to new york with four cats in it.  (i'm terrifically excited about that.  not.)  and we have to have our shit in a truck or something to get to new york.  i love road tripping with awesome husband.  not that we do it often, but we've made the drive a couple of times now, as well as a few 5 hour drives places.  and i love driving around in the car with him, rocking out to some good music (over the choruses of cat screaming) and chatting.  last time we moved down here (and when mom moved down here) we used a company that transported broadway sets around the country.  their drivers would also use part of their trailer for like people's shit.  you pay by the linear foot, with a ten-foot minimum.

i don't think we have that much stuff this time.

so i'm thinking one of those 'storage units' like pods would be an option.  i think we'll have enough to fill that.  they pick it up and drop it off.  awesome husband and i can drive with the cats.

and i'd love to be able to price it. BUT I CANNOT BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A PLACE TO PUT IN 'DESTINATION'.

*deep breaths*

otherwise, life is going well.  i'm rocking the fuck out of school with my 4.0 gpa.  i'm rocking out at work and being awesome for 20+ hours a week.  i'm staying out of mom's room as much as possible because it still smells like her.

which, by the way, i'm calling shenanigans on.  i mean, we've donated just about all of her clothes.  and her shoes.  i've washed her bedclothes at least seven times since she died.  how the fuck does that room still smell like mom???

lame.  completely lame.

you know what else is lame? facebook.  i had put mom's facebook page in 'memorial status' so it's like there but we don't get those reminders like 'you should reconnect with Dead Mom' or whatever.  which is useful, right?  but what is NOT USEFUL is that i cannot log in and change her profile picture.  the photo there now is one of her that we took on the tram at epcot.  she looks cute and mom-like.  but i want to change it.

i want to change it to a photo of her urn.

you read that shit right.  my mom would totes get a kick out of that.  i want it to be a photo of her urn from the funeral, where it was all pretty and surrounded by flowers and shit.

seriously.  mom would love that.

another thing i'm sure i'll be hating on soon is mother's day.  fuck it.  fuck it right in it's stupid ass*.

on a positive note, i'll be in new york for my brother's b-day.  and for father's day.  so i can celebrate the only parent i have left.  even if he is mostly a pseudo-parent.  or sperm donor who gives me shit and buys me steak once in a while, even as he tells me he has a lunch date with a 23 year old 'dancer'.

could this post have made LESS SENSE?? 

awesome husband and i are hoping to go see disney cats and have lunch out tomorrow.  like a date? kind of cute.  what is not kind of cute?  samuel l. jackson narrating disney cats.  i can't really comment on it because stephaniec my self-proclaimed canadian sisterfromanothermister already did here and i'll mess it up.  except to shout MOTHER FUCKING CATS ON A MOTHER FUCKING PLAIN.

get it?


*i'm assuming that mother's day does not like it up the butt.  if it does, then it might enjoy that act.  and that would not be cool because the whole point of fucking mother's day up the ass, to me, is that mother's day would not enjoy it.  so if mother's day likes butt play, then i'll have to think up something else.

it certainly is a good friday.

i mean, it's THE good friday for you fun loving christians out there.  time to celebrate poor jesus getting beat the fuck up, hung on a cross to die, and buried under a huge fucking rock.

PARTY.

at least you get all those chocolate bunnies and starburst jelly beans on sunday.  not sure why, but there you go.

i remember dying eggs with my mom and brother for easter.  my mom liked hard boiled eggs (i hate them).  she'd let me help peel them sometimes, though. 

and being the horrifically imaginative child that i was, i'd take all those different colored cracked egg shells and glue them to paper to make a picture.

yup.

and my mom would ooh and ahh over them, and then probably distract me with a matchbox car or the cat or something and throw it out.  because no one in their right mind keeps TRASH glued to a piece of paper for years.  even if their kid made it.

i mean, egg shells? really?  good job, steph. 

idiot.

anyway.  it's not a BAD friday, i suppose.  i have to work for a couple of hours, do some civil rightsy project for my 'cultural diversity' class (which i call my ethnics class.  haha), and then one of my besties is coming to spend the night.  probably because she really really likes me and awesome husband.

probably not because she likes awesome husband working on her car for free.

we'll go with choice 'a'.  (just kidding, bestie.  you know i'm kiddin' ya.)

and then i have to work for two hours tomorrow morning while bestie sleeps in.  and then who knows what we'll do.  as long as it doesn't involve cleaning my house or prostitution.

other than that, i'm pretty open.  and i do have to go pick up my copy of 'mortal kombat' at game stop.  which is right near lane bryant.  which i have a $25 gift cheque to.  yes, the spell it 'cheque'.  i guess it makes it fancier than saying 'here's a $25 COUPON that you can use for anything'.  or a gift CERTIFICATE saying 'since you keep spending so much money on bras in our store, here's something to show our appreciation'.  it's a 'cheque'.  and only valid until may 1.  know when i got it?  three days after i went to lane bryant to stock up on underwear.  which is 5 for $29.

guess i'm getting more panties.

in other news, i can't sleep through the night.  because i hate waiting for shit i have no control over.  our potential buyers want to close may 18th.  MAY FUCKING EIGHTEENTH.  that gives us less than a month to pack up and find a place to live in new york.  1200 miles away from where i am now.  monday is awesome husband's last day of work, so he'll kick packing's ass.  but finding a place to live?  and technically they aren't GUARANTEED to buy the house????

??????????

i mean, they waived their right to inspection.  because they're eager to get in the house, supposedly.  and they put $1K in escrow and they have to pay for the appraisal.  so if they walk away, they're out that money.  but we have to wait for the lender/underwriter to get off their asses and order the appraisal.  that's where i'm freaking out.  because they can still walk away after the appraisal.  so it's like, do i just assume it's all going to go through and find a place to live with that may 18th date in mind, or do i wait longer and see what happens?  and what if i get us that place to live for may 18th and shit falls through?? then we'll still have to move to new york and pay for that place AND pay for the house down here until it sells.

which is why i'm on a steady diet of tarzipan and chocolate.

and tonight is not only bestie night, but chili's night.  where we go to drink margaritas and beer and have something to eat.  it's our friday night thing.  i'm finding that my tolerance for tequila seems to be slipping.

or my girls at the bar are slipping more alcohol into those presidente margaritas. 

i knew those big tips would pay off.


ALSO i did a bit of light housekeeping on my blog page.  see over there?? to the left <~~~~~  near the top.  i've connected my tweetiness to the blog!  FANTASTIC!  and you can uptweet my ass or share me on the facebook.  DO IT.  you know you want to.  i'll send you all delicious margaritay thoughts tonight if you do.

ALSO ALSO.  i lost a reader.  wish there was like a rule that when you unfollow someone, you have to say why.  like, did my bewbz offend them?  am i not funny enough?  not skinny enough?  just that much more full of The Awesome than they are? 

the world may never know.

i hate packing. i hate moving.

i hate packing and moving.  although i'm excited to get back to new york to be with my family.  but let me back up a bit here.

so saturday morning i had a realtor from an investmenty company come in.  i was hoping that she'd be all like 'we'll totes offer you ALMOST what you owe on your house on the spot' and was sorely disappointed.  about $21K disappointed.  HOWEVER.  she works with this investmenty company and is an actual realtor.  the good stuff is that the investmenty company she works with, while they will not buy my house, will share the listing with their entire database of over TWENTY THOUSAND investors who are looking for something just like my house.  she then proceeded to take out the dreaded market comparison make me cry analysis which says not only is my house worth 50% less than what we paid for it less than five years ago, but houses at the price i was hoping to list at are sitting on the market for over two hundred days.  or forever, which do you prefer?  because it's the same thing to me.  she then tells me that these houses are only selling once they hit about $5-10K less than what i wanted to ask.  and shows me the houses at that price point that are comparable to mine and priced accordingly.

dude, these houses are selling in under 25 days.  some in SEVEN DAYS.  one week from listing, boom they are sold.  so it's not all about location, it's about pricing. 

and our superrealtor is coming tonight to take photos of our lovely abode and list it.  and we may be having an open house/garage sale this weekend.  superrealtor told me that many real estate peeps have gotten away from that and she thinks it sucks.  people apparently used to have combo open house/garage sales ALL THE TIME.  so they were selling their shit and their house at the same time!

genius!

and we have A LOT of shit to sell. of course, i'm secretly hoping that superrealtor will list the house tonight and have a gazillion offers by tomorrow.  not likely i know.  but maybe by like thursday?  so we can just ixnay the open house and sell this bad boy?  it's not a lot to ask, right?

awesome husband has put in his two weeks notice at work.  i know, totes putting the cart before the horse but he's fed up with his job, and we actually aren't hurting for money at this second.  so i figured he's worth more to me at home packing.  so i can keep working and doing the school thing and what not.  i gave superrealtor the moving deadline of june 1st and she seems to think that will be no problem. 

yay! 

so awesome husband will work til the end of this month and have some time to pack and move and find a job in new york.  which we also have some leads on. 

i fucking hate packing and moving and the stress.  i hate having to go through my mom's stuff to put it in boxes and bring it to new york.  i hate having to do all this shit still.  but at least it looks like it might go fairly smooth. 

ALSO! i gots me another award, and it requires a picture of my BEWBZ.  i know stephaniec will be thrilled with the idea of seeing my BEWBZ.  i'm under a lot of pressure to make sure i get the right picture chosen, so it may be a couple of days until i post info about this newest award presented to me from semi true torystellar.