Archive for the ‘New York’ Category

Rollin’… rollin’… rollin’…

Sunday, September 7th, 2014

Quick note: I’m not a hoarder, this is what moving looks like. This is also a graphics heavy post.

In the deep recess of my mind I will always have the “I need to sit down and get this done” mentality. The reality of that, however, it just doesn’t freaking happen. I’ve deleted five posts that were sitting in drafts over the course of the past few months. I’m to a point in my life where I’m really just too bored with things to even care about them. I always find a way to side track myself just to get away from the task at hand. This is killing me on all levels because I feel like I don’t actually complete anything from start to finish in the usual time frame.

Last month Sean and I headed up to New York because he had an appointment in Manhattan, and we hadn’t been up there in well over a year so we were doing double-duty on this trip by getting my childhood bedroom packed up so we could move everything into the house. I wanted to get up there earlier, but I also wanted to get the new house settled a little bit before there would be complete and total chaos with new stuff. I’m actually happy I did it this way because the end result of unloading the truck into the living room put my OCD about keeping things clean into a tail spin.

As you can see from the photo below, the living room and dining room were covered in boxes and bags and just fabric everywhere. It took me a solid 3 days to get everything where it was supposed to go.  Literally, three days, 8-10 hour days a piece. Books were put on the shelves, furniture was moved to the rooms they actually belonged in, DVD’s and Games were put away, shelves were hung in the hall closet to accommodate the extra jackets, winter gear, and even board games (that I had no idea I had a stock-pile of) and then all of the clothes somehow wound up inside of MY closet. This is primarily because it’s a 8-foot by 8-foot room and there was enough space on the floor, and enough height with the shelves that I could actually get the boxes into the shelves.

cleanhouse

So this is ultimately how the house looked after a solid 3 days of busting my ass. And even though the mess of stuff didn’t actually wind up in the den initially, since I was on a cleaning rampage anyway – I went a head and not only rearranged the furniture in the den, but cleaned and organized it from top to bottom as well.

den

Bella now has her own little corner by the doors, I needed this to happen because I wasn’t able to close the glass doors with the way the furniture previously was formatted. So I had to move Sean to his own corner, which works out better for him because it’s right in front of the TV. Not many people believe that it’s a 70-inch television, but it is and it just looks super small up against the huge wall it’s on.

The closet was a different story.  I think since it’s in an area that doesn’t get a lot of daily foot traffic, I was able to keep it at the back of my mind… as well as at the back of the house. I had no ability to even really access the closet, because three weeks of laundry kind of piled up in front of it. Of course, after the laundry was done I still couldn’t get towards the shelves because of everything on the floor inside of the closet that needed to be sorted through and thrown away.  In the end, however, the final result makes me very happy. Note: The bathroom and closet are not green, they’re white…for some reason the tablet is randomly changing things to different colors.

closet

Another area we’re tackling is the kitchen.  I’ve been fairly unhappy with it since we moved in. The location of the island really cut down the proper use of the counter space. So, what we did was get rid of the island. Does this sound crazy? Sure, but we turned the island so that it is up against the wall instead of coming out from the wall. We then purchased two upper cabinets to hang above it, and cut the depth of the counter top so there is no longer the ability to put the barstools up against it. This isn’t something I’m worried about though, what we’re going to be doing on the other side of the kitchen is opening up the wall to have a picture window (that will allow for more light in the Living Room), we’ll be purchasing two lower cabinets to flank on either side of the bar stools that will now overlook the living room and fireplace. This area will more than likely be used for quick meals, or going through the mail, or just sitting down and having a cup of coffee.  Maybe if Sean and I ever decide that we’re ready for children this could eventually turn into a homework space. I don’t know… I just know that by opening things up into the Living Room/Dining Room it’ll just make the kitchen feel larger than it actually is.  In order to do the walls, however, I’ll have already needed to have countertops ready to go.  We’re replacing the butcher block look formica with a slate black color, I’ll need to purchase two counter tops to replace the existing ones, and then an additional one to put against the new wall. I’ll be painting all the cabinets white, putting in new flooring, and going with a grey tone on the walls.  I’ll have pictures of that in an upcoming post, this one was a little picture heavy and I’m personally not 100% happy with how the kitchen currently looks so obviously there’s nothing to show.

In any event, I actually finally sat down and got everything in my head written down. I am going to try for more posts, lord knows there’s enough going on that I want to blog about but at least for now the “I finally have 30 years of my life under ONE roof” post is finally complete.

Busy…busy bee…

Tuesday, June 25th, 2013

Life hasn’t stopped in the past few weeks, I’m honestly surprised I have an ounce of downtime to even sit here and blog but I’m doing it, and the only way to get through it will be numbers…

#1 – A new pet…
While outside for my usual 4am smoke break I couldn’t help but hear excessive meowing coming from the lawn across the street. I believed it to be either a cat in heat, or one about to give birth. So, of course, you could imagine my surprise when there was all of a sudden a little face coming out from under my car begging for attention. Me, being an animal lover by default (one of my weaknesses), I figured she’s super tiny, more than likely a kitten and very thin so she’s got to be hungry. So I threw some of Bella’s food at her – she scoffed it and kind of went away but was lingering because she was clearly feeling us out (Sean and I were both outside at this point).  She lingered so much to the point that she wound up walking around on the deck while we were sitting there.  For an animal this social there was no way in hell she was a ferral cat because if they aren’t socialized within the first 2 months of birth they typically will never like people. Obviously someone was caring for this little thing in the past but lord knows where that owner is now (it’s been 3 weeks, and to date there’s been no one looking for her).  After she hopped up in my lap I instantly knew that this had to be someones cat, even if they were only feeding her outside, she absolutely had to be someones cat.  So all of us (Karen, Sean and myself) continued to check on her during the course of the next few days. She was easy to find, she never left the porch.  Karen and I brought her to the vet where she was treated with frontline and given a distemper. The vet confirmed my thought of her being between 6 and 12 months old, she’s way too tiny to not be a kitten – no matter how malnourished she potentially was.  We kept her, regardless of the fact that Sean’s allergic to her and she was scared shitless of Bella (bull in china shop that dog is, I swear).  We got her all setup in Karen’s room, she’s been overloaded with toys and the luxury of sleeping in a super fluffy King bed with Karen (who has a feather topper on it so it’s extra damn fluffy, like sleeping on a cloud).  There’s no way in hell this cat’s going anywhere, she’s too comfortable… even though none of us are…

Why?

#2 – FUCKING FLEAS
This cats infested with fleas, well – was.  Her time spent on the deck was enough for a few of them to jump off of her and go under the house and then I’ve been playing exterminator for the past three weeks.  My legs are bitten to crap from mosquitos because I was out on the deck every single day scrubbing it down with borax, bleach, dawn (which supposedly kills them) and ammonia.  Thank goodness I was outside considering I was technically making mustard gas just to get rid of the damn bugs.  Nothing I was doing was working and we couldn’t get the exterminator to the house thanks to the absolutely dreadful weather we’ve been having.  Thankfully I did start to get things under control, and damn do we have the cleanest deck in the complex.  Mother Nature, instead of working against us (in numerous different ways) decided to work in our favor this past week and on Friday the exterminator came in and sprayed down the whole exterior of the house. For two days I didn’t see a single damn bug, and they had plenty of opportunity to pop back up. THANK GOD FOR EXTERMINATORS!  The inside of the house was treated a week and a half prior to them treating the outside. The first guy showed up on a day when it was pouring and there was a moat around the house, but he got through it and got us started on killing everything off inside of the house.  It didn’t 100% do the trick because there was still the massive infestation outside. So thankfully with the second coat on the carpet, and the coat put on the exterior of the house and the whole perimeter of the property – we’re good to go… just a bit itchy from all of the bites but at least I know they’re gone!

#3 – WORK SUCKS
I’ve been non-fucking-stop with the tight deadlines. My eyes are burning from staring at the screen all day and each deadline is getting tighter than the last. The thing that kills me, and never ceases to amaze me… Clients will take 3-4 days to get back to you and then decide they want something done in 24-hours or they won’t pay for it. Listen up dickwads… your lack of ability to read your email instead of sexting with your wife/girlfriend would probably make ME less bitchy when you do ask for something… just saying.

#4 – Travel, Travel, Travel
I feel like for the past year I’ve spent more time in my car than I have anywhere else.  While this might not seem odd, for someone who works from-home… it kind of us. Either I’m up in Baltimore, or just over the MD border on Delmarva or up on Long Island… I feel like it just doesn’t stop and I should always be prepared for a long ass car ride. The most recent one was yesterday, Sean and I are up in NY for my father and sister’s birthdays this week.  We’re rushing back on the 30th so I can get Bella to the groomer on the 2nd, and hopefully have enough time to completely clean up the house for the 4th when our friend Colin is coming down to stay with us until the 9th. And yes, there are days in between but this isn’t like driving an hour out east to visit family like we used to do. It’s a 4.5 hour car ride and when you’re dealing with traffic that number has the ability to be doubled at any given time.  Case and point – driving up here yesterday took us over 6 hours. Why? We had a nice storm following us up and major construction on the NJ Turnpike so of course getting to Long Island in a timely manor was completely thrown out the window. To make matters worse, the poor dog is in desperate need of a grooming and it was a super muggy day so it took forever for the car to properly cool off so she could be comfortable.  I felt so bad for the poor thing, she must have had a full 20 oz. bottle of water just for the ride up – she never drinks that much but could not stop panting, and even though we’re in a relatively cool house now (being maintained at 68*) she’s still panting.  I can’t wait to get her shaved.

#5 – Heat Wave…
The official first major heat-wave of the NY season (to my knowledge) is starting tomorrow. Of course I’m extremely grateful that Colin helped me to recharge the AC in the car tonight because the amount of time it takes for the damn car to cool off was pissing me off to no end.  It should not take an hour before I’m comfortable in the car when the AC is running at full blast.  It does eventually get cold, 6 hours in the car yesterday my toes were turning purple because we were absolutely frozen trying to get the dog to cool off. So you could imagine my surprise when I went into the car just after he finished with the booster and it was already cold. THANK GOD FOR COLIN!  I could not have managed getting around while I was up here without that AC being taken care of.  NO WAY IN HELL.

#6 – The week ahead..
I know off the bat that there’s two major deadlines to complete, and to top that off I’ve tacked 3 deadlines onto it that are a little more on the tricky side but at least I’ve got help.  The two major ones are under NDA with the usual boss so I can’t discuss those, but the 3 smaller ones are two personal deadlines and one kind of big deal for me.  The personal ones are knu and agndesigns. I know I talk about that all the time but I’ve finally been getting off of my ass and doing something about it.  Adam, my bestie from the Westie, has created a base theme for me utilizing a few colors that I threw at him and I finally got around to coding it so that should be up on k.nu within the next week or so.  He also created a theme for AGnDesigns for me as well based off of a few themes I fell in love with but couldn’t quite figure out how to place the sections on the page without it looking completely off balance. He took care of both of them for me and I can’t help but thank him for it.

He’s part of my “Help”, we’ve partnered up and he handles the Photoshop stuff and I code everything.  Case and point would be his domain, rockchild.net, he came up with the concept – I made it work. jQuery is in every nook and cranny of that site but it made it flashy and that’s what he was going for.  He throws a few projects my way whenever they require coding – I would love to throw him design based stuff because he can get it done so much faster but when you’re under contract it’s hard to pass things off to someone else when you know you’re the one who’s supposed to be logging the hours and need to have the ability to answer every single question on the fly at any point of the day.

The other help, which is connected to the last project, is actually my Mom.  I’ll be building the Fire Dept. website over the next few days and she’s comfortable enough playing around with just about anything you throw at her so she’s in the process of getting her bearings on WordPress as she’ll be responsible for all of the content that goes up on the site.  I’ve been able to come up with a fairly awesome template for them, jQuery up the ass, all kinds of galleries, custom post types, advanced custom fields, and fancy templates for the mailing lists that will be built into the site.  A lot of people don’t realize how advanced you can get with WordPress. It’s not just a blog, or standard CMS anymore – the possibilities really are endless.  Case and point would more than likely be Dover Downs, that site is 100% powered by WordPress.  Not many people believe me when I say it… but take a look at the source code – you’d be surprised.

In any event, it’s knocking on 1am which (oddly enough) is about two hours past my bedtime. My schedule has completely switched by 12 hours. Usually I was going to bed at 10am but now I’m ready to pass out by 10pm. I’m up by 8am (at the latest) and working all day. The plus side is I’ll be able to get myself to the beach more often this summer, I only live 2 freaking miles from it after all… and my pale ass is in desperate need of a tan.  My arms are nice and dark, but my legs (no matter what I do) are still pale as hell.  I always say that my legs are Irish and my arms are Italian, I’m typically burnt on the bottom and as dark as one of those Jersey Shore fuckers (without the Orange tint, obviously).

It’s all coming to an end…

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

With the Holiday’s winding down, I’m finally able to wind down long enough to actually knock out a post. I’ve pretty much been running around like a chicken with my head cut off since Thanksgiving. Work, as I noted previously, is coming in waves, but at the same time the tide hasn’t really gone out. It’s not the luxury of “Ok, I can take some time on this and then bounce back to this.” it’s been “Do it now, and faster!”

@AGnDesigns - Instagram @AGnDesigns - InstagramWhile that can get a little annoying, it also worked to our benefit this year.  All family members were well taken care of for Christmas, Sean and I did spend quite a bit of money on ourselves but it was on things that we both wanted (for a while) and desperately needed.  We know the difference between Wants and Needs – unlike anyone under the age of 16 these days.  We both were in desperate need of new desks.  I had my Mac sitting on a Rubbermaid folding table and being as the 27-inch iMac (2011) weighs about 40 pounds, it was starting to sink down in the middle. To avoid it completely caving in, we went out and got me a new desk.  It’s a super nice one, with plenty of storage and it’s even a little bigger than the previous folding table so I actually got the chance to organize things where I can still completely function without any issues at all. Obviously after Sean spent 7 hours putting this thing together (one warped piece was throwing EVERYTHING off) he gladly took a little nap.  I decorated the drawers with dollar store shelf liner so that they can list a super long time without getting destroyed. There’s more than enough room for the work phone so my boss can stay on my butt too heh. I had it across the room next to the TV because we didn’t have a long enough Ethernet chord, but that was taken care of with the addition of a ZyXEL wireless switch that now sits behind my monitor. It supposedly boosts the Wifi in the house, but turns the Wifi into an actual plugged in connection as well, so I’ve got the phone plugged into it and if I needed to I could plug a printer in to it. It was actually strong enough of a feed to handle Sean’s XBOX 360 for a few weeks as well, so obviously it works how it’s supposed to.

@leprakhauns - InstagramSean, after my desk was put together, began increasingly becoming annoyed with his desk. After drilling into him that he spends way too much time at his desk and needs a new one…. we headed back to Staples a little over a week later (this past weekend actually) to pick up a new desk for him.  The one he’s been using for years was a typical students desk with the metal legs, the pull-out keyboard and the thin table top. One you’d see in college students dorm, basically.  So it was creaking like all holy hell and we wound up replacing that one as well.  He found a nice wide desk that he was in love with, but it unfortunately was not going to fit in the room so he went with one that was closer to size (in comparison to mine).  He’s in love with it as well.  It’s very nice dark wood with a nice sturdy base, some drawers – finito.

While picking up his new desk we browsed around the store a little bit, and came across the Google Nexus 10″ – Android Tablet.  Of course I was instantly in love, this thing is more powerful than the Droid 4’s that we upgraded to in October.  The $500 price tag instantly turned this item into a “Want”. We’ve been bouncing back and forth about Tablet’s for a little while now.  Sean really wanted to see what the new Microsoft Surface was about, I personally had no interest in it at all being as I’m as anti-Windows as you can possibly get these days.  Upgrading to Mac has spoiled me rotten.  I don’t have to deal with excessive upgrades, daily virus/malware scans and the blue screen of death that Microsoft claims to have gotten rid of , but I’ve seen it on both Windows 7 AND 8 because it’s very easy – when you know what you’re doing – to trigger everything Microsoft claims doesn’t exist.

@AGnDesigns - InstagramEither way, we both were playing with the Tablet for a little while and found out when browsing through the Settings to get all of the stats that it was now possible (with Android – Ice Cream) to have multiple users.  This sparked our interest almost instantly, and we both looked at eachother and I was like “I want”, he said “Go get it” (cause he’s fricken awesome) and while I was pulling the car around (cause he was picking up his desk the same day) he paid for both. Turned into an expensive shopping trip on our parts, but we walked out of there with a want, and a need.

 

@AGnDesigns - InstagramWhile he was in the Bedroom for a few hours setting up his new desk, I was prepping the house for Christmas.  I did more baking in the past few days than I ever thought possible. Everything from cookies, to breads, to brownies – you name it, I probably baked it. I went all out for Christmas this year, because I actually had more room to do it. I know that sounds a little weird but it’s true. A huge living room and a big footprint in reference to the front end of the house, things just kind of happened.  The baking was really just phase two, we’d spent quite some time decorating prior to my even pulling the flour out of the cabinet.  So the tree was decorated, the bulk of the outdoors was draped in white lights and the rest of the house had random little touches here and there.  Thankfully, minus today, there was really no wet weather going on outside so my garland didn’t get all mucky and was nice and clean for Christmas. I was also really happy with the tree in the living room. With the combination of Karen’s ornaments and mine everything kind of came together that worked out really nicely.

Traditionally, families open their gifts on Christmas Day. Around here? Christmas Eve. I think it’s a tradition based on impatience but to each their own. Sean cleaned up this year, outside of the gifts purchased for ourselves of course. New shirts, plenty of toys and gadgets to keep him entertained and the guitar I bought him. I know I usually complain to him about how much noise he can make on his own (without an accessory) but at the same time we’ve both had a pretty rough year, him more than I, and it was something I know he always wanted. So I got him a nice stand for it, and a DVD so he can learn how to play and we’ll go from there.

@leprakhauns - InstagramI also got him some new Happy Feet, this is a brand that we were in love with long before Snooki put it on MTV. I’ve always had a pair, and so has he and his were worn to the point that his toes were going to start popping through the bottom. Knowing how comfy they are I changed it up a little bit and got him the “All Around” ones, they look like real sneakers and there’s about an inch-thick rubber sole on the bottom of them. They’re better than my usual outdoor slippers so of course I’ll have to pick up a pair for myself in the future but for now this was all about him and that’s what he got. So that was one pair, and instead of getting him the standard color variations I decided to take a look under the “Animals” section and got him the most ridiculous ones I could find – and his favorite animal – the Penguins. Watching him walk around in these is more amusing than the slippers themselves, but they bring a smile to just about everyone’s face so it was more than worth it.

I cleaned up pretty well myself. Karen got me the “In-Styler” which is a hair straighter I’ve always wanted. I’ve used a friends before and it was probably the fastest way to straighten my hair that I’ve ever used. Some people have mixed feelings on it, others use it totally wrong and wonder how their hair gets wrapped up in it. As long as you read the directions it works out exactly as it’s supposed to, so I’m bringing it up to NY with me while Sean and I head up there for New Years, and after I get a much needed hair cut (via Mom) and dyed (via my sister), I’ll be using it to style my hair. Mom and I are also hitting up the nail salon, I’m long overdue for a manicure AND I desperately need my eyebrows done it’s been almost six months and I just can’t fricken take it anymore.

As usual, I bought myself a few articles of clothing while I was doing some shopping for other family members and had Sean wrap them for me. There was a jacket at Old Navy that I’ve wanted for a while, and I was in need of new yoga-pants so I threw those into the shopping cart as well. He wrapped everything for me, knowing that he was supposed to actually buy the items for me for my Birthday back in October but never did (I oddly got a Christmas tree instead), so he switched Holiday’s but kept the wrapping paper basically lol.

@agndesigns - InstagramThe thing I was surprised about, however, was the ViewSonic 24-inch Monitor that was under the tree. I’ve been using a 17-inch monitor as my “Email Screen” for the past couple of months and it was working out pretty well for me. I kept my email completely on that window and when I was actually in Photoshop or Dreamweaver I would just load project free TV and watch television right on the desk, no complaints at all. So you can imagine my surprise when Sean upgraded me to a much larger screen. This was one of those items that wasn’t on my wants, or my needs – which then turns into a complete and total surprise. And that wraps up Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day was a completely different story – I was non stop in the kitchen. I was cooking/cleaning for a good 8 hours yesterday. I fired up the crock pots early in the day to get the sauce going, the meat balls and sausage wound up in the pot a few hours later and from there it was just the matter of getting the pasta in the water so I could get everything into the oven. I even managed to get a spiral ham in the oven with everything else going on. As soon as dinner was done, I had a quick cig and was back in the kitchen to clean everything up and start baking the brownies. Why? Cause for the most part the cookies from Friday were already gone and the ones that remained were a little on the hard side. I figured that some time of dessert was required on Christmas and I went the double thick double fudge brownie route – more than half of them are gone which – to any cook – damn good sign.

Then Wednesday comes…..

Today was supposed to be a day of packing, working and getting ready to get out of here bright and early tomorrow morning for the long drive up to New York to see friends and my family. Of course that hasn’t been the case at all. Even though I woke up relatively early, I’ve been doing other things (not sure what) but nothing that I had originally set out to do. I do know that a load of dishes was done, all of the laundry was folded but nothing was put into the suit case at all. I also needed to get about 8 or-so hours of Work completed because we’re losing an entire day tomorrow to the drive up to New York and lord only knows what kind of a drive that’s going to be considering the storm sitting over the Northeast right now. Thankfully, in southern Delaware, it’s just rain but unfortunately it’s A LOT of rain and the complex is completely flooded. This was heaps of fun when it came to walking the dog. I don’t mind the drizzle, that wasn’t the problem, the excessive amounts of water just sitting because the complex has absolutely NO proper drainage systems is 4 inches of just mud and twigs to walk through. Poor Bella wound up taking a swim on multiple occasions tonight just because we completely misjudged the depth of the puddles we were going in to. I also found out that my winter boots are absolutely NOT water proof. As soon as I was in up to my ankle, my foot was soaked and of course they’re too big for me so they were rubbing weird and my sock wound up slipping down – needless to say it was not a good experience for anyone involved and Bella only really went to the potty twice (usually she goes about 4 times) but she still wound up having to be thrown into the sink for a nice bath to get her color back to white, she’d turned into a muddy brown fur ball for the bulk of the walk, the puddles did help but it just darkened everything and I wanted her to be nice and clean for Grandpa tomorrow.

We’re hoping to leave here before noon, now no ones gifts are wrapped and I haven’t done any packing but that’s completely the plan for the morning so that we can get up there in a decent amount of time and have the time to stop somewhere on the turnpike to pick up a roast beef sandwich from one of the Roy Rogers along the way for my father because that’s his one and only request for my time in New Jersey on the way to Long Island. I’m also needing to make a stop while we’re down here to pick up some cigs (for peoples xmas gifts) and some fudge from Candy Kitchen as I promised other family members that I would.

I can honestly say… there’s no way in hell we’re getting out of here by noon…that’s for damn sure.

We’re only going to be up in NY for about a week. Sean’s father is staying down here with his mother while we’re up there, she’s got 2 Chemo treatments this week and then unfortunately she’s going to lose a week to sickness because she’s not getting the third day of extra fluids because they supposedly don’t do that on Saturdays around here, and she didn’t go in today – for whatever reason – to start the scheduled 3-day cycle. So now she’s going to lose a day and I just hope that George keeps pushing large glasses of water onto her so that she can stay hydrated enough to get through the nausea that’s going to completely consume her for the next week.

We’re ringing in the New Year and NY and I personally couldn’t be happier. Being down here for the last six months I’ve really missed my friends and family and just can’t wait to get home. Even if that means I’m not sleeping tonight just so we can get out of here tomorrow – I’ll do whatever it takes.

I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to get into my Dashboard for a while since the work is still piling up and this is a ‘mini vacation’ for me, so I’m wishing everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year! I hope 2013 is a hell of a lot better than 2012… at least we won’t have to deal with all of the Mayan Calendar bullshit anymore, heh.

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.

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:

A new kind of market…

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Sean and I have been in Delaware for almost a week now, over the course of the past week we’ve realized how carefree and relaxing it is down here, even though we’ve been working the entire time. (The joy of being a designer… you can work anywhere).  We’ve weighed our pros and cons and realized that living in an apartment in NY would not permit us to build up a savings account, where as purchasing a home in DE would.  How did we figure this? Simple math really.

In order for us to have an apartment in NY (even in Suffolk County – eastern end of Long Island), we would need $1,800 a month before utilities. In order for us to purchase a home in DE, with the mortgage and utilities, it would only come to about $1,200.  The kicker would be that we would also be asking for a mortgage $20,000 above the cost of the home. Why? Because that’s how all of our credit card and loan debts would be paid off. Our outgoing bills would still be approximately $1,800 a month, but now instead of paying credit cards and a personal loan, we’d be paying a mortgage, utilities and the remainder of my auto loan on the truck.  PLUS, being as it’s only the two of us the food bill would drop down, the insurance rates would also drop down.  So while we’d be spending exactly what we’re shelling out now, we’d have more leway with the money and less stresses for the environment being as we’ll OWN the environment and can pretty much do whatever we please.

The help in all of this is the current rush of work coming through, we’re going to assess things and see if they’re still like this six months down the road, if we can maintain our current income (by either staying where we are, or increasing it) we’ll be able to own a home sometime within the next year which then gives us the ability to really start out our lives together.

I’ve taken a few drives through the southern section of DE because I really do love the communities and areas around there.  I also took a drive with Sean’s mom to do a little house hunting as well.  We’ve found two really nice homes in one community off of Route-9 in Lewes, DE. I honestly believe this is the area that I’d like to live in because of the dynamic and the fact that there was plenty of room for Bella to run around in the yard, and the home itself is 1600 sq. ft. which to me is perfect for two people and a 15lb animal.  It’s 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, there’s a 3-season porch which would essentially be my office space, and we’d keep the third bedroom as a guestroom for anyone who comes by.  The home itself is very reasonably priced, there’s a community pool and a rather large pond surrounding one section of the complex that, to me, would mean a lot of excess bugs – but the screened in porch would counteract the problem.  My only gripe about the home itself is the lack of outdoor patio area, but that can easily be accomplished with the permit to attach one to the home.

Either way we’re only looking into things, this isn’t the only home I’m even considering but the community itself has caught my eye, and its distance from the beach helps me gravitate towards it even more.  I think there’s a mortgage in my near future…heh.

Hello Delaware!!

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

It’s been a long time coming but I’m finally back in Delaware for a few weeks. It’s been three years since I moved back to NY and I can’t tell you how much I missed it down here. The second we rolled in my eyes lit up to the point I swear they were glowing. We’re staying with Sean’s mom, it’s weird being back in the house but at the same time it feels as though I never left.

Sean’s birthday is tomorrow, I need to get myself out of the house long enough to get up to the store to pick up a few things for him. He already knows he’s getting two video games, “Gears of War 3” and “Dead Island”, I know there’s a third gift in there but I’m going to need to find it first. He knows, in the back of his mind, what it is – but has yet to figure it out so that’s good enough for me, at least there will be some kind of a surprise factor, heh.

So far we’ve hit-up the usual spots where we could be found… “The Roadhouse” in Lewes, “Casapulla’s South” in Rehoboth, and of course we trucked ourselves to the beach because neither of us has really seen one in years. I know that I live on Long ISLAND, but the beaches up there suck major, major ass. It’s not the same when you live on the North Shore. You don’t get the ISLAND feel, you get the “Oh look, there’s Connecticut and somethings floating in the LI Sound again”. So, needless to say, being able to look out and all I see is endless ocean, I’m one happy chick. I fully intend to go back a few more times before we leave.

On top of this being a change in scenery for a few weeks, there’s still some work involved.  Sean and I are both swamped with work, I’m getting mine done a bit more quickly than him, but that’s going to reverse pending a few responses from a client that’s giving us a pretty solid workflow at the moment.  I’ve got a few more sites to add to my portfolio, which is also on the agenda while I’m down here because the change in altitude and the addition of the beach has given me a whole new burst of energy and inspiration.  I’m starting to wish I never left, but circumstances back in New York made that pretty difficult for me.

I’m on the war path though, I’m looking on both Long Island and in Delaware for places to live.  My heart will always be in NY, but for some reason my soul is happier in DE.  Financially speaking, of course, DE would be the way to go but the few prospects that I’ve found don’t really thrill me too much.  One lady down the road (same complex as Sean’s mom) is offering a rental on her house for $750 a month (which is 100% doable, and a pretty good deal), but then when I showed a little interest she noted she’s actually looking to sell as soon as possible because of all of the problems with the house that her husband has been feverishly working to correct. I took a few minutes to take a walk down to the house to see if it would actually be worth it for me or Sean.  It’s a relatively decent deal but I could see exactly what she was talking about the second I walked up onto the property.  It does need a lot of work, and based on the fact that a mortgage would even be required, I’d prefer to take on a much newer model home without as many issues.  I’ll weigh the options for a little while, going back and forth between NY and DE, but for now – until we can pay the bills down quite a bit – I’m going to stay put until the opportunity to make the choice, with the financial stability, comes to the surface.

Based on how much I missed it down here, however, I do see myself coming back to visit a bit more. Yes, it will continue to be a ‘workation’ being as we do need to work in order to continue living, but having the luxury of working for yourself means you can pretty much work anywhere with a laptop and a wifi signal.  We already know that we’re coming back down in November for Punkin Chunkin but that’s something we saw advertised quite a bit while we were down here but never took advantage and actually went to enjoy it in person. It’s a three day event, I don’t see myself going all three days. But even going up to just enjoy the festivities for one day would make me pretty happy.

What a week…

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

I’m still working on getting everything moved over to the new data center.  Thankfully I was able to find one that knows exactly what they’re doing so I couldn’t be happier with my choice to finally make this move.  I have a lot of other things going on, mainly work related but it’s nothing too big right now to really make a huge deal out of.

Sean and I have extended our mini-vacation.  We’re not on Delaware (if you haven’t guessed).  We loaded up the car for a big family trip and now we’re staying a bit longer than we originally planned.  We left about 2AM on Wednesday morning, we didn’t get here until about 7AM so that’s quite a trip to take.  Traffic and my little break down certainly didn’t help us, and by the time we were crossing over the bridge we were basically driving directly into the sunrise, and of course neither one of us had any sun-glasses with us so that proved to be a bit difficult.  We got here just as my father was heading out to work and thankfully he didn’t notice the huge box in the back seat of the car.  He got that the following day (his birthday).  I made dinner, had my aunt and uncle over and then on Sunday we fired up the new BBQ (Dad’s gift) and enjoyed burgers and dogs for my sister’s birthday.  All in all that went over well.

I saw my mother, she was diagnosed with Bells Palsey a few weeks ago but after surgery on Tuesday the test results showed that she has Sarcoidosis.  It’s an auto-immune disease that will never go away but it can be controlled with the proper medication.  Unfortunately she has it pretty bad and that’s where the paralysis in her face has come from.  It was a little strange seeing her like that but there’s nothing you can really do to stop it.

My dad’s cancer has been cleared thanks to his radiation treatments.  He’s lagging a bit though.  Even though the radiation is no longer in his body he’s a little worse for the wear so he’s having some trouble getting around.

My aunt (mother’s sister) went in for surgery on Monday.  She had a lump on her skull and underneath her cheek muscle that doctors need to run a biopsy on.  She wound up checking herself out of the hospital on Tuesday against doctors orders and now it’s a waiting period for the test results.   One ass hole doctor basically said “You’re riddled with cancer” but he made this remark before the tests were even looked at, let alone processed.  So it’s safe to say that bedside manor is non existent – even in the ICU!

So it’s safe to say that almost every member of my family is falling apart to some degree.  My aunt has always had medical problems, but now my mother has them pretty bad, my grandfather will more than likely need two knee replacements and my grandmother, who’s 60 pounds lighter thanks to Weight Watchers, just had surgery on her eyes and is still feeling the effects of the botched surgery she had a few years ago on her ankles – they’re no better than they were before the surgery and thanks to sliced nerves they’re much worse than they should be.  The doctor was able to get the lawsuit dismissed, apparently “I do not recall” seems to be a good enough excuse for a judge to void a lawsuit.  :ugh:

Something tells me I’ll be moving back to NY in the near future.  It’s not the fact that Sean and I have been talking about it for a while, it’s the fact that I expect to have an upcoming year where everyone drops like flies and being 5 hours away really wouldn’t be a great idea.

In any event, time to return some emails and continue with domain transfers. Oh joy!

Just itching to go…

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

Travel Tours While I know money isn’t that great right now, I really hope to be able to get up to New York soon. I called my father last night and while things seem to be going OK there’s still that wish for me to be up there. My father’s birthday is coming up, he’s going to be 60 this year. Yea, he was 36 when I was born but that’s OK – he did a damn good job. My sister’s birthday is three days later, she’ll be 22 this year. You kind of wonder where all of the time went in the last 20-something years, you know?

Anyway, it’s my goal to get enough cash together in the next couple of weeks so we can take the trip up there at the end of June. Maybe I’ll get lucky enough and one of my various interviews will come through, I don’t know. It’s just important to me that I actually get up there. Things with the family are “OK”, I found out that my mother thought she had a stroke but it’s actually Bells Palsy. My sister didn’t even find out until like three days after it happened, but my family just seems to like keeping secrets. How could you not tell someone’s daughter that their mother is in the hospital? I could understand if my sister was like 10 years old or something, but she’s 21 – I think avoiding telling her is absolutely uncalled for.

So yea, there are a few different reasons for me to get up there. It’s not like I’m looking for things to do in New York that are out of the norm for me, like going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or something. I’ve been there before, I’m going to New York for family, not even a vacation at this point. My idea of a vacation is floating around in the Casino’s of Atlantic City (Harrah’s being my favorite – of course). But this is a family thing, that’s the most important right now.

If you want to find something to do in New York you can poke around Trusted Tours & Attractions. They have a free e-newsletter, and give you family vacation ideas as well.

Trusted Tours

A book recommendation, followed by randomage.

Sunday, January 20th, 2008

Since there isn’t much going on these days, other than sending out resumes and hoping for the best, I’ve been doing a lot of reading to keep myself entertained. A few months ago I picked up a book at the grocery store. It caught my eye because the author, Erica Spindler, has been a favorite of mine for quite some time now. It’s one of her newer books, Copy Cat, and I have to say I highly recommend it to just about everyone in the mood for not only a romantic story, but a suspense thriller as well. Paperback cost me about $7 but you can find it on Amazon for as little as $1.

Erica Spindler - Copycat The Sleeping Angel Killer provides the chilling focus to Spindler’s 12th bloodcurdling romantic thriller (after Killer Takes All). Kitt Lundgren and Mary Catherine “M.C.” Riggio of the Rockford, Ill., VCB (Violent Crimes Bureau) vow to catch a serial killer who sets the suffocated bodies of 10-year-old girls in their own beds, dressed like angels in frilly white nightgowns, hair spread out on their pillows and pink lip gloss applied postmortem to their mouths. Spindler’s setting of a “meat-and-potatoes” Midwest town provides a fresh background for two believable and very cool investigators. Kitt, a recovering middle-aged alcoholic, tried and failed to catch the murderer five years earlier, during a 2001 killing spree, while her own child was dying of leukemia and her marriage was falling apart under the strain. Now, when eerily similar crimes recur, someone calls Kitt, identifying himself as the original killer and the new perp as just a copycat. M.C., an ambitious, distrustful newbie, is assigned to help Kitt with the investigation. The detectives must overcome their personal problems in order to catch the monsters, a task culminating in a breathless finale.

I’m not done with the book yet, I only started reading it before I went to sleep last night. After about an hour I was 150 pages in and found it damn near impossible to put it down. The only reason I did was based on the lack of ability to keep my eyes open. While I was enjoying the book, my head was still telling me to go to sleep and no amount of fighting it was going to keep me awake for much longer anyway.

The book has a day-to-day theme going on with it and oddly enough the story was set in the February/March time frame of 2006. A few things caught my eye, mainly because March 2006 was such a difficult month for me. I noticed that chapter 7 is the only notice of the ex-husband (thus far) and this fell on the date of March 7, 2006. The reason this caught my eye was based on the fact that the very first line of the chapter read “Hello Joe”. I found it pretty freaky, this character is talking to her ex-husband the same day I lost Joe. I know that it’s purely a coincidence but it stood out for me, and probably had a lot to do with why I sat here for so long reading as much as I could before I dozed off.

I had some pretty strange dreams last night, not sure why but all family members that have passed on came to me and started yapping about something important, what the message was – I have no idea. I just think it’s strange that I haven’t dreamt of my Grandmother since I was 8 years old and there she was standing in front of my desk with some kind of a message that I just didn’t understand. I didn’t hear her, I knew she was talking to me, you can always see someone talking to you in your dreams. I’m just unsure of what was actually being said, I just remember screaming “Speak English” because it sounded like “Womp, Womp, Womp” whenever she opened her mouth.

Another interesting dream happened just as I’d dozed off to sleep. I’m unsure of whether or not it was based on the book or not but I was walking up my stairs (the one’s in NY, not DE) and at the top of the stairs was Tony Soprano’s mother (now deceased). I could literally see right through her, she looked at me with this evil grin on her face and then her eyes rolled up in the back of her head. I went to run inside but I couldn’t get my keys out of my pocket and I stood there screaming “Wake me up!”. When I finally did wake up it had only been about 20 minutes since I’d gone to bed. It was just one of those freaky dreams that chills you to the bone and sticks with you all freaking day.

And speaking of bone chilling, according to my weather monitor it’s supposed to get down to about 3¬?F tonight. A quick snow shower came through this evening but I haven’t been outside since about 1am to see what kind of “damage” was done. Down here you don’t get much, we’re too close to the ocean and everything tends to melt within an hour because of the salt in the air. I hear NY is getting some pretty decent snow, I kind of wish I could be up there right now to enjoy it but I have to accept the fact that Delaware will never be New York and I need to move on. It sucks, but nothing I can do about it.

Busy with Resolutions?

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

I’ve been keeping myself busy to make up for the financial loss of the holiday season. I’ve gotten a lot of posting done, a lot of design work and even some personal things as well. I hope to be able to bring in the New Year with friends and family and not have to worry about any actual WORK until the 2nd or so. I’m heading up to New York this weekend and unfortunately got a phone call tonight that set me in a tail spin. My aunt was in a pretty bad car accident, her car is more than likely totaled. I did get in touch with her tonight though, she says that she’s fine, but she’s also a stubborn Irish woman so who knows if that’s actually the case. I know she’s a little sore from the accident but she’s assured me, a few times, that she’s absolutely fine with just a few bumps and bruises. I found out from my sister, she called me from work and told me I need to get back up to NY to see her, I’m thinking something is very wrong but a second phone call to verify information told me that I can wait until Saturday.

I went to the DMV yesterday to get my ID changed over, I’m officially a Delaware resident. I was apprehensive about surrendering my NY ID because I was unsure of the wait time for a new ID card. In NY you go through the motions and then you wait a few days and it shows up in the mail. In DE, however, the card is instantly given to you so I don’t have to worry about not having proper identification on me when I’m traveling this weekend. My next big task is to get a car and some insurance down here and the rest is cake. So that’s one goal for the year.

Another goal is heading back to school. I’ve decided on DeVry and luckily with my situation I’m eligable for full financial aid from 2-3 different resources. I just need to make sure to get all of the paperwork in around the first of the year. It’s only going to be an associates but it’ll carry over for when I’m going for my bachelors (maybe masters) somewhere down the road. So on top of an 8 hour work day, I’m adding a 3-4 hour school day. Then the other 12 hours can basically be spent relaxing and sleeping. Not too shabby – I know I can handle it.

On top of the first two goals, quitting smoking is certainly on the list this year. With a lack of health insurance and increasing lung issues, it’s time to stop beating the dead horse and moving on. I picked up “The Easy Way To Stop Smoking” because I’m a reader and figured a book could tell me more than those damn “Cold Turkey” techniques. I have to say that I can understand why so many people have read this book over the last 20 years. I completed it in about 3 hours and I’m confident that once I begin his methods I’ll succeed in quitting for good. Cold turkey and the patches and that horrible gum – none of it is worth it to me. You quit when YOU are ready to quit and you consider yourself a “Non Smoker” the second you extinguish your last cigarette. I’ll pick a day and then go from there. As of right now there’s a little too much stress in the air for me to pull this off completely. I know you’re sitting there like “Ha! Talk about another excuse” but that’s just how it is for me. I’ve got the little monster in my brain that won’t shut up and I’m going to have to slowly learn how to stop listening to him, that’s all.

And then of course there’s the weight-loss resolution that everyone has. The difference is I’m already ON a diet plan (and doing quite well, thank you) so it’s basically just keeping the concentration, continuing with my small-portion meals during the day and going on from there. Even Sean is going to get in on it with me, who knows – maybe by this summer we’ll spend more time at the beach than in the back yard – heh.

In any event, I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, I won’t be around until Tuesday afternoon so hopefully everyone has a fun weekend. Be safe!

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.

Approved.

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

I was approved for the loan, but that doesn’t mean that life has been made any easier.¬† In order to get the loan I need to be in person at the bank, which is fine, but the cosigner needs to be there as well.¬† My problem is that my cosigner lives in NY, so this means we’ll be taking a trip up there sometime over the course of the next week.¬† However, we’re also dealing with a broken car – so how are we getting up there?¬† On Monday we’re calling a car rental place and then taking the trip up.¬† I figure if we leave on Thursday or Friday, we can take the drive home for Sunday/Monday.¬† It’s a lot of driving to do but at the same time, there’s no real choice.

Once we get back, with money in hand we’ll get his car fixed because he refuses to look into an auto loan.¬† My issue is the fact of putting $1,000 into a car that probably won’t even MAKE it to Ohio if it’s fixed, so what’s the point?¬† I know for the initial trip we’re renting another car, this way his car only needs to make the one trip and then after we settle in we’ll work from there.¬† It just seems like a lot of extra steps but we also know that insurance is a bit different out there as well, so buying a car out here is going to more than likely cost us more in the long run.¬† His brother is only paying like $90 a month on two cars, and he’s got full coverage.

Everything is cheaper out there I guess.

Moving back to NY?

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

Anyone who’s ever lived in New York knows how expensive it can be just to survive. If you’re someone who rents then you more than likely won’t get very far ahead on your bills and if you’re someone who owns their own home, unless it was passed down to you through generations you’re still going to drop a pretty penny on a regular basis.

I grew up in Glen Cove, while I’ll admit that getting out of there was the best possible thing for me, there are sections of the town that are absolutely gorgeous. Naturally, in order to live there you’re going to need to bring in at least $300,000 a year in the process.

Today I came across a resource in regards to Roslyn NY real estate. While I haven’t ever lived in Roslyn it’s only about 10 minutes away from my previous residence in Glen Cove. There are sections that are completely horrible, but for the most part it’s fairly gorgeous housing as well. Again, there are ritzy areas of Long Island and then there are what one would expect to see when they go to New York – slums.

So since Sean and I are working on buying our own home, I’ve naturally looked into where I’d feel the most comfortable. Unfortunately we don’t make enough combined income to be able to afford a mortgage up in New York therefor we’re going to remain outside of the Tri-State Area and either continue on our search here in Delaware, possibly move to Maryland or head out to Ohio, something I’m not too keen on but he’s persistent in trying to convince me to get out there.

You’re kidding me … right?

Friday, April 27th, 2007

So the ‘massive storm’ was nothing more than a dud. I really hope something hits around here soon or I’m going to go back up to New York where everything seems to be. I just saw something on the news a little while ago about the Long Island Expressway getting bombarded, that’s the kind of weather I love.

It’s mainly been raining on and off here, so a few sounds of thunder got me excited, that left as quickly as it came though. The lady next door, however, has no driveway. There’s no real drainage systems around here and her driveway kind of has a dip at the end of it that holds water in excess, she had to walk through a massive puddle (that started from the middle of the street and ended half way up her driveway) in order for her to get to her car. I swear I’m going to write a letter to the land owner to find out just where his $400,000 a year income (per community, he owns like 5) is being used because this is beyond absurd.

So instead of being outside today, I’m inside with the TV on in the background. Oprah pisses me off so I’m not even going to bother watching her. Judge Judy isn’t on yet, and I LOATH Dr. Phil so I’m not even gonna go there. Time to surf through channels to put something decent on in the background. Oprah’s doing some eligible bachelors thing on her show today, there’s like 60 guys or something on stage at the moment, none of which look even remotely appealing…go figure. Since when is her lesbian lover her new co-host?

Oy…

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

I’m finally moved in. It was pretty difficult packing everything up but I was able to get everything done in the 2 ?Ǭ? days that I had, with loads of help from the boyfriend. There’s still one box to be unpacked but there’s nothing that I can really do about that until after the office has been rearranged. I basically took everything with me, I did leave a few things in New York but for the most part I have everything I need. I’m sure when I go up to NY in June I’ll be able to get the rest of my things.

I have my desktop setup, I finally activated Windows. It’s strange being on a standard screen considering I’ve been used to my wide screen laptop for the last year. I’m still getting used to having a regular keyboard too…no more quiet key for me :sigh: I’m sure I’ll be driving myself crazy soon considering how sensitive my hearing is at this altitude.?Ǭ† It’s also strange seeing all of the pixels that I haven’t seen in a while. I’m sure I’m going to have to change out the graphics card though. Right now it’s set on the default motherboard graphics. I have my old graphics card from my last desktop, I know it still works, so I’ll move that in here the next chance I get. For now, I’m not overly concerned about it considering I still intend to do all of the major work on my laptop anyway.

I’m way behind on emails so I guess I’ll get my butt in gear on those. I have some work to do as well, hopefully that’ll go smoothly and I’ll be able to get to bed soon, I’m beat.