Me, My Life & I

I finally have internet at the house, so I can check and post to LJ again! Yaaaay! I was suffering from withdrawal (though strangely getting lots done - there can't possibly be a correlation, can there?).

We've been in the house, with kitty, for about a week and a half now. Aside from some electrical problems, about which we're likely going to have to contact the power company and have them re-lay the electrical wire up to the house, I'm loving it. The drive isn't bad. I'm listening to books on, well, not tape any longer - electron? - and it's such a pretty view that I don't mind it at all.

I'm loving having a cat again. It's a lot of work, but so worth it. Marty's adjusted to us so very quickly. I'm astonished at how quickly, really. He's friendly, playful, loving, everything I was hoping for in a cat. We really made the right decision. He had his first vet appointment yesterday. He's a healthy 13 pounder! I think he was afraid he was being returned to the shelter (that'd happened to him once before) as on the ride out to the vet he was Not. Happy. There was much meowing and scratching at the carrier. On the way back he was pretty quiet. He may have just worn himself out, but I wonder if some of that wasn't, "oh, it was just a doc visit".

Hope everyone's well!

We went to settlement this morning! That means that this afternoon we pick up Mad Martigan from the shelter. I am so looking forward to having a cat again! We're nowhere near done moving out of the condo, but we're getting the essentials over. It's been a good day. :)

Also, blessed Imbolc!

I've talked a lot on FaceBook about the construction of our home and put lots of pictures there, but I haven't put many here. Here are a couple Himself took today. I can't believe we're at 10 days to move-in and 11 days to kitty. (Nearly 9/10 since today is almost over. :D)

( our home )

I am so woefully unprepared for this move. I've barely started packing (although I've already hit 15 boxes of books - the Staples paper kind of box that I can get free from work - and still have more to go). How did we fit so much stuff in this tiny condo?

I so want to stay home and work on sorting and packing, but I must go to work. *le sigh* Not that I am (currently) unhappy in my job. I am actually enjoying it so far. Of course, I've just started in the new department and my workload isn't super heavy or anything yet. But given the choice between going somewhere and working for someone else and staying home and working on my stuff, yeah, I'd choose me. I'm just selfish that way. ;)

Thank gods it's only one more day after this and then it's the weekend.

Yesterday we put in application to adopt the kitty in my user pic. He's a couple of years old, stocky and ever so charming. His eyes are vivid green. He's a total snuggler and even seems to enjoy being held.

I had gone to the animal shelter local to the new house to check it out, and quite frankly because I desperately needed some comfort, the weekend the Himself's mother died. I played with several cats, several quite lovely and charming, but there was just something about this cat. If he'd been a person I'd have labeled him a "kindred spirit", where you just click. I took him to the "bonding room" and was very impressed. He explored his surroundings and, even when I moved suddenly he would freeze, but not run. He played and enjoyed being brushed.

I told Himself about him that day. I let it go after that, thinking I'd just forget this cat in particular and we'd find a cat some time after we moved in to the new house. The only problem was that I didn't forget him. I kept feeling this tug towards him. I'd picture him in the house, planned out where his bed and toys and such would be, etc. So yesterday I took Himself back to the shelter to meet the kitty. Himself was just a charmed (I think his exact words were "he's a cat" combined with a puzzled shrug ;) and so we put in the application.

We've even decided on his new name - Mad Mardigan (or Marty for short). Now we have to wait for our application to be reviewed (and hopefully approved!) and for our builder to finish the last things - another week or two at the most, I think - so we can move in. I can't wait to bring him home!

I feel like a kid the night before Christmas because I get to go see my house tomorrow. I can't wait to get out there. I kinda just want to go to bed, since the sooner I go to sleep the sooner it will be morning and I get out there. But I'm too excited to sleep. However, I just realized! I have boxes to pack - I brought home five paper boxes from work. So instead of thinking of stuff to post, I'm going to go pack. :) Have a great night folks.

We ordered our seeds for this year's garden. It's not as ambitious a list as last year's but it's not a short list. There are beans and tomatoes and squash and watermelon and, oh, just loads of veggies. I'm hoping we succeed in keeping the deer out of the garden this year. We're planning to do it just a little differently in layout and how close we'll plant things to give the deer less room to maneuver.

I can't wait to get out and see the house this weekend. It's my reward for getting through the week. :) Actually, it's been a pretty good week. I'm one file away from being done with processing and becoming a closer! I can't wait. It's not that it's not a challenging position that requires knowledge and hard work. It's that I won't be the ping pong ball being smashed against the paddles of borrowers, loan officers, closers, underwriters, managers AND realtors. I was getting more than a bit sore from it all. I'm excited to not have to be all things to all people. *shrug* I will miss processing some, though. It's never dull, and I really did enjoy talking to my borrowers. I'll miss that, hearing them excited for their homes, doing the education piece for them about their mortgage and their documents, etc. But I am glad to be on to closing.

I'm off to bed shortly. Himself is sick and I put him to bed a couple hours ago. I have a few more things to do and then I'll be crawling in next to him. Looking forward to bed! Tomorrow is Friday!! Yay!

Good morning all! It has been a wonderful weekend. Himself and I camped out overnight in the new house for New Years Eve. It was fantastic! We're close enough to being done that, in a pinch, the house would actually be livable (don't get me wrong - I want the rest of it completed before living there, though!). It was amazing how natural hanging out there, waking up there felt. I loved it so much! We had a radio and I spent most of the evening dancing and wandering from room to room, nearly unable to believe that this wonderful home is ours.

Today I'm having lunch with a friend and working on my resolutions, such as they are. I am resolving to read more non-fiction. I have renewed my subscriptions to Hobby Farm, Hobby Farm Home and Witches & Pagans. I resolve to actually read each issue. I resolve to finish the projects I have on the needles and actually knit and crochet more.

Twelve Non-Fiction Books I Own and Want to Read in 2012:

Witch Crafting by Phyllis Currott

Progressive Witchcraft by Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone

Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Live More, Want Less by Mary Carlomagno

Design Your Life by Ellen Lupton

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

How to Cheat At Everything by Simon Lovell

Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas

How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend by the Monks of New Skete

Be the Pack Leader by Cesar Millan

Preserving Summer's Bounty by Rodale Food Center

Some of these I've started, but not finished. Some are ones I bought ages ago and then never read them. I'm going to try and read one a month this year.

I hope you all have a wonderful 2012!

Tags: books, resolutions

I really wish there was a "protect the world from Cranky Linda" PTO option. I just do not want to have to deal with anyone but Himself today. Thank Gods it's almost a three day weekend. I got totally spoiled on my vacation of doing what I wanted, what I loved - knitting, reading, hanging out with Himself, etc - and am having a hell of a time getting back into the groove. It doesn't help that Himself's sleep schedule, and therefore my sleep schedule, is still all messed up. (Although last night was all my fault - he took melatonin and was asleep by 11. I stayed up till quarter after 12 reading. But it was a great book!)

The other thing that makes it hard to get through this week is that we're staying at the house for New Years. Having to wait until Saturday is like a kid waiting for Christmas. It's not 100% finished, but it's close enough to camp out in overnight. We're going to get silly on champagne and port and Chinese food and imagine all that we're going to do in the new place. I'm truly besotted by our new house. I've never seen anything so beautiful in all my life.

Well, I'd best run and get ready for work. Wish me luck - thank Gods my pipeline is as low as it is in preparation for the changeover. I am just too grouchy to deal with the normal volume of craziness.

Heya all. It's been a crazy few months. Some highs (our house is beautiful and should be ready for move in next month) and some lows (Himself's mother passed away two and a half weeks ago). I haven't had a lot of time online - I'm barely keeping up with FaceBook and haven't managed to keep up at all with LJ or Twitter.

I hope you're all well. I think a lot about what's going on here. I wish you lots of good things this holiday season and send you season's greetings.

Originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

I'm really getting disappointed with this season's McFarlane offerings. They're weird (in a not good way) and just don't seem to be full of the same social satire as usual. Anyone else thinking this?

I have a "one on one" with my boss today. I'm pretty sure it's just a normal thing they do that's supposed to give us the chance to discuss any issues, talk about our "development plan", etc. But a small part of me is just freaking out that I'm in trouble. I don't know why I automatically assume that I'm in trouble when a person in authority wants to talk to me. I even had a stress dream about it wherein my boss basically reamed me up one side and down the other while I was trying to get five loans, all several inches thick, reviewed that were all closing in an hour. Ugh. No fun.

In better news, we're going out to the house this afternoon. I cannot wait! Apparently we have doors now!! I wonder if that includes our front door. When I picked it out the builder said it could take up to six weeks to come in, and this would be somewhere around two weeks. I am very much looking forward to seeing our front door!

( this is basically our door )

I am also looking forward to my new laptop coming in. I'm mildly vexed at the mailroom at Himself's work. (I had it sent there so someone could sign for it.) According to the tracking, they got it yesterday morning, but didn't bother to deliver it to him. I could be posting from a non-jumping screen right now! *le sigh* :) I am a little nervous about the change to Win 7, but I was concerned about changing to Vista and I actually like it, for the most part.

Well, I'm off to get in a little fiber arts this morning. I swear, my half hour to an hour of crafting each morning keeps me sane and calm enough to actually go in to work each day!

Happy Mabon! I hope it's a wonderful day. I would be happier if it were just a trifle cooler, but we're getting there! Yay Fall! :)

Oh, LJ, how I love thee. You may have problems staying up (damn the Russian hackers), but at least you're the same, steady product I've come to know and love over the years. Unlike the traitorous FaceBook, you don't change your interface every 5 minutes.

I was going to have pictures of the house, but alas, my laptop is about to become completely unusable. The screen has had lines on it that have slowly crept up from the bottom until they now cover about an inch of the screen at the bottom. Now the screen is flashing/jumping every few seconds. It's driving me nuts and giving me a bit of a headache. But I'm trying to do some research for a new laptop.

I *really* don't want to spend the money. I have my trip to England coming up in November (which ate up pretty much all of my extra cash) and there's of course the house. But, I am dependent on my laptop for so many different things. *sigh*

Well, at least the house is wonderful - the roof is so perfect. I love the color. Everything else is slowly coming together! Won't be long now until I'm posting from there! :)

In the meantime, the washing machine just dinged, which means I can go to bed! (Well, after putting the laundry in the dryer. I'd gotten so discombobulated trying to figure out my laptop thing that I forgot to do laundry earlier!!)

This week was absolutely rotten. I am so glad it's over, though next week looks like it's going to be rough, too. I have to go in to work tomorrow, but at least I won't have to answer phones or emails. Next week should be mildly better, though, as a coworker for whom I've been covering will be back. Thank gods!

Today I get to go see my house. That's about the only thing keeping me sane right now (besides Himself who, despite really not grokking why my job is so stressful*, has been very supportive). We should have the back-fill and the roofing done. Sometime in the next week to six weeks (depending on how long it takes for my front door to come in) we should be weather-tight. I am very much looking forward to that. It's been so wet and I'm getting worried about the damage that the water is doing.

Tomorrow after work I'll be going out, too. I have a lot of chores to do out there. If I have time, I'm going to replant the mums that got choked out. This time I'll do it right, though. I'm putting down weed-blocking cloth, planting them and then mulching the heck out of them.

I also want to figure out what I can do to protect my orchard. We've lost a walnut and two apples this year. That's an unacceptably high rate of attrition for me. We'll replace them in the Spring, but it takes so long for them to grow and produce.

Well, I'm off for now. It's definitely time to get breakfast. I'm hungry! I hope you all have a great day!



* He does the male "why don't you just do x" or "I would have just told them y" and the like. I don't kill him for it because I know it's his way of trying to help and empathize, that is shows he does truly care. Also, he knows when to say "I don't get it, but I love you and I'm sorry you didn't have a good day".

( cut for possibly triggery stuff )

It's been a fantastic weekend so far. Friday Himself and I went out to the house. We found out that if we pick up Chinese food from my favorite place in F'town, it'll still be warm when we get to the house. I was thrilled to see we now have steps connecting the downstairs to the upstairs (though I'm not sure if they're usable yet). We had dinner sitting on the front stoop and watching the sun go down over the mountains.

Yesterday I got a lot done - eye appointment, car serviced, work (but in a good way as it meant I got to leave early Friday). The eye doctor dilated my eyes, which I had not expected, so more than half the day was spent having trouble seeing, but I managed. For someone as nearsighted as I am, it is bizarre to be able to see better at a distance than up close.

Today we went to the MD Renn Faire. We'll only be out twice this year, and I really wish I could have gotten more into this trip. I did find time to get my hair braided. If I'm ever super-mega rich, I'm going to hire a hairdresser just to braid my hair every day. I wish I could do it myself, but I can't. *le sigh*

I got to say hi to a couple of friends. I didn't get to chat as long as I'd have liked, but it was nice saying hello. I did get to see Wine & Alchemy and the Mediaeval Baebes, two of my all-time favorite acts. Especially the Baebes. I'm totally a fangirl!


(I'll give you a hint as to which one's me - I'm not wearing green. ;)

Tomorrow we're going back out to the farm. I'm hoping the weather forecasters are wrong and that it won't rain. We have waaay too much to get done out there. Even if it is wet, though, we're looking forward to giving a tour of the house to Himself's parents. I can't wait to show it to them. I just want to show it off to the whole world. Seriously, even just thinking about it has me grinning like the Cheshire cat!



Now it's off to bed with me. I am wiped from the heat and the walking around. I hope you're all doing well!

The weekend in short: the house is AWESOME, Himself's family is wonderful, it was a little rainy (we survived Irene with nary a hiccup).

Lots of stuff going on, but a lot of it is work, which is getting crazy busy. Rate rallies are rather tiresome, but it could be much, much worse, so I won't complain. Too much. ;)

I hope you're all well!