Archive for the ‘Stressed’ Category

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Can’t concentrate for shit…

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

Even though I’ve already put in 5 hours (on ONE damn site) today, I still feel like I haven’t accomplished ANYTHING.  I still have an urge to put in another 3 hours but it’s after 2:30am and all I want to do is go to sleep.  I’m not sure why I’m having trouble concentrating, I just keep getting this feeling like I need to be doing something else.  Typically “pay the bills” is on the back of my mind.  Today, however, it’s been “I feel the urge to Google random shit, just ’cause”.  It’s not even anything good.  Hell, someone posted on Facebook about how they have a random itch (down there) and can’t figure out what it is.  I, for some reason, spent a half hour researching it while over a PM with her.   What the hell is wrong with me?  Her oonie should be none of my concern, but she posted it on FB and it was a distraction for me so I veered off course.

I know that up to this point I’ve accomplished everything I’ve set out to do today.  I got another 10 or so pages completed on the eCommerce backend, the kitchen’s clean and the chicken was taken out of the freezer to thaw for tomorrows dinner.  I watched my Monday night shows, and spent some quality time with a very fidgety dog who’s terrified from the one crack of thunder we experienced with the random storm that passed through Delmarva this evening.  There’s really nothing left to do, my To-Do list is empty.  So why do I feel like I haven’t completed a damn thing?

On the home front things are OK. Karen’s having some post-surgery issues that we’re working on fixing.  It’s my hope that we can fix everything with over-the-counter based products before it turns into a trip to a specialist, but we’ll see where things stand on Wednesday morning and go from there.  I don’t want to venture over to Maryland but for the sake of her health we’ve got no choice. I don’t trust a single damn doctor in Delaware and if I need to cross state lines to get in with someone who actually knows what they’re doing… so be it.

I decided, this past weekend, that Comcast/Xfinity is the absolute worst company in the world (and I’m an Optimum/Cablevision hater too).  With the move to my new “office”, Sean went out and picked up a cable box from Comcast that was supposed to have been activated within an hour of getting off the phone with tech support.  Of course after four phone calls and constantly being told “wait another hour” (over the course of three days), I decided to take out my frustration on Twitter with a #comcastsucks hashtag, PLUS tagging with @comcast to prove my point.  I get a message from a Comcast employee offering to assist me and within 10 minutes of providing him with my account # and the serial number on the box in question – everything was fixed.  I still don’t understand how it was possible for him to fix something in a matter of minutes via Twitter when FOUR phone calls did absolutely nothing!  There was only ONE phone call that showed any level of being “productive” and that’s when they somehow conned Sean into signing up for a triple-play when we have absolutely no need or use for a home phone. We’re not getting any kind of an upgrade with channels, we’re only getting Encore for six months free.  Who the hell watches Encore? At least offer Showtime so I can watch Shameless in January for crying out loud!  It did wind up costing us like $25 less than we were set to pay, but the point is we didn’t call to alter the plan – we called for the damn box to work so I’m not sitting here in silence when I’m not in the mood for music.

I have found that my concentration level goes up with a TV in the background, mainly because I find TV to be so boring that I’d rather be in Dreamweaver.  That’s not even working for me though.  I’m extremely sound sensitive and wanting to just fly far far away and get away from it all.  I’m halfway tempted to head down to the beach since the storm is now off shore and I’m sure the surf on the Atlantic’s gone up quite a bit.

In any event… gonna try to knock out another hour and go to bed.  My major goals for tomorrow are to get some clothes folded, put in at least 6 hours and hopefully remember to watch “Extreme Cheapskates” on TLC because the show just looks that interesting.  Not to mention the fact that after NCIS (the original, fuck LA) there’s really nothing on TV accept the news.j

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I’m a Delaware Resident…again.

Friday, October 12th, 2012

As previously (and briefly noted), things haven’t been going too well medically for Karen (Sean’s Mom).   The upper lobe couldn’t survive on its own and she wound up having to go in for the section surgery to have it removed.  She’s fully lost her left lung.  Originally we were all set to believe that this was a Carcinoid tumor and was something that could be removed and wouldn’t require anything further than the healing time from the surgery.  Unfortunately… it’s not the kind of cancer we were all originally informed of.  Karen is in stage 3 lung cancer, it was found in the lymph nodes and at this point in time the only option for her survival is to begin Chemo.  The doctors want to wait until she’s reached the 6-12 weeks recovery mark.  They’re factoring in that she went in for two major surgeries 8 days apart, also factored in that she had a heart episode after each surgery.  The first one being a possible heart attack that they’re referring to as an “Episode” (crock of shit there Hopkins, crock of shit).  The second episode (following the second surgery) was a complete fuck-up by an ICU tech where she was basically overdosed on a pain killer and wound up having her heart rate at a dangerously low level.  The biggest thing to piss me off about this second “episode” (as they’re calling it) is the fact that NO ONE was called to say that she was flat-lining. The secretary is sitting there on Facebook making plans for the night – what the fuck else do you have to do??!?!!?

So we spent a total 12 days in Baltimore, basically living at the Best Western on o’Donnel Street (They are more than accommodating to Hopkins patients/families in case you’d ever need it! They truly go above and beyond expectations.)  We were informed by her doctor that she was going to be released earlier than expected so Sean and I pretty much high-tailed it out of Baltimore to get the house prepped for her arrival home.  We gutted the living room, cleared paths for her to get around, and I scrubbed/sanitized the bathroom like it’s never been scrubbed before.  We when loaded ourselves into the car and drove up to NY (the following afternoon) so that we could begin the daunting task of packing up all of our clothes Bella (who’d been in NY for almost 3 months without us), and necessary belongings to head back down to DE indefinitely. We hopped back into the car the following afternoon and met Karen and George (Sean’s father), at the house.   So figure in the course of 2 1/2 days – we were on the road for 16 hours.

We’re now slowly settling into life back in Delaware.  Originally I had everything setup in the corner of the living room but it’s proving difficult to concentrate when there’s constant activity in and out of the living room and the house itself.  There’s been absolutely no smoking in the house for the past two months and I’ve done everything I can to try to void/mask the smell but there are still some areas that it’s just so soaked into I’m unsure how to go about clearing it out anyway.  The activity increase is the fact that the dog is constantly running around the house finding bones that she forgot she hid 10 minutes before (attention span of a damn gold fish), plus there’s George and I going in and out for cigs (he more than me, but I’m no stranger to my seat on the porch either).  Plus it doesn’t help that when you get a whiff of it, you wind up wanting one yourself. SO, to solve all problems, we’ve reorganized the spare bedroom and I went out and purchased a $37 folding table from Kmart that I’m now using as a desk.  It’s larger than the table I was previously setup on and the table itself is a lot more sturdy so it makes me feel better about having a 40lb iMac permanently resting on it.

My sleep schedule was under control for a little while, but now I’m finding myself having trouble accomplishing just about everything work related.  I’m up earlier in the day (which is nice, I enjoy the sunlight for a change), but I’m back and forth running errands and going to doctors appointments.  We actually just got back from Baltimore not too long ago for a post-up follow up.  It was the “Let’s discuss our course of action” day with the Oncologist.  From there it lead to blood work and a scan.  Woke up at 6am, was out of the house by 7am, home by 4pm and now (after reorganizing and dealing with a horrible headache), I’ve finally be able to sit down and get something accomplished – Blogging.  I’m supposed to be working.  I just needed to vent and having the same conversation with people inside the house just wasn’t doing it for me.  I need to talk to the World and we all know that Twitter limits your character count… I’m already on 860 words hah.

So where do we go from here?  Sean and I have basically taken over the house.  It’s not that we wanted to, by any means, we just had no real choice in the matter – for our own conscience and moral well-being.  Karen is heavily medicated to deal with the pain, she has no left lung, she’s slowly losing her eyesight and she’s dealing with high blood pressure.  She’s only fricken 54 years old, she’s not someone who’s in her 90’s where this was a “Welp, you lived a good life, right?” situation.  She should be able to go on at least another 15-20 years!  Every time I’ve pictured my life 10-20-30 years from now, she was in the bulk of the pictures.  Why? Because she’s a second Mom, and a woman I hold dear to my heart.  Yes, like any ‘mother-in-law’ she’s a pain in my ass, but I wouldn’t change a thing because regardless of the quirks (that we both have) we get along really well.  Not many people can say that.  There’s always this ‘aura’ of the Demon mother-in-law… I personally don’t believe it and Karen’s living proof of that.

With our moving in we’ve done more than taken over the house, obviously.  We’ve been working our asses off to get all of her debt paid off.  Thankfully she doesn’t have any credit cards, so it’s really utilities/cable that we’re taking care of but she had disconnect notices for just about everything.  She did have a job prior to all of this crap going on, but she was spending her entire paycheck to put gas in the car to get to work when you crunch the numbers.  She worked 25 miles away and drives a 2006 Dodge Caravan.  It’s a gas guzzler in its own right.  PLUS, when we started with the frequent trips to Baltimore it was more gas in the tank and tolls, but less coming into the account because she obviously wasn’t able to go to work when she was 3 hours away in a different state.

So we added a good 1,000 a month to our outgoing expenses.  Thankfully by changing the billing address with Verizon our cellphones dropped like $20, that puts money back in our pocket.  We’d like to drop the car insurance down but we’re having some trouble (with the stacks of our paperwork) locating the loan information for the truck and Delaware makes you pay sales tax on a car while there’s a lein on it.  I find that absurd considering the sales tax in NY is a hell of a lot higher than DE will ever be.  I bought the truck on Long Island, we’re on the top 10 highest counties in America for crying out loud.  In order to get everything shifted down here it’s going to cost either 10% of the car, or 10% of what’s left on the loan (not sure which, honestly), but based on the balance left on the loan and the Blue Book – we’re screwed for about $1,200. So obviously the priority (before attempting to save $100 a month) we’re going to insure we’re doing it for the cost of registration – not 10% of the truck.

So yea, I didn’t want to sit here for a half hour but I couldn’t really stop myself from typing so I went with it.  Minus the medical stuff, I guess we’re all doing OK. Mentally we’re fucked but that’s because we’ve been hit with news that no one wants to hear.  It’s scared me to the point that I’m actually working on quitting smoking all together.  I’ve been a pack-a-day smoker for at least 10 years and the time has come to put it down and walk away.  I’ve got myself a pile if Mint Nicorette that I’ve been dabbing into whenever the urge is there, the training factor is whenever I’m in the car with Karen because we’re obviously not smoking anywhere near her.  So the 3+ hour car rides are gradually helping me to increase my self-control.  Since I’m technically on “Step 1”, I’m allowed one piece per hour.  I’m actually content with one piece for the entire ride.  Which is odd considering when we’re driving up (and smoking), I’m doing one every 20 minutes or so.

Sean’s taking things as best as he can… he’s not one to voice personal matters (even to me) very often so when he brings something up we discuss it and move on.  He’d prefer to be inside of his own head for things and while that’s typically very damaging to ones psyche, he actually does well with it.  He’s a special case with his mom though, she really was the primary while he was growing up (her and his Grandmother, who passed from the exact same Cancer and other issues that Karen’s experiencing – it’s scary to read her Autopsy report and compare it to Karen’s current charts, let me tell you).   He loves his father, don’t get me wrong, but there’s that “Mommy’s baby boy” type of bond there – so I think if something were to happen to her in the near future it would hit him pretty hard.  This is where we’re concerned for Chemo and the “5 year outlook” as the Oncologist described.

Either way, we’re back in Baltimore on November 6th for another follow-up appointment.  This time is for the talk of which method of Chemo are we going towards, the one that can be administered down here where she’s going once a week for sixteen weeks, or the new trial treatments that they’re doing in Hopkins where we’d be going up to Baltimore once every three weeks for upwards of a year based on the treatments themselves AND all of the follow-ups there after.  In the long run it would probably be cheaper to shut the house down in DE and rent an apartment in Baltimore for a year, honestly.  But we’re not taking that route, for all we know (knock on wood), they pulled out all of the infected Lymph Nodes and we’ll be able to say “Cancer Free” in the near future.  The reality of that is very slim, and obviously we’re not getting our hopes up.  Unfortunately this string of cancer is a death sentence…the question really is just how long is she going to be around?

Sean and I have a lot of plans… the biggest one being children.  Obviously I would love for her to be around to hopefully get a chance to help raise the little girl she always wanted.  Her and Sean are both only children, she stopped at a boy and then got herself a dog when Sean was old enough to no longer need as much attention.  I know she wanted a girl, she likes the hair/makeup/clothes thing – I don’t.  You’re lucky I even brush my hair before I throw it up into a messy bun anyway lol.  She’d be a good role model for that, and it would give her something to strive for.

I guess only time will tell.

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Still kickin’….

Monday, August 27th, 2012

I’ve wanted to sit down and blog for quite some time now, but things have been so hectic I just haven’t been able to get around to it. I remember there was a time when I’d be logged into WordPress all day just to post whatever popped into my head, this is probably why I was able to reach my max of over 150 posts in one month. Times have definetly changed, real live has trumped internet ‘life’ ten fold.

We’re still in Delaware. It’s been confirmed that Karen does have lung cancer, and it’s a very rare type of cancer that isn’t smoking based. She’s been back and forth to Baltimore (John’s Hopkins) to discuss every aspect of treatment. She was told, before all tests were final, that she’d need a lower lobectabmy in order to remove the tumor. She was hoping to be able to have a wedge taken out so that there was no major surgery involved, but she was informed today that she’s going to need the full lower lobectamy which means that a little more than a quarter of her lung will actually be removed. The way they’re going to do it is with a “VATS” type of surgery, instead of having to open up her chest and bend/cut her ribs they’ll go in through three small incisions on her side and slice the lower lobe, corterize the bleed and after deflating the lung they can bring it out through the holes. This means it’s invasive, but not as invasive as the alternative PLUS there will be less of a recovery time on her part as well. They claim she’ll only be in the hospital for 3 days and from there they want her up and moving around right after to begin rebuilding her lung function. So it’s going to be a long road ahead, but essentially the tumor should be completely removed and she will need no further treatments with Kemo or Radiation so that’s the upside.

As far as Work is concerned, things have been absolutely crazy. I don’t like having to constantly complain about it, but there hasn’t really been a day where I can say that there wasn’t a stack of things to complete. Right now I’m working on a major family farm/orchard located on Long Island, and I’ve unfortunately had to put a few clients on the backburner – which is nothing I enjoy doing because I hate to prolong things for longer than they need to. There’s some unhappy people and I’m stretched so thin I can’t even cater to it. Absolutely horrible in the business sense, let me tell you.

On top of everything else going on, my back is still completely shot. I’ve had a few days where it was OK, but from there things have just been a downward spiral. Every morning I’m waking up with more pain than the day before, and no matter what I do to try to ease the pain, things just get worse. I’ve found that the only way to maintain any ounce of comfort is to lay down for 15 minute intervals throughout the course of the day, some days its more frequently than others. Right now I’m fighting through the pain just to get this entry written, the sheer act of sitting in an upright position is putting so much pressure onto my sciatic nerve that I don’t even know how I’m not crying in pain. Sean just ran out to pick up dinner so I’m going to continue fighting through it until I can shift to the bedroom with the laptop and hopefully be able to get things done before the 10am deadline.

My sleep schedule is still completely fucked up. There have been some days when I’ve been up and going around 9am, and other days where I’m unconcious until 6pm. The biggest issue is the fact that I can’t get a restful sleep, I’m constantly moving and having random instances of a shooting pain going down my leg that feels as though I’m being struck by lightening. I know it has to do with the sciatic nerve, but would really like to know why the nerve is acting up so much to begin with.

I’m assuming, to a degree, that the bed we’re sleeping in has something to do with it. It was given to Karen by a friend who was redoing their home and it’s obviously just a guest bed but we’ve turned it into ‘our bed’ based soley on how long we’ve been here (2 months as of 8/29). We are heading home at some point in the next week to pick up some warmer clothes, the computers and Bella. I think we’re staying for a few days just to get everything in order, but then we’re back down here for the surgery, and from there we’re not sure as to how long we’re staying. The biggest point is to just be prepared.

It hasn’t been ‘work work work’ the entire time… Sean and I have taken a liking to heading down to Cape Henlopen Park at night to go fishing. We’ve gone just about once a week, got our licenses for down here so we can pretty much go whenever we please. We bought some poles and have a little tackle box and we just head down there with our chairs and if we catch something – great – if not oh well. We’re there for the ability to just clear our heads for a little while, and there are so many stars in the sky you can’t help but relax. No major ambient lights messing with the view, everything is peaceful and calm.

In any event, Sean just walked in the door. I’m starving, and in more pain than I really need to be. I think I’m going to eat some food and head to the bedroom so I can get some work done.

Gonna be a long night.

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Malware and Masses BE GONE!!

Saturday, July 14th, 2012

I received a couple of emails informing me of Malware on the site, unfortunately with everything going on I wasn’t able to actually login to work on things more than just upgrading WordPress via my phone. Turns out the Malware was no where near as bad as some of the sites that I’ve been working on. One of the Malware hits was so severe I had to completely recode the website because every template file was infected and beyond repair. “Why not just upload your copy of the theme?” simple – I’m in Delaware – not New York and don’t have access to the original files. Redoing the entire site from scratch was the only way to go.

In reference to the attack here, however, the only effected file was index.php which is two lines of code pulling the blog header file from the WordPress directory. Once I went through all of the template files to confirm there was nothing else to worry about and did a fresh reinstall of the current WP version I now no longer need to worry about anything. I submitted my site through the Webmaster tools with Google so it stopped kicking the error back to me and hopefully there won’t be any problems moving forward. I don’t understand how it happens, but at this point all I can say is “Whatever, it’s gone now” and move along.

So, as I noted, we’re in Delaware. Typically it would be our usual work during the day and head down to the beach at night, being as that’s what we always did when we actually lived down here during the summer months. However, it’s been much different this time around and now instead of “Go to Beach” it’s “Catch the hell up!”.

Unfortunately Sean’s mom has been having medical issues and instead of going to any of the doctors down here (since they suck balls) we made the trip up to Baltimore to spend some time floating around the numerous departments in Johns Hopkins main hospital so she could actually get proper care. After having some chest pain, shortness of breath and elevated heart rate the choice to walk right into the E.R. was pretty much manditory. From there, she was admitted and wound up in the hospital for about 5 days (in total). We went up on a Friday, wound up waiting until very early Saturday morning before she actually made it into a room. I attempted to get some sleep in the car but it was during the middle of the heat wave and we were in a parking garage so that just didn’t happen. Sean wound up crashing in his mothers room a little after 7am and got a few hours of sleep while everyone was trying to make heads or tails of things.

After he woke up we decided to head back to Rehoboth because on top of needing to take a shower and get some proper sleep – we also needed to do some light laundry and get everything together for Sean’s mom due to the fact that none of us had any idea that she would be admitted to the hospital and had absolutely no clothes or any kind of ‘overnight’ supplies with us. We wound up driving two cars back up, which was not fun AT ALL being as we got stuck in the middle of a monsoon on Sunday night. It wound up turning the 2 1/2 hour trip into a 3 hour trip just because we had no choice but to pull over. If I can’t even see the tail lights of the car in front of me there’s absolutely no way in hell I’m going to keep moving. My choice for stopping was warrented, and confirmed when we got back on the road after things had let up and saw a pretty major accident on the south bound lane that was more than likely due to the lack of visability.

So Sean and I stayed at the Tremonth Plaza in Baltimore for a few nights. The hotel in its own right was really nice, the people were friendly and having the car locked away in a parking garage made me feel very safe knowing that nothing was going to randomly disappear. They offer a shuttle service to the Hopkins hospitals so that you don’t have to worry about navigating your way around Baltimore AND paying additional money for parking.  They offered parking for free at their facility, so that cut down on expenses quite a bit.  It also helped that they offer their rooms at a discounted rate if you’re family of someone who’s currently admitted.

After two nights in the hotel, and countless hours floating around the hospital she was released and we’ve been back down here ever since. Unfortunately it’s taken me forever to catch up on everything when considering I was on some pretty serious deadlines that I had to post-pone for clients. It also didn’t help that my backs been bothering me from all of the excessive walking with horrible unsupportive sneakers.

We’ve been down here for a few weeks, it’s not like we just showed up and instantly went up to the hospital. I just know that his Mom wasn’t feeling too hot the night we came down and things have just kind of spiraled from there. Thankfully everything appears under control now, there are still more appointments to get through but I think after this coming Monday things should be OK. We’re heading back up to Baltimore so she can have the mass on her lung looked into. There are also issues with her heart that need to be looked after, but I highly doubt we’ll be able to get into any offices for that while we’re up there.

Needless to say, this one-two week trip has turned into a longer than anticipated stay. It’s just my hope that everything begins to work itself out, and I’m able to get through the weeks worth of work that I’m backed up with. I’m seriously considering hiring other hands but haven’t seen anyone floating around that can really be trusted with “hush-hush” type of clients. Everyone wants to put something into their portfolio and don’t seem to understand what NDA actually means. It drives me crazy, but that’s the caliber of people floating around these days I guess. I think I’m better off just pushing through exhaustion and trying to get as much done as humanly possible over the course of the next few days.

I just know that I some how need to force myself to sleep by 10pm on Sunday so I can be ready to leave the house by 6:30 on Monday morning. Not looking forward to dealing with Baltimore traffic on a Monday so we’ll see how well this goes. :crosses fingers:

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In Honor of HUMP day

Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

So here’s the thing, I dont like to complain and I don’t think I ask too much……I just want five freakin minutes of peace!!

I have been battling this new crazy schedule of cranky baby in the day, getting absolutely nothing accomplished except making baba and finding the binkie (pacafier) my son loves to throw under the couch all day. Once my husband gets home from work all I can think is WHERE DO I START! Not only do I have my work that I get paid for to catch up on, before anyone figures out I haven’t completed it all day…..but my house is a freakin disaster. I finally got to the dishes and laundry yesterday. The livingroom and bedroom were glowing on Monday. What goes on in this house that I can not keep it clean for one freakin full day?

So today, my husband was kind enough to remind me that he couldn’t remember the last time I took a shower. I of course thanked him, cause REALLY, I can’t figure out that I stink, duh!! Anywho, I decide I am going to clean tub and take a bubble bath and read my book (maybe even finish it)……Lets see how this went down.

Wash the tub – check

Sweep the floor so its nice when I step out – check

Run HOT water – check

Find stopper – check

Find a old favorite bath salt – check

Hot water is nice and hot, bath salts have been poured in, book ready to be read. I undress, take first step into bath and wonder why there is a weird smell….combination of moth balls and amonia.  Whatever, it will go away, I just need to relax. I get all comfy in the water, reading my book by page two the tub is half empty…..seriously! No worries, I can work with it….I notice the door start to open, here comes the eefing cat. She needs to see what I am doing and use her litter box. Now, I don’t know if anyone elses cat does this, but she goes in there and scratches at all the walls, wtf. So I yell at her to get out…..and in comes the weird smell again, so the combination was that freakin cats toilet and my bath salts that were way too old to enjoy ever again. But the bottle is pretty so I might keep for bathroom prop.

Then my water gets even lower, the cat left door open so draft is making room perfectly chilly. The cat is now in the bedroom, scratching on everything, and knocking stuff over. All I here is “scratch, scratch, crash” I yell at her to get out, and she defiantly meow’s back at me! It just keeps going, finally four pages into my book, a qaurter filled cold bubble bath and amonia/moth ball filled room later, I get out of tub, kick cat out of room. Put on same old house pants I started with, and will go make dinner.

I just want five freakin minutes! I guess when I take my SHOWER, after dinner I can count it as a rest from my house.

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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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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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Seriously?

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Today is one of those days where the only thing I can really think of saying is “WTF Mate?”.

I’m working on converting a site from tables to divs.  Now, while this may seem like an easy task (and typically is), I’ve found myself wanting to rip out my hair because I have absolutely no idea on where to start other than completely from scratch and implementing the remainder of the code.  Even ‘from scratch’ is proving to be difficult considering its a custom script where the creator obviously has NO idea on how to do anything.

The other “WTF” moment was a comment that I deleted from my pending queue, someone named “Mark” left a bit.ly URL for his website and what appears to be a valid email address noting that they’ve been here before, but lost the link (bull shit, bull shit, bull shit…yada yada) and informed me that my SEO is not up to par.  Dude, it’s a fucking personal site, are you serious?  #1, I could care less about SEO, and #2, if you type “Krissy” into Google I’m already on the first page, my PR rank is a 3 (no idea how I got that back), and I hardly ever, if at all, update…. so what’s the freaking point?

On a side note, I’m slowly coming along with My Portfolio and AcidGloss.net.  I’ve decided to keep ‘krissys-portfolio’ but the redirected domain is AGnDesignsNET.  The reason for this is it makes no sense to push everything to acidgloss.net when I do still wish to keep that as a blog.  So, agndesigns.net was available, I paid my $10, and now its just a matter of working in the content.

I’ve been working on some high profile clients, which would always look good in a portfolio, I’m also dumping all of the little BS templates that were in there for the longest time and really do not show off any kind of design skill other than my ability to whip something up in Photoshop in ten minutes and not think twice about it.  That’s bad for business, and a portfolio should utilize your best…and that’s what I fully intend to do.

The major rush behind getting everything back up and running is the pending write-ups that I need to do. I have at least 15-20 articles to write and have absolutely no ability to concentrate on my own stuff to get it done.  I’m hoping that within the next few days I can buckle down and accomplish that but it seems that every time I get some down time, someone kicks some work my way so thats an instant “nope, not gonna happen today” kind of downside.

Either way I’ll figure it out.  I also just needed to post here because it’s been well over a month, and while I do update twitter regularly, it’s not the same as sitting down for ten minutes and actually posting something here.

So now I’m off to continue working on the monstrocity that is client #3 for the day.

I need a cig 🙁

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Ok…

Friday, November 19th, 2010

So things between Sean and I have gone down hill and we’ve decided to take a break to figure things out. I don’t know what the next couple of weeks are going to bring. Its either going to be a situation of both of us wanting to move on with our lives individually or move ahead with eachother. Its really up in the air right now but its equally painful for both of us. Im hopeful that things will work out but who knows what the universe has in store for us.

There’s alot that I’ve needed to work on for quite some time now and I believe this is the opportunity I need to begin getting myself in order. I need to get everything figured out with finances and school. I also need to figure out what path im even on in my life and which obstacles are in my way so I conquer them.  I would have liked to do everything with Sean by my side but I also need to be on my own for a while as this is something I haven’t done for the last ten years of my life. Im 26, working a dead end job and trying my hardest to accomplish my goals interally even though I have no physical or emotional strength to deal with it all at this moment in time. I can day dream all I want but the act of accomplishing is more rewarding. So I guess its time to truly see what I’m capable of.

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Reorganized & Unhealthy

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

I know I haven’t updated in a while but it has a lot to do with how busy I’ve been for the past five/six days.  Karen and I were talking the other night in the kitchen, which is a typical thing for us, and the topic of clearing up her desk area (in the kitchen) came up.  When she moved in she kind of threw all of the bills and other desk related things on a couple of shelves and into the filing cabinet and that’s been her system for the past few years now.  Me, being an organizational freak, asked if she’d ever let me do something with it and then out of no where she runs to her bedroom and pulls out all kinds of storage and organizational solutions that I was surprised she’d even had, considering the state of the desk to begin with.

The next morning (Thursday) she left to meet up with her sister in Atlantic City.  I then took over the daunting task of finally organizing all of her paperwork to make her life much, much easier.  After doing a complete and total clean up of the kitchen, giving me ample counter space to spread out on,  I started with the filing cabinet and about 6 hours later I’d completed my sort through about 10 years worth of paperwork to put it all into proper labeled folders.  When the weight of completing that was lifted from my shoulders, I looked up to the shelves above me and I’ll admit, my head began to throb a little.  I pulled things down a few piles at a time and sorted through everything.  I then reorganized the items that were meant to stay out on that shelf and everything is now complete.  The project time took me about 10 hours in total, and that’s not counting the two breaks I took to put my eyes back in the sockets.  Damn did they need a rest!

The next morning I knew that there was a lot more to accomplish, it was great to walk into the kitchen and not see that mess around the computer but when I’d gotten a paper cut the evening before I attempted to find a band aid in the medicine cabinet but was unable to dig through everything to easily find one.  Expired medicine and prescription medication for her mother (whom died in 2005) was taking over ample space in this cabinet.  So I went through all of that as well, and it turned out pretty nicely.  There was even extra space available on the top shelf so I then had room to get everything off of the counters that was medicine related as well.

I floated around the house and sprinkled some carpet fresh and then vacuumed the entire house and managed to clean up the coffee table and any other surface that was covered in clutter.  The only spot that I couldn’t get to (because my back went out again thanks to over-working myself) was our “Junk” area in the kitchen.  It’s a pile of just about everything, that’s hidden when you first look at the kitchen (it’s under the bar – that no one uses because of the awkward height of the chairs for it).

My back is still very sore, I have good days and bad days.  Unfortunately the really nasty weather isn’t helping very much either.  It’s got everyone in a funk and the cold weather isn’t doing anything good for my back these days.  I have the windows open during the day, even though it’s chilly, to air out the stale smoke smell in the house.  Karen went back to smoking when she put Candy down and she’s just now getting back on her Nicorette.  Unfortunately when she smokes in the house, my twinge for it kicks in and I started doing it as well.  I’ve always gone outside, probably why I was always able to tan so well considering I’d be outside all day long in the summer with my laptop and a cig.  But a few bad weeks and now I’m back on track with things.  I’ve also added filters to my cigs, even though I smoke Ultra-Lights I’m still injesting a lot of TAR, and now I’ve gotten myself tarless filters to help me cut down on that intake.  Eventually I’ll be completely done with it.  I’ve purchased my last carton and by this time next week (at the rate that I smoke) I’ll be “cold turkey” and able to get around without getting winded.  It’s a 10 year addiction that’s being thrown away in one night – hopefully my PMDD doesn’t kick in cause Sean won’t know what hit him.

I’m patiently waiting on call-backs from a few companies.  I’m still hoping to land the job for that interview I went on a few weeks ago.  I’m also waiting on some kind of an email from a company I was just accepted to as a contractor.  I sent in all of the paperwork last week, EIN# and everything else included.  I’m just not in their system yet so I can’t start floating through the LEADS to start working.

In any event, I need to find something to do.  There’s nothing really going on online and I don’t have any work waiting for me.  I think I’m going to straighten up the kitchen and make some lunch for Bella and I.  She isn’t feeling too well but that has a lot to do with the rain, we haven’t been able to bring her out as often as she’s used to so I think she’s feeling withdrawn as well.

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Not too much going on…

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

It’s unseasonably warm today. I went through my morning routine with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. On my way outside I bundled up not realizing the extreme weather change. The bedroom was rather chilly this morning, so that’s another reason for not thinking about it. I had on my pull-over because I tend to wear that all day and knowing the chill I put my regular coat on as well. The second I stepped out the door I felt the wind but it wasn’t a chilled wind that I’d grown accustomed to over the course of the last few months (it is Winter after all). I quickly had to come back in the house to strip down to my T-shirt because anything more than that would have been murder. The last weather check shows 68¬?F(20¬?C for Bronnie). We’re expected to get up to about 75¬?F (23¬?C). I do know this is part of the big string of storms that just hit the midwest last night. The last time I looked at the death toll it was 52. I can only imagine what the storm is going to do when it makes it’s way up here. Bella is SO going to need to learn to use some wee-wee pads today once that rain comes through, this complex floods with a half-hours worth of rain, torrential down-pours? Oh my.

Voting was yesterday, and I walked into the elementary school with a big grin on my face ready to cast my vote for Obama (yea, after carefully reading through transcripts and watching him on television – he’s my choice this term). Some have asked why I didn’t want to vote for Clinton and my main reason is she’s a republican posing as a democrat, and she’s dependent upon her husband for way too much of her exposure. She also doesn’t seem to know how to turn off “politician” mode. So naturally going with the more laid back guy who is willing to put forth changes that are good for this country, especially on topics of economy and immigration, he’s the one (for me) to choose. You’re entitled to feel different about it, that’s why we’re the country we are. I would just like to see a President in office that doesn’t base his entire choices of our country on a religious standpoint. Yes, he’s against Gay marriage, but he’s not throwing it down our throats either.

But anyway, I get to the school and wait in line, only to be told that I’m not going to be able to vote because when I registered at the DMV a few weeks back I listed myself as independent and unfortunately you can’t vote independent when there’s only Republicans and Democrats up for the primaries. So that upset me quite a bit. The lady assured me that come November I’ll be able to vote for whomever I please. Thankfully Obama won Delaware anyway, I’m just hoping that he can actually keep it up and take over as many delegates as possible. While I really do believe that it’s time for a woman to be in office, I don’t believe Hilary is that woman. There’s nothing against her personally, there are just some things about her mannerisms that really bother me.

So after all of the voting stuff was done we headed back up Route-1 and stopped into one of the Outlets on the way home. Tanger Seaside, or something like that. I had a few gifts from Christmas to return and they were purchased from the Lane Bryant outlet. I was going to return everything in New York when I went shopping up there but you can only return outlet clothes, to outlet stores. I also don’t see the point in calling it an OUTLET when it’s just as expensive as the free-standing stores or even the ones in malls. But my reason for returning everything was based on the fact that everything was huge on me. I used to enjoy swimming in clothing but that’s because I was making every effort to hide myself, even though it only made me appear larger in the long run. I’m now going smaller in sizes and while things are still a bit large on me (depending on the item, of course) it’s no where near as bad as I used to be.

But with the $50 credit from the clothing, and the $40 some-odd dollars off with the gift certificate from my father (It was $200 but I did go shopping when I was up in NY). I picked up a pair of capris, a button down pin-stripe, and a few bed shirts for the whopping total of $7. They would have owed ME money if I could have used my $10 off certificate that I got from the Lane Bryant store but unfortunately they don’t take them. Savages.

I’ve been working pretty hard on coming up with a template for my interview. A phone call on Monday with the CEO has me in full “get ‘er done” mode and I’ve made a few different logo variations for one of their partner companies and now I need to remake their current template. The pressures of February/March are beginning to take it’s toll on me though, we’re coming up to the 2-year mark with Joe and my concentration has been more like A.D.D. My sound sensitivity has come back with full force, making it even harder to concentrate. I have to get this done within the next few hours though – I just hope I’m able to design something they like and be content with it as I’m sending over files.

:: crosses fingers ::

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Infestations SUCK!

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

So I have to say it’s been a pretty interesting couple of days.¬† Karen and I are currently working on cleaning out the house so we can drop a flea bomb.¬† There were a few crawling around on Candy, and even more floating around on Princess, we didn’t see it until they both got baths this past week and the fleas just fell off them.¬† Turns out Karen’s room is covered in them which means the rest of the house is full of them.¬† Bella has nothing on her but that’s because she’s been protected with Frontline Plus since the day I got her, but now that we’re aware of the infestation we’re all on our toes and itching like crazy when we go to certain areas of the house.

So her bedroom was cleared out yesterday and we dropped a more localized bomb that she picked up from the pet store, it came highly recommended by a few of the customers and employees in there.¬† It’s good to know that we’re not the only house down here who’s got them – lord knows who else does.¬† So she spent about 3 hours vacuuming the bedroom, dropped the bomb and basically went to sleep in the living room because she didn’t want to go back in there last night – and I don’t blame her.¬† She woke me up about 8am this morning because she was vacuuming up the bomb and now I think she’s going to start doing some laundry so she can begin moving things back into the room so we can now tackle the living room and the hallway.¬† I know that today we’ll also have to do my bedroom and the office – Sean won’t be too happy about it but he has a laptop and is perfectly capable of working in the living room for a few hours.¬† Worse case scenario he goes to the library up the block and gets some work done in the peace and quiet there.

I’ve got to go through a lot of email then get my ass in gear on cleaning up the office.¬† I did the bedroom this past weekend but obviously I’m going to need to vacuum the shit out of it again and then drop the bomb in there – this should just be HEAPS of fun.¬† I can’t even throw the dogs outside today while we’re doing all of this because it’s raining and I don’t have a good sized gate to block off the stairs from Bella charging out of here.¬† I may wind up going to the pet store with Karen to pick up some more of this bomb stuff – maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and invest in a gate to throw up when we get back.¬† I don’t like tapping into the loan money but when you’ve just transferred everything out of Paypal to the bank account you really have no choice in the matter.

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Take me to the Beach…

Saturday, November 3rd, 2007

For the past month or so I’ve noticed that I’m in somewhat of a funk.¬† Life is good right now so it’s not really an emotional funk, I’m just having trouble brainstorming ideas for new clients, as well as current personal projects.¬† Up until the launch of the summer season down here, Sean and I spent quite a bit of time at the beach.¬† I’m not sure what it is but there’s something about the way the waves hit the shore that spark my inspiration to astronomical levels.¬† Now, going almost every evening did have a wonderful effect on me but when you don’t go for three months you’ve lost your ability to regain that inspiration you once bottled up inside for the rainy day.¬† Right now I’m to the point of being completely drained.¬† I can literally stare at Photoshop for three hours and not come up with a damn thing.¬† I can’t even find anything online anymore because everyone has the same thing going on with their blogs.¬† Businesses are no better considering they all find a template on templatemonster or another site like that so they basically all look the same.¬† I want to come across something unique, I’ve even reverted to looking through scrapbooks to see templates that I’ve done with paper in the past in hopes to recreate them in Photoshop, but even that isn’t working out very well for me.

The remnants of tropical storm Noel are heading this way, by 2am there are going to be gusts of wind reaching the 60 MPH range and that just makes me wonder what kind of an effect that will have on the shore.¬† I quietly asked Sean if we could head down to the beach tonight so we can get back into the swing of things but he’s so bogged down with work that he has no idea if that’s even going to happen.¬† His boss sent him a major “To Do” list and he has to complete it tonight, I’m unsure of how in-depth this list is, it could just be quick corrections and he’ll have them done within the hour.

Either way it’d be nice to get out of here just to relax on the cold benches down at the shore right now.¬† I know it’s cold and extremely windy but I can fight through that with a hot cup of coffee or hot chocolate from 7-11 and just sit back and listen for a while.¬† And there’s something about the beach that strengthens our relationship as well.¬† Sure, we talk all day long but there’s always a boost of energy when we’re down at the beach that surprises us to this day.¬† We can get through all of our problems, talk things out and the only outside influence is nature.¬† It’s strange, but I don’t think we’d have it any other way.

With the upcoming move to Ohio there is a lot of unsettled emotions between the two of us.¬† It’s not anything in particular but we’ve equally been on edge about things.¬† The frustration of just wanting to get up and go, on top of not knowing if the person we’re trying to get a hold of is even OK at this point in time, let alone HOME for that matter.¬† I’m sure we’ll work through it all eventually, but things were moving along very nicely for quite some time and now they’re at a standstill, so much so that I can’t even get any work done because my concentration levels are non existent.

This sucks.

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I’m having trouble waiting for this one…

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

It’s been a pretty long day.¬† I woke up a lot later than I intended to but I’ve managed to put in a solid six hours of work so far, so I assume that counts for something.¬† Monthly earnings, thus far, have me in the $300 range so if I can keep up with it I’ll have another $3,000 month – before any design work kicks in for me.¬† I’ve been putting in some bids on GAF to make up for the slack of last month.¬† I went through a few weeks where I just wasn’t doing too well so hopefully this will resolve itself, financially, over the course of the next few days.¬† I’m still not feeling very well but I want to assume this is due to the weather change.¬† I don’t feel a cold coming on, but my body kind of feels as though it’s eventually going to crap out on me.¬† I have antibiotics and aspirin on hand in case something big blows up.¬† Stress may be the cause of it, lord knows how bad my back has been acting up because of it.

We’re leaving for New York on Friday around 6.¬† If we can avoid any major traffic we should be there by 11 (midnight at the latest) so I can take a much needed nap and then head out to the bank on Saturday morning with my father.¬† I’m have to call him tomorrow to verify plans, I’m just patiently waiting for the HSBC letter to show up for me.¬† If it’s not here by Friday – I don’t know what I’m going to do.¬† 7-10 days takes a lot longer when you’re anticipating something so heavily.

I figure on Sunday I’ll go to Breakfast with my father since we’re leaving on Sunday night.¬† Originally we were going to go to dinner but we have to get back down here before Monday morning so there really isn’t much of a choice there.

I’ll be booking the room for A.C. on Saturday as well.¬† I figure if I’m up there the same weekend as my father we can at least have dinner together there.¬† I have a few comps for buffets in almost all of the hotels so I’m sure something will work out.¬† Sean has one, I have one and my father has one but each comp covers two people.¬† So whoever winds up tagging along is covered – basically.

In any event, I could put in another four hours – maybe it’ll keep my mind off things.

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Still Awake…

Monday, October 1st, 2007

I can’t sleep and I hate when this happens.¬† Sean is in the office playing Halo 3, Bella’s snoring her little head off next to me and since it’s after 5:30am, an alarm clock is going off in excess because it’s owner is a dead sleeper who refuses to get out of bed until about 6am.¬† I never thought alarm clocks were made to be that loud but if it’ll wake the dead then it’ll wake the rest of the complex too.

I tried going to sleep about two hours ago.¬† But when you spend time looking at the ceiling and your brain won’t shut up long enough for you to relax then actually falling asleep just doesn’t seem like an option at that point in time.¬†¬† Hopefully this will change soon because I’m sick of being awake at this point.

On Friday I brought Bella in to the groomer.¬† I’m not really happy with the result, but I’m not unhappy either.¬† Knowing that Winter is just around the corner, having her shaved down now seemed reasonable because by December she’ll be back to her usual fluffy self and just some upkeep here and there to avoid heavy matting is all that really needs to be done during the winter months.¬† I asked for my usual puppy cut, cut the nails, squeeze the anals so she doesn’t drag her ass across the floor, thin out the ears and definitely thin out the tail.¬† I leave and hang around for the day until about 2pm when they call to have me come and get her.¬† The groomer comes out with this little tan dog that’s dying to get to me but looks NOTHING like Bella at all.¬† She cut too short around the face but left these fluffy ears so she kind of looks like an alien with a wig on.¬† Her tail was done right though, but they did cut a little too close to the skin and I have to say this is one of the shortest puppy-cuts I’ve ever seen.

So this, to me, explains why she’s been so clingy being as she’s freezing her ass off thanks to the damn weather change.¬† She never usually gets cold, but she’s been shivering lately which has Sean comparing her to a Chihuahua.¬† Based on how thin her face and legs are now, yea I can see the comparison, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be verbalized.

I knew it was going to start getting cooler down here but the 80 degree days followed by 50 degree over-nights are more than enough to drive someone to the point of being violently ill.¬† I know that my nose is starting to run because I’m freezing at night and then sweating my proverbial balls off during the day.

Oh great, now Princess is looking to get into the bedroom.¬† I’m going to force myself to sleep so I don’t have to listen to anymore whimpering.¬† She’s trying to get into Karen’s room but for some reason Karen left her in the living room tonight and I won’t be awake long enough to find out why so I’ll ask later – I guess I only noted it here as a reference for when I get back online this afternoon.¬† I forget things when I’m tired, I always have.

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Halo 3, Loans, Sickness and Stress

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Sean’s birthday was this past Friday, I gave him a gift certificate to EB Games because tonight was the launch of Halo 3.¬† He’s been playing Halo 2 for the past four years or so and the anticipation, plus the hype, surrounding Halo 3¬†was bound to spark his interest.¬† Me, being the good girlfriend that I am,¬†decided to give him a $150 gift card so he could get the limited edition version that game in some helmet with a few other disks.¬† I figure since it’s the last installment, it’s something he really wanted, and it isn’t worth waiting in line for hours just to pick up a single game – the $130 limited edition would be more than worth it.

I was expecting him to be gone for a while, he left at 11:30 for the Midnight launch but found out earlier this week that the Halo 2 launch had a pretty large turn out, so much so that the parking lot was full and the line stretched from EB Games to Superfresh.¬† This is about 1,000 or so feet, so I assumed this time that he’d be gone for a while, so I curled up in bed and started reading my new book.¬† He walked in the door at 12:15 and I’m sitting here thinking “Oh shit, what happened?”.¬† He had this large box in his hand and literally jumped for joy, he was #50 on a line of 100 pre-order people, the non-preorder line was quite long so he’s happy that he’s already completely paid for the game.¬† He walked in with the voucher and his photo ID and the rest was history.¬† Now he’s playing in the office, and I’m on Karen’s computer in the kitchen because my laptops in the office and walking in front of him isn’t an option right now.

On the loan front, instead of Sean and I co-borrowing, I’ve gotten in touch with my father and he’s willing to co-sign on a loan for me.¬†¬†I didn’t want to ask him, but with the amount of money we’re looking to take out, having someone with a 760+ credit score is the only option.¬† I’m in the 680-700 range, Sean probably doesn’t even rank based on his credit history so maybe going with my father on the loan will get us the money we need to get out of here.¬† So tomorrow I’ll be making a phone call for all of the information and going from there.¬† Hopefully this is the route that works, if not – we’re completely tapped for ideas.¬† Staying in Delaware would be great but it’s just too expensive.¬† I refuse to live in Pennsylvania and New York (while it would be the best option for me) isn’t the best option for my wallet.¬† An apartment anywhere on the Island is going to cost more money than we can spare if we’re paying back a loan.¬† And knowing the Island the way that I do, anything “affordable” is usually in the worst of area’s so it’s not even worth it at this point.

It’s not that we don’t HAVE the money that we need in order to get out of here.¬† It’s just the matter of extra expenses showing up.¬† We could easily put our savings into getting his car fixed, or even getting a new one, but that would wipe out the account either way and then we’d be back to square one.¬† Having the extra money via a loan is the only option right now.

I’m not sure if it’s the fact that the loan situation is getting to me, the fact that my period is coming to an end or just the weather in general but I’ve been under the weather for the past few weeks and it’s getting harder and harder to shake it.¬† Frequent headaches have had me in bed for longer than I’d like to be, I’m lucky I can even sit up straight right now considering the throbbing.¬†¬†I’ve put myself back on antibiotics because my tooth has been acting up and a dentist won’t touch me until the swelling goes down, another reason for the money crunch right now.¬† You go out of your way to eat better, lose some more weight than you currently were, and that one freaking piece of broccoli can rip a soft tooth in half.¬† The nerve is exposed, so I’ve been having trouble chewing, it’s just the swelling that’s stopping me from getting any work done.

Bella seems as though she’s feeling a little better, I’m scheduling an appointment for Thursday to get her groomed.¬† She’s starting to get a little matted down on her ears, I’ve done a good job on keeping her brushed out so that they don’t form around her legs, but trying to get anywhere near her face with a scissor is like pulling teeth.¬† I’ll have the groomer take care of it.¬† I figure if I get it done now,¬†she’s covered for Winter until the next time she has to go back.¬† And if it gets too cold, she’s got a jacket so there’s no big deal.

I get picked on for having clothes for the dog, but it’s not like she’s running around the house in a little tshirt that says “Princess” on it or something.¬† I have a standard heavy jacket that just snaps on for Winter.¬† Vets and animal lovers across the globe have said that if it’s too cold for you, it’s too cold for your dog.¬† So yea, in 40 degree weather, she’s not exactly freezing, but when it drops down to like 15, as predicted in Ohio, she’s going to need one.

In any event, it’s pushing 1am and that means it’s time to get my ass to bed.

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