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An aging pup…

Friday, May 13th, 2016

The past week has been a complete and total shit-show. On top of a few family members having heart issues, Bella is now having them as well. On Tuesday I accidentally kicked her and she cried in a way that I’d never heard before. Immediately after she peed in the carpet in the living room and had a bowel movement while she was laying down hiding in the corner. She was brought to vet because on all accounts nothing was normal about the situation. I felt horrible for kicking her, then to see the aftermath I knew her going to a doctors office was important.

During the exam the Vet noted that she heard some crackling in Bella’s lungs and wanted to do a chest X-Ray. Per the xray she claimed that the striations on the lungs confirm the sounds she heard and wanted to start her on medications for Congestive Heart Failure. I was given Lasix (Diuretic), Enalapril (ACE inhibitor), Vetmedin (for CHF) and then Metronidazole (an antibiotic) to address the stomach problems. $500+ later we were out the door and heading home with her. Being as it was fairly late in the evening, and I wanted to be sure I was fully awake for any possible side-effects to occur I waited until 12 hours after leaving the vet (Wednesday) to administer the first round of meds in addition to her daily Insulin routine. Within 1 hour of receiving the pills her water intake increased dramatically. I expected this with the Lasix but it was needed to remove the build up of fluid around her heart. A few extra wee-wee pads down in the house was just going to have to happen. Note: I’m very good about bringing her outside on a regular basis rain, snow or shine. We just put new floors down in a few areas of the house that have yet to be ‘water proofed’ so an increase of pee pads in case of an accident was a must.

Seeing her reaction to all of the pills I made the choice to only give them to her once daily instead of the recommended twice daily. This decision I believe, is ultimately the only reason she is still alive.

As of Thursday morning, 14 hours after receiving all three pills and having two accidents in the house and consuming approximately 64oz of water because of the Lasix, we started having issues with diarrhea. I assumed there would be some kind of issues there based on the introduction of new medications, even with an antibiotic she’s always had a GI reaction to something new going into her body.  But this was something different, this wasn’t just liquid bowel movements every few hours until the Pepto Bismol (2 units) worked its magic. This was borderline amoebic dysentery as she was going both in the house and in the yard every 45 minutes or so. There was absolutely no form to it, pure liquid. I knew I needed to call the vet but I was doing a late mothers-day dinner for Karen so we had dinner. During dinner, not thinking twice about it, I gave her the second round of pills because we were in that 24 hour mark. After the pills we drove Karen back home and then when we walked in the house we entered into a complete shit show. She was vomiting, pooping, gagging. I called the vet. While on the phone explaining all the symptoms she was in the den crapping pure blood. Before the vet even got the chance to say “Bring her in.. this is the emergency fee…” we had the key in the ignition and were on our way to their office.

She threw up a few more times in the car on the way over. I had her on a towel for the blood leaking from her back end and thankfully the towel had enough slack towards her front end for me to catch what was coming out of her mouth. We get to the office, they bring us into an exam room and she continues vomiting. I’m seeing every single one of the pills making an appearance and listing them as each one showed up. It was to the point that the vet tech asked if I was a tech myself (or just in the medical field in general) because I identified every pill by proper name. No, darlin’, this just isn’t my first rodeo and I know which 4 pills went into her, obviously I’ll know which are coming out of her.

They ran blood work, did another x-ray, took urine samples and then brought her back to us. While waiting for results she started back with the diarrhea, I purposely left one (of 7?) instances on the floor for the doctor to see because he wasn’t in the room at the time. It had a lot more blood than he’d thought it would have at this stage of the evening, and now we’re looking at blood clots which is 100% abnormal. He decided it would be an overnight stay for her and ran down the list of treatments to be provided. After 3 hours in the office Sean and I were on our way home, no doggie.

I didn’t sleep last night, I was too busy in tears wondering why this was going on and could I have caused everything with the kick on Tuesday. About 5:30 in the morning I called the office, the vet noted that she’s resting but stable and had her insulin to help her sugars. He noted I would hear from someone either this morning or this afternoon after the next shift of doctors came in and did their rounds for the day.

I don’t know how but I was able to finally catch a few hours of sleep to be woken up by a vet tech around 2:30pm. She noted that Bella is doing much better and actually trying to eat something (which is great) but since it’s dog food and not her usual human-food based diet she’s turned her nose up a few times. She’d basically called me to say “come and get her”, I declined.

I was not rushing over there to pick her up (as badly as I wanted to) because I’m really unhappy with how quickly they wanted to send her home when the issues have yet to be addressed. Why was she crapping blood? Why was she throwing up every five minutes? Why did one doctor put her on Lasix and Enalapril only to have the next one take her off of them because he didn’t hear the same crackling noises in her chest that that the first one did? I wanted a THIRD opinion there. Why is she still hooked onto the IV to help rehydrate her if I can just walk out the door with her? Why are her liver enzymes through the roof? Is it Cushings? It sure looks like it. Why (minus sickness) was her Glucose so high considering she’d only had her insulin a few hours before I brought her in. Does that need to be adjusted? Why did you go out of her way to tell me she has a high fat content in her blood and then not say anything further about it?

I appreciate that they ran every possible test that they could on her and ruled out countless things, but the “cause” of these issues is still up in the air. OK, I get it – she’s a senior dog with Diabetes and CDE/Blindness – but there’s absolutely no reason for any of the problems noted above to be there as they are not connected to her Insulin or Eye Drops. There’s more damn questions than there are answers right now and they just wanted to boot her out the door. The tech went as far as saying “If you’d prefer us to deal with the little bit of diarrhea she still has, that’s fine.” I wanted to scream that she was literally crapping all over me while we were talking to the doctor and I didn’t even budge – but I didn’t. Poop and Vomit don’t bother me, never have and never will. Sean got a little light headed but he can’t even handle a pimple being popped in front of him. No aspect of bodily function bothers me, I can deal with it – so don’t even try to throw that one in my face. I’m not leaving her in your office to wipe her ass, I want to know why these issues are there to begin with damn it.

I 100% believe that, while a few areas of bloodwork were something that’s been ongoing, the introduction of 4 medications this week is exactly why we are where we are, but not a single person will admit to it verbally. I could tell on the vets face last night that he thought the Lasix/Enalapril was the wrong call but he said absolutely nothing because it questions a colleagues decision.

Fast foward to 5:30 this afternoon (Friday). I receive a second call from the same tech and she kind of mumbled to me in a “You were right…” kind of tone about my decision to leave Bella under observation for just a little bit longer. Bella did eat dog food, which is a choice I don’t agree with but it’s the vets office they aren’t going to be sharing their lunches with her. The only way to get her to eat was by hand feeding her and she wasn’t overly thrilled about what she was consuming. She then received her insulin. Around 4-4:30 the diarrhea restarted. She then went on to note that the IVs will continue to keep her hydrated and Enalapril will never be given to her again. Lasix is something we may need to reconsider in the future but Enalapril is the cause of everything that’s happened in the last 24 hours so there is no reason for her to be on it. The Vetmedin is the heart medication she will remain on, and it has the least amount of GI interference. She will not be getting a dose of that until tomorrow afternoon though. They want her system to fully flush the Enalapril as it is now over 48 hours later still upsetting her system. We all could easily confirm via the contents of her vomit and the xray that no pills were left in her stomach last night so her only dose of the Enalapril is there from Wednesday, maybe a micro-dose before vomiting last night but the full dose from Wednesday is what’s working through her right now.

After a half hour conversation with the tech I’m feeling more confident that two nights will do the trick for her. Another 12-24 hours on an IV to fully flush her system out is what is necessary for her to move forward right now. I’m fine with giving her ONE heart pill per day if it helps with her quality of life. She’s already getting her insulin twice daily, and having her eyes treated twice daily as well so that won’t change. By tomorrow we’ll see where we are and hopefully I get to take her home.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions, based on bloodwork I’m pretty much convinced of Cushings based on her liver enzymes but that could also be connected to the Enalapril and would need to be something we revisit in the future. I also want to know if since they’re monitoring her glucose for the next 24 hours if that counts as a glucose curve exam for insulin adjustment at home. We’ll see what they say tomorrow when I’m standing face-to-face with the doctors.

Now: I know there’s at least one asshole out there who says “Just put the dog down”. I can assure you that’s not going to happen for not only my own selfish reasons of not wanting to lose her, but knowing full well that she has plenty of fight left in her and has yet to give me “The Look” that all pet parents know too well. Someone telling me “Just put her down” when I know it’s not time is the equivalent of someone throwing Grandma into the garbage instead of a nursing home because their care is an inconvenience for them. To that kind of person – all I can and will ever say is fuck you and fuck off.

I should be receiving an update either later this evening or tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I have a house to tidy up because I thankfully have nothing to work on today. I need to clear my head and the best way to do that is to blast some music and vacuum up the house. Gives the little patient a nice obstacle free zone for her to walk around in when she gets home anyway.

Fuck you Savannah Animal Hospital!

Wednesday, July 15th, 2015

Note: Grab a bottle of vodka and count the fucks, cause girlies on a rampage today.

I know I haven’t posted in a while, and frankly I don’t care – I have a life and a job and that’s where my focus is… so, oh fucking well.  Why am I posting now? Because I’m beyond fucking pissed the fuck off.

Bella’s veterinarian has decided that they will not provide me with a written prescription for Bella’s medication. Originally I had one in my hand, but they made it null and void when I requested a refill on her eye drops. It was given to me a few weeks ago, but based on schedules and deadlines I was unable to get it mailed out to 1-800-Pet-Meds to have it filled.  I had to make the choice (which I wasn’t thrilled about) of calling the vet today to request the immediate refill as she ran out last night.  The reason they revoked the prescription? They claim that 800PetMeds is not a ‘compounding pharmacy’ and the eye drops (1% Cyclosporine Ophthalmic Solution – Basically Restasis for dogs) received via 800PetMeds would need to be ‘diluted’ so it’s safer for her to get her drops.  Now, initially I though “OK, that’s a very weird reasoning to refuse affordable medication – lets look into it.” Because that’s exactly what my brain does – I question the fuck out of everything.  So, it was time to get on the phone.  After speaking with a rep from PetMeds they advised that the product I’d be receiving would be identical to the one that is provided via the vets office and the rep on the phone basically said “You’ve been misinformed as you’d be receiving the exact same product they’re overcharging for with no dilution required.  There’s also a good possibility that the prescription your vet is providing is coming from the exact same pharmaceutical company we received ours from.”

I appreciated the new information and now the gears are in overload. I went back to the listing for the medication on pet meds, read through the FAQ and it was confirmed a second time that the drops are in the correct strength LIQUID solution that I need.  So… that really only means one thing to me: It’s time to find a new vet.

I’ve praised this office over the years because of how nice the staff is, and how well of a job they did when I almost lost her a few years ago thanks to the fucking Milo’s Kitchen/DelMonte Foods debacle.  The one thing I was never thrilled about was just how much money I spend every single time I’ve had to go there – no matter what the reason.

Every time I walk into that damn office it costs me an arm and a leg. I’ve been to EMERGENCY vets in New York that didn’t cost me this much every month. I understand that having a special needs dog can take a toll on your bank account, but to be continuously ripped off because the vet would prefer their overprice prescriptions to be handled in house is highway robbery. It’s something I’m no longer going to stand for.

As of right now – I do have a one month supply that I had no choice but to pay for today since they voided the prescription from outside use. So now I’ll be spending the next month trying to figure out where else I can bring her and if some company SOMEWHERE IN THIS WORLD makes a baby-safe version of moisturizing eye drops that can be picked up over the counter.  Based on what I’ve been reading so-far, as an alternative I can get away with utilizing a simple saline solution in her eyes twice a day in replacement of the ‘medicated’ drops.  I know that no aspect of the prescription is doing anything for her at this point in time.  They aren’t going to magically bring back her vision, and considering the amount of gunk I’m cleaning out of them on a daily basis – the crap is clearly not even working anyway because for ‘moisturizing drops’ – her eyes are bone dry and bloodshot.

No one ever said that having a special needs dog was easy. This is something I’ve known for a while, I’m not naive, I’m not stupid. I’m someone whom loves her dog more than her dog (or this world) would ever know.  As a pet-parent, to a senior blind & diabetic pup, I’m watching her slow down more and more each and every single fucking day. She’s miserable when she gets her eyes cleaned out, she’s miserable with the two injections a day, she’s miserable when taking a walk around the block because she can’t freaking see anything and has to fully depend on me to make sure she’s not running into a ditch or about to bump into a curb. Her anxiety levels are through the freaking roof to the point I can’t even pee without her right under my feet, and forget me even going outside for two minutes to dump the trash – in her eye’s I’m leaving for a month long trip and she instantly starts with the temper tantrum because she’s not right on top of me.  She’s got growths all over her, one large one on her chest that’s in the same area as the massive tumor she’s previously had removed.

Minus the two diagnosis actually being medicated – I constantly bring up EVERYTHING ELSE to the doctors every single time she’s in the office and they just brush it off.  Why? I’m in here for HER health, not to worry about whether or not the other 10 dogs in the overcrowded waiting room get their 2 minutes of your time while your nurses do everything else. All I’m asking for is ten minutes of respect and the ability to have someone not only answer my questions, but tell me what’s wrong with my dog when I ask – or at least offer the tests to give me the answers.  If I’m concerned about a growth – run a damn test. If I tell you that the amount of water consumed every day has not gone down – even with the insulin – then run the test for Cushings that I’ve been demanding for the past 6 months.   If I’m constantly telling you about her shaking-in-the-corner-pissing-herself anxiety attacks – give me a pill OR even the recommendation on an over-the-counter sedative that’s safe to give her.  Why is it so difficult?

It’s not like I’m some junkie asking for drugs for me. My anxiety is easily fixed with a cup of coffee and a pack of cigs. If that doesn’t work, time to remodel the house cause mamma’s punching a god damn hole in the wall.  All I’m trying to do is make her last of the time she has left (no matter how long that is) more tolerable for her.  In no way shape or form do I want her to suffer through ANYTHING going on with her right now.  I’m refusing to put her down because she’s not suffering. When she’s ready to go, she’ll tell me.  If you’re even remotely close to your pets you know damn well when its their time (unless an outside source is involved).  Offices like these, who claim they take pride in their work and really care about their animals blow my god damn mind when they really just function completely on the fact that you would do anything for your pets even if it means taking out another mortgage on your house to cover their greed.

Why is it so wrong that someone whose barely keeping their head above water is interested in not only providing proper medical care for their pet but wanting to do it in a way that’s even remotely affordable? At this point I don’t have a single fucking credit card that isn’t completely maxed out because of medical bills or just daily life in general.  Every aspect of being an adult requires money, I’m not bitching over the fact that they also have ‘adulting’ to do in their own lives and they’re working to survive as well.  But being as they aren’t the ones whom actually MIX these solutions and then have the audacity to do a 300% up-charge because of “Supply & Demand” mentality – why do I have to just sit back and take it?

I work for a living too. I’m not some freeloader whose figured out a way to live off the system. I came from a blue collar family and know what doing 100+ hour weeks can do to ones psyche.  I don’t drive a brand new car and I’m living in a house that needs more work than I think I’ll ever be able to afford in my lifetime. I just need to be cut a little slack, and charging me more than double what something actually costs, on top of the $80 “Oh look, you walked through the door” fee is a freaking slap in the face.

So now, even though I’ve been ranting for the last 20 minutes I still need to not only finish a site that’s due this afternoon but locate and contact every single vets office within a 100 mile radius of me just to find out if there’s any possible way in hell of getting her medications for cheaper.  I’m so tempted to call her old vet in NY but I know damn well that a visit would be required and I have absolutely no money to even consider making that happen. I’m at my whits end. I 100% honestly have no idea what to do anymore.

Remodeling… Redecorating.. Medicating?

Monday, April 13th, 2015

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic.  We’ve started some big projects in the house that have, in turn, verified a few suspicions.

Our kitchen was pretty closed off from the rest of the world.  Even though there’s an addition on the house, nothing was really done to help with the flow (and lighting) for the original house.  So, after determining that the wall that was bugging me the most was load bearing, we took the steps to turn a section of it into a window by removing the drywall, adding a header to transfer the load, and then framing things out.  There’s some painting to do, but the window was finally trimmed out this past week by our friend Colin whom came down for Easter.  We used a wide windowsill for the bottom to give a bar top kind of a look and feel to it, and now even though there’s no flow in terms of walking, it helps to increase a little counter space in the kitchen and offers the ability for more light to come through.  There’s an unfortunate lack of overhead lighting in the living room, so the extra bump of light from the large window in the kitchen makes the difference.  With doing this construction, however, we had to move a few things around in the living room and this is where we found that our problems were a little bigger than the lack of lighting…

As I’ve previously said, Bella’s been having a difficult time for the past few months.  Her eyes have been gunky, she’s been drinking a lot of extra water, and her anxiety is pretty much through the roof.  After finally getting her to the vets office and having some tests run on her, the preliminary results brought back a diagnosis of Stage 1 Diabetes, and her vision loss is in the 75% range.  The vision was something that seems to have been brewing for a little while recently, but moving the furniture in the living room to do the construction on the wall proved that she was a lot further along on the blindness scale than originally anticipated.  The diabetes came as a complete shock to me, her glucose numbers were well into the high 700’s when they’re only supposed to be in the low to mid 100’s.  This unfortunately means 2 insulin injections daily. I would love to say that’s only until her numbers come down and then we can adjust things, but I think it may wind up being for the rest of her life and I can’t even begin to describe the anxiety she’s experiencing because of it.  The back of her neck is so sore from the injections and she’s lashing out like all holy hell if you get anywhere near her.  It’s a work in progress, but we’re trying our hardest to make her as comfortable as possible.

The gunk build up on her eye wasn’t completely due to an infection as we originally thought.  She does have a minor infection in the eye that houses the cataract, unfortunately this eye is the one where she’s lost complete vision.  She’s receiving antibiotic eyedrops twice daily for this. But the gunk build up, overall, is due to chronic dry eye. She’s receiving two more drops daily to keep her eyes lubricated.  The issue though.. I believe they cause either a slight dialysis or just blurred vision because her vision seems to have been getting worse since we implemented the drops into the daily routine.  She’s walking into walls more often than usual and I’ve noticed she has no interest in being outside while the sun is up because she can’t seem to get comfortable when there’s a brighter light shining into her eyes.  I’ve also noticed that they clearly sting a little because as soon as either of the drops go into her eyes she’s wanting to rub them out as quickly as possible.  I’ve made it a point to kind of rub around her eye to make sure the medication gets to the back of her eye were it’s needed in hopes that she doesn’t wind up completely rubbing it into the carpet as soon as she has the chance to rub her face after we’re done.

Everything combined, however, is a major stress factor for her life.  She’s getting the injections every 12 hours, and also the eye drops every 12 hours.  The injections is more of a stress factor than the drops, the drops just seem to be happening more often because she needs multiple drops within an hour of each other so ensure that one doesn’t cancel out the other. I’m also still using the saline eye wash to help keep the gunk from around her eye from getting hard so her eyes are as clear as they can possibly be.  She’s fine with the eye wash, but I’m sure that’s due to the fact that she’s not getting anything IN her eye, I’m only wiping the crust from around it.  As clear as her eyes appear, I know the vision just isn’t there anymore and unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about that.

Her drinking has subsided, but her bladder control is pretty much out the window. I’m doing everything I can to ensure she’s going out as regularly as possible to relieve herself, but there’s still been accidents in the house and even with everything else going on with her – that’s where MY anxiety levels have skyrocketed. I’ve been shampooing carpets regularly but she was clearly going in the house more often than I originally noticed so there’s heavily perfumed areas of urine in my carpet that I can’t get out with a regular home-based cleaner, to the point that I may need to have Stanley Steemer come in for the deep clean in hopes the steam and cleaning solutions penetrate down to the padding where the smells are being held.  On warmer/humid days the smell is overwhelming and as someone who takes pride in keeping a clean house, having pet odors to this degree is embarrassing as all hell for me.  Having a house guest for a week and needing to have candles going at all times just to mask the smells that I couldn’t get up with the cleaner wasn’t a pleasant experience. I know that he didn’t care, and he only said “ooh, I smell pee” once in the 7 days he was here but the fact that it was even the topic of conversation wasn’t something I was thrilled about.

I knew when we purchased this home that I’d eventually be removing all of the current ‘flooring’.  The floor in the living room/dining room is a weird tan tone that’s been on the floor for probably 30 years.  The carpeting in the hallway and three bedrooms is also 30 years old and a very traditional rose color for the late 70’s that is just ugly regardless of stains.  The den and my closet have a newer berber carpet, but even low piles hold smells and there were stains that I couldn’t removed with the cleaner last year that have only gotten worse over time. So, by default, I’ve been looking into wood flooring.  While it’s more expensive than just replacing carpet, it also gives me a solid floor to easily wipe up instead of having to worry about something soaking into padding.  I also feel it would help to increase the value of the house since it’s more ascetically pleasing in it’s own right. At this point I’d be content with having solid vinyl floors throughout the whole house just so there’s a barrier there for no liquid to penetration.  So, the best of both worlds, I’m looking into laminate hard woods through Lumber Liquidators. I’ve found a few that have the tone I want, and would look amazing with the color I plan on painting all the walls with (Sherwin Williams – Canvas Tan).  The issue is really just buying it and putting it down, cost for everything was about $1200. This covers the cost of wood the entire first floor (minus kitchen and bathrooms), the padding and tools.  Considering having a company come in to do this job would run me over $8000… it’s a pretty good deal.

This isn’t something that will happen in the near future though, finances don’t allow for that kind of modification being as we still have a roof in need of repair, a kitchen that requires the completion of a remodel and a basement to reconfigure to accommodate the possibility of having a few people move in within the next year or so.  That mixed with the fact that I now desperately need to completely fence in the back yard because of Bella’s lack of desire to take a proper walk at night… money’s tight.   We’re absolutely fine on paying bills, there’s no lack of food, we’re not going ‘without’ for anything. We’re comfortable month to month and putting money aside for what we need, but there’s no overflow where we can just pull out money and get things done at once. This house will continue to be a ‘work in progress’ for the next 30 years, but we do have our priorities.

It would be amazing if like $75,000 fell into my hands somehow.  I know our Mortgage still has over 200k on it, and we could easily pay down the principle with 75,000 to help in the long term, but when you factor in everything that needs to be done in and around the house – that bit of money could go a really long way. It would cover all debts (minus mortgage), the roof, a fence, tree removal, landscaping, new flooring, kitchen remodel, and the basement.  It could also cover getting a shed into the yard so I can gain use of my garage for more than a dumping ground and actually have the ability to park in there. It could go so, so far it just needs to appear. Will it? Probably not, but that’s because I don’t live in a dream world where it grows on trees and gets handed to you.

In any event, it’s time for someone’s eyes to get some drops and there’s plenty of work to get done around the house while my inbox is still empty.  Those dishes won’t do themselves… and trust me – I’ve been hoping for that too.

Online Dating: Forced or Fabulous?

Monday, March 23rd, 2015

An old friend of mine posted on Facebook noting that she felt online relationships were forced and not necessarily a way to meet the person you’re going to spend either a few good months with or even the rest of your life.  I went to comment my thoughts, both agreeing and disagreeing, but she removed the post before I could hit submit. :booo: … but thanks to good old copy and paste…and the thought being stuck in my head… I’ve moved it to here.

When it comes to online dating, I used to think it was the ‘meh… that’s not kosher’ way of life. I always felt there needed to be a person-to-person kind of connection in order to really find love or happiness. However, I never had that spark hit me and gave up. Now, I didn’t go looking for anyone.. life just kind of happened and maybe now I’m the exception to the rule. Sean and I have been together for 9 years, we’re engaged, we own a home together, and we’re at our happiest point of planning the rest of our lives. We met online. It wasn’t a dating site though, it was through my blog. We started going back and forth through comments and the rest kind of sparked from there.  We knew each other based on our words first, not necessarily our pictures.  Though, he is a cutie and he knows it.

For the most part though, we were pictureless people.  We only spoke through email and instant messenger but we both have similar personalities and sarcasm coming out the wahzoo. It went comments to chat to phone, and eventually we met in person.

So yes, it could really go both ways. I’m not saying her way of thinking is wrong, far from it because I also believed that the old fashion ‘love and first sight’ thing needed to be more than just a profile picture and random duckface selfies going back and forth.

Her and I both had the benefit of growing up in a time where computers were just getting started so social media had no bearing on our everyday life (unfortunately it does now, but that’s a different issue). AOL was one of my first instances of being online and it, nationwide, became the ‘norm’ but I don’t believe any single person knew things would take off and advance the ways that they have. The general population didn’t see the bigger picture. If you went back to my 13 year old self and told me about Facebook I probably would have said “Hm… that’s nice, let me get back to my book”. Now? I’m unfortunately on it every single day – and not just for seeing what’s going on with the rest of my corner of the world, I’m managing like 60 different pages for my job..but I digress.

We knew based on all of those horrible 70’s, 80’s and 90’s movies that you dated people within your town or you met them at a party that X Y or Z was throwing as they did every Friday night. Or in those flash forward instances of walking into a coffee shop with your 22 year old self and bumping into a person where the angelic “”Ahhhh”” kind of music came into play and the persons face had a fresh 100 watt bulb shining into it for a halo effect. This wasn’t freaking normal either, it’s what Hollywood wanted us to believe. Actually meeting someone for the first time (depending on personalities) is the most awkward experience in the world. Body language changes, side smiles, giggles, awkward silence. Alcohol curbs most of these, not necessarily for the better, but I don’t drink so I wouldn’t know.

In the world we live in now – you have the option to swipe them left or right, you can follow a celebrity on all of their social media accounts and maybe they’ll notice you so to fulfill some long running fantasy of what you’d actually do with them if you had the chance. Then people go the complete opposite way and find someone who’s confident and comfortable with their body and jump on the hater bandwagon because they’re too fat, skinny, tall or purple. Log into your accounts and have to remove/deny numerous ‘friend’ requests from people you’ve never met and have no interest in but they found your profile pic and started to fap all over it. Or you can spend $40 a month and have a computer generate a match for you based on algorithms that were literally built by a programmer in the middle east for 50 cents an hour.

There’s a big difference between living behind a screen name and living in the real world. I think that’s where the ‘online dating’ thing gets misconstrued. The fantasy world of having everything you could ever want in a significant other with just the click of a button takes the priority over making a real connection based more on words and less on pictures.

Everyone wants a hot boyfriend or hot girlfriend, but everyone also has a different description of ‘hot’. There are people who look like her (a downright gorgeous girl with a good heart and soul) who get swiped over for someone with bluer eyes or darker hair. Then there’s people like me who would get swiped over by just about everyone unless they want their BBW fix. It’s just a matter of preference, it’s just easier to swipe on the phone than it is to do in person.

It’s all based on preference and everyone is too busy spending the day looking at their phones and not the people around them. Friends are hanging out in the same living room, none are talking but they’re having a great conversation on Twitter and Instagram. Hell, Sean and I wind up on google hangouts for most of the day because we work in two completely different areas of the house. My office is up stairs, his is in the basement but we always meet in the middle. When it comes to meeting someone online the ‘forced’ aspect is having to look up from your phone long enough to speak to them in person. It’s easier to like a pic or a status and move on than it is to have a proper conversation with someone.

As long as you are actually happy though, I don’t think it really matters how you meet someone. Now the Internet is the new ‘ladies night’ at the local bar. It’s unfortunately been added to the list of acceptable means of conversation. However, there is a level of ‘tradition’ that dating sites are trying to bring back in order to take some of the anonymity off of social media and put people face to face. Such as the theme night / bar nights that Match is hosting now. The flip side of that is the fact that people are actually paying monthly to utilize a service that’s telling them to go bowling. And that literally makes me laugh.

Dear Karma, Thank you for being a bitch!

Saturday, March 21st, 2015

Before Sean and I bought this house we were under contract for another one that turned out to be an absolutely horrible overpriced piece of crap that would have made for a great bon fire.

The owners were very insistent that they couldn’t come down AT ALL in price. It was cheaper than the house we’re currently in, but it was also a much smaller house. What the house lacked in floor plan it made up for in acreage, so theoretically it would give us plenty of room to build off of in the future.  Anyhow, obviously that house didn’t happen for us – and here’s why:

The house was a pre-fab model that’s commonly found down here, it was purchased and placed on the property around 2005-2006 – so it’s not even 10 years old (keep that in mind).  During the inspection we learned the main pilings for the house were rotting away, there were some big erosion issues based on grading concerns from where the house sat below the main road (I think there was a good 60-70 degree angle on the DIRT driveway that you needed to climb in order to get to the street.  I wasn’t thrilled by that at all. Cosmetic kind of things are easy to fix, structural and you won’t budge on the price? Nope, don’t think so.

Another major area of concern was with the well water. When having it tested it quickly came back as highly contaminated (secondary proof by the fact that the water heater was rotting through the floor), and the septic had some issues as well, probably having something to do with contamination and lack of upkeep. There were holes in the fireplace, the roof needed to be completely replaced, and the shed at the back of the property was just a junk pile of scrap wood and rotting beams. The carpets were missing in spots, all of the doors had some kind of holes in them from someone who clearly went on a violent rampage at some point in time.  They managed to hide a lot of these issues with older photos of the home so we weren’t 100% sure as to what we were walking into on the “Let’s take a look day” but we knew with a little elbow grease as well as new carpets and doors the place could be pretty decent. Inspection proved otherwise, however, and needless to say, we were leaving that contract with the quickness.

Since Sean is currently taking a quick ride to pick up dinner, this house popped into my head and I went on the search for the listing to see if it ever actually sold.  Turns out, it didn’t. It was just completely taken off the market.  The owners wouldn’t budge for us, they claimed they would fix areas that would cost them tens of thousands of dollars to address (knowing they had no money) and we in return continued to do everything we could to leave the contract, which included a massive loop-hole in their “Nah, we’ll do this for you” plan. Refusing to fix structural issues and have ALL pipes in the house replaced AND have the house connected to public water were our “outs” for the contract. Every answer was “We don’t have the money, the mortgage is more than we’re selling for” yada yada.  The house was borderline foreclosure.  So you can imagine my surprise when I came across the listing and saw the pricing history. They’ve been attempting to sell this house for 2 years. Since we left the contract for them to shove up their asses they’ve dropped their listing by $30,000 (within the last 15 months).  I find this amusing considering it’s the number we were initially looking for that they refused to come down to due to financial matters. The listing now shows that the house is officially off the market.

Now, the realtor is known for doing some shady shit. She’ll let a lot of things slide in the case of just working on getting the house sold. We’d dealt with her previously for other listings and while she’s very well known in the area, there’s just no way we were going to be utilizing her services for OUR home purchase after the crap that she’s pulled.  She’s good at offering previous inspections in order to save some money for future buyers (mainly because contracts have fallen through in the past on the house.. gee wonder why?), but I doubt she’d ever be able to have her customers cough up a receipt proving things were taken care of.  She also knew we had the pre-approval from the bank since she’d dealt with us on another house so I’m damn sure that played a role in her client not budging on this house.

So per the listing, and the fact that there’s no transfer history on it ANYWHERE… I just have to say that karma’s a big ‘ol bitch and I’m amused as all holy hell. The owners and their realtor were too cocky for their own good and now the house is going to continue to sit there and rack up money and cave into the rotting property.  They were pretty close to being behind on their mortgage a year and a half ago, it’ll more than likely wind up going into foreclosure and being put up for auction.  Whomever is dumb enough to buy it better consider bulldozing it and getting a new pre-fab and putting it in it’s place. There’s absolutely nothing that can be salvaged. I think the only saving grace to the house was the massive pool off the back deck but even that looked like someone backed into it with a pick-up truck or something. They also were dumb enough to not even bother covering the damn thing so who knows what was down at the bottom of the murky water.

Doing a history search on the house (when we were buying) notes quite a bit of police activity. They claim previous ‘tenants’ had had some run-ins with some not so good people so that that prompted them to put in a security system.  This could have explained the holes in the doors and broken glass here and there. That was a big red flag for me considering all of the logged reports against the house were for domestic violence within THEIR family (not tenants), a ‘brush fire’ and then some illegal dealings with running a business off the property and there being some zoning issues (that was a town based report).

There was absolutely nothing LEGAL about this house and honestly minus the fact that the one we’re currently in has it’s faults – there’s no way in hell I’d be happy in that hell hole. Now after 2 years their realtor appears to have given up on them, the house is still sitting there rotting away on it’s pilings, the water is more than likely still contaminated and they won’t see a damn dime.

HA!

 

I can’t believe it’s been a year…

Wednesday, March 18th, 2015

As I sit here with my third cup of coffee and my feet planted comfortably on the ottoman, it dawned on me that Sean and I have been homeowners for a year.  This time last year I was working on cleaning the house to remove all instances of funk left by the previous owners. The carpets were disgusting, the bathrooms made me cringe and the amount of dust and mildew on every one of the baseboards, countertops, windows and doors had me gagging.  You never truly realize how disgusting people are until you buy a house from them.

During the initial viewing of the house I knew this wasn’t my dream home (no where near it), but I knew it had the potential to be A LOT more than it was.  With little modifications, proper furniture and a deep, deep clean things were going to take shape to the point that the house leaned more towards my liking and less towards what the previous owners had left to rot.  During the inspection there were a lot of red flags, the most costly one being the fact that the original 30 year old roof was still on the house and absolutely nothing had been done with it.  The garage was inaccessible because of their issue with hoarding, and we didn’t even know there was a crawl space IN the garage because there was so much piled up in front of the door it was very easy to miss.  There were also a few questionable areas of just downright negligence on the owners part. The caked-on mold in windows that could have easily been taken care of with windex, lysol and ten minutes of work was the biggest concern, and one of my first areas of focus when I got in here with my massive box of cleaning supplies, but I digress.

When we were set to do the final walk through, we unfortunately had to do it with the accompaniment of an exterminator.  During the initial inspection, the inspector noted a small area of termite damage.  When the report was returned to the bank in January, nothing further was mentioned about it. Of course, 24 hours prior to the final walk through where we’d be then signing the paperwork and being handed the keys we were informed by the bank that an extermination is required, forcing us to put $2,000 unexpectedly into the house before we even had the damn keys in our hand.  The extermination was started at 6am on the morning of the 12th when we were supposed to get the keys.  Unfortunately we didn’t close on that day because the bank screwed up yet again and didn’t provide the proper paperwork to the lawyer and we were delayed – yet again – to close on the 14th.  Everyone was in a rush to get the paperwork completed, and when we walked in on the 14th there was no longer a wait or a fuck up on anyone’s behalf and we got the keys.

I was here for about 7 days cleaning this house before any instance of my belongings came into it (other than a radio and cleaning supplies, obviously).  We had Comcast come in to run the new cable lines (they used FIOS, we needed more internet than TV so Comcast was unfortunately our only choice). We put power, water, sewer were in our name and we attempted to keep the house warm with the $250 worth of oil we wound up having to pay for at signing that was also unexpected (Within a week we’d dropped $800 to have the tank filled completely, btw.  Another area where we got screwed).  Windows and doors were scrubbed to the point that the paint damn near came off of them, bathrooms were soaked so heavily in bleach that I had to wear a mask just to handle the fumes.  I’m convinced they wore sneakers when they showered considering the inch of slime I scraped off  the floors and walls of the showers/tubs.  I damn near burned out the motor on a carpet cleaner just to get the thick black stains out of the rug that they had so meticulously hidden with furniture and even in hindsight I know that spending the money to have Stanley Steamer come in would not have made the difference since they only make one to two passes over the carpet and I wound up focusing on single areas for upwards of a half our at a time. It was so bad in certain spots that I felt as though I was destroying the plywood underneath because of how saturated the carpet was after multiple passes just to scratch the surface.  With the color of the water being sucked up into the machine I was convinced that I was sucking the carpet padding right off of the plywood because there’s no excuse for a berber carpet to be that disgusting.

The kitchen was the biggest focus for me, I truly believe it’s the nucleus of a household. I had a stock of food, brand new pots and pans and kitchen supplies to move in but they weren’t coming anywhere near the house until I could get everything clean. The cabinets and countertops are very, very dated so by default I knew the kitchen, over time, would be completely redone. Initially though, I went at it with steel wool, bleach and elbow grease.  The cabinets damn near changed colors. The slime everywhere from built up cooking grease and dust was stomach turning.  And the further I got into cleaning the house, the more I hated the previous owners.

The bedrooms weren’t as bad as originally anticipated. I knew with curtain removal, adding mini blinds and a few gallons of paint things would take shape and as of right now that’s the track that we’re on.  While the carpets (throughout the whole house) need to be removed and replaced with either hardwood or low-pile berber, this didn’t stop me from setting up shop in the smallest of bedrooms so that I could have my office space. I painted the room a very pale grey, painted the ceiling in an effort to brighten things up and put a fresh coat of trim white on everything so it could pop.  The guest room is where Sean and I merged things.  He chose a bright blue for his office and whatever was left of that blue wound up being mixed in with the grey I had left for my office, boom – the guest room color was born. The same treatment went into the room.  The carpets were cleaned, the walls and trim received a fresh coat of paint and the curtains were thrown out and replaced with fresh bright linens to keep plenty of light in the room.  The mini-blinds were brought in for privacy and that’s that.

The master bedroom is where we’ve done nothing.  Yes, it was cleaned and the curtains were replaced with mini blinds and black-out panels but there’s no new color on the walls and we still don’t own any real ‘grown up’ furniture.  It’s just a dresser that was given to us and two $10 end-tables from Walmart that we’re using as night stands.  I have the paint colors picked out, but there’s a lack of overhead lighting in the room and knowing that we’ll be putting in a ceiling fan with light and having to get the walls patched up there was no point in moving forward.  Of course, by default, I have everything picked out that I want for the room from dressers to nightstands and even a headboard, it’s just something that will have to wait until we’ve got the money and the time to do it.  Sort of like everything else in the house.

I think one of the biggest changes we’ve made is replacing the original toilets in the master bath and hall bath.  I know that seems like a weird thing to say but when you’ve got two pink toilets that go back to the late 70’s… it’s time for an upgrade.  We did begin the remodel of the hall bathroom but that’s come to a stand-still, much like many of the projects in the house.  We utilized Rustoleum’s tub and tile refinisher and transformed the pink tub surround into a white one. A coat of pale green has gone on the walls and we need to purchase a new vanity because there’s a weird pink stone top that just looks horrible and needs to go.  We do have tile for the floor, but it’s yet to be laid down.  In reality it’d only take a few hours to get that bathroom completed but when you’re waiting on others for help it just doesn’t seem to get done.  Maybe one day, but doubtful that it will be anytime soon.

The basement has been the biggest pain in the ass. When initially taking a tour of the house Sean’s eyes lit up because he wanted a nice big room to plant his butt down in and one of the 3 bedrooms in the basement is where it’s remained.  The previous owners built up the basement (and did a piss poor job at it).  The walls weren’t even secured to the floor (which we only found out later on), they put in a kitchenette that doesn’t function as anything but something to take up space. They went crazy putting in a full bathroom that needs to be completely gutted and redone because it doesn’t function and they made it so wide that it cut off access to the water heater and sewer lines.  They boarded up a window with drywall (for no reason), and the way they have a sump-pump sitting in a bucket that the washing machine drains into makes absolutely no sense to me. The pump had to be replaced within the last few months because the basement flooded while doing laundry – that was heaps of fun.

At one point in time the humidifier on the furnace broke, the room closed to it flooded somehow because of it.  It was one of the bedrooms that I had originally planned on using as a guest room (later down the road) now is just a cement floor that’s been bleached a few times to avoid any mold damage.  Since they clearly had no knowledge of building codes they did a good job destroying the duct work to the point that there’s little to no efficiency capability from furnace and air conditioner. The main house is either freezing cold in the winter, or smoldering in the summer.  The den (which is part of the extension) was added on by the original owner of the home (the ones whom knew what they were doing). Industrial grade everything was used for the extension and it actually meets the efficiency requirements.

In an effort to start getting things together, we’ve had a lot of help.  Sean’s father and brother spent a few days completely rebuilding the deck off of the pantry (near the kitchen) in an effort to eradicate the termite damage. The sub-floor near the door even needed to be replaced because of how badly things were destroyed.  We do still need to install a new outside door to remove the issue we’re having with the draft, but the new stair case and landing are now more than likely the most solid structure on the outside of this house.  The rear deck (off the den) requires quite a few boards being replaced, this will hopefully be something we start on this summer.  The roof was started on, areas of concern were patched. We do still need to have a new roof laid down but we’re now scrambling for cash because of tax season so we’ve been set back a few months. It will hopefully be done this year, but we’ll see.

Our friend Colin has been down here quite a bit, and just about every time he comes down we have a project for him. Most recently was some remodeling to the laundry area in the basement to move a wall so that we could have a railing on the awkward basement stairs.  He’s also assisted with moving the stainless steel fridge from the basement to the kitchen.  The previous owners purchased the fridge but it was 6 inches too wide to fit in the area of the kitchen where it needed to be. So, with the removal of a few cabinets and some of the countertop the fridge fit right in place, and the smaller one that was already there is now the overflow fridge in the basement.  There was a freezer in the garage, Sean and I scrubbed the crap out of it and then had someone haul it away.  We had someone interested in paying us for it but they were creepy and never showed up so we just gave it to someone to scrap and that’s that.  We feel the same way about the jacuzzi in the back yard, it does run but it’s disgusting and the yard isn’t fenced in so even cleaning it and attempting to use it would be uncomfortable due to the lack of privacy anyway. So we’ll figure out how to get rid of that after we’ve picked up some scrap wood to close off that side of the deck as I don’t want to give Bella the ability to just bolt out of the backyard and wander around the neighborhood.

We’ve got about 15 trees to remove on the property, this will actually help to open things up in the yard before we get the chance to fence everything in.  We know that part of the future plan includes the addition of a pool, removing the trees will allow room for this as well.  We have to finish remodeling the kitchen, gut all carpeting from the house and replace it with hardwood floor, buy furniture for the living room (the den is fine as is), buy furniture for the master bedroom, pick up as much art as possible to cover the bare walls, also paint the walls when I can finally decide on a paint color that I actually like.  Overhead lighting was installed in my office, we still have another fan/light that needs to be installed in the guest room, we also then need to pick one up for the master bedroom.  There’s no light in the living room so that’s another project but a little more difficult as there is no attic access above the living room due to the taller ceilings. There’s a built-in unit in the den that needs to be completed as it does not connect in the middle and leaves things off balance. To the owners defense (original owner) the TV’s back in that time were still in a large box and not easily mounted onto a wall so obviously the opening was necessary. In this day-in-age it’s not, so that’ll have to be adjusted.

It’s a lot, it’s just a lot.  A lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of elbow grease and a lot of stress.  I have the kind of personality where I tend to never forgive but will make it a point to try and forget. Though, I do believe if I were to ever see the previous owners on the street I’d make it a point to run them over. Their lack of maintenance and knowledge on how to upkeep a home has turned this house into a money pit.  I know at this point in time it’s going to take about $40,000 for me to get this house not only restored to it’s ‘former glory’, but make it seem more like my home and less like their negligent mistakes.

Looking back, would I do it again? It could go either way.  Dealing with the bank was like pulling teeth, I wasn’t really thrilled about their realtor (considering she was their daughter in law, and clearly had never sold a house before considering her husband would call up screaming when she had a bad day because she clearly couldn’t handle her emotions and went crying to him = dumb bitch).  Knowing what I know now I would have probably continued to my search for a house, maybe even expanded to other areas.  It was hard for us because of what we wanted.  A basement was nice (but not required), for me the two main requirements were public water and sewer because I did not want to deal with well water in a very farm-related area and I’ll be damned if I’m going to deal with septic – I know many have in their lifetime across the globe but I’m not accustomed to that, and it just wasn’t happening.

While the neighborhood is peaceful (minus the constantly barking dogs), life in Lower Slower Delaware is not what it’s cracked up to be.  Living in a beach town means you really can’t do anything between Memorial and Labor day without anticipating going out very late in the evening.  The lower property taxes mean there aren’t the right town based jobs in place for general divisions for waste management and road upkeep.  There are lights out everywhere, the roads (in my neighborhood) are only ever swept up by the homeowners, they don’t plow after snow and while we received no where near as much snow in the past year as NY and Mass. did, attempting to walk an aging pup on two inches of ice was nothing short of frustrating.  There’s a major lack of the Italian influence I held so dear while living in NY.  Picking up a decent slice of Pizza means I’m either driving a half-hour west to a mom and pop shop that is as good as you’re going to get (which even still isn’t great) OR I’m heading back to NY and in a car for 5 hours to visit family where NY Italian food is always a perk.  When asking in local FB groups about certain ways of life that both Sean and I were spoiled by we’re met with country bumpkins having the audacity to tell us to go back where we came from because they’re biggots who just don’t like change and are very, very set in their ways.  It makes me want to drop a bomb on their house, not even gonna lie.

When things are going good though, they’re going good.   The trade off is the ability to just head down to the park and watch the ferry come in while fishing on the pier and enjoying the conversations with the locals who don’t care where you came from, just that you’re here and someone pleasant to talk to.  There’s beaches for miles and if you aren’t happy with the ones in DE you can head right down the road and wind up in Ocean City, MD for a more amp’d up feel (on season only of course… DE and MD are both pretty much dead offseason).  Minus the few rotten apples the general vibe down here was something I needed to get used to.  The people are generally nicer, the lack of sales tax means there’s more money in my pocket at the end of the day and living on a NY salary in DE is 100% possible.  The people are very lax about getting things done and this is both a good thing and a damn shame depending on the field they’re slacking in.  I don’t care if it takes a few extra minutes for someone to assist me in a store, I do care if I’m standing in the E.R. and nothing is really being treated as an emergency because that kind of adrenaline doesn’t seem to exist down here.  The lack of a sense of urgency is more than likely what ticks me off the most.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the fact that the last year has been an overwhelming learning curve, or it could just be the fact that I need to become accustomed to dealing with things at a different pace – I don’t know.  Over the course of time the things that are broken can and will be fixed.  I know I’m very happy and very in love with my fiance, I’m happy with my little office, and maybe one day I’ll be able to say I’m happy with my house. The kitchen will look how I want it to look, there will no longer be any weird pet smells after the carpets are gone, there won’t be any remnants of dated bathrooms when we’re done sprucing things up. We’ll have a nicely fenced in yard where Bella can attempt to enjoy her last years of life (if it happens within that timeframe), I’ll finally have a pool which is something that growing up in apartment was one major thing I wanted my entire life.  It’ll all happen with time.  It’s certainly not ‘drive’ that’s holding us back, it’s money and time. It’s going to take A LOT to get this house where it needs to be and all we can do for now is work as hard as we possibly can to build up the nest egg required to make this house our home.

Yes, this post went from a quick “Hrm… I wanna sit down and blog” to 3700 words.  This is what happens when I haven’t sat down and written anything since October even though there’s been a lot going on.  I want to get back into blogging more often, and I’ve said that repeatedly over the years but I just don’t know if I have that kind of drive anymore.  Sometimes I feel like just randomly blurting out what’s going on but then not actually having the ability to just sit down and write for an hour to get my thoughts out.

In any event, it’s unfortunately time for me to get back to work. There’s a kitchen full of dishes that need to go into the dishwasher (that’s slowly dying on me and also requires replacement).  Maybe I’ll be able to sit down and blog again soon, maybe I won’t.  I can set as many goals as I want in life, but work takes the priority for me and that’s just the way it is.

 

Wrapping my head around it….

Sunday, March 15th, 2015

The last year on Bella has been pretty rough.  We bought a house, so not only did she have a new floor plan (and two-level living) to get accustomed to, but she also had a new neighborhood to get used to as well.  Anytime she got into the car it was either a 10 minute ride to Sean’s mom’s house or a 4.5 hour drive up to NY to visit my family.  We’ve done everything we could to try to keep her as comfortable as possible, but lately things are taking a turn and I’m trying to keep myself together to figure out the best road possible.

For a little bit now Bella has been dealing with conjunctivitis.  I’ve been doing everything possible to keep her eye clean and remove all the gunky discharge and any crust around her eyes on a daily basis. It’s been a battle, because she’s not exactly keen on having anything near her eyes but it’s something that needs to be done and that’s that.  I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that she’s been having trouble getting around.  Going up and down stairs has been rough on her, and she’s refusing to walk at night.

To help a little bit I purchased new pet steps for the bedroom, this has helped her for the getting on the bed aspect of her night, but it doesn’t help her with getting off the bed as she just stumbles down.  I have two sets of stairs in the room, neither one is the right depth for her to manage them.  When she goes down the stairs now (for the house itself) she pulls herself to one side and kind of zig-zags down each step. So she’ll pull towards the right with her front paws and swing her legs down, then pull towards the left and repeat the process.  She isn’t able to do this with the bedroom stairs because they aren’t as wide, so the only thing I can think of is to just build a staircase in the room, but unfortunately the master is just not big enough to be able to pull that off.

Now, Sean and I have been hit with some serious deadlines over the past year so we’ve gotten ourselves on a schedule that is fairly chaotic but gives us the ability to get things done. While it’s only the two of us and there’s no distractions in the house we probably could get away with working at any time of the day but we choose to go with the overnight hours.  Why? I honestly don’t know. But I know I’m more content with finishing up for the day at 6am instead of 6pm.  It’s been like this for as long as I can remember and I think it’s based on the fact that up until a year ago we lived in homes with others so during the day it was harder to concentrate with all of the commotion. I think this trained us into thinking the overnight was better, and that’s just the way it is.

Having our schedule like this means that Bella’s had to adjust to ‘overnight’ life as well. So where most people would walk their dog at 9am, I’m walking her at 9pm.  That’s really the only major ‘adjustment’ she’s ever had to make.  She sleeps all day, and she’s done this since she was a puppy.  She eats 3 times a day, it’s not like her diet / appetite has changed in her 11 years of life. The one thing she’s been doing a lot more of lately is drinking water, but I’ve assumed that has to do with the fact that for quite some time the humidifier on our furnace was broken and EVERYONE was drinking a lot more since the air was so dry. I think I was going through about a tube of chap-stick every two weeks just to keep my lips from bleeding. So her having a little more water hasn’t phased me..

She’s a normal dog, living a normal life. Recently though, in an effort to help make her life a little easier, I’ve begun walking her while it’s still light out. I figured the darkness for a dog who can really only see shadows at this point was just cruel and maybe it being brighter out during the day would help so she could at least take a proper walk without her eyes playing a factor.  That’s not the case though…

I don’t know if there’s something outside that she just doesn’t like, or if she’s scared of something, or has less vision ability than I originally thought, but she downright refuses to walk. Daytime, nighttime, doesn’t matter.  She won’t stray far from the end of the driveway and I feel cruel dragging her up the block when she’s planted all four paws on the ground and refuses to budge.  She pulls herself back so hard that she wiggles out of her leash and then runs home as fast as she possibly can.  Today I brought her out the front door and then instead of going to the street I decided to just try and take her around the house.  There’s plenty of grass for her to relieve herself so she had ample opportunity to do whatever she needed to do.  I got her to go #1 a few times, but #2 is where she seems to draw the line.  Someone happened to close a car door while she was sniffing around so her attention went elsewhere.  By the time she realized where she was running she just went right to the front door. She wasn’t scared of the car door, she was her usual “Where’d that come from?” determined investigator. I kind of dragged her towards the other side of the house and thankfully she finally went #2, but she just was not willing to be outside at all. I could finally get her towards the back door of the house and she ran in, laid down, and hasn’t moved since.

At this point I’m pretty much at my whits end.  It’s not that I’m lacking the patience that is required when dealing with an older animal, that’s not the case at all.  I’m lacking the ability to wrap my head around what I can do for her to make her life easier.  If she was actually sick I would bring her to the vet and see what they recommend (meds  / diet wise) to give her a better quality of life.  Since the only thing physically wrong at this moment in time is the loss of eyesight and the anxiety, I’m not going to even bother wasting the money on going to the vet for them to tell me there’s nothing that can be done.

I’ve been through countless websites, I’ve put in all of her symptoms and everyone has something different.  One site says she’s a diabetic (and requires medication), another says she’s got Cushings (which requires chemo). Then they have a whole list of things for anxiety that all require some kind of medication.  I don’t like the idea of putting her on any meds, she’s gotten through life this long without them and I think that once you introduce medication her quality of life goes down (specifically if she does have Cushings and I introduce Chemotherapy).  There is no quality of life for a dog undergoing chemo, if anything it shortens her life because chemo has a way of not only removing the bad cells in the body, but taking the good ones and burning them off too.

I just don’t know what to do and I’m at a complete loss.  I know that smaller breed dogs live longer than larger breeds, and the oldest smaller breed dog I’ve been around was 17 when needing to be put down because she developed seizures later in life.  Bella’s only 11, part of me wants to believe that I can have another 6 years with her, but at this point in time, with how dramatically she’s slowed down, the lack of eyesight and the possibility of her having cancer that requires chemo, (not like the cancer she had when she was younger where the tumor was completely removed from her stomach),  the massive anxiety about ANYTHING going on, and the attachment issues of my not even being able to pee without her attached to my foot… it’s all just overwhelming.

I know that she’s not exactly having a field day either, I’m not trying to take anything away from her in that regard. The biggest difference between animals and humans is based heavily on the fact that they can’t communicate verbally when something is wrong. I know that when she pulls back she’s experiencing her bouts with anxiety, I know when she keeps bumping her head into things it’s because it’s not where it’s supposed to be and she wasn’t expecting it, this falls with her vision problems.  I’m just so frustrated with the fact that I physically can’t do anything to help her and have absolutely no control over the situation.

I’m also downright heartbroken because she’s my baby. She’s been the only constant in my life for the past 11 years.  I’ve lost so many people close to me that she was who I’d turn to for comfort and cuddles when I needed them the most.

After re-reading this post I realized it seems as though I’m considering putting her to sleep.  Please know that is the absolute farthest thing from my mind, I want to keep her for as long as she’ll allow me too.  I’ve always believed if an animal feels it’s their time to go (and there isn’t an outside factor involved) they will let you know. I know that at this point in time that’s not an option, and it’s just not the time.  I’m just stumped over what the next step is, what I need to do in order to give her a good quality of life before her time is actually up.

It’s just a tough road ahead.

Life gets in the way…

Wednesday, October 29th, 2014

I’ve been trying to sit down and write for a while now but being overly bombarded with deadlines is taking it’s toll on me.  I’ve had a few major sites that I’ve been keeping tabs on, and pulling 16+ hour days on to keep on top of things. Most recently was disappointed after an 18 hour run to only find that the deadline was missed.  I was so ticked off, you have no idea.

On the Tooth front, with the use of antibiotics it’s fine for now. I do still need to see a dentist to have things taken care of, but the unfortunate waiting list to see anyone down here is starting to turn into the “Story of my life.”  I took 10 days worth of antibiotics, and haven’t really had any aspirin since the excessive use of it damn near killed my stomach.  I’m not someone who goes looking for prescriptions, if it can’t be solved with aspirin there’s something seriously wrong.  So when I mistakenly took more than 10 in a day (because the pain was so intense my brain was literally not functioning) I wound up with some abdominal pains and that was that.  At least those pains took the focus off the tooth for a little while.

This past week was pretty nice though, I’ve officially hit 30 and now it’s just downhill from here.  It’s weird stepping into a new age bracket. My father and sister came to visit. She’s never been to Delaware before and we took some time to hit up as many stores as possible so she could enjoy Tax Free shopping.  She’s the kind of person who has to frequently do laundry because she’s down to her last few pairs of pants.  So, that was the main focus during our shopping trips, I think she got about 10 new pairs of pants in total so hopefully that means she isn’t doing laundry as frequently.  I know she picked up shoes and shirts as well.

I didn’t really go that crazy on clothing, as much as I really do need certain items. I work from home, though. It’s really unjustified for me to pick up nice looking clothes when I literally have no place to wear them. So I did get a few decent looking T-shirts so I could continue my shirt rotation, and even invested in a few jersey knit type of long sleeve shirts because it has been getting a little chilly lately but all of my longer sleeve items were either heavy sweat shirts or just didn’t fit right anymore, so I’ll probably throw the older stuff into the rotation as well.

“Rotation?” – Yes, I wear my clothes to death to the point that they’re repurposed.  Once every few years I stock up on nice looking shirts, mostly tshirts. I wear them to death to the point that they’re no longer acceptable to wear out of the house and then push them to the bedshirts pile. Then I go through the bedshirts, if they don’t make the grade I shred them to use as dust rags, cause that’s really all they’re worth.  I would donate, don’t get me wrong, but feel it would be cruel to donate clothing that is literally holding on by a thread.  This is just my version of recycling.  I think at this point I could do some kind of patch work throw pillow with the remnants of fabric that I have to go through… that requires a sewing machine though – something I don’t currently have. That’ll probably change though, I’ll hopefully be hitting up thrift shops in the future.

So while they were here I decided that since we weren’t going to all be together for the holidays I’d have them come early. I went ahead and did a big thanksgiving dinner in October. Technically speaking I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving but even that was 3 days late.  My dad is coming back between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I don’t believe my sister was going to be with him, so I wanted to at least get that out of the way.  As far as actual Thanksgiving is concerned… I doubt we’re doing anything, honestly. We’ll figure it out as we get closer.  I might spend the day setting up for Christmas but that’s because I’m itching to find an excuse for rearranging the living room to put the tree up.  The Den won’t really have any decorations in it though. I may be able to pick up some stuff from thrift shops, but I’m not really going out of my way to over decorate the house when factoring in that at this point in time it’s just Sean and I until we decide we’re ready for children.

So yea, it was nice spending time with my family, nice getting some shopping done, and nice having a few days off from work while they were here so I could relax.  Since they left on Saturday, though, I’ve just been non-stop working which has opened a whole new can of worms.

My sleep schedule is BEYOND messed up.  I woke up on Saturday about 10am after a few hours of sleep because I wanted to be awake to say goodbye to my family.  I then wound up crashing on the couch at a certain point of the night after getting some work done. From there I went to sleep around 10am on Sunday, I woke up at 5pm and then was awake and working until 12pm Monday afternoon.  I got some sleep and woke up around 9pm then solidly worked until 2pm the next afternoon, fell asleep, woke up at 9pm and worked until 6am, went back to sleep and woke up today at 4pm.  Needless to say, my schedule is completely screwed up.  Now, waking up around 4pm isn’t that abnormal for me as I’m accustomed to going to sleep around 7am, but having the freakishly long days kind of threw me for a loop. There really isn’t enough coffee in the day to keep me going anymore AND at the moment it’s taken me a few looks on the taskbar to realize what day it is.

In any event, I have a WooCommerce site to get started on, and lord only knows how many edits for other sites cause I’ve been afraid to look into any business emails tonight.  I just had a cup of coffee and I’m patiently waiting for it to kick in so I can get my second wind.

Catching up…

Thursday, September 25th, 2014

It’s getting harder and harder for me to focus lately, and I have no idea why.  I’ve been semi-OK about keeping things on the up and up around the house, I’m meeting the deadlines that are set for work, but for some reason actually getting the drive to start/finish necessary projects is just not an option.  I feel like the closer I get to 30, the more I lose my drive. And at this point that’s happening within the next 30 days so I feel like it’s all down hill from here.  For the past two months I’ve been looking at the supplies to get the hall bath remodeled but haven’t touched them even though I remind myself about it daily.

I don’t necessarily think it’s a mental thing, to a degree I feel it’s physical. Every time I actually do have the urge to do something, I’m being held back by something else.  The biggest thing lately is my teeth. I still haven’t gotten that tooth removed and it flares up at the most random times, and even today I’m dealing with a little tinge of pain on a completely different tooth.  Things have just been so tight with money this month thanks to the $800 we threw into the car to keep it on the road that our priorities are just screwed up.

I really think, above all else, I’m just overwhelmed in general.  I know I continue to harp on it, but I really feel like we got screwed on this house. We’ve sunken so much into just the general maintenance that was long over due that we don’t have the strength or finances to get to the “Make this house Our Home” part of homeownership. We’re making due, but it’s just frustrating to be rebuilding doors that were rotted out and hidden by paint, or pulling up carpeting that was moldy because of the furnace leaking but the previous owners “covered” it with bleach and didn’t properly treat anything.  It seems that whenever we’re making a decent stride towards something, we have to go three steps back.

To make matters worse, my hairs falling out.  And it’s not the over-dramatic “I’m ripping it out of my head” bullshit. It’s legitimately falling out of my head. The chlorine levels in the public water are so high that it’s turning the basement toilet red, and my scalp no longer can hold the hair follicle.  However, I’ve also been doing some research into things lately and need to not only see a dentist, but a doctor.  When looking into the symptoms I’ve been experiencing lately, I’m a fairly good fit for Hypothyroidism. Obviously I would need to be tested to determine if I was Hypo or Hyper, but comparing side by side, I’m more on the Hypo side of the spectrum. Hair loss, chronic fatigue, irregular period, hair loss, anxiety, .. it all fits.

I’m not a hypochondriac, I’m not someone who gets heartburn and thinks I’m having a heart attack. I know my usual aches and pains, the bulk of which come from just not taking care of myself.  In the last year, however, things have just changed for me and not necessarily for the better.

The biggest issue: I live in Delaware. This is quite possibly the worst state to live in when you need medical attention.  I’d have to travel into Maryland to speak to someone who actually has a brain. Am I discrediting ALL doctors in DE? No, of course not. BUT for the ones I need to see, having been in their offices in the past with someone else, I’d rather jump off a bridge than have them treat me. Their investigative process is laughable, and the diagnosis based on investigation is asinine.  When you’re sitting in an office with a doctor that says “It’s just a headache, it’ll go away” and then winding up in the surgical ward because a retina was detaching… you learn to just not trust anymore. Or when you’re experiencing heart palpitations and they want to put you on different meds when in reality there’s a small tumor behind your heart that is Stage 3 lung cancer.  The misdiagnosis and absence of a damn brain are the top 2 reasons to avoid the medical staff here.

On the Thyroid front – I’m wanting to do more research into things myself, this way I know exactly what I’m getting myself into and what can be done to treat it without having to be hopped up on drugs, that’s the one major downside to an actual diagnosis.  I don’t even like taking aspirin, why would I want to take some random drug that was created in a lab that probably has numerous lawsuits pending against it.

I don’t know.  I just don’t know.

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.

Downside to Delaware

Tuesday, June 24th, 2014

If there’s one thing in the world that I’ve grown accustomed to over the years, is a sense of urgency when referencing ANYTHING in the medical/dental fields.  Moving to Delaware has really been an eye opener to me. The area I live in certainly lives up to the nickname of “LOWER SLOWER Delaware”.  After all of the idiots I’ve met in the Medical fields down here while accompanying Karen on her doctors appointments, and even my experiences with the fucking asshole E.R. doctors in the BeeBee Lewes Hospital… my mind is just BLOWN on how horrible things function down here.

Todays Problem:  I’ve had issues with my teeth for probably the last 20 years, it’s genetics and other factors that just cause me to look at sugar and get a cavity. About a month ago I bit into something way too hard and chipped one of my molars. And when I say “Way too hard” that could mean anything from a pickle to the crusts on bread.. my teeth are just that freakishly soft. My father and I can easily compare our teeth to Chiclets, where my sister got my mothers genes and they’re cement in comparison. So having the crack really is nothing new, I figured just let it go and if and when the tooth starts to actually hurt I’ll take care of it. For me, and my extremely high pain tolerance that’s just the way things go. Yes, it’s unhealthy to not take care of them right then and there, but regardless of root canals and patch jobs, it’s just going to figure out a way to fall out of my mouth anyway. Case and point would be another molar that no dentist can seem to properly fix for me.

So, of course you could imagine my lack surprise when I woke up one morning (somewhat recently) and had a weird thing floating around my mouth. It was a large section of my recently chipped tooth. There was no blood, no weird ‘ooh…that’s definitely a cavity’ taste, it was just a broken tooth. I don’t know if I grind them when I’m sleeping, or if the dog was on the blanket and I punched myself in the face in my sleep when trying to cover myself and the blanket slipped, I don’t know. Who knows, it’s happened before (the punching thing) but knowing I had relatively soft food the night before made me question why things are just falling off of me.

For the last few weeks I’ve been dealing with it, chewing on the opposite side and really limiting how often I eat foods that require excessive amounts of chewing. A few people have even said to me that I may possibly have a thyroid problem because for as big as I am, I really don’t regularly consume enough calories during the day to maintain the weight I am.  This is well before any dental issues surfaced, I just never was tested for anything. So limiting consumption really is nothing “new” for me.

Last night, however, I got a SHOOTING pain straight up the side of my face… one that can only be connected to my horrible history with abscessed teeth. It’s something I’m used to, it’s not a new pain feeling for me, and something I’m commonly able to manage with a combination of aspirin and antibiotics. So, the shocker attached to it was the fact that the molar, which broke off in sections, is now a quarter of a molar and the remaining quarter is loose. Should I just wait for it to fall out? Sure, but at the same time I know there’s still the rest of tooth attached underneath the gums and having to deal with a fully impacted tooth is the absolute pits.

So, as I’ve done a few times over the course of the last few weeks (unsuccessfully mind you), I started calling the dental offices in the area. One, who is supposedly the best of the best “The Dental Group” in Lewes, as usual was incapable of answering the phone when I called over the past few weeks so you can imagine my surprise when someone actually picked up the phone today. Unfortunately it only caused me to have to be re-routed to another facility because after they charge you probably like $600+ for the “Initial / New Patient Visit”, they decide whether or not they’re capable of handling your current needs. I by-passed that shit and got in touch with an Oral Surgeon in Rehoboth, who takes the Care Credit Card and actually answered the phone on the first ring. After talking to the lady and explaining the situation she noted that she can get me in for Monday but there is no earlier availability. When noting that I’m prone to abscesses, and I feel one coming on she told me if the tooth gets worse to call them, but Monday is pretty much the earliest I can come in.

Now, I don’t know if being born and raised in New York has spoiled me, or what, but when someone calls you with an ’emergency’ situation… aren’t you supposed to do something about it? I know damn well if I was up in Glen Cove I could just call up Dr. Hoffman and be in the door either same day or following afternoon, X-Ray done, tooth extracted, I go home and sleep off the sedation. Why? Because that’s how you’re supposed to do shit!

I’m grateful that I do actually have the Monday appointment, and I know I shouldn’t have waited this long – I get it. BUT, when you’re someone who doesn’t feel any dental pain until it’s too late and irreversible, you just need to get things done when they need to be done.

I’m hoping, with fingers toes and eyes crossed, that nothing happens over the course of the next week. I do have a few antibiotics that I’m going to take to keep the potential abscess at bay so things aren’t delayed past Monday and maybe I’ll finally just start feeling normal again. For now, only broth for the next week and that should cover both the need to drink AND keep something in my stomach.

The biggest issue is every time I even swallow my own saliva I feel the tooth shifting around, I highly doubt it’s even going to last the next 6 days. ::UGH::

Productive procrastination?

Monday, June 23rd, 2014

Believe it or not, I’ve actually been actively attempting to complete a blog post for the last week. This is where my life has pretty much gone in the shitter. I’ve sat down and started writing this particular entry probably 15 times, and still have yet to complete it. So my goal for the next 20 minutes is to complete a thought and hopefully be able to hit the “Publish” button instead of saving the draft. Work has taken up a lot of my time which has caused me to slack just about everywhere else… but it’s not like I’m being a lazy ass either… right?

First and foremost, my dad came down to visit this past week. He’d never seen the house before and probably hasn’t been to the state of Delaware either EVER or at least within the last 30 years that I’ve been alive, so it was a nice little vacation for him. Typically when he takes his mandatory time off of work (he accrues his hours, but never uses them), he takes off two weeks in a row and will maybe spend a few days in Atlantic City but for the rest of the time he’s hanging out in front of the TV complaining he’s bored. So, as a nice little change for him he got to leave New York and had a place to stay for a week that wasn’t his own house. He seemed impressed by the size of my master bathroom, which hell even I’m impressed with that. The house itself also (like it did with Colin previously) seems much smaller in pictures. When you actually walk through it and take in the 3,000 sqft it’s semi-shocking.  It’s way too large for just two people, but that’s just how it goes.

Moving on, while he was here I got to celebrate father’s day with both him and George, which was a nice thing to finally have some family members together from both sides under the same roof.  We took him to the two restaurants that I know he couldn’t possibly have up in New York. First of which is Cracker Barrel, because hey that place freaking rules and $30 for three people to eat A LOT of food is just an awesome experience. Then another night we headed over to Bethany Blues in Lewes because it’s just damn good BBQ. I’m a sucker for their Mac & Cheese (even though I find mine to taste better, it’s just a nice change to get it from there). I wasn’t happy with my rib choice, should have stuck with the brisket or pulled pork but I wanted something different, and it just didn’t work out that well. That’s ok, dinner was still enjoyable, and dessert was freaking awesome so I really can’t complain.

He left us on Wednesday, he took the ferry up to Cape May and then drove up to Atlantic City for a few days and noted that he not only got to see a few hawks floating around, but even spotted little dolphin following the ferry. He knows based on prior experiences with seeing hawks that it’s just not gonna be a good gambling time, he experienced that almost every time he drove up to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. It was no different when being on the ferry heading to Cape May. So, even though he unfortunately lost in A.C. he enjoyed his week away from New York.

So, moving on. We had a few big plumbing issues this week. Something happened to the pump in the basement for the bathroom  and we wound up springing a leak. Of course Sean over reacted and made it seem like the basement was flooding out and it was just a trickle of water that we were able to take care of. George came in and fixed the pipe, sealed things up and now we no longer have the weird sewer smell either, which was freaking disgusting but I already know once we get a good chunk of money together we’re completely gutting the basement and starting over. The assholes who previously owned the house compromised so many different things by building the basement that we really have no choice.

basementholesI got to the point, while my father was here, that I actually put a hammer through the wall in the basement because the fucking morons who built up the basement decided it would be smart to block a window with drywall because they couldn’t figure out how to cover a pipe. Yep.. block a window… lose ventilation as well as an exit point in case of fire. FUCKING SMART! I took the pic of the aftermath of this area off of Sean’s Instagram. The photo to the left is my exposing of the window, and the photo to the right is us exposing the super fucked-upedness of the previous owners.  Now… Sean has two vents in his office for the HVAC. Both of which BLAST air into his office, but then you look at them on the other side of the wall (in the area where the holes are now) the vents were half-ass placed on the wall, and then they were clearly leaking because with how cold Sean’s office was getting, the room (where these holes are) was a good 10 to 15 degrees colder.  So, he taped up the vents and then heard a weird noise coming from the wall behind the shower, he opened up the wall to find a HUGE hole in the duct work where it appeared that they were attempting to heat the back wall of the shower in order to get around the lack of a vent in the bathroom. So, prior to us locating this hole we knew that the bedrooms upstairs did not have good airflow at all, it was always either too cold in the winter, or blistering on the recent hotter days when factoring in that the A.C. will never kick off because the house would not get down to the 65* that the thermostat was set on.  So, once this hole was located and patched a blast of freezing cold air came through the vent in the master bedroom. While we’re confident that there are still leaks here and there, I feel the A.C. is now even functioning better because it’s actually turning off when the house hits the temperature it’s supposed to.

The only reason we really started to investigate into things was because my father had mentioned that the room he was staying in just didn’t have a good flow of air and it was only realized after he’d shut the door to go to bed for the night. Now, I don’t like the idea of someone being uncomfortable in my house, it’s one of my biggest pet peeves. If you know me in person, you know that I’ll make it a point to keep things as comfortable as possible. Case and point would probably be Karen, she’s got poor circulation and is commonly always cold. So, I make it a point to turn the A.C. off before I know she’s coming, or turn it to a higher temperature. Sean and I are comfortable at 70*F, she’s more comfortable at 80*F, so I compromise and bump it up to 75*F and make sure that there’s a fluffy sweater within reach for when she gets the chill.  Knowing that my dad is on a normal persons schedule and eating habits, I made sure to have cereal, cold cuts and other things in the fridge/pantry so that he had what he’s used to noshing on at home. I went and bought a double decker air mattress (as the temporary bed until I can get my mattress from NY), this way he wasn’t sleeping on the futon, or on the floor, plenty of clean towels, even found some of the shampoos and stuff I’ve taken from hotels over the years of travelling back and forth with Sean and put them in the bathroom in case he’d forgotten anything.  I just, I dunno, I just want to make sure you’re comfortable.  I’m not the “Oh do you want a drink?” type of person. I show you where everything is and you help yourself… but that’s just a ‘default’ thing for me because anyone who does stay here, or stop by for whatever length of time is typically someone I’d consider family anyway.

So yea, it was an eventful week and thankfully a few things have been fixed. We still need a roof, still need to get all of the rest of their shit out of our garage, and also are quite possibly going to need to gut the basement and start over. I know Sean doesn’t want to lose his office, but if we can make it better… why not?  The goal for next year is to tackle anything on the outside of the house, we want to put up a fence, a pool, get a shed for the lawn/pool equipment, so the next few years are going to be tight, but we’re thankfully pretty settled in and minus the lack of furniture for the master bedroom, pretty damn comfortable.  I think the saving grace is the fact that Sean and I both have our defined office spaces and things just run smoothly. I find it’s easier to concentrate when I’m working in the office and not in the den, which could be why it took me almost 3 weeks to blog, because I get side tracked by the T.V. while I’m working.  So sitting in the office with music and both feet on the floor in a proper upright working position I was able to spend 16 hours yesterday finalizing a site for a client.

I’ve been working on big name things that I’m not allowed to talk about and it freaking kills me, because my portfolio would look fucking fantastic, but when dealing with NDA’s things just get tricky and I personally do not want to deal with a lawsuit for my boss, or even me.

So… I’m heading off, I’m actually going to hit the “Publish” button, and I’m happy as hell about it.

Going Green – Scott Jones, Ace Parking

Wednesday, June 11th, 2014

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Overnight Reputation. All opinions are 100% mine.

Now that I'm a homeowner, I've been trying to come up with ways to not only decrease my monthly outflow of cash, but increase my green footprint through proper recycling and being even more mindful than before as to what I'm putting down the drain to avoid any bad clog-ups in the house. Primarily due to the fact that it's hard to afford a plumber with a mortgage when things pop up out of no where.

So, I've been doing some reading on how to slowly bring myself into the Green realm of life.  By default the first thing I looked into was solar panels, I feel that the electric companies charge way too much for their services, especially when you have the new luxury of Google technology being hooked through your thermostat helping you out in the house to tell you exactly where your energy consumption is, have I purchased this particular technology yet – no – but reading into it does give me some insight on where to get things started. The other thing that kills me is if you're someone who has a wind turbine or solar panels on your property and the electric company winds up paying you because you have so much energy saved up and can give them extra energy to use for other homes/businesses, even though they aren't giving any of their other customers a break. So that's just bad business to me.

The second thing I've looked into are more environmentally friendly vehicles, I think anything running on battery is beneficial to decrease the carbon footprint. There was one thing that concerned me though… what do you do when the battery runs out when there's no Gas to back things up? That brought me to a company called Ace Parking.  Scott Jones, Ace Parking, is a company that's looking to enhance the "Go Green" efforts by installing Solar Charging Stations and electric vehicle charging stations in parking lots.

Now, all my readers would know that I recently purchased my home in Delaware – however I was born and raised on Long Island (NY). Spending quite a bit of time in and out of Manhattan, I have, somewhat recently, seen an increase in "Green Charging" stations. Am I aware of the company responsible? No. BUT I did think that they were a pretty cool way of making sure anyone with an Electronic Vehicle (EV) wasn't stranded in Manhattan due to a dead battery. I did, however, find it concerning that the ones I've seen weren't actually solar powered, they were working from the same power source as every other light on the block – the local power company.  What makes Scott Jones, Ace Parking different, from anything I've personally seen is the introduction of Solar technology in order to power the charging station. 

As of right now I'm only able to locate a list of their parking stations in California, specificially the San Diego area. It's my hope that sometime in the near future they're able to carry the technology Nationwide to increase Green awareness, and give those potentially stranded EV's a fighting chance.

Visit Sponsor's Site

What happened to the Internet?

Tuesday, May 27th, 2014

I had every intent of jumping in the car and heading out to Wal-mart to get some stuff for the house, but unfortunately Mother Nature has decided to open the skies and increase the volume.  So since I’m stuck on the couch until the storm passes, I figured I’d take a few minutes to finally blog.  It also doesn’t help that Bella is terrified of thunder storms, and if you even say the phrase “Boom boom!” she’ll hide in the nearest tight spot she can get herself into. Right now? She’s between me and the back of the couch and that’s pretty much where she’s going to stay until she feels a change in the atmosphere.  I also would feel terrible leaving her by herself during a storm due to the cuddle factor involved with her anxiety.

Anyhow… I got into a long conversation with Arwen today about random things and the one thing we both agree on is the fact that the Internet, as we O.Gs remember it, is nothing like it used to be. There was a time when people heavily focused on personal websites, not micro blogging and social media. Sure, we all had MySpace accounts but the focus was always on regular blogging, constant theme updating and spending the time going through hundreds of thousands of links to comment on other personal blogs. There was also the perk of Internet Drama between different cliques to keep the hits coming. I’ll admit, I bought into that quite frequently but that ended almost 10 years ago and that’s that.

What always amused me was the amount of money spent on domain names just so you could host other people for free, at a time when webhosting was crazy expensive.  Now? You can buy a domain and hosting for $10-$20 a year but everyone prefers to utilize WordPress.com, Tumblr, or even skip blogging all together and just constantly update their Twitter accounts because “Microblogging” is just the way to be. I’ve also found that quite a few people who no longer Blog are now Vlogging. OK, so it might be easier to just talk to a camera to get your thoughts out, but why is no one capable of READING anymore? I remember seeing an episode of “Two Broke Girls” where Max said something that instantly clicked, and made me laugh so hard I almost wet my pants.  “Twitter is dumb, and Instagram is for people who can’t read”.  This statement, while it was just meant as a joke, is 100% true.  You’ll see more selfies and hashtags floating around the internet than you’ll ever see blog articles.  And why? Why is the instant gratification of a picture or video taking precedence over reading?

How many original bloggers are still floating around and actually updating their sites? Yes, I know I’m guilty of not blogging for quite some time, but life does take the precedence over Internet too.  Are there any of the older blogrolls floating around that house ANY active sites?  If I knew there was more of a ‘market’ for it I’d bring back a site like Provance or Despair so that there was at least three new people per-day that would give me the drive to not only read/comment on their sites, but the drive to focus more on mine as well.

I think the issue for me, is still life. The list of 20-something bloggers has now turned into 30-something bloggers who all have jobs and/or children that keep them from doing anything but reading recipes and searching for make-it-yourself toys/crafts for your children. The ‘break’ from that would be posting pictures of whatever you cooked or your child created onto Instagram, which then updates your Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr simultaneously to keep you ‘connected’.  But, why is no one connected to a ‘diary’ type of thing anymore? Isn’t that what the original blogs were really meant for? Yea, ok so a picture is still a glimpse into your world… but for some reason I feel that my brain works better on the descriptive level… that’s all.

We’re getting there…

Monday, May 12th, 2014

I’ve wanted to actually sit down and post for well over a month and a half, but the joy of homeownership when the place is constantly a wreck tends to take the priority.  So, since it’s been so long, I now don’t even know where to start.

If you follow me on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook you’d know that we did actually close on the house and get the keys, it happened on March 14th instead of March 12th but it happened. Since then it’s been a mad-dash of “Get This”, “Fix This”, “Clean This”, followed by INSERT MORE COFFEE!!  The house was so freaking disgusting after we got here on closing day. It took me over a week of shampooing carpets before I was even remotely comfortable with moving in my stuff over here. The bathrooms were scrubbed a few times with A LOT of bleach, the garage was full of crap that the previous owners should have gotten rid of and it fucking cost us money to do it, money we didn’t have because they completely fucking screwed us during this entire god damn process.  After going through this house we’ve easily determined that these people were low-life scum who had absolutely no idea what broom was, let alone any advanced cleaning accessory such as a SPONGE. The layers of slime that were scrubbed off of the showers is still mind-blowing to me… to the point that I’m now scrubbing the shower down almost every day just to make sure there’s none of their residue making an appearance – my O.C.D. in this house is possibly 10 times worse than it’s ever been before.  I swear to god if they were ever dumb enough to step foot on this property I’d probably shove a few of the shot-gun shells found in our crawl space straight up their asses.

In the past month we’ve gotten the bare essentials taken care of on the house, the rest are all happening this summer. We’ve got a huge couch and a big comfy chair (for Sean) in the Den. We recently picked up a gorgeous 6-person cherry dining table to start building up the dining room, we bought a small kitchen table the first week so we had somewhere to eat, picked up some bar stools on clearance from Lowes that were a really good find. George and Sean have been busy with some of the maintenance around the house so that we can be in a livable environment, and the only major thing left to accomplish this upcoming summer is to get the roof patched up.  If we had a little more wiggle room with the bank account this summer we’d have a company come in to take down a few of the over-grown (and dying) trees in the back yard so we can start putting in posts for a fence.  Why? Cause the neighbor behind us has the most annoying dog in the world and I’d rather it no longer have the ability to see us whenever we pass by one of our windows, and I want a damn pool so a fence must come first!

Sean’s been really happy down in his basement office, I was able to spend some time getting my office painted and setup so the only thing at this point that’s missing is a new desk but I’m making due with the folding table for now, it’s holding the iMac up pretty well, as well as the side monitor so I think I’ll be OK for a little while. Of course I’m going to need to get my Windows desktop setup at some point for cross-browser testing but I’ll continue to utilize the free services for now.  I could really care less if IE6 supports something anyway, if you’re still using IE6 then you shouldn’t have a computer to begin with.

The one big draw-back for life recently is the fact that my cell-phone is pretty much useless. I dropped it on the day of closing and the back popped off, it’s currently being held together with electrical tape and the battery only holds a charge for about 30-60 minutes. I literally have to keep it on the charger unless I’m talking on it, in which case I have to make sure there’s a charger close by.  Now, the battery was shit before I broke the back off of the phone, it’s just gotten much worse over time so I’m going to assume that replacing it should help to solve a few of my problems.  Thankfully, even though the Droid-4 was made in a way that Verizon would have to change the battery for you, I was able to break the piece off that Verizon has the tool for and I don’t need to waste money by bringing anything to them.  So, I’m gonna spend $20 on Amazon for a replacement and hopefully be good to go. I’m not due for an upgrade, but with the cost of cellphones I’d rather salvage the one I have for as long as humanly possible.  There’s no point in my spending $200 to upgrade every two years when I can just pick up a $20 battery that should hopefully give me at least 12 months without any problems.

BUT – the one thing we’re doing to help with the problem is turning our Double Play with Comcast into a Triple Play. Sean didn’t really see the point in having a house phone in the beginning, but now that he’s seeing how many problems I’m having with my phone and seeing how often I need to be ON the phone because my entire family and all of my friends live in NY he’s realizing that the house phone will be an essential part of life here for me. So tonight while we were in Staples we found an AT&T phone system for like $100 that included like 5 phones which would pretty much cover every room in the house, Sean figured it would be cheaper on Amazon so we walked away from it, but I saw saw it for like $130 on Amazon so I guess I’ll be heading back to Staples… when will men learn to listen?

In any event, I have an inbox full of crap to take care of and eyelids that are not willing to cooperate, so it’s time to increase my caffeine and while that’s working through my system it’s time to walk the dog. If it weren’t for her snoring next to me, I honestly would have completely forgotten it’s time for her to head around the block.

Surprise…. surprise…

Thursday, March 13th, 2014

We didn’t close yesterday, shocking I know. We were advised at the closing table that documentation was missing from one of the co-signers and then it turned into a mad dash to get everyone on the phone.  We had to make sure paperwork was notarized, and they wanted a copy faxed to them so we could attempt to close the same afternoon, however the faxes never went through so in the process of that not working the co-signer ran to the FedEx store to have the paperwork overnighted down.  They wanted the fax just to start the process, but they required the physical copy because of the seal.

So, co-signer paid the $30 to have it delivered before noon 3/13.  Due to the wind-storms that flew through the north east last night, the plane didn’t take off until after Midnight and was some-how re-routed from New York down to Memphis, TN.  The document (per the tracking info) was then DRIVEN to Baltimore, MD and has been sitting there ever since. We got in touch with a rep at FedEx and they noted that due to the winds it was delayed last night, and unfortunately due to the winds today it’s delayed until tomorrow.  The rep said that it would be there by Noon on 12/14, lets just hope that’s the case.

So everyone is still all over the place, thankfully the owner/realtor gave us until Monday to get this all finalized (per her addendum to the contract). They sellers already signed over what they could, at this point they’re just waiting on the check, and due to their scheduling conflicts this week they’ve also given power of attorney to the lawyer so that she can represent them for this signing when we actually can finalize everything.

Utility wise, everything is on in our names but they still hold the note on the house until the check is handed over to them. I’m hoping nothing happens at the house between now and signing, but we should be ok.  Sean and I are both at the end of our ropes, we’re sick of this entire process and just want it to end.  Hopefully we’ll have everything settled by tomorrow.  I just want the keys, I just want to get in there and clean the place up and start our lives.

It’s just way too damn frustrating to deal with anymore.