Fadedwords

The Good:

• My bed just got here!
• It’s gigantic and soft and lovely.
• It’s all made with my lovely purple bedding.
• It’s only 88 degrees today… cold snap!
• The house is slowly but surely coming together
• Hell’s Kitchen is on tonight.
• I’ve found several wonderful sites I can use to really get back into cooking.
• I got Wisdom (my cat) a nifty new toy and he goes nuts for it. It’s great to see him playing again.
• They not only make Darth Tater (mr. potato head dressed like darth vader… I have him) but they make Artoo Potatoo (dressed like R2D2) and Spud Trooper (dressed like star trooper); I want these. Badly.
• Valerie said I could keep her MLP Collector’s book.
• Tomorrow I can go to Salvation Army to look for reasonably priced (read: cheap) furniture (dresser, nightstand, etc).
• The weather is getting cool enough that I will soon be able to start going down to the river and taking a walk every evening; the area by the river is very nice with paths and whatnot. It’s lovely.
• 4 more days until I go to Cary to visit my baby:)

The Bad:

• I have an ant problem in the house… sugar ants.
• I’ve put down traps all over the kitchen, in cupboards, on the counter and I’ve sprayed ant spray. Hopefully this will solve the issue, because I don’t want to have to have my landlord hire someone to deal with it professionally.
• I also have a wasp problem. You may remember I got stung the day my moving truck got here. Well today one of the neighborhood kids got stung when she came to knock on my door. Then one of the bed delivery guys got stung. There were wasps everywhere when they were delivering. I think I’m going to have to contact my landlord about this, because these wasps are gigantic and very aggressive. Icky.
• I haven’t been able to get in touch with my boss, so I have no planned start date at work. Hopefully I can reach him tomorrow and set something up for Wednesday or Thursday.
• The ants got into a bunch of my food… even the peanut butter (and the lid was securely on), so my choices for food are even more limited now than they were earlier.

I woke up today in a kind of down mood, and it hasn’t entirely subsided. Just coming to terms with the fact that this is home now… I guess NY just feels very far away.

Jake got here yesterday at about 1:30, and just left about a half an hour ago. I wouldn’t say it was a very eventful time; we went to Walmart and the grocery store. We went and did laundry and ate out at a couple nice places. Mostly we just spent time hanging around the house, watching movies and playing with the cat to get him feeling more secure in the house. We also moved the air conditioner from the living room to the bedroom, and it does work a lot better in there than out here. However, it’s clearly on its way out. Mainly we just enjoyed being together.

I’ve scarcely had more fun just lounging about.

It’ll be wonderful when we can move in together, when I find a job that’s closer to Cary. But for right now I really couldn’t ask for anything more. 5 more days until I see him again… as opposed to five more weeks.

I do so love this man.

Thank you Jake, for a truly wonderful weekend and for everything you did while you were here. See you in 5 days!

I have made a big dent in the unpacking process. I still have to unpack all my clothes and get them put away, but other than that I’m doing very well indeed. One of my bookshelves was broken in the move, so I’m going to have to replace that before I unpack my pony collection. I would also like to get another bookshelf for my bedroom, but just a small one. That will all come in time.

Today I went to the furniture store up the road, and was browsing around at beds. For the past week I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress, and while it’s served its purpose, I’m about done with that. A sales woman approached me, and we soon realized that she lives right across the street with me. She was very friendly, and she showed me some beds. They were having a big sale, so I said I would be back after I opened my bank account and cashed a check. I took care of everything at the bank, and went back to the furniture store. There were two beds I looked at, both half price. One was a Simmons, and it was a little more expensive. The other was ok, but it was really firm and I thought it would be uncomfortable. I decided on the Simmons, and got a very good deal on it and the box spring. My neighbor also got me free shipping, which saved me about $70. The mattress has a 10-year warranty, so if anything goes wrong with either mattress or box spring they will be replaced. It will be delivered tomorrow.

My cat is driving me absolutely insane. Ever since we got here he has resorted to yowling all night. I’ve done some reading today about this, and vets suggest ignoring the cat at all costs when this is going on. This means no response of any kind, because even an angry response reinforces the behavior. I should know this, and in my logical/well rested mind I might’ve. Going on four hours of sleep every night has made me a little fuzzy. I’m going to try some of what the websites I read suggested, and if there’s still no change I will likely take him to the vet to make sure there’s nothing physically wrong. I feel bad locking him out of the room because there’s only one fan going out here at night (in the kitchen). If this behavior doesn’t change I will have to consider giving him away. I need sleep more than I need a cat, however awful that sounds. Hopefully I can beat this behavior. I really do love this ridiculous cat.

Jake comes back to NC tonight, and will be down here tomorrow. Perfect timing for him to do some stuff around the house! I won’t have much access to my bank account this weekend, considering I don’t get my debit card or checks for awhile! But I don’t need anything this weekend but to do laundry. I think I probably have enough quarters laying around to do that. The rest of the time will be spent enjoying the first of many weekends with this wonderful man.

Everyone has been exceptionally nice. All of my neighbors are wonderful, even if the ones on the right are a little loud. Honestly, I’m glad about that because it’s like beign back at college. Silly but it gives mea sense of home.

Within the next week I want to start walking down by the river at night. I called the school to talk to my boss, but he was out today. Hopefully Monday I can speak to him and work out a day to start next week. I think starting the job, and getting out to get active is going to help me settle in a great deal.

The moving truck arrived today at about 3:15, much to my chagrin. I had been dreading the concept of it getting here mid-day, and of course it did. I was fully expecting to be in and out of that darn trailer for hours unloading everything by myself. However, the truck driver immediately hopped up and said, “Let me give you a hand. You probably don’t know anybody around here yet.” I forgot to get his name, but Moving-Truck-Guy was awesome. He brought everything to the end of the trailer and I brought it into the house. In the process I got stung badly by a large wasp. It hurt very badly, and my finger and hand got pretty swollen. There must be a wasps’ nest around the front yard somewhere, because with the truck sitting on the ground running they were out in droves. I’ll have to have my landlord check that out. In any case, we got everything off the truck in about 35-40 minutes… it was awesome. I left some stuff outside in the carport, due to the sheer volume of stuff crammed into the living room.

I took some time to clear space in the living room, and then quickly changed my shirt so I could go out and move the rest of the stuff inside. As I went to the front door I saw two young kids standing on the porch. The little girl said, “We saw your moving truck and thought you might like help carrying stuff.” It was so cute. As we talked I learned both their names, and that the girl was going into 8th grade this year. I told her I was going to be the new counselor at the middle school, and she seemed very excited to hear that. Her friend was a little boy going into third grade. They helped carry in some of the lighter things, and then the little girl asked if I would come across the street to meet her mom. So I did. I had a very nice conversation with her? I also met some of my neighbors on the right side of the house. Two of the guys helped move the futon into the house, and I met their sister (I think!). They were all very nice, and meeting them all made me feel far less isolated in this new place. The little girl who helped carry stuff in has a 2-year old German Sheppard as well, and her mom said that I could feel free to come visit any time. So I’ll have a surrogate pooch until I can afford my own.

Since the kids went home I have worked to get the living room looking halfway decent. The futon is completely set up, as is my large TV and entertainment center. I took great care to run all the cable and internet wires in a way that wouldn’t get them tangled and messed up, and it worked well. Right now, minus the boxes along one of the walls, it’s looking good. There is a lot to do, but I’m not going to stress too much about getting it all done.

Jake is currently on a plane to D.C. He’ll spend the next day and a half there doing on-site help desk stuff at the Red Hat Linux located there. Then on Friday he’ll fly back into Raleigh, and either that night or Saturday morning he’ll be down here to help me unpack and get organized.

It was a good day. Now, if my psychotic cat would just let me sleep at night we’ll be all set!

I will start this post by saying that I really love my house, and I will love it even more when the moving truck gets here tomorrow and I have furniture and whatnot.? That being said…

The AC unit in the living room isn’t big enough to cool the living room. The layout of the house is such that the living room leads right into the kitchen, and there’s a hallway, bathroom, and third bedroom down the hall.  All of this is open space, so the Air Conditioner didn’t stand much chance of cooling that. The landlord did not install the AC, it was left by previous tenants, and therefore the landlord isn’t responsible for repairing it.

The cat is miserable… I’m worried about him getting through this week without having severe heat stroke. Today it’s 94 in the house, and that’s with 4 fans running between the living room and kitchen. I’m sick to my stomach I’m so hot. I can’t really leave to get into an air conditioned store, because I’d have to close up the house… and then the cat would be in even worse shape.

Brightsides? It’s unseasonably warm this week; usually the highs are in the low 90s, not near 100. The heat is supposed to break Thursday. I have a great shower and I can take another one if it becomes unbearable. The sun will go down in about three hours, and it’ll start to cool down. Also, at night? My room stays very cool with a fan in the window and one fan by the door. Last night it got “chilly” enough to need a blanket.

When Jake gets back from his business trip we will try moving the air conditioner into the bedroom. It’s much smaller than the space out here, and I think it will work nicely to cool things down in there. At least then I’ll have somewhere to go to escape the heat. I will also be able to leave the cat in there when I go to work if the AC works out.

Right now I just feel as if I’m in the 7th realm of hell.