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I apologize

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

I was having some trouble locating my theme archives on my external and since I’ve changed to two new computers since the last time I was really blogging/working online I started to think I was never getting ANYTHING back.  I then remembered the wonderful little website known as archive.org and hit up their way back machine to actually FIND everyone I was looking for.  So with a major thanks to that free service I was able to come back to the blogs I used to read all the time.  With that I’ve gone ahead and started to slowly add things back to the sidebar.  There are still a few to add, but I was clicking through things so fast that I got myself all kinds of screwed up and forgot where I’d gone.

It’s kind of weird, honestly.  Going back and skimming through updates make me wish that, to a degree, things didn’t turn out the way they did.  It got to a point where I’d stopped talking to people for no real reason at all and even 6 years later I have a sense of regret about it.  There were some good net/friendships that I just walked away from because ‘real life’ took the front seat for a change.  I’m not saying I want to go back 6 years ago and stop the clock to before things changed.  I’m also not saying that the conversations/fun I had with everyone wasn’t ‘real’ either.  I know a lot of my issues back then were due to the fact that I was dealing with the loss of Joe, and then the addition of Sean into my life.  I know that both instances had some sense of drama/awkward moments behind them.  I feel the need to say I’m Sorry to anyone whom I offended or pissed off in the process.

There was also a time where my day was fueled by Internet drama via blog or hiding out on message boards with ‘spies’.  I see that as a low point as well.  It had a lot to do with the fact that I spent a lot of time cooped up in my room bouncing from design job to design job and never really got to see the light of day.  I continued to go back and forth with people who, looking at it now, really didn’t deserve any of it.  If you really think about it – no one is better than anyone else, we all have our own lives which are more important than anything that could possibly be going on online.  While they’re guilty of doing the same things that I did, it doesn’t mean that either one is the bad guy and those ‘hard feelings’ should remain.

Basically stating, while I know it’s completely random and probably way too late to say it.   I’m Sorry.  

To any and everyone over the years whom I crossed paths with in a good way (that led to bad) OR bad way (that stayed that way) – I apologize.

The last few years have given me a lot of insight into who I am, and who I’m going to be. It really does take the loss of very, very important people for someone to wake up and realize that things need to change and you need to live every day as though it’s your last.  In the last year my life has done a complete 180 and I feel that, while it’s been hectic, it’s been for the better.  I’m in a better place, job wise.  I’ve made it a point to write-off those whom were not worthy of being in my life, and I’ve embraced the friendships/relationships that I currently have because being surrounded by good people is all that matters in life.

Drama is drama, it’s what makes the world go round (real or viral) and there’s no escaping it.  How it’s dealt with shows who you are as a person and that’s what matters most.

Again, to anyone swinging by that hasn’t been here in a while (for one reason or another).  I whole-heartedly apologize.

 

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Whew! I did it!

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

I was able to get the bulk of my list accomplished yesterday.  There’s still a lot to be done, but at least the heavy hitting was completed.  I still have a slew of emails to get to, and that can take upwards of an hour depending on how many require an immediate response.  I almost feel like I’m back at the appraisal office.  The only thing I really took away from that job was to follow up on things as soon as they come in.  It’s a little annoying when I have to actually wait on things as far as the other end is concerned, but I’ll continue to crank things out as quickly as possible to keep it moving.

Muir just left, if you notice she posted earlier today about Rodan + Fields.  She’ll be posting more often here, as well as on acidgloss.net about her life and the products.  I’ve mentioned before but we brought her on as a Lead Consultant for AGn Designs as well.  Things have been so hectic lately, plus she has a strong background with project management considering everything she’s got going on, so of course we thought she’d be a perfect fit for the AGn team.

In any event, time to change into some more comfy clothing and sit down for the rest of the night with my iPod and a buttload of work.

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Slow Down!

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

So I was able to accomplish quite a bit yesterday, the bulk of the rush-client was completed, the rest will be completed in a few hours, so I’ll get that wrapped up today.  Then of course every single email I sent out over the past few weeks was finally responded to yesterday so that list is just way too long to wrap my head around right now.  I’m going down the line and doing everything that needs to be done, it’s just one of those really overwhelming situations.  I just keep telling myself that the bills are paid and keep pushing through it.

The Shameless marathon yesterday was eventful, I really – really like the show so I’m hoping the American version stays on for quite some time.  I haven’t watched the British version, I figure I’ll watch it on Netflix at some point just to keep myself busy but either way I enjoyed myself.  We still have one disc left to watch, I figured we’d look into that later today or this evening during some downtime.  Right now we’re both kind of on edge because we need to get everything done in such a short period of time.  I really just hope it’s not going to blow up in our faces…there’s so much that we’d like to accomplish over the next few months and the sense of urgency really just can’t die down right now.

So I’ve got my notebook ready, Billings is waiting for me to click the “Play” button so I can get back on the clock and hopefully today is just as productive as yesterday.

:crosses fingers:

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Hittin the fan!

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

So far things have been relatively productive today, I’ve gone through all of my email, drew up about five mock-ups and now I’m sitting here with a huge list of things to do beside me.  Sean and I are both in the living room this afternoon because we’re watching season 1 of “Shameless”.  It’s one of our newest addictions and unfortunately we were only able to watch it from the beginning of Season 2 on Showtime.  So since there are numerous questions that needed answers, we’re going to watch everything from the beginning so we can catch ourselves up.  By the time we’re in the mood to move forward we can watch Season 2 all over again, in anticipation for Season 3 (which they’ll be filming soon anyway).

Anyhoo… you’ll notice on the sidebar that Muir’s widget has been added to the blog pages, she’ll be posting here soon, so for now her link obviously goes to a dead page, but it’ll be active soon enough.  She just left here a little while ago, the little munchkin was fussy this afternoon but after a nice half hour nap on the couch, and a ten minute doze on auntie Krissy’s shoulder – it mellowed out quite a bit.

Dinner went very well last night.  The lamb tasted pretty good, my only complaint was the fact that I can’t – for the life of me – get the garlic smell off of my hands, no matter how hard I try. I’ve watched my hands constantly with numerous different variations of soaps and wives-tale tricks but nothings really worked.  I’m hoping within the next few days it just goes away naturally.  I can honestly say that the reason us Italians talk with our hands is nothing to do with a social tick, it’s children watching their grandparents constantly try to air out their hands.

So I’m looking over my list and there’s at least 15 tasks to complete (or at least put a dent in today).  Guess the next few hours are gonna be busy as hell.

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Dear Food Stealers

Monday, April 9th, 2012

I posted this on my FB a few days ago, but it’s still getting a vast amount of comments, and I just had to share it here.

To the food stealers,

It has been about a month now since my brownies started disappearing randomly. Even though my name was on the tub. My husband helped my 9yo daughter bake them for me, so I hope you enjoyed them as much as I couldn’t. My previous fridge notes fell on deaf ears, so I decided to take more direction action.

So I made an anonymous report to HR. Something about culture of drug use and the potential liability to the company blah blah. That is why we all had to do a random drug screen yesterday.

And did I forget to mention that for the last two weeks I’ve been spiking the brownies with marijuana? Not much, not enough to give you a buzz. Just enough to show up on a drug screen.

CHECKMATE.

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Holy Wind Batman!!

Monday, April 9th, 2012

When I went to sleep last night I knew it was going to be relatively windy, but I certainly did not expect the extreme zipping that was going on while I was asleep.  I woke up this morning and went outside with my cup of coffee to start my day and noticed that the gazebo now has a huge hole where the support bar was supposed to be.  Other than the initial “Oh shit” reaction, I jumped back in the house and was trying to figure out ways to fix it.  Dad’s idea was to drill holes through, the bar that’s still there and brace it, but of course the drill is half-dead so now we’re kind of waiting for it to charge.  In the meantime, the roof and the cap are completely off and inside, I don’t need those blowing down the street considering we just bought them a few weeks ago as replacements to the ones that originally came with the unit 3 years ago.  I’m also thankful that all of my outdoor lighting and table torches are still in tact.  I don’t know where all of this wind came from, but mother nature can gladly take it back.

On today’s agenda there’s plenty of emails to follow up with.  I’m still waiting on responses from the actual ongoing work, but getting the potential clients out of the way is always a good idea.. gotta bring in the benjamins after all.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Monday!

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Happy Easter!

Sunday, April 8th, 2012

So it’s the official time of year where you can mark it off as Spring.  Some flowers are blooming, little boys and girls are dressed in adorable (sometimes matching) outfits and everyone is enjoying time with friends and family exchanging excessive amounts of sugar.  I personally consider this to be the Halloween of spring, the only thing missing is a few witches and freaky gools – but hey … everyone has a few quirky people in their families now don’t they?

I woke up extra late this afternoon, I think after all of the productivity and festivities from last night my body just decided it needed a break and boom 10 hours later I woke up.  Did I happen to like that it was at 2pm? No, of course not… but I still have enough time today where I can actually sit down and get a few things done as well.

The bulk of today’s list is primarily taken by prepping dinner for tomorrow night.  As usual my dad is working on Easter, so it’s kind of a tradition (with this, and all holidays really) that everything is either done the night before or the night after.  So instead of cooking all day on Easter, the little lamb leg in the fridge will be marinating until tomorrow afternoon where it will find it’s nice cozy place in the oven.  It’s just going to be the four of us, I’m in no kind of emotional state where I want a house full of people – even though it seems as though that’s always the case.

On the ‘work’ list, I’m waiting on numerous emails so I can proceed with getting everything done and actually bring in a decent paycheck this month to counteract the lack of decent pay for March.  There’s like 4 pending sites to work on and not a single response from anyone in order to even move forward.  I assume that due to the holiday’s everyone has kind of strayed away – but I know I’ve got a big client coming in on Tuesday and that’s going to eat up all of my time – I just want to knock everything out so I don’t have to be bogged down with work to the point that I can’t even get my deck setup as my second office.

We’ve already got the gazebo up, and I’ve started my planting since the weather warmed up to the point that it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.  The biggest issue that we have up here is the lack of shade so I took a ride over to Home Depot last night and picked up some clothes line and tarps so that we could create a curtain feel outside that will not only block out the sun to void the glare on the laptops, but it’s waterproof so I don’t have to worry about having to take them down once a week just to throw them in the washing machine.  A quick $80 later, and everything is slowly coming together.   Now it’s just time to wait for the flowers to start blooming in a couple of weeks and I’ll have my oasis again.

This time of year is proving to be pretty difficult for me, primarily based on the fact that I like to spend as much time as humanly possible outside and this year I don’t have my little buddy to join me due to his passing in November.  I know I’m surrounded by friends and family, but everyone knows that deep down inside you’re still hoping to bring back the ones that were worthy of touching your life.

In any event…it’s time to start cleaning house, it’s been about a week and just my desk alone looks like a train wreck and a half.

Hope everyone enjoys their Easter!

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I finally did it!

Sunday, April 8th, 2012

After almost a year of “I need to buckle down” mentality, I finally sat down this week and began the next chapter of Krissy.nu.  Not only is there finally a nifty new theme, but I’m also bringing on a guest blogger to keep things moving forward.  There will be no more months-on-end of absolutely no posting on my part.

So what’s been going on since NOVEMBER?! Not much really, life has been it’s usual constant up and down, things have been pretty busy – work wise – and my personal life in general isn’t really bad at all.  I’ve purged a lot of excess baggage and drama out of my life and am now moving forward with a more positive attitude, and much left aggravation in my life as well.

It’s my goal for the next couple of weeks to go full force into regular blog entries and updates, plus I’m bringing Muir on for some interesting news for all you ladies out there interested in properly taking care of your skin.  She’s not only a dear friend of mine, but a consultant for Rodan & Fields – the creators of Proactive.   I also recently hired her as a lead consultant and manager for AGn Designs.

Needless to say…things are gonna pick up 🙂

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Rest In Peace Jake

Sunday, November 20th, 2011

As previously posted, my neighbor was hospitalized after we found him in his apartment. Unfortunately, due to circumstances, he’s no longer with us. He was in he hospital for about a week, numerous different specialists came in to look at his charts, run tests, and try to figure out what they can do to help him.  The family found that the reason for his passing out was due to a major stroke on his left side, being as he was under sedation they had no real idea as to how badly this was going to effect him.

They slowly began to take him off of sedation but he was still unresponsive. After a week the doctors said that he really should show some signs of life other than the machines keeping him alive.  They’d taken him off the ventilator a few times over the course of the week but he failed miserably to breath on his own. His daughter noted that he was just lifeless and blank.  They found that his entire right side was paralyzed due to he stroke, and his heart was only functioning at 25%.  The family had to make the unfortunate choice of removing the life support due to this.

Jake wasn’t one of those guys that would be OK living on life support in a hospital / nursing home.  Knowing his personality, and who he was in general – having anyone make a fuss about him was just something he didn’t tolerate. He was surrounded with love and caring people but never wanted to bother anyone, no matter how he was feeling.  I always ran errands for him, and had to make it clear everytime that it was never an inconvenience to me.  Looking after someone is second nature for me, especially considering his closest family was a half hour away.  I believe in my heart if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew his routine, he wouldn’t have been found in his apartment until it was too late.  His family had the opportunity to say goodbye to him, and even though I didn’t, and it hurts really bad, things happening the way that they did were better for them.

I didn’t get the phone call until a week later, which was upsetting but I can’t totally be pissed because I understand that families in that situation have so much more going on.  I’ve spoken to his son and daughter since then, his daughter was up here for two days this past week to clear his apartment out. A lot was left behind for donations/trash but there’s still a few weeks left in the month to clear the rest out.  I know it was hard for her to go through everything.  She noted on Friday that she wanted to knock on the door to thank me for all I’ve done but also said that she’s fine and on auto-pilot until she actually needs to speak with someone.  That’s understandable for me, I personally don’t know where my mind is going to be if I was ever put into her shoes.  I know at some point in the future I will be, but can’t mentally comprehend or stomach that thought right now.  It actually turns my stomach to even think about that.

Either way. Jake was a wonderful man whom was a dear, dear friend of mine and he will be truly missed.  He was there for me when Lucy passed away and remained in my life for a few years there after.  His spirit was always there, unfortunately his body was holding him back.  I catch myself talking to him when I’m outside having a cig, in my head things haven’t fully set in being as the memorial service is not scheduled until the end of the month. I believe after that point, and his apartment being completely cleared out – things will finally hit me to the point that I have the breakdown that I feel coming on.  I’m not on auto-pilot by any means, I’ll admit I’ve been out of it, and weapy for the past week.  Today is really the first day I’ve sat down and got my feelings out.

I know I don’t blog very often, and when I do I tend to complain or have some major life changing event going on.  Regardless, I’ll still use this as my outlet because I tend to revert back to old habits when the shit hits the fan.

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Woah there!

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

It’s been a pretty eventful couple of weeks, some good events, some bad events.

We finally got back to NY very early on Wednesday (26th), we were so busy with everything in DE that we just didn’t have the chance to come home until then. We left at like Midnight on Tuesday, and got home about 5am.  We stopped along the way because 4 1/2 hours in a car is just annoying without some kind of a release, which is probably why I’m not thrilled about the idea of going across country in an RV.

We came home and found that there was little to no work and began to worry considering we need to come up with anywhere from $35k to $50k in order to even truly consider moving forward with purchasing a home in DE.  There’s too much debt to pay off before we throw a mortgage and utilities on top of it. So we figure, just continue to work our asses off and go from there. We were at a complete and total stand still for about 4 days and now things are slowly beginning to trickle in. Today, I was finally able to write things down and I have 8 projects to work on over the course of the next 7 days, which means its great that I was finally able to get AGnDesigns.net up and running 100%. Hopefully this will help us to get closer to our goal. At this point, whether the house is still there or not, is irrelevant. Of course to me this would be a sign that it was meant to be, but if not – I’m OK with that because I know that when it does come to the right time, we’ll be 100% financially stable to do it.

After a few days of being home my neighbor, Jake, finally poked his head out. I was told that the reason I hadn’t seen him was due to the fact that he was in the hospital for 9 days and only came home on Monday night (before we got home) so he was resting until he could gain enough strength to come out for a bit to say hello. From that day forward I made it a point to check on him on a daily basis. I spoke to him on Sunday evening to make sure he was doing OK and if the house was warm enough for him (the thermostat for all of the apartments is in our apartment because its baseboard heat that just does the whole top floor. I don’t know why it was setup that way but things happen).  He noted he was fine, just a little sleepy and said he was going back to lay down, did his usual smile and told me that he’d be outside tomorrow since it was supposed to be nice out and he wanted to tell me everything that was going on. At this point I still did not know why he was in the hospital, but figured I’d leave him alone until he was ready to tell me.

So Monday comes around and there’s no sign of him.  His apartment was closed up and I personally didn’t sleep the night before because my stomach was telling me that something is terribly wrong.  About 7am or so I did hear some noise in his apartment, figuring he’d dropped the remote or something I didn’t think anything by it. I went about my day as normal, wondering when he was actually going to come out of the apartment to relax for a bit but that opportunity came and went.  At about 8pm I went outside for a cigarette and saw that his light was not on and instantly started to panic, I had this overwhelming feeling in my stomach telling me that I needed to get into that apartment to check on him. I rang the bell and knocked on the windows – no response. I waited a minute in the chance he was sleeping and tried again. With no answer I ran back into my apartment to get the keys (we have the master set as we’re acting landlords when the store is closed downstairs) and then proceeded to his door with the assistance of my father cause I’m never comfortable with going into someone elses apartment alone.  So we banged on the windows a few more times, rang the bell again and all I heard was a faint groan coming out of the apartment.  We opened the door to find Jake on the floor.  He was breathing, but he was blue.

So we called the police, the ambulance showed up and brought him out of the apartment to the hospital. I noticed while he was on the stretcher that his arm was sitting in a weird direction and instantly knew that he’d had either a stroke or a heart attack.  I went digging around his apartment in search of his phone only to find it in the garbage can with two numbers recently dialed – both of which were to his son.  I don’t know if he’d tried to call for help, or they were just the last numbers he spoke on, but either way I knew that I needed to call his son right away.

The ambulance was here for a while, they were working on him in the back. The second they put the tube down his throat I saw that it just became more severe than originally thought and scrambled to get in touch with his son. I called the house twice, the cellphone like four times. I didn’t get a response until a half hour later.  I went to the hospital to try to get in to see him but they wouldn’t allow me in since they were working on him. His son showed up an hour or so later and we all just sat there feeling helpless until the doctors could come out to see us.  They said that there’s a lot of fluid on his lungs, and around his heart. I learned from his son that the reason he was previously hospitalized was due to congestive heart failure, my stomach knotted up knowing full well that based on all of this I’d probably never see him again.

Over the course of the past week we’ve learned that he was borderline pneumonia when he was released from the previous hospital, and all they did was provide him with a water pill and antibiotic. I then learned about all of the excess fluids that they’re draining from him as his lung was almost collapsed.  After numerous catscans and blood workups they noted that he suffered a major stroke to his left side, they’re unsure if when he comes to if he’ll be paralyzed on that side of his body or not.  We noted to the son, and the doctors, that before the EMT’s showed up he was in and out of consciousness and he was trying to pick himself up off of the floor, so the only reasoning behind him being paralyzed is the reaction to him being a medically induced coma for as long as he has.

As it stands, right now, his condition is stable. They still have him under being as he needs the breathing tube, they’ve also put him on a feeding tube on top of all of the other tubes to keep him somewhat healthy.  Either way I don’t personally think I’m ever going to see him again. I’m not permitted in the ICU to look in on him, and being as I’m not the official form of “Family”, they won’t permit me anywhere near his room.

My father, being a hospital employee and knowing quite a few people, did take one of the nurses aside and just asked if they could give him any information.  The only response is that he’s in really bad shape and will be in the hospital for a very long time.  I haven’t heard from his son in a while either, but I’m taking it as no news is good news for this moment in time.

It’s breaking my heart, honestly. Not only is he a dear friend of mine, I’ve considered him family for quite some time as well.  He’s always included in holidays, I always make sure that he has a plate whenever I cook something big (which, as an Italian, is frequently).  He’s always outside for BBQ’s with us, I’ve always gotten him something for his birthday or Christmas because to me that’s what you do with Family.  It’s upsetting that I can’t get into the hospital just to see him, and equally upsetting to know that I could have checked in on him sooner and maybe the result wouldn’t be so bad.

The hospital ran some tests on him and informed his son that he wasn’t on the ground for very long when he suffered the stroke. If we didn’t check on him until the next morning he unfortunately wouldn’t be with us anymore, but we’re to find some peace with the fact that he wasn’t by himself for very long.  This makes me feel a little better only because I can’t help but think to myself that I could have found him sooner.

We’ve had quite a few people in the apartments up here over the years. I can honestly say that only two have really touched my life. This one is hitting me the hardest though, it’s not like he’s moving out just because he found some place better.  He’s leaving because of medical reasons.  It’s just hard to look at his truck every day and his ashtray on the table next to his seat and not want to break down and cry.  When it comes down to it though, as I haven’t heard from his son I’m treating it as no news is good news (for the time being).  I’m going to continue pushing until I can get some kind of answers.  It’s heart breaking, and very, very hard to deal with but hopefully over the course of time things will work themselves out. I hate the thought of him laying in the bed in a coma, but I guess that’s just what happens to numerous people.  He’s only 66-67 years old, he’s got a lot of time left. I just hope he gets to see it.

Minus all of that, there’s really not a lot going on other than having to keep up with work.  I’ve taken a bit of a break just to clear my head as I haven’t yet been able to type everything out. I’m just hoping to get some kind of news soon. This whole situation is distracting me from productivity and the only way I know how to clear my head is to go full force into things – but I literally do not have the heart to do it right now.

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It was.. my dream home.

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

So yesterday we looked at the house. The realtor was right, it does show nicely. From what we saw, there are anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000 worth of things that need to be done on top of the initial purchase price of the home. It’s primarily cosmetic, there’s a few cracks in the ceiling from the house settling, and some issues with having to remove a lot of tacky wallpaper, possibly purchase a new water heater, and almost definitely purchase an AC/Heat unit being as I was unable to locate one on the parameter of the house. It’s 2500 square feet, and the rooms in it are beyond huge, with this we’d need some kind of a high powered air unit to make sure each room is properly heated/cooled during the course of the year. I see that costing somewhere in the $3,000 range. While the carpets LOOK clean, the previous owner had pets and there’s a few very dark spots throughout the house so I would personally prefer to just remove them all together and have new ones put down. This would be after all of the wallpaper was removed from the walls, everything was painted and fixtures around the house that were missing would be purchased. The remainder of the money would be to furnish the home, obviously you can’t live someplace with nothing.

The setup of the house is as follows:

Living Room – When entering the house there’s a small living room, large enough for maybe an L-shape couch and a TV, possibly coffee table – nothing extreme. There’s a large gas fireplace in the living room as well, and a large 3-window picture window for plenty of light.

Master Bedroom – Right off of the living room is the master bathroom to complete the ‘split floor-plan living’. The room itself is 13×18. However, the walk-in closet it 10×10 – this would instantly void the need for us to have excess dressers/bookcases in the room. The closet houses pull down access #1 to the storage space above. We could honestly get away with one dresser and maybe a small entertainment unit for the TV, that doubles as storage for under garments and what not. Per the realtor, the closet could be used as a nursery in the future based solely on the size. I personally wouldn’t want the baby sleeping in the closet so that’s a hell no right there, heh. The bathroom has a nice size soaking tub, double sinks and a decent size glass-sliding door shower with two sections for shelving.

First Bedroom and Second Bedroom – There’s a blue room (first bedroom) off of the living room at the beginning of the hallway that’s 13×11. We originally were going to use this as either Sean’s office or Mine, however the room next to it is much larger and can be utilized as a very large office for the two of us. The first and second rooms are merged together with a Jack & Jill bathroom. It’s a decent sized bathroom to be utilized as the private bath for the two rooms, basic shower, toilet and sink area with some storage underneath. The two bedrooms offer decent sized closets for storage/clothing as well. The second bedroom, however, is a whopping 13×21. I shit you not when I say this room is HUGE, go measure a 13×21 area and tell me it’s not big? I could park my freaking truck in there and still have room for two desks and a couch!

Bathroom #3 & Laundry – Off of the very large room all the way at the end of the hall there’s a relatively small ‘public’ bathroom which is at the back end of the original structure of the home. Very basic , but obviously was an external wall because there’s a cut-out for a window that used to look to the outside. It’s a basic room, not much to talk about – directly across is a nice sized laundry room that has a pull down access point for the storage space. It’s not a stand-up attic on this end either, it’s a good height for boxes but the realtor noted she’s never personally gone up there being as there’s currently no electric in the home and she didn’t want to bump her head with no lights. (perfectly understandable). Either way these two rooms were the original “end point” of the home, however they’ve added extensions.

Den / Garage / In-Law Suite – A decent sized den with a gas fireplace, this would be utilized as “Lep’s Lair” as I’ve been calling it. More of a media/game room than a living room, this way if he’s playing games at night, I’ll be on the other side of the house in the master bedroom and it wouldn’t really bother me. This has a lead-out sliding door to the backyard. Off of the den there’s access to the two car garage, which shares access to the In-Law suite that was also built in this 3-part extension. The in-law suite offers a small kitchen, stack-able washer/dryer, and a private full bath. The room itself is about 13×15 so it’s relatively small but could be used as a small studio apartment if we ever chose to rent it out in the future.

Kitchen / Dining Room – These were the two that really blew my mind.  The kitchen is HUGE, and houses a nice corner wood burning fireplace, above it has a small cabinet to hide the TV (the hookups are already there).  There’s a large fridge,  nice stove, dishwasher, plenty of storage, and even room for a nice eat-in area.  From there there’s also a lead off into the backyard.  Moving forward (in the direction of the living room), there’s a nice sized dining room, it could fit a 10 person table and a hutch and there’s another lead off to the backyard.

Backyard – The yard is the size of the house, at least.  More than half of the yard is the in-ground pool and while its a little dirty, it could be absolutely gorgeous when cleaned out.  There’s also a small ‘pond’ area that has a pump and lights but since the power is off its just freestanding water filled with frogs.  There’s a separate small area that’s fenced off for the in-law suite so they have a private yard as well.  Every aspect of the fenced area is cement block so it doesn’t require any maintenance whatsoever. On the outside of the fence towards the side of the house there’s a lot of grassy area that includes a decent sized shed, it would require some clean-out work but its a decent enough size where we could extend the existing fence and give Bella, or any other dog we get room to play in the grass. There aren’t many trees in the backyard, so there’s A LOT of sunlight for tanning and enjoying the backyard in general.

Front – The front of the house has a large wrap around drive-way.  The side has a 6 car driveway past the two car garage. There’s a small island with some shrubbery and a nice sized porch on the front of the house that I can utilize as my usual relaxing area for a cig or even just relaxing outside for the fresh air.

All in all I would personally LOVE to own the home, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a home and even exceeds my expectations of everything.  Unfortunately it’s just not within our grasp right now as we’re already $30k in debt, we need to get another $10k on top of that to get the closing costs, PLUS we would need a co-signer to even get the loan.  The next few months (if this house is even still on the market) will require us to work our asses off to bring as much money in as possible to get our debts paid down. I look at it this way.  If the house is still available when we actually are able to do this, it was meant to be.  If not? It was something to walk into where we would know what our expectations are, and where we know we wish to be.

I guess, at this point, the future will tell.

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House Hunting Begins

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Sean and I (plus Karen!) are seeing a house tomorrow. We’ve been looking at it for a little while now and finally got ourselves hooked up with a realtor and made the appointment to take a look from the inside. The over-head views and photos listed online have sparked our interest enough to want to walk inside. There’s a pretty big in-ground pool so that’s a major plus for us – we’re like fish in the summer time if there’s a pool around! There’s also a MASSIVE kitchen that offers tons of storage and natural light. I’m excited to get in there to look around. It’s four bedrooms, four bathrooms PLUS an in-law suite, so if we actually do purchase the home, we’ll have someplace to stick people when they come to visit so they can have some privacy as well.

The biggest issue for me is leaving everything in NY. My entire family and all of my friends are there. One of which is kind of giving a guilt trip cause we’re coming down here and not looking in NY. The reason being – TAXES. The property taxes for a home on Long Island are in the $10,000 a year range. This is ON TOP of the $3,000 a month it would cost to OWN the home itself, so we’re looking at about $3,700 a month in outgoing bills. Where as down here, the taxes are in the $1,000 range. This is the more financially sound option for us because it would bring our monthly payments into the $2,300 range, which means between the two of us we have to make $1,500 a month in order to not only pay all of the bills, but general house maintenance as well.

What we’re looking for, as far as a mortgage is concerned, is the ability to ask for about $30,00 more than the cost of the home. We’d utilize this extra money to pay off all of our other debts so we can then bring our ‘outgoing bills’ payment to the same amount without having to worry about whether or not its going to be the car payment or the mortgage payment.

We’re jumping into this, we know this full well. It would be more financially sound for us to try to pay off more of the bills before we even consider a home, but when you just have that feeling that everything is going to be alright… you act on it. It’s the same thing I did when I left my stupid office job. As soon as my notice went in, work came spewing out of the woodwork. And since we’ve been in DE? We haven’t really been able to breath because of the workflow. If this is the sign that everything is going to be OK, then I’ll take it – and run with it.

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I miss my dog and want to go home…

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Sean and I have been in Delaware for the past month. Every time we’ve tried to go home, some major account pops up that requires our complete attention. Due to this, there’s been no possible way for us to hop in the car and drive five hours north to get back to Long Island.

Initially it was the account for Dover Speedway, from there it’s trickled down to numerous small accounts popping up at once that all require some ridiculously short turn around time. To top that off there are still modifications to do on sites that were completed a few weeks ago so that we can launch them for the client.  Whatever the case has been, we’ve just been too damn busy.  I’ve been told (hopefully as a joke) that if I choose to stay down here any longer my dog will be shipped via FedEx so that I can then stay for as long as I absolutely want, as long as they don’t have to deal with her anymore.

Right now I’m trying to complete FOUR accounts at once.  The task would be much easier to manage if there weren’t so many other factors involved. The environment isn’t an issue at all, I actually find myself more focused down here. The issue I’m dealing with right now… EMAIL… each of the clients is kicking over a multitude of emails to follow for changes/tweaks, and to top that there’s a few new clients coming out of the wood work.  Whatever made me think that Sean and I couldn’t afford to purchase a house down here has gone completely out the window.  Now it’s just the matter of actually getting HOME so that we can continue to work and pay our bills and then eventually go for that oh-so-hefty mortgage to get the house that we’ve both decided upon.

I know they say to never put your eggs in one basket, but this is a home that’s been on the market for almost a year, it’s in beautiful condition and has absolutely everything we want, including a very, very large in-ground pool in a fully fenced in back yard. It’s my ultimate goal to have the keys to this house in my hands before summer of next year so I can literally take three straight days off work and just float in the pool. Meaning, I have no intent of getting OUT of the pool for three days. Who needs air conditioning when you have a float and a nice breeze?

The house itself is $250k, as it’s been on the market for so long I’m offering $175, the negotiations can begin from there.  There’s 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a Florida room, large kitchen, dining room, media room, living room, AND an in-law suite.  What do two people need all of this space for?  Simple really.  The master bedroom will contain absolutely NO computer equipment EVER.  Two of the four bedrooms will be offices. Mine will be fully customized with the same color tones as on this template (White, Black, Grey and pops of Pink). Sean’s will have the more masculine feel.  The other two rooms (in the main house) will be designated guest rooms as I’m sure we’ll have frequent visitors via either friends or family.  The in-law suit contains a small kitchen, large room and its own bathroom. We’ll use this as the ‘guest house’ for the guests staying for more than a few days so they have a bit of privacy.

Regardless, I’ve decorated everything in my head and don’t plan on giving up.  We have looked in NY, the property taxes are absolutely ridiculous so there’s no reason to even continue our search there. Yes, all of my friends and family are up there, but affordability wise – DE is the place to be.

Either way we’re going to continue to work and get our finances in order, the issue really is getting back to NY. We have every intent of leaving tomorrow morning and then working tomorrow night to get caught up. I really wanted to do some laundry and clean up before we leave here but I honestly don’t see the laundry aspect of things happening. I could have spent the last five minutes getting that in the washing machine instead of blogging, but considering I’m still three hours behind on my email – getting up from my computer just wasn’t happening.

I’ve got my fingers crossed in hopes to actually go home tomorrow.  Being in DE isn’t bad, I’m not unhappy in any way, and I absolutely love Karen (Sean’s mom), it’s got nothing to do with her. I just know that we don’t actually live in DE anymore and everything we own (including a more stable internet connection) is back in NY.  I whole heartedly believe that if we brought Bella down with us for this visit – we’d never go back to NY. Regardless, I miss my dog, I miss my friends and I really hope that things slow down long enough for us to pack up and hop in the car.

Meh… forget the emails – I’m doing laundry. :hmph:

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A new kind of market…

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Sean and I have been in Delaware for almost a week now, over the course of the past week we’ve realized how carefree and relaxing it is down here, even though we’ve been working the entire time. (The joy of being a designer… you can work anywhere).  We’ve weighed our pros and cons and realized that living in an apartment in NY would not permit us to build up a savings account, where as purchasing a home in DE would.  How did we figure this? Simple math really.

In order for us to have an apartment in NY (even in Suffolk County – eastern end of Long Island), we would need $1,800 a month before utilities. In order for us to purchase a home in DE, with the mortgage and utilities, it would only come to about $1,200.  The kicker would be that we would also be asking for a mortgage $20,000 above the cost of the home. Why? Because that’s how all of our credit card and loan debts would be paid off. Our outgoing bills would still be approximately $1,800 a month, but now instead of paying credit cards and a personal loan, we’d be paying a mortgage, utilities and the remainder of my auto loan on the truck.  PLUS, being as it’s only the two of us the food bill would drop down, the insurance rates would also drop down.  So while we’d be spending exactly what we’re shelling out now, we’d have more leway with the money and less stresses for the environment being as we’ll OWN the environment and can pretty much do whatever we please.

The help in all of this is the current rush of work coming through, we’re going to assess things and see if they’re still like this six months down the road, if we can maintain our current income (by either staying where we are, or increasing it) we’ll be able to own a home sometime within the next year which then gives us the ability to really start out our lives together.

I’ve taken a few drives through the southern section of DE because I really do love the communities and areas around there.  I also took a drive with Sean’s mom to do a little house hunting as well.  We’ve found two really nice homes in one community off of Route-9 in Lewes, DE. I honestly believe this is the area that I’d like to live in because of the dynamic and the fact that there was plenty of room for Bella to run around in the yard, and the home itself is 1600 sq. ft. which to me is perfect for two people and a 15lb animal.  It’s 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, there’s a 3-season porch which would essentially be my office space, and we’d keep the third bedroom as a guestroom for anyone who comes by.  The home itself is very reasonably priced, there’s a community pool and a rather large pond surrounding one section of the complex that, to me, would mean a lot of excess bugs – but the screened in porch would counteract the problem.  My only gripe about the home itself is the lack of outdoor patio area, but that can easily be accomplished with the permit to attach one to the home.

Either way we’re only looking into things, this isn’t the only home I’m even considering but the community itself has caught my eye, and its distance from the beach helps me gravitate towards it even more.  I think there’s a mortgage in my near future…heh.

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Hello Delaware!!

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

It’s been a long time coming but I’m finally back in Delaware for a few weeks. It’s been three years since I moved back to NY and I can’t tell you how much I missed it down here. The second we rolled in my eyes lit up to the point I swear they were glowing. We’re staying with Sean’s mom, it’s weird being back in the house but at the same time it feels as though I never left.

Sean’s birthday is tomorrow, I need to get myself out of the house long enough to get up to the store to pick up a few things for him. He already knows he’s getting two video games, “Gears of War 3” and “Dead Island”, I know there’s a third gift in there but I’m going to need to find it first. He knows, in the back of his mind, what it is – but has yet to figure it out so that’s good enough for me, at least there will be some kind of a surprise factor, heh.

So far we’ve hit-up the usual spots where we could be found… “The Roadhouse” in Lewes, “Casapulla’s South” in Rehoboth, and of course we trucked ourselves to the beach because neither of us has really seen one in years. I know that I live on Long ISLAND, but the beaches up there suck major, major ass. It’s not the same when you live on the North Shore. You don’t get the ISLAND feel, you get the “Oh look, there’s Connecticut and somethings floating in the LI Sound again”. So, needless to say, being able to look out and all I see is endless ocean, I’m one happy chick. I fully intend to go back a few more times before we leave.

On top of this being a change in scenery for a few weeks, there’s still some work involved.  Sean and I are both swamped with work, I’m getting mine done a bit more quickly than him, but that’s going to reverse pending a few responses from a client that’s giving us a pretty solid workflow at the moment.  I’ve got a few more sites to add to my portfolio, which is also on the agenda while I’m down here because the change in altitude and the addition of the beach has given me a whole new burst of energy and inspiration.  I’m starting to wish I never left, but circumstances back in New York made that pretty difficult for me.

I’m on the war path though, I’m looking on both Long Island and in Delaware for places to live.  My heart will always be in NY, but for some reason my soul is happier in DE.  Financially speaking, of course, DE would be the way to go but the few prospects that I’ve found don’t really thrill me too much.  One lady down the road (same complex as Sean’s mom) is offering a rental on her house for $750 a month (which is 100% doable, and a pretty good deal), but then when I showed a little interest she noted she’s actually looking to sell as soon as possible because of all of the problems with the house that her husband has been feverishly working to correct. I took a few minutes to take a walk down to the house to see if it would actually be worth it for me or Sean.  It’s a relatively decent deal but I could see exactly what she was talking about the second I walked up onto the property.  It does need a lot of work, and based on the fact that a mortgage would even be required, I’d prefer to take on a much newer model home without as many issues.  I’ll weigh the options for a little while, going back and forth between NY and DE, but for now – until we can pay the bills down quite a bit – I’m going to stay put until the opportunity to make the choice, with the financial stability, comes to the surface.

Based on how much I missed it down here, however, I do see myself coming back to visit a bit more. Yes, it will continue to be a ‘workation’ being as we do need to work in order to continue living, but having the luxury of working for yourself means you can pretty much work anywhere with a laptop and a wifi signal.  We already know that we’re coming back down in November for Punkin Chunkin but that’s something we saw advertised quite a bit while we were down here but never took advantage and actually went to enjoy it in person. It’s a three day event, I don’t see myself going all three days. But even going up to just enjoy the festivities for one day would make me pretty happy.

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Tricking a Nun

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

A hippie gets onto a bus and sits next to a nun in the front seat. The hippie looks over and asks the nun if she would have sex with him.

The nun, surprised by the question, politely declines and gets off at the next stop. When the bus starts again, the bus driver says to the hippie, “If you want, I can tell you how you can get that nun to have sex with you.”

The hippie of course says that he’d love to know, so the bus driver tells him that every Tuesday evening at midnight the nun goes to the cemetery to pray to the lord. “If you went dressed in robes and some glowing powder,” says the bus driver, “You could tell her you were God and command her to have sex with you.”

The hippie decides to try this out. That Tuesday, he goes to the cemetery and waits for the nun. Right on schedule, the nun shows up. While she’s in the middle of praying, the hippie walks out from hiding, in robes and glowing with a mask of god. “I am God, I have heard your prayers and I will answer them but you must have sex with me first,” he says.

The nun agrees but asks for anal sex so she might keep her virginity. The hippie agrees to this and quickly sets about having sex with the nun.

After the hippie finishes, he rips off his mask and shouts out, “Ha ha, I’m the hippie! ”

The nun replies by whipping off her mask and shouting, “Ha ha, I’m the bus driver!”

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