broken record

Same old

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It’s that time again: time to pick a new book.  But it’s bedtme and I’m sleepy, so I’m going to put it off until tomorrow.  Which really means tomorrow after work.  Why do I even want to put it off?  I certainly don’t want to NOT read something.

I have made this complaint before.  No more.

Hey, my company offered Molly the job she interviewed for, and she’s accepting it!  That’ll be interesting.  Good, but interesting.  More to come as the story unfolds.  Or however that goes.

You know what’s cool?  My keyboard.  It lights up.  See?

IMG_20150421_205512

Yeah, that’s a great picture.  I’m on a roll tonight.  I should definitely keep writing random stuff and then trailing off without any attempt to make it interesting.  Yup.  That’s what I should do.

Oh, wait!  I know what I’m reading next.  Finally, I have purpose!  Energy renewed, off to start a new book.  (Is this my process?  Kind of irritating.  Thanks for wading it through it!)

Some days it’s harder to stay positive

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Things to remember that are good right now:

  • Our house is under contract.
  • I’m going on vacation in a week and a half to someplace warm and sunny.
  • …
  • um….

I mean, sure, I could start listing things like friends and family who are wonderful, and that John and I are in good health, and we have a roof over our heads and jobs we don’t hate, but that starts to sound treacly and some other word I can’t quite put my finger on.  YES, there are plenty of things to be happy about or grateful for or whatever, but GAH!  I feel stuck sometimes.  Still in the house, still going to the office every day, still living the same life.  Where are my changes?

[Pause for perspective]

That’s a little ridiculous (a lot ridiculous).  I’ve been making changes all along.  I’m exercising more, doing things I like with people I like.  I make more time to read (on weekends, anyway).  John and I have been enjoying more of the geeky things in life (all those games, some of the TV we watch).  My time is more my own (our time is more our own), and I need every minute of it.

Maybe I’ll stop whining.  For now.  Just a little break.

I’m having a day

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I’m feeling grumpy today.  It’s Monday, for one.  I’m not Garfield (I do love lasagna), but I don’t know anyone who’s truly pleased when Monday starts.  We were both sound asleep when the alarm went off, so dragging ourselves out of bed was difficult, and then small tasks seemed to be too tricky to handle.  Before boxing this morning, an eyelash tried to stab me in the eye, so we lost time getting that taken care of, and then John couldn’t dig his keys out of the small bag they were hiding in, and I had trouble keeping my wraps from twisting while I was putting them on (in the car, in the dark).  And that’s all before 6am.  Not a good start.

Work didn’t help (although nothing happened, so work didn’t hurt, either), but  I would really appreciate it if I could get my weekend back, have a do-over, and try Monday again.  Actually, since doing Monday AGAIN doesn’t sound all that appealing, how about if we just skip ahead to this coming weekend?  I don’t have anything all that important going on this week anyway.

I’ve made no promises!

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I just checked, and it turns out I didn’t actually publicly declare my intention to post something here every day in November (my version of NaNoWriMo, which, turns out, is an actual thing, as I discovered by reading Ms. Wombat’s blog).  And it’s good that I didn’t publicly declare my intention because I’ve already failed, having skipped Sunday the 2nd.  So let’s just say I didn’t even privately declare any such intention and move on.  Nothing to see here.  Except when I post something.  Which will happen every once in a while.  “Every once in a while” might look a bit like “every day”, but let’s not raise expectations.  Expectations lead to obligation.  I don’t want any more obligations.

Open House #2

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Lots happened last week, everyone.  We had our open house last Sunday (from noon to 5), and we had a whopping TWO people come by the whole time.  We were a little disappointed, but the second person stayed for a while, asked a ton of questions, and seemed fairly serious about it.  (Also, I kind of know her through the gym.)  That night we got a call from her realtor – boom.  An offer.  Her realtor was god-awful and terribly rude to us (we’re doing a FSBO for a reason – we’re willing to give 1% to the buyer’s agent, not 3), but the offer came in anyway.  It was a little low, but dude!  An offer!  So we panicked.  Kind of.  We were SO not prepared for that.  We had planned on using a real estate attorney to help us with closing, but we hadn’t even begun to find one.  Also, the buyer only gave us 18 hours to respond (the offer came in at 9pm Sunday – she gave us until 3pm Monday), so we spent Monday morning frantically trying to a) find a lawyer and/or b) figure out how we should counter.  Because we wanted to counter.  It was a reasonable, very fair counter.  Anyway, I found a real estate lawyer (through my gym again) who gave us great advice, and then at 2:45 (because that’s when I heard back from our new lawyer) I printed out the offer, made our changes, initialled and signed everything, scanned in the signed copy, emailed it to John, who printed, initialled and signed, scanned it in, and emailed the whole thing back to the agent.  At 2:50, I emailed her to let her know it was coming.  She got it by 3:15.  We gave them until 5pm Tuesday (a whole 26 hours) to get back to us.

Silence.  Just nothing.  No response.  Wednesday morning, I emailed the agent to confirm that their lack of response meant they weren’t interested in countering or accepting.  She replied quickly to tell me that was correct, and that was the end of that.  Except that we plan to email the buyer directly (because we have her information and I kind of know her) just to check in and be friendly.  There’s really no reason we haven’t done it yet.  Anyway, even though it didn’t pan out, it was exciting, and we feel good about it.  We do NOT regret not taking her initial offer.

Tuesday night we showed the house to a guy who seemed positive but is in no hurry whatsoever.  We made a deal with an agent we really like (he’s given us all kinds of advice on how to sell on our own, how to deal with buyer’s agents and the whole commission thing, and lots of other things) to have him list our house on the MLS for a flat fee, so we’re out there for agents to find us.  We’re having an open house right now (and clearly so overrun with people that I don’t have any time to write….oh, wait a minute), from noon to 3, with a showing between 3 and 3:30 and a guy who’s going to come by around 1.

It’s been busy.  We’re still homeowners, Riley is in a slow decline (his x-rays Monday morning were not positive), work sucks and is about to get suckier, and it’s the one-year anniversary of Roxy’s death, but hey – I had a milkshake for dinner last night and the weather is beautiful.  It’s not all bad.

I guess it made a lot of money

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John and I watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture last night.  The theory (not counting the new reboot and its sequel) is that the even-numbered Star Trek movies are good, and the odd-numbered ones are bad.  Before last night, the only one I’d ever seen was the one with the whales (the fourth one – one of the supposed good ones).  Question: if the first one (the one we just watched) was so bad, why would the studio ever agree to make a second?  And I have to say, it wasn’t very good.  It was the slowest-paced movie I think I’ve ever seen.  Not a lot of plot going on for a movie over two hours long.

I’m trying to distract myself from the fact that it’s a beautiful sunny October Saturday and no one is coming by to look at our house.  I keep reminding myself that it’s okay.  Really.  I got out this morning to do some bridesmaid dress scouting for Emily (found some nice ones), and I want to go for a run this afternoon (it’ll be a nice change to run in daylight again), and I have a whole list of things I’d like to do today and tomorrow.  Distractions abound.  I just need them to work so I can stop obsessing.

I’ve probably just jinxed the summer weather – it’ll be cold now

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I worked from home today because the guys came to replace the HVAC system (and because it was my turn – John stayed home when the painters came).  Now we have a brand new furnace and A/C!  Very exciting.  And they’re pretty, as these things go.  Shiny, anyway.  Unfortunately, I now have a giant, horrible, throbbing, not-at-ALL fun headache.  To go with my stuffy nose and watery eyes.  They ran the heater for a while to make sure everything was working correctly, so it got really hot and stuffy in here, and I’m tempted to open the windows because it’s so pleasant outside, but I think that would be a mistake.  A HORRIBLE MISTAKE.  And I’m not that dumb.  Today.  Ask me again tomorrow.

I flaked on Jess and her mom about the 5K tomorrow because I feel crappy.  It’s not so much about the 5K as it is about not being very good company and being away from home when I feel crappy.  Nobody likes to be away from home when the highlight of your day is the 15 minutes spent feeling slightly less crappy because you were standing under wonderfully hot water in the shower.

I think staring at tiny letters on a screen is not helping my headache, so I’m going to stop.  Also, I need to congratulate myself on finding the end of the work day.  Is it stupid to drink wine when I feel crappy?  Because I think I would like some wine.

Acting like a child. Except for the refinancing thing. And the taxes.

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I can’t figure this weekend out.  I’m in kind of a funk.  A petty annoying funk.  I did stuff yesterday (the gym, wrestled with TurboTax on linux, a couple of errands), but not enough.  I HAVE to get to the store today (we’re nearly out of calf liver for Roxy, and we need some other essentials), and I need to go to the gym…I think I’m going to put off my pedicure until later in the week or next weekend…

I did just finish our taxes, so that’s something.  I broke down and used my work laptop.

I’m on the verge of pouting because I have to go to the store.  Or because I have to go to the gym and the store, and that’s a lot of time out of the house.  Pouting!  Jesus.  I think it’s Sunday Afternoon Syndrome.  I can feel the weekend slipping away.

[Break]

Haven’t left the house yet (it’s about two hours later), but I’m about to.  John and I did finally call the bank to discuss refinancing, and now that we have all the numbers, it’s possible that we just won’t.  It depends on when we’re really trying to get out of this house.  I feel better having gotten that information (I’ve backed off from the pouting ledge).  And we’re about to go to the store.  Looks like the gym isn’t happening today.  I can take a day off, right?

Too much time off

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Yoga is good and I shouldn’t skip it two weeks in a row anymore.  I had good reasons (Halloween, then my lizard transformation – okay, maybe Halloween isn’t a good reason), but still.  Tonight was hard because I haven’t done anything remotely related to yoga in three weeks.  Except stretching after running (which I haven’t done much of, either).  I stretched.  Except not today.  I don’t remember stretching this morning.  Okay, none of this is making sense, and it doesn’t really matter since I’m back on the yoga wagon.  Except for next week, since it’s the night before Thanksgiving and we’ll be on the road.  But after that, I swear I’ll go regularly.

Why yes, I would like some cheese

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No memory problems today.  That I’m aware of.  Just a growing sense of annoyance that I have to work.  Don’t throw things – I know I’m whining.  Today wasn’t even a bad day.  My meetings went fine, I got some stuff done, and I did it all from the dining room table.  I spent the first part of the morning in my workout clothes (with my post-workout sweaty smell), and then I showered and spent the rest of the day in my clean yoga clothes (because it’s Wednesday).  Why bother putting regular clothes on when the next time I leave the house it’ll be to go to the gym for yoga?

Can I be a little bit annoyed at how dark it is at 8pm already?  When did that happen?  Now I need to get a headlight or something for my bike.  I was invisible on my way home from yoga a few minutes ago.  Heh.  Yoga makes me invisible.  Cool.  Until I get hit by a car.  Not cool.

It’s not that kind of holiday

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Today didn’t turn out quite like I thought it would.  We were out late last night (we met Emily at her new place for dinner), so we slept late this morning, dawdled about breakfast, and kinda puttered around all day.  It’s been a nice day, don’t get me wrong, but I kinda had plans for it that I never put into action.

I did go to Wegmans, though, so I was able to do something productive.  Actual grocery shopping that resulted in real healthy food at home will certainly help us eat right this week.  But it’s not going to keep us from having nachos for dinner.  Because we’re stupid.

Now I have to decide something really important.  For the second time today, since I finished Little Brother last night and read Coraline this afternoon.  What am I going to read next?