Month: June 2008

I love Macro Monday! I never should have let all those Monday’s slip by with no shots. SHAME ON ME.

I got these little lipglosses at a Hallmark store when I was there picking up a Mother’s Day present for my mom. I had completely forgotten I had them till I started to clean off my desk today and there they were!

I was excited all over again. They are so cute and the sunday glosses have little chains on them perfect to attach to your keys. The cupcakes will look really cute on my desk at work and home. 🙂

Movement.

(Join in the One Word Blog Day revolution!)

I had mentioned a awhile back that I was working on a project and that as soon as I had some content up, I’d be revealing it…

And then a BUNCH OF STUFF HAPPENED and it got pushed back and back and back, then forgotten, then pushed back, then pretty much flat out ignored and then I was like, OH THAT’S RIGHT, PROJECT!!! So I’ve had some time the last week or so while I was at home with Ben and I tweaked and added then subtracted then put it back again, and more importantly, I’ve started to add that content.

It’s a review site for the many, many things I’ve blown money on and either loved or hated. It’s written from my perspective which is geeky girlyness and will cover everything from makeup, cars, computers, pet products, food, drinks, restaurants, ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.

So go take a look, read, comment, leave me some feedback. Do you like what you see? What kind of product do you think that you’d like to have reviewed? Let me know what you think!

Introducing: Sylaa.net

Have I ever mentioned before how much I hate packing to move? Because I do. More then I can even express in word. Well, I’ll try:

I’d rather clean all the toilets in my house WITH MY TONGUE than pack to move.

I tried to start today and I got about three boxes in before I gave up. I’ve packed three small boxes of books and I’m ready to hire some packers and movers and let them finish it all. I’m going into it with a very different mindset this time though.

See, I’m a complete packrat. I used to be MUCH worse but when Cassidy, Ben and I were all living in the 1000 square foot apartment, I had to get rid of a LOT of stuff. Cassidy and I had an aparement completely furnished and when we moved in with Ben I purged a LOT. I gave a lot away and sold some too. Some of it I left in my moms garage and let her deal with. heh

Now, I’m SO OVER that. This time, I’m purging even more. The new place a much less storage then where we are now and I have no desire to try and find places for all this… STUFF. Awhile back I bought some magazine holders from IKEA and started organizing magazines. One for gossip, one for wedding, one for glamour, one for BMW, one for kids… you get the idea. Today, I tossed away most of them. I didn’t get rid of the car magazines because I’ll let Ben go through them but everything else I tossed without even looking through them.

And I actually have no anxeity about it at all which is pretty odd for me. Before, I’d spend about 20 minutes justifying why I should keep them all. Cassidy can use them for crafts, what if I want to recreate the one decorating idea, or remember who sold those really cute shoes some movie star wore to some event that I’ll never be able to afford.

Not this time though, I hauled them out to the recycle bin and threw them away and with every new trip I did a little vistory dance. And it felt REALLY good. And instead of having to pack 7 boxes, I only ended up having to pack 3. THREE instead of SEVEN!

And I’ll admint, I’ve actually considered selling Cassidy and all her accessories because that alone would save me about 78 boxes.

Thank you all SO MUCH to those of you who have offered well wishes and thoughts and prayers and crossed fingers for Ben this last weekend. It’s was a REALLY stressful and REALLY long weekend and we still don’t have any “real” answers about what’s going on with his back.

So here’s a play by play of what happened Saturday and Sunday and where we are now:

Saturday:
6:00AM – We woke up, grabbed breakfast and headed to the track.

8:00AM – I headed back into Willows to get a print out of the bank’s acceptance of our offer. I had to go to about three different hotels before I finally found a printer that worked but was OUT OF INK. Thankfully, I was able to talk the manager of the hotel into letting me use his personal office and printer. Then I headed back out to the track to that Ben could initial it. He was just finishing up his first session and I got to watch the last three or four laps and he was taking the back half of the track (the part I could see) with ease. It was really cool to see the car flying around the track again.

9:00AM – I headed BACK to Willows with the signed papers to try and find a fax machine to get them faxed but first I had to call our agent and get the number so I hung out in the hotel room and watched some TV while waiting for a return call.

9:50AM – Liz called, gave me the info, I packed up my backpack and was walking out the door when the phone rang and it was our friend Stuart who was also at the track running his car that day.

Me: Hey, Stuart, what’s up?
Stuart: Are you back at the track?
Me: No, I’m about to fax these papers and then head back, you need something from town?
Stuart: Well, Ben spun and was tapped lightly in the front.
Me: I’m on my way.

I didn’t really think that it would be as bad as it was. “Tapped lightly” made me think that maybe one of his fenders was dented and a headlight was broken but either way, I knew that I’d need to be there for Ben. I understand why Stuart worded it the way he did. If he’s said “Ben just got hit head on at near race speed” I’d have probably wrecked on the farm roads back to the track myself.

When I got there, before I could get to anybody to talk to and see what was going on, the tow truck drove by with Ben’s car attached and him in the passenger seat. He was talking to the driver and pointing at the trailer so I knew he was okay but the state of the car was a complete and utter shock. I pretty much just stood there, stunned, for a good 30 seconds. It seemed like the car rolled by in slow motion and my brain just wasn’t wanting to process what it was seeing.

I finally gathered myself up enough to hook the trailer up to the truck and drive to the end of the track to where they had dropped off the car.

What happened: Ben spun, a yellow flag came out so everybody should have been slowing down, two cars pass Ben with no problem, third guy in a Porsche GT3RS was not paying attention to the flags and instead was trying to still race the Porsche in front of him and saw Ben too late. He tried to swerve but ended up hitting Ben between 60-70 MPH head on. The guy didn’t even seem phased that he’d just wrecked his $140,000 car, let alone Ben’s M3. Asked Ben once if he was okay and that was it. Basically, he’s a rich asshole.

11:30AM – We start trying to get the car on the trailer. The front wheels are pointing right and part of the frame is pushed into the front right wheel so there’s no way for us to straighten them out which makes it impossible to get the car on the trailer straight. It finally takes a winch, jack, several wood boards, the cherry picker on a tow truck, four guys, me and more muscles then I’ve used in the last six year to get it on there.

3:00AM – We FINALLY have the car on the trailer. We haven’t eaten since breakfast at 6:00AM. We are tired, hungry, sunburned, defeated, and reluctant to drive home from there because the car is sitting the WRONG way on the trailer which is a horrible load/weight missbalance. We eventually decided to spend the night after loading all the gear into the truck, getting back to the hotel, getting showered and some food into us.

7:00PM – Stuart and crew are back from the track. Ben heads out to hang out with them while they catch dinner and a few drinks. I stayed in to PASS OUT. I think that Ben must have been living on adrenaline at that point because I was just EXHAUSTED.

I don’t know what timePM: Ben wakes me up, he has to lay down RIGHT THIS SECOND because his back is spasming. He’s in a LOT of pain. Get him into bed then sped all night tossing and turning.

How are we going to get this car home? It’s on the trailer but dangerously.

Is Ben’s back going to be okay? I know he’s not sleeping either.

How are we going to get the car OFF the trailer and UP the driveway?

How are we going to get Ben back on the track? This is his dream, his passion, and it’s sitting broken and shattered on a trailer outside.

So basically, I get no sleep.

Sunday:
5:00AM: Ben gets up to go to the bathroom. He’s in so much pain he has to crawl back to a bed, making the most horrific moaning painful sounds I’ve ever heard him make.

8:00AM: Walk to Chevron to get Ben Ibuprofen, he takes 800MG and it doesn’t even phase the pain.

10:00AM: I load all the luggage in the truck, get Ben out the door of the hotel, back starts to spasm, he has to lay down in the parking lot to keep it from going into a full on pain attack. I put my foot down, make him get in the passenger seat, lay it all the way back and insist on driving the truck and trailer home.

I’m not sure what time we got home. It was a long drive, I can tell you that. I had to drive between 45-55MPH the entire 180 miles because the weight of the motor on the BACK of the trailer instead of the front was making it rock really bad. At one point I hit a bump and it actually lifted the back wheels of the truck off the ground.

It wasn’t fun.

Stopped at the house to unload the truck, called Ffej to come over and take a look at the car, BS for a few minutes. Ben lays on the grass in pain the whole time.

We decided to take the the car, on the trailer, and park it at the lot where we store the trailer. This is a temporary fix. We want to have the car at home but right now, we aren’t sure how that’s going to happen in it’s current state. I spend some time trying to get two seperate car covers to cover the entire car.

I. AM. SO. TIRED.

Drive to Urgent Care.

6:30PM – Arrive at Urgent Care. It’s packed. We have to get a restaurant style pager to let us know when it’s Ben’s turn. Get a blanket, find a dark quiet waiting room in the medical center, so he can lay on his back to wait.

7:15PM – Get in to see the doctor. Ben’s reflex test is bad. His left leg is responding normally but his right leg is hardly responding at all. Doctor want’s him to go to the ER. He’s hungry and just want’s food. If he takes the ambulance he gets right in, if I take him, we start at the back of the line in the waiting room. I say TAKE THE AMBULANCE.

8:00PM – 12:00PM – Pretty much waste four hours in the ER and walk out with a prescription and a big bruise on Ben’s butt from a pain medicine injection.

Total. Waste. Of. Time.

Monday:
12:00AM – Pick up FOOD SWEET FOOD from a Burger King drive through and eat it in a 24 hour Walgreens parking lot while they fill his prescription. Ben takes the pain killer as soon as I get it in the car and falls asleep on the way home.

12:40AM – HOME SWEET HOME We came upstairs, stripped and PASSED OUT. I woke up at 6:00AM and called my boss to let him know that I wouldn’t be in, gave Ben some more pain medicine and we slept till 10:30AM. It was beautiful, wonderful, awesome, beautiful, blissful sleep.

I took Ben to the doctor today and his reaction test was better, but not at all normal. He’s in less pain but he’s on a LOT of pain medicine. A LOT. The pain medicine has an anti-inflamatory in it and that might be why his reflexes are responding more today then Sunday but either way, the doctor want’s an MRI and she is also leaning towards it being a ruptured disc. We’ll know more for sure after the MRI which might not be for two days. In the mean time he’s pretty much on bed rest. No driving, keep on the medicine and do as little as possible.

And I’m still trying to recuperate from all of this. So now I’m going to go soak up some time with Cassidy who we picked up after the appointment today. I’m SO GLAD she spent the weekend at my mom’s playing in the pool rather than having to deal with all this stuff. After that, I’m coimg back upstairs, cuddling with Ben and trying to sleep the rest of the exhaustion off.

PS – Inbetween all this we managed get the final papers signed for the house. Well, not the FINAL papers, but the IMPORTANT papers which mean, GOOD NEWS!!! We GOT THE HOUSE! YAY! We can talk about that and celebrate later. Sometime before July 15th which is when we take posession. 🙂

So we recieved a ‘Verbal’ acceptance on the house. That means we got it but I’m not going to bank or count on anythng till we have some papers in hand to sign from the bank. We also recieved the Section 1 inspection that the bank had done not long ago and there were some possible troublesome items that will have to be looked into farther on Wednesday when we have our own inspection.

I just wanted to let you all know what was going on on THAT front. So far so good, and when I know more, I’ll let you know too!

But that’s not what I sat down to write about.

Ben and I are SO HAPPY about this house. And even if we don’t get THIS HOUSE and it ends up being another one, we’ll still be SO HAPPY because eventually we WILL find The One. And it WILL probably be in Morgan Hill or Gilroy. And goddamnit I wish people would stop making this ALL ABOUT THAT LAST POINT.

Of the 40 people I’ve told about ths house, 32 of them responded with:

– Wow, that’s so far.
– That’s a LONG drive.
– Gilroy is so far away.
– Man, you’re going to get tired of that drive.

And seriously people, JUST STOP. When a woman tells you she’s pregnant you don’t respond with “OMG you’re going to get FAT!”. If you did she’d probably smack you upside the head. I don’t know why some of you think that it’s okay to respond to such life changing event, like buying your first home, in such a negative way. PLEASE DON’T DIRECT YOUR NEGATIVITY AT ME.

The thing I don’t get is that a lot, if not all of these people know how Ben and I met. How he used to drive 1000 miles a WEEK to see me. How he’d leave work at 3:00PM on a Wednesday, drive 240 miles to eat dinner with me, sleep, then wake up at 4:00AM to drive 240 miles back home to work. Then he’d be back again on Friday night and gone again Monday morning. 1000 miles a WEEK. To see me. You think he’s going to let a 20 mile commute keep him from something he loves? Something he want’s so badly? If you do, you really don’t know either of us as well as you think.

My dad and Cherie have been SO helpful in this process. Seriously, we would not be where we are now in this process without their constant guidance, support, and 10 billion emails and phone calls back and forth. He’s voiced his opinion about my commute, but also been SO POSITIVE and suportive and encouraging. THAT is what I want. I want people to, of course, DISCUSS the issues with me but STOP making it all about how sorry I’m going to be when I have to drive to work every day. For the record, as soon as the inspections are passed and we are a positive go on the house, I’m going to seriously start looking for jobs in either that area or southern San Jose.

Yes, we are going into this whole home buying thing blind, but we aren’t complete fools. We have REALLY thought out the pros and cons of moving farther south then we already are. We have spent many long discussions hammering out these details and thinking this stuff through and please, JUST BE HAPPY FOR US.

PS – This is not directed to any of my online girls, you all rock hardcore and have been so supportive. This is people in real life that have been, in general, not very thoughtful when reacting to the news.

*Title quote: Thich Nhat Hanh

So, I had this great idea for a blog post to announce our most recent BIG NEWS. Don’t you love the BIG NEWS?! I was going to formulate a list of houses with similar attributes and post about them one at a time starting in San Francisco, and working South from there. Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, San Jose, Morgan Hill then Gilroy. It was going to be pretty cool because it was going to show you how moving 20 miles south is saving us around $600,000 on the house we just made an offer on.

It’s THE HOUSE. Ben and I both loved it and I seriously figured we’d have to look at 179 houses over a year period to find a house we both loved because we can have such differing taste when it comes to this kind of stuff. We found it much sooner though, it was around house 17. It’s actually the second house that we put an offer on but I don’t really want to go into the FIRST house because it was stressful and FAST and all could have been made much better if the lending company hadn’t put a wrong loan amount on our offer letter. I mean, being a little off is one thing but they sent a letter showing that we had $300,000 LESS FUNDING than we actually do. It was just a big mess. BIG MESS!

Anyway, we put an offer on this house and I have my fingers crossed and this post is really just to ask you to do the same because I REALLY WANT THIS ONE. Alot, alot.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll post the expense progression post. Every time I look at homes around here I’m reminded what a cool deal we’re getting (assuming we get it) and how much I’m looking forward to our family moving into this new home and seeing where this new adventure will lead us.

*crosses fingers*

I’m back I think. I needed some blog decompress/think/brainstorm time.

A long time ago I was able to speak freely and openly here. I wrote in great depth about depression, how hard it is to be a single parent, funny little stories, EVERYTHING. Over the last two or so years I’ve had to start seriously censoring myself and remain “politically correct”. This wasn’t because I wanted to say things that shouldn’t be said, it was because I was surrounded by people that were drama hungry and couldn’t face the truth if it walked up spun them around and slapped them in the face with a wet trout.

I am NOT perfect, I am FAR from perfect. My life isn’t all rainbows and butterflies and cute little stories and happy, happy, joy, joy and, frankly, I’m fucking sick and tired of having to NOT POST the “bad” because people have nothing better to do then email me to start bullshit drama, follow me on twitter, flickr, blogs, message boards, WHEREVER THE FUCK ELSE, just hoping I’ll “slip up” and say something they can attack me for. I’m tired of taking the time to write out my feelings and thoughts and then not hitting the submit button because people are going to be all OMG SHE’S BLOGGED AGAIN AND YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT SHE SAID!!!

You can attack me all you want. Whatever. I’m really not going to deal with it. If you email me, it will be deleted and forgotten (unless it’s particularly funny in which case I’ll post it here so everybody else can laugh at how pathetic you are along with me), if you DM me on twitter I’ll unadd you, if you PM me on a forum, I’ll block you, if you message me, I’ll block you.

But understand this: aflux is my blog, my writing, my thoughts, my “domain”. If I want to mention how lame you look to obsess over girls online, I will. If I want to write in depth about how I’ve been struggling with depression, I will. If I want to rant about motherhood, I will. If I want to write about how Ben and I stayed up all night fighting, I will. If I want to write about how lame you look when you post a picture on flickr flipping me off, I will.

So, I’m not saying that my blog is going to turn into a fountain of negativity, but it will be a River of Truthiness. Finally, it will once again be what I’m REALLY thinking, how I REALLY feel, what’s REALLY going on in my life. Hopefully those of you that know and love me will see this as a good thing and I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you all and welcome the conversations we’ve had.

But those of you who DON’T think you can handle me being ME, or that I might just not agree with you, or I JUST MIGHT mention what an asstard you’re being or have been in the past, then I’d say your best bet would be to back up and walk away at a quick pace so as not to allow the long reach of my foot to make contact your ass on the way.

*deep breath*

Yep, I’m back.

*Title quote: Mark Twain.