Burlap Soul

So many things to say tonight. But the stress of all those things has just made me too damn tired to say them.

J. is in Minneapolis for work tonight and tomorrow. Living in a tri-state river city, I cannot even imagine what that city is going through today. Still, is it selfish of me to just want him home, here with me, my head on his shoulder and falling asleep in his arms? So much sadness up there today and all I want is my new husband home with me? I need a shoulder to cry on, I need arms wrapped around me, I need to hear that it's okay, I need to hear that all my decisions are the right ones, I need to know that I can make it through the next 8 days until I am free, I need to know that I am enough, that we will be okay, that my smile is not lost forever.

Basically, I just need to know that I am loved and that someone understands.

I don't know what it is exactly that has me so down lately. It seems that since we've gotten back from our honeymoon, things are just stressful, hard and sad. I don't feel as though we've had time to just be newlyweds and I'm not sure that time will come and that's what's really depressing me. I miss it when it was just us on that beautiful island and we didn't have to worry about anything but being in love - no outside stressors to take away our glow. It's more than just a "back to reality" thing. It's a "back to reality" thing that's lasted for nearly two months. We're tired, we're exhausted, we're stressed and we're just not having any fun. We can't find the two minutes it would take to have two minutes together.

There's more than that going on though and I know it. I just couldn't put my finger on it until today. We have a new puppy and he's a serious time-sucker, that's for sure. But still, he's actually the bright spot of my day. He's a new beginning in the middle of so many... well, endings. I realized today that I am surrounded by nothing but endings lately and I think it's what's wearing me so damned thin. End of "single" life, end of a one-well-behaved-dog life, end of lifelong friendships I thought would last forever, end of a somewhat healthy relationship with my mother, end of a job that's given me co-workers I actually like, end of being financially independent, end of constantly planning a joyous event, end of virginity, end of a life with normal periods and no birth control, end of rental/apartment living, end of putting off the home projects, end of daily lunch hours out by myself, end of feeling productive, important and attending company events, end of a daily commute, end of wearing only a single ring and feeling full of optimism, end of my twenties, end of all the reasons to put off all the decisions I haven't had time to wanted to make for the past three years.

My computer still has my July calendar wallpaper on it. It's a photo of some flowers with this Joseph Campbell quote: "Be willing to relinquish the life you've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for you."

Is that what I'm doing? Relinquishing this financially independent/ work on the house/ plan some more projects/ let's go on vacation/ kind of life so that I can return to the maybe I want to be a photographer/ behaviorist/ artist/ activist/ who the hell knows/ I'm still broke/ kind of life? Is something else out there waiting for me? Is it something I haven't even thought of? Because, seriously, for as much as I think, that's just statistically improbable. I've thought of every damn thing... and arrived at nothing.

I have one more week left at my job and J. and I both mentioned today that it feels like a year away. My job makes me miserable and I can bust my ass as much as I want, but nothing will happen, nothing will change and no one will give a damn - at least not anyone with any power. So why in the hell did I agree to stay one more week anyway? Oh that's right - because I felt like I owed them something. Um, no. They've given me nothing, but here I am as usual, feeling as though if I just cared enough, I could change the world. Did I not learn that lesson from parenting my parents?

Maybe instead of Joseph Campbell's quote on my monitor, I should just update my work wallpaper to say, "No matter how much I care, some people are just assholes." Yeah, that would work better and sadly, it's more inspirational. I might just put that up instead. What are they going to do? Fire me? (please??)

Yeah. At least it's the last weekend that I spend dreading Monday. And that's truly something.

The official and professional wedding photos are in!! And they're awesome!! Yayyyy!!!

Psst! Wanna see? Email me, baby. :-D

So today I got my first real, live, legitimate hair cut in nearly 30 years. Wanna see?

Head on over to the Photolog. Feedback shamelessly begged for and welcome. :-)

So today was my last day at my job. We all had drinks afterward and it was quite fun. It's always hard to leave a job where you really like your co-workers. If the job just didn't suck so much, I'd be tempted to stay for a while longer. However, in the end, it just isn't what I want to do. The frustrations outweigh the benefits at this point and to be honest, it's time to go for what I want to do, rather than just continue doing what I have to do. That's why I've decided that I'm not settling ever again. My next job will either be animal work or freelance photography. It's that simple. Time to get started making dreams and let the rest just work itself out. Yeah, I have student loans, I have physical therapy and medical debts I'm still paying off, but doesn't everyone have an excuse for something? Not me. Not anymore. If I waited until everything was done and ready, then I'd be 80 years old and unable to remember what the hell it was I had dreamed of at all.

So it's onward and upward. It's sad, it's a little scary, but in the end, it's a good and happy thing and I can't wait to get started. How about you? What dream are you putting off until the "right time?" Why isn't that time now? Really, just what is it you're waiting for?

Sorry everyone. I fucked up. I'm trying to get a new template up here and accidentally deleted the nice clean kitty one, so you get this old one.

Have patience. I'm working on it.

Hmmmm... it's okay for now I guess. Considering that I've been working on this template nearly all day and I still can't understand the CSS Mess that is MT 3.33, this will have to do. I do like it though, I just need to tweak it a little.

So do you know where that tagline comes from? How about the seagull?

-- Just stepped on a rusty nail in the basement and it went deeeeep. No blood, but goddamn, it hurts! Used peroxide, but still horribly afraid of developing some mysterious illness. Of course, I haven't had a tetanus shot in nearly 15 years. Did I mention that I'm horribly afraid of needles? Shit, shit, shit.

-- Found an awesome comfy pair of stretch corduroys at Goodwill today for only five bucks. Plus, bought J. a $4 t-shirt that says simply "World Famous." I suspect he'll wear that one out.

-- Created a new blog design that I'm really proud of. Granted, I still can't figure out how to get my damn blogroll or my Twitter or a little About blurb in that nasty mess of MT 3.33 code, or why my comments link doesn't just open a nice little comment box like it should, or how in the hell to get the left sidebar stuff moved just a little further over to the left, but at least it doesn't look all confucked and shit. Woohoo! Go tech-stupid me!

-- Finally, finally, finally reorganized the bathroom. J. got a shelf put in the big bathroom cabinet and I've never felt so relieved. Our towels are stacked! There isn't an entire personal care aisle on our bathroom sink anymore! Things are clean and have a place! Yeah, it still needs some work, but this is a huge improvement. Trust me.

-- Have discovered it takes a small army to get Bogey tired. It's 100 degrees outside today and even that didn't deter him. Poor Gypsy was wilting in the heat, but Bogey? Oh no, no, no. Let's play! Let's chew! Let's destroy! Let's whine! Let's bark! Let's pee! Let's play! Let's chew! Let's destroy! .... You get the idea. I'll be so grateful when he's about a year old. That kind of subtle madness I can tolerate.

-- Rearranged our bed upstairs so that I'm not sleeping smack-dab in the middle of all the chaos and foot traffic and who knew? I sleep better. Not to mention I don't constantly bump my head when I stand up because of our weird slanted walls. Bonus! Also bought black curtains to block out some of the window light and another black curtain to use as a room divider/doorway. Hopefully that will help with the whole insomnia thing as well.

-- Spray-painted all the baffles for the recessed lighting a nice smooth white. Hopefully once they're dry and put up, they won't make the dirty scratched up ceiling look even worse. Please? Can I have a house that looks a little less ghetto? That'd be great. Thanks.

-- We're getting there, slowly but surely. Tomorrow I start the gimongous task of painting all the trim white (not off-white, kids!! remember, that looks shitty!!) while trying to tire out a puppy that's constantly into EVERYTHING.

-- I'm so glad I quit my job when I did. It's still a little weird and I haven't quite absorbed it all yet, but being able to work on my house is going to improve my mood about 178%. Just you wait for all the Before and After photos. Hee hee. :-)

Your Body Feels: Misaligned
Your Mind Feels: Overwhelmed
The Last Thing You Ate: Haagen Dazs
Something On Your Desk/Workspace: frames
On Your Chest: animals
On Your Legs: stripes
On Your Feet: paint
Favorite Instrument to Hear: flute
Your Last Kiss Happened Here: bed
Something You Wish You'd Invented: cameras
Something You Wish Had Never Been Invented: car alarms
Favorite Place For a Quiet Afternoon: couch
Right Now You Should Be: sleeping
You Hate When People: bitch
You Love When People: explore
When In Doubt, Order the: cheesesticks
Band You're Currently Into: Muse
How Many Movies You've Gone to See So Far This Month: zilch
Your Favorite Big Brother 8 Houseguest: what?
Your Least Favorite Big Brother 8 Houseguest: huh?
Your Maternal Grandmother's Name: Pauline
Your First Childhood Pet's Name: Snowshoe
The Number of People in Your Family With Red Hair: zip
What You're Thinking about Doing After This: sleeping
What You Really WISH You Were Doing After This: relaxing

Previously posted this on 8/12:

Spray-painted all the baffles for the recessed lighting a nice smooth white. Hopefully once they're dry and put up, they won't make the dirty scratched up ceiling look even worse. Please? Can I have a house that looks a little less ghetto? That'd be great. Thanks.

Hahahahahaaaaaaa.... I laugh at my naivete! Put up the nice white painted baffles and voila! Dirty off-white ceiling + bright white baffles = ghetto house! Looks like we get to have chrome baffles downstairs as well, because let me tell you, I will never paint another ceiling ever. again.

*sigh* I can deal with a house that's bare-bones and needs everything. It's constantly fixing someone else's shit that drives me nuts. And this house? Well, we're constantly fixing someone else's shit. Nice.

Did I mention that they scotch-taped their Christmas lights to the glass and windowsills for years? I now have the lovely task of scraping all the sticky scotch-tape residue off every single window and windowsill in the house before I can even start painting the dirt-encrusted trim.

You just wish you were me.

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* Perhaps you haven't heard of that TV show yet. It's in pre-production, as we're still living it.

-- Why in the hell did I decide to take on a new weekends-only job so soon after leaving my last one? Am I insane? I'm not ready yet, it's too soon, I'm not rested, the house needs worked on, J. and I won't see each other, I won't be able to do anything on the weekends or go home to see family or go to concerts or have any fun. Gah!! Why did I do this? Because it's an animal job and a damn fine one, but still, the timing is just all fucked and I don't know what to do. Turn it down now after I've already accepted, only to beg them to hire me later? Crap.
-- The trim paint is done! Woohoo! However, add the old ugly hunter green walls plus the new bright white trim and you have a very uh... spearminty fresh house going on. But hey, it's coming along, baby.
-- Bogey is smart as shit. I've never had a beagle this smart and yet so stubbornly unwilling to learn. Gar.
-- I've been taking lots of photos lately, but I'm really just stuck as far as posting them is concerned. How do I convert the photolog into something more user-friendly (such as this) without losing all my old and lengthy word-based entries? Because seriously, until I figure that out, the photoblog will just sit there defunct. It's just not practical for my purposes anymore and I'm just not tech-savvy enough to get it all fixed right.
-- I realize this site looks really crappy in Firefox. Honestly, folks, I have no idea how to fix that. In IE 6, it looks exactly like I want it to. It's so frustrating to me sometimes as to why something looks one way in one browser and totally screwed in another. Why, why, why must this be rocket science?
-- We STILL haven't gotten our wedding thank-you notes out and it absolutely grates on me. However, we never have the 14 hours it takes to sit down and get them written, which just sucks. I want to thank everyone, I just don't want to have to sit down and remember every detail of every gift or every nice gesture from nearly two months ago. Plus, my memory's so shitty, I'm afraid I'll thank someone twice or not at all or for the wrong gift or something else. Yes, we have lists of gifts and givers, but no, I couldn't tell you where it is.

And on that note, you have a Monday, my friends. How's yours going?

I turned down the Potentially Amazing Animal Job. I'll probably always kick myself for that, but I'm hoping I have a chance again with them in the future. Plus, I'd be lying if I didn't say I was relieved after sending that rejection email. After a serious tear-fest last night while talking to J., and another night of nightmares, I finally decided that there just isn't room for employment in my life right now. I need a break. I can't begin to tell you how taxing and soul-sucking my last job was and I'm just mentally and physically exhausted. I've been through a wedding that was insane to plan, I'm on a tenous relationship at best with my mother (who is a serious drain in her own right, but that's another story) and I've lost my best friend of 20 years. I want to make everything work, I want to give us a new beginning, I want to use this time to make our house amazing, but some days, I wonder if my thyroid isn't screwing up again because I just don't have the energy and I honestly haven't had a good night's sleep in what feels like years. I wake up more sore every day due to all my old injuries and it just generally sucks. I want to do so much, but I feel as though my body is holding me back. J. remarked last night that he just wanted me to take time off for the simple fact that he "wants his artist back." He told me I was trying to be "supermom" and it's just not going to work. We now have 5 animals in the house (the most difficult being an insanely mischevious beagle puppy) and we still don't even have a couch or a place for everyone to sit. Boxes of wedding crap still lay everywhere, boxes of books and cds and general stuff-to-be-unpacked have consumed our entire living space. Paint cans, rusty nails and flecks of drywall dust have become commonplace. Our house is a definite "fixer-upper" and we knew this when we bought it in February, but I had no idea it would take this long just to get it functional. We can't get a couch until we get the new floors in, we can't get the floors in until the walls are painted, we can't get the walls painted until the trim is painted, we can't get all the trim painted until we fix the holes in the drywall, on and on and on and on.... it just never ends.

I know that people always say "a home is never really done," but honestly? Most of them say that while sitting in a painted room on a couch. We're just tired of not having that luxury.

I'm a little better since yesterday. I think I'm just very sleep-deprived lately, so therefore life with me is a never-ending emotional adventure. (Did I mention that my car won't start and needs a very expensive fuel-pump and that I am now without transporation for a few days? I highly recommend that, it does wonders for an already crappy mood.)

*ahem* Anyway, I will work on my house today dammit. I will!! Plus, I'm planning to post some Before & After shots as well, just because they make me feel like there has been progress. And you will leave me wonderful comments and tell me how absolutely amazing my house looks, right? RIGHT?

*ahem* (And the Mood swing indicator reads: Here we go again, weeee!) Yeah, I'm off to find the spackle.

Boys and Girls, let me show you a new - and disgusting - high in Utter Previous Owner Incompetence (a.k.a. "UPOI").

Ever since we bought this house, we noticed these holes in identical spots under two windows in our living room. It seemed as though the Previous Owners (or P.O.s as we've come to calling them) had just left the windows open for an entire summer or fall or whatever and had allowed water to seep in wildly, therefore weakening the plaster and causing identical holes under each window. Granted, this is stupid, but after some of their other craptastic ideas we've had to fix, this was entirely believable. We thought, oh no big deal, we'll just get the moisture out, patch it up and paint over it. All will be well.

So painting time is finally here. I've been prepping, patching and spackling my butt off all week so that we can finally begin painting and get rid of this god-awful Hunter Green Hell. As I'm talking to my Dad on the phone a few days ago, we all mutually decide that the "Moisture Spots" under the windows are just too large and untrustworthy to be spackled and patched. So we decide that we're going to have to just cut out these small pieces of "Moisture Spot" plaster (just to see if there's any mold underneath so we can get rid of it), then replace it with some good solid drywall and be done. This way, I don't have to spackle my ass off and we know good and well that any possible mold underneath has been killed and destroyed.

Easy enough, right? Right.

Arrive at today. J. and I begin to cut and pry out pieces of the drywall just to see what's underneath. We expect to see a stud or two that's rotted from moisture - and voila! We see exactly that. However, we cannot figure out why the insulation (really it's styrofoam that sits between the studs) looks so full of holes and weird. We've never seen anything like it. Then I look closer. The "rotted from moisture" stud? Not a stud at all, but instead a piece of old wet tree bark being used as a stud.

We could not believe this. Tree bark, really? Surely not. The P.O.s couldn't be that stupid. But oh no, boys and girls, it doesn't have four sides, it's not smooth and there's the goddamn bark.

Hey, pop quiz! Guess what lives inside regular old tree bark, kids?

A) Mold
B) Mildew
C) Bacteria
D) Insects

Trick Question! It's ALL OF THE ABOVE! So those weird holes in the styrofoam? Yep, you guessed it - tunnels where all the insects inside the wood tried to burrow out and find food. And guess what else? They used this shit on both windows right next to perfectly good treated lumber studs where it could easily spread to the entire house. What. the. fuck.

Seriously, this shit is disgusting. I cannot look at this without itching. Thinking of what exactly in the hell could now be hiding (and spreading) in our walls, thinking about all the insane amounts of repair work we're going to have to do, thinking about how long we've sat here with that nastiness right next to us, all because these lazy assholes used a wet piece of tree bark instead of a damned $2 piece of treated wood. To make matters worse, they also nailed it into plaster instead of using screws, so naturally the wood split because A) it was old nasty wet tree bark and B) because they used nails in plaster!! What the hell is wrong with these damned people?

I understand if you don't know how to do something. Really, I do. We are not skilled "fixer-uppers" ourselves. But seriously, wouldn't you do some damn research before you brought in old nasty wet pieces of a tree to support the framework of your house? Especially if you didn't know what the hell was in that tree in the first place? Especially if it was already wet and molded, for the love of god?

I am so not going to sleep well tonight. Thank you UPOIs, thank you right to Hell.

So we've been busy on the house.

Window 1 (the decent window)
Before: Moisture and missing insulation
After: Ooooh, pretty

Window 2 (the bad window)
Before: Tree Bark Stud and Insect Invasion from Hell
During: Woah. I think this might actually work.
After: Oh Beautiful Day

Now I'm off to finish the sanding and paint the massive loads of caulk that I had to use to seal up those horrible window holes. With any luck, I'll have these walls primed today. (oh good god, that thought makes me cry from joy. Please, can the walls be primed today?)

The walls are primed!! Good God, the fucking walls are finally primed!

No, really! See?

Seriously, can you believe just how damn dark this green was? Holy crap, it was like we lived in a damned evergreen cave before now.

I won't tell you about my minor depression yesterday when I stared at all 157 "test samples" of paint that I bought and spread all over the wall only to discover that I absolutely could not find a simple and non-offensive "shade of orange." Seriously, if something is named "Copper Pot" and you've had it picked out for months, shouldn't it at least be some shade of orange rather than oh, I don't know... "Blood Red Desert Sunset From Hell?" What the hell? We went from an evergreen cave to the hot molten core of the Earth apparently. Either that, or we're just reeeeally into pumpkins... while rooting for the Tennesse Volunteers.

*Le Sigh* Why can't I just be like engineer, boy-minded J. and say, "I like tan. Let's just go with tan."

Seriously. Why?