Big, Bad Me

I know one of these days my mouth is going to get me in trouble.

But I just keep going...

I pulled into a busy gas station - all the stall were filled except one.  The guy was at the second pump but his car was pulled up so far that no one else could get to the first pump. Whatever.

I pulled in behind him because he looked like he was about done.  And he was.

He got back in his car. And sat.

And just sat there.

I tried to be patient but let's be honest, that's not my strength.  So I roll down my window and nicely yell "Are you done pumping your gas?"  And he's looking at me in his mirror and he nods yes.

Okayyy, then why aren't you moving? Do you not notice the multiple cars around you, waiting?

Deep breath.

Okay, so maybe he didn't notice me before, but now he knows I'm waiting so he'll get it together and move.

Nope.

He's still just sitting there.

Clogging up an entire stall.

And sitting. And sitting.

Oh my God. Is this guy for real?

And I'm mad because now he's just being a jerk.

So I jump out of my car and I march up to him.  I know, brilliant move, right?  And I say, as nicely as I can - and trust me, it took a lot of effort to not say what I really wanted to say-  "If you're done pumping gas, can you move up? I'm waiting behind you."

And the freaking moron looks at me and says no! Then he says something about waiting on someone inside but I didn't really hear that part because I was too busy being pissed off.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

And yes, the "Are you kidding me?" part actually did come out of my mouth.

You're taking up two gas pumps and you won't move?!?

PULL UP TO A PARKING SPACE!

By this time another stall had opened up so I whip around. I had to walk by him to pay so I mumbled something mean and nasty that I'm not entirely proud of, just to make sure he knew what I thought about him.

Then after I had a second to get over it I thought about how stupid that really was - because really, he could have jumped out of his car and sucker punched me. Or done something worse.  Because let's face it, I'm not really equipped to deal with any kind of physical confrontation. I mean, I'm gonna fight like hell but I'm going to lose. No question, I will lose.

So I've got to remember that I'm not as tough on the outside as I feel on the inside and get my mouth in check before somebody decides they should do it for me...

WTH

Greetings from the land of chaos and mess!

I arrived home from Atlanta late Saturday night and hit the ground running the next morning with moving.  We're about 95% done and living out of the last remaining boxes. It's super fun.

I got a call yesterday from our realtor; the buyers had "concerns" about our driveway.  Let me tell you, any time your realtor says there are "concerns" - that is a super bad thing.  Like they're not sure they want to buy the house until they can figure out this driveway thing. Since the houses are all super old, most the homes in our area do not have driveways.  We're the only house on the block to have one but they aren't convinced it's actually ours.

They had the survey pulled and it's clear as day to me, to the hubby and to our realtor but they're having trouble understanding it. I am super pissed - why is this coming up  three days before closing? Are you kidding me?  We've already signed a lease, put up deposit, paid first month's rent and had the expense of moving - we're already into this thing!

Our realtor mentioned getting a pin survey but those are expensive (about $800) and we're not putting out any more money. We've already been more than generous with them. We're putting a lot of money towards their closing and then they asked for $1,000 in repairs after the inspection came back with just a few minor things. I'm done. These people are ridiculous.

Let's hope they figure it out and don't back out - I will go ballistic. Seriously, it will not be pretty.

In the meantime, we're waiting on pins and needles for these people to get their act together. And I'm reminiscing to a week ago when I got to play in Atlanta...

On the balcony of our hotel - rare that it actually opened

College Football Hall of Fame

Go OU!

Listening to Elton John in the park - it was awesome!

The drunk guy next to me got up and there was a GIANT wet stain.
I'm pretty sure it's pee!

Then I decided all the seats were probably really GROSS
so I only sat part of my cheek on the seat

MLK's church

Finally at the airport at 11 - waiting on my ride!

Fright Fest

So my Financial Aid buddy came to visit me in my new office. He was checking out our new digs when he casually mentions the office being haunted. Just drops it in the middle of the conversation like he's asking about lunch. "You know this office is haunted, right?"

He's a comedian and messes with everyone so I thought he was joking. He spent a minute or two trying to convince me he wasn't playing - he had really been told that by the last people in our office. He even encouraged me to ask her about it... I was still skeptical that he was serious until the assistant director vouched for the story.

No, no she didn't. She didn't vouch for it, she completely reinforced it. Her daughter was a work study in that office and heard unexplained noises all the time. Apparently everyone did and they all believed it was a ghost.

Then he asked me if I knew about the suicide.

Huh?

According to the story a security guard committed suicide in our building and it was rumored that it was his ghost. He told me that our campus was listed on several haunted websites and told me to look it up.

Which I did.

Everything I found indicated it happened...labor day. Uh, how disturbing is that? 

I don't believe in ghost and realize it's all probably some exaggerated story telling but I have to admit, the early mornings when I'm all alone in the office is starting to feel just a little bit creepy...

Transition #3

It's past 10 p.m. and I just got home from driving the whole 5 miles across town to get a drink.  I needed to get out of the house. I needed to just roll down the windows, turn up the music and drive. What I really wanted was to get in the car and just run away. And never come back.

Of course I really wouldn't do that.

Because I didn't have much money on me and half a tank will only get you so far...

But seriously. I did consider it for like a nanosecond.

I am overwhelmed.

Partly because I had a hell of a day at work but mostly because we have a contract on our house.

That really wasn't how I intended to share that news. I had thought it would be more like Awesome news! We SOLD OUR HOUSE!

Except that I waited just long enough to share it that the reality and complications have begun to kick in.

Don't get me wrong - I am really happy. Beyond happy.  This is such a good thing for us and I'm super glad it happened so quick. 43 days on the market - not too bad for our little town.

So it's good, not just financially but also getting our life back. Not to gripe about it too much but oh. my. God. that whole keeping the house spotless and having to drop everything for a showing was getting old.

The buyers wanted to move quickly so we're scheduled to close on the 25th. We had the home inspection Monday and everything looks good on that end but anything can happen. You just never know what can pop up.  Which makes it difficult to move forward with plans.

I've been looking for rental property in our new house school district since we put our house on the market. The bad thing about moving to a little bitty town is that there is nothing there. Literally, there's not even a post office. So there aren't a whole lot of rental options.   I found one house - a small little 3 bedroom brick home that looked like most our rentals....except that guy was charging $1150 per month for his.

So either we're just way off with our pricing or it's a racket. And we're not way off with our pricing.

We drove around our new area one night - hoping to find something. We were about to head back home when we found it...a trailer. I never in my life imagined living in a trailer. I know it sounds snobby but I just...didn't.  It's funny because if anyone else told me that's where they live, I wouldn't think anything. No judgement, no negativity, nothing. Yet I find it embarrassing for myself.

But desperate times call for desperate measures and I wrote down the number.  When you have no options, you forget about being embarrassed and you write that dang number down.

So looks like life is having the last laugh because I'm officially moving into a trailer. And not just a trailer - a trailer in a trailer park. Just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

And in case you're wondering - no, we couldn't just get a trailer and put it on our property. City ordinances don't allow it - which is great if you're worried about people putting up trailers next to your house but sucks if you need a place to live while you build that house.

We're nervous about signing a lease until we know for certain that everything is going to go through because we certainly don't want to be stuck paying rent and a mortgage. The park manager won't let us do a month to month so our only option was to pay a deposit and first months rent to hold the place.  We don't get keys, however, until we sign a lease.

Don't ask me how that's right, since we've already paid for September.  How do we not have access to a place that we've paid for? But we don't which means we can't move anything in yet.  And since the trailer is about 1/4 of the size of our current home, we'll actually be moving three times.  One time to take all our current storage crap to the new storage building, another time to take some of our home crap to the new storage building and finally to take the rest of our home crap to the new home. It's going to be a lot of work.

Hubby doesn't want to sign the lease until the day before or day of our closing. But there is no way that will work. We've been bickering about when to sign it. I wanted to get it scheduled for this weekend so I could start cleaning and moving things over, especially since it's a holiday and I would have an extra day.  He thought that was too soon. I'm trying to figure out his timeline, but I just don't see it. I have a conference in two weeks - I'm doing some pre-conference stuff so it's an extra long trip. I'll fly out early Monday morning and won't get back until late Saturday.  We're scheduled to close the next Friday.  So when exactly are we supposed to move again?

I just think we're going to have to take a leap of faith. We need to make a calculated decision and just do it. If the house sell falls through (which it won't), we'll deal with it.  He wants the sure thing and isn't willing to take the risk. That pretty much sums up our personalities. I'm more inclined to take risk and deal with the blows if they come while mostly believing they never will.  He wants to play it safe and is always strategizing to avoid the blows that he is certain are coming.

I have a request in to the buyer that they allow us an extra weekend - that would solve everything. So keep your fingers crossed and wish us luck - we're gonna need it!

Movin On Up

First, let me say I'm a loser.

A loser with no willpower. 

Yep. I'm back on Dr. Pepper. 

Which is especially frustrating because I really need to get on track since I currently look about 5 months pregnant. No joke - I really do. I have no waist - it's just a big, squishy lump. All my friends are getting in shape and looking hot and I'm over here blowing up like Kim Kardashian's ego. 

If I'm careful, I can tip my head just right so that I don't have three chins but there isn't much I can do about the tummy. Or the hips. Ugh, I don't even want to talk about it. I only shared because you can't make a proclamation about quitting something and then just never mention it again.  Well, I mean you can...but then everyone knows you've slipped anyway. So I just wanted to get that out of the way.

What I really want to tell you about is our new office space!  Yep, we got a new office!

When our program was originally funded we had the most jacked-up set-up that you can imagine. We had two offices side-by-side on the first floor - no reception area, no waiting area, just two offices off a hall. Our lab, where students are supposed to hang out, was on the second floor.

I don't know about you but that didn't seem like a really great idea to me. I was never really comfortable having a lab that wasn't monitored so we really didn't utilize it as it was intended.

The office right next door to our lab belonged to the director of the program that was downstairs. Next to our offices.  So he was up here and down there and I was down here and up there. You followin all that? We both had space on the first and second floor that neither one of us could efficiently manage. It never made sense to me and I always thought it would be perfect if we could just swap space. Less than a year later, we did just that.

That move allowed us to function and made sense. But it wasn't my ideal space. There was another office on campus that I always thought would be perfect for our program. I told my staff multiple times "In my dream world, if I could have any space on campus, I would have Student Activities." But I never thought it would happen. For multiple reasons.

But last week, when we moved in,  I was proved wrong.

It took a while and I had to work through bureaucracy and politics and back and forth but we got it!

I was so happy to have the new space that I didn't even mind spending two hours moving an entire room full of furniture and two storage areas crammed with stuff that was left behind by the department moving out. Oh, who am I kidding. I totally minded. I actually found it really rude and inconsiderate.

But not nearly as inconsiderate as leaving behind a filthy, disgusting desk. The pictures really don't even do it justice - it was GROSS!

Yes, that's RICE.

But the space. The space is great. So bring on the chaos and stress of moving and the desk full of rice...because TRIO has a new home!

Where I'm spending my days...

 Transition two...

Cha-Cha Changes

Wow!

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind - so many things happening. I've experienced three big things that I want to share with you. Unfortunately, I have a lot to say about each of them so that means I'm going to have to share them separately. Unless you want to spend the next hour or so reading this thing...No? I didn't think you would .

So my baby girl started Kindergarten.

Meet the teacher gifts!

I still can't believe it. It just doesn't seem possible that she's in big-kid school. How, how, did that happen?  I promise you she was just a baby yesterday. Then, last week I was packing her school bag and putting her on a bus. Five years- BAM!- just like that, gone.

It's scary how quickly time passes. I feel like I'm going to wake up tomorrow and be in my 60's. That's honestly what it feels like to me now - sometimes it's hard for me to believe I'm not in my 20's. How did nearly 20 years pass without me noticing?

It's just the realization that life moves so fast. Just being super aware that the phases of life get shorter and go quicker.  Suddenly we've closed a phase in our life. We're no longer a young couple with small children - we're an older couple with kids.

That's really how I've been feeling about M2 starting school.  When M started Kindergarten, I was worried about her getting lost, being scared or feeling overwhelmed. My heart hurt to think she might need me and I wouldn't be there. My feelings were centered on protecting her and it was hard to let her go.

It's completely different this time around.  I've had the experience and that worry isn't there. What I'm worried about is taking my girls for granted, being so consumed with life that I miss out on them.  I'm struggling with the fact my baby is growing up and it's hard to let her go.

I wanted another one. My husband didn't - "two and we're through" was his favorite expression to remind me of all the practical, logic reasons why two was enough.

So I wished for twins when I was pregnant with M2. I've always wanted twins and this was my last shot. Please be a split egg, please be a split egg...I held my breath at the ultrasound but no luck. So that was it - my last pregnancy, my last baby. There were times that I kinda regretted that but as the girls got more independent I started to appreciate it more.

I focused on the fact that I was done with diapers, bottles and being up all night with a crying baby. Sometimes I see a frazzled, exhausted Mom loaded down with a baby bag and stroller while juggling a squawking baby and think Thank God I'm done with all that. 

But now that my baby isn't a baby...I'm feeling sad that the chapter has closed.

Transition number #1.

7 Day Itch

For the last I don't know how many years (but too many) it's been my ritual to stop on the way to the office and get a Dr. Pepper. I drink the stuff like it's water so it only makes sense that's what I would pick to be the first thing in my body each morning. Hello early morning shot of sugar and caffeine - let's get this party started!

I've made no secret of my soda addiction. And if you've been unfortunate to witness it, you know how deep and ugly it really is. I've tried to give it up a thousand and one times - and I've always failed.

Do you know how hard that is?  To fail at something so simple?

I mean. We're not talking heroin here. It's freaking Dr. Pepper!

And to fail so many times. It's ridiculous.

It makes me feel so weak. Like I have no will power or control. And honestly, I don't - or I wouldn't give in.

I don't even think I would care that I drink a ton of soda every day if I felt like I didn't need to. If I felt like I could give it up. I want to give it up mainly to prove that I can.  But I can't.

So yeah, it's not life threatening or serious and people usually laugh when I tell them I'm addicted to Dr. Pepper but it's a weakness. And I hate that.  And I'm ashamed of that. I just don't feel like it's something that should be a struggle.

So I'm working on it. Tomorrow will be 7 days since I've had a soda. Of any kind - because occasionally I'll flip over to diet o make myself feel better about it.

I've gone longer than 7 days before. I've gone months before. But this time is a little harder because I'm trying to be careful that I don't replace the sugar with other things. That's what I usually do. Not intentionally, but that's what happens. I start to drink a lot of sweet tea, raid the girls candy stash, make cookies...

Day one and two were pretty easy but the last few days have been hard. Friday some colleagues brought in some cookies to celebrate our refunding. I was good and deferred but they sat there and by late afternoon I had one. And it's like opening pandoras box - once I start, I don't want to stop and on the way home I had to call a friend to avoid eating another one!

And of course, I crumbled over the weekend and ate two.  My intention was to bring them to the family but there they were, staring at me every time I opened the pantry. I should have just chucked them...

I'm hoping tomorrow will be easier. At least when I'm at work I'm busy and distracted.

And don't have access to cookies...