The Starting Over House

This post was written over two years ago, not exactly sure why I never posted it....  A lot has happened since then.  Not sure if you can to catch up, but I've been thinking that it might be worth starting this bloggy thing up again.

So, without further ado--

Oh, how I've kept you waiting. I do apologize, but you see, The Chaos has taken over my life. What is The Chaos you ask? That would be buying a house and then gutting the poor sweet little thing and trying to live in it with your two cats. So not a good idea.

I can only scratch the surface of all that I have learned from this experience. Starting with the fact that I'm made of tougher stuff than I ever thought possible, and finishing with I have the best family in all the world.

I bet you're more interested in seeing the progress. Hey, remember that hole-in-the-floor-through-which-I-can-see-dirt? Not anymore.

How amazing is that?! Turns out, the pipes had actually rusted and broken. If we hadn't decided to move that kitchen wall, I hate to think what would have eventually happend. Or how much it would have eventually cost.

The House Becomes A Home

As the dust begins to settle, you can see the amazing work my dad and brother did on my house. Here is just a taste.

This was taken with my cell phone, I promise more pictures when I find my camera in the chaos that is the rest of the house.

This Is Going To Get Interesting

I turned the corner to adulthood. I drank the kool-aid. I bought a house.....

....And This is what I came home to:

That is the floor of my laundry room. Well, it was the floor of my laundry room.

The house is good, but with some help, it can be great. Really, really great. So great that I'll never have to move again ever.

Let's let that sink in shall we; I. Will. Never. Have. To. Move. Again. (unless I want to) Also, I don't have a landlord. I have a Mortgage. Which, believe it or not, is actually sooooo much better.

But back to the hole in the floor. The-hole-in-the-floor-through-which-I-can-see-dirt.

It is the start of something Awesome.

Lay Your Burdens Down

I have a hard time looking back on this year. If you're really interested, look to the right side of this blog and click the little arrow next to 2009. Whoosh, there it is in all its shit-soaked glory.

Please, do me a little favor and click it back before I loose the ability to breathe. Whew, OK. Back to gettin' on with the repressin'....

A friend of mine requested that I put together a Best Albums of the year list, as I've usually got a good sense of what the kids listen to these days. I couldn't do it. Yet ANOTHER problem with '09. It lacked a soundtrack.

But you know what, I'm actually kind of happy about it. Because it turns out to be a somewhat happy accident, as this year will be even easier to forget about, as it doesn't have an accompanying soundtrack.

So, never will I be sitting in traffic with my iPod on shuffle when that song comes on that reminds me of when my heart was ripped out of my chest, burned countless times with cigarette butts, cut to a million pieces, and the pieces flung to the four winds. Because there wasn't a song for that.

Not a single measure or beat will remind me of the countless phone calls that I received from my Landlord (culminating with the threat of eviction. Yes, EVICTION.), asking if I'd found a new roommate yet.

And for all of those deluded people (those people who live their own version of "human") who managed to worm their way into my life; Well, worms don't really make any sound at all, no hint of a song, so you will be soon forgotten as well. (Ha! See what I did there? I was loosing you for a minute, then I brought it back....sort of.)

But I'll tell you what I will remember; Making Pickle laugh. Buckie's total inability to sit completely still, and how damn cute it is. Finding Aunty Spinster's Home for the Wayward, and working to make it a reality (through the astounding commitment of my immediate family).

All the rest of that stuff...I'm leaving it all back in good ol' 2009.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Road To Aunty Spinster's.

So I'm sure I might have mentioned that I'm looking for a roommate? Maybe once, or twice, or eleventy billion times.... Well, you know when you're forced in one way that is totally against the way you want for yourself, forced so forcefully that the pressure builds up until--finally--there is this little internal *plink* and something inside you snaps clean in two? Well, it's happened to me about 4 times in the last two months, but the most recent little snap was caused by what happened last night.

It's a really long and funny story, but you know, really long so I'll cut to the heart of it. My actual Landlord brought people over last night to look at the house. This is a change from my roommate search, as this time it required that all persons in said group would parade themselves through All The Rooms in the house. All. The. Rooms. Including my bedroom, which up till this point had been out of jurisdiction, so to speak.

So yeah, I didn't bother to clean it. It never occurred to me that I would need to. And I'm actually kinda glad I didn't. Because while they were in there opening my closet and doing laps around the room, my unmentionables were strewn across the bed in the exact position that I had left them that morning. And I'm not talkin' 'bout the pretty "for company" unmentionables. I can take the smallest amount of pleasure knowing as uncomfortable as I was for them to BE in my ROOM, I'm sure at least one of them was uncomfortable BEING in there.

As they were discussing the relative smallness of the closet, I can only imagine one of them thinking, "Jesus, well we know why the Bra is on the Queen-sized bed, it wouldn't fit in that tiny closet."

Aunty Spinster's Home For The Wayward, Part 1

I'm working on a new project. It's a sweater. But that's not the part that's important. What is important is that I'm at something of a crossroads. I guess you could say this all started one very normal-seeming night on August 3oth.

My roommate was getting home from a three-day trip to Colorado, during which he lost his keys. As it was 2 am he didn't want to wake me to unlock the door for him, and instead decided to break into the house through the kitchen window. Yeah, guess what? Noise coming from the kitchen at 2 am, when I knew I was the only one home? Totally woke me up. Anywho, after I called out and he announced his presence, I feel right back to sleep. Then it was morning and I got up to feed the cats.

Only Booger didn't come running to the sound of food tinkling into the food dish. Which I thought was a bit odd. But as my roommate's new girlfriend had slept over, I thought Booger was just weirded out by the strange person in the house. It was only after the two of them left for the day, and Booger still hadn't shown up, that I realized something was Terribly Wrong.

I'll just fast-forward a bit here, as it basically involves me Losing My Shit. And by that I mean freaking out, walking the neighborhood in my pajamas knocking on neighbors doors without a bra on, and then standing in middle of my living room crying and leaving repeated messages on peoples' cell phones (people I KNEW were at work, but at the time it made no difference).

I did manage to go to work, but I begged and threatened to go home early. Seeing as I was totally irrational and barely functioning, they let me. So I pull into my driveway, and see that the bowl of food I had left outside had not been touched. At all. And the tiny little scrap of control that I actually managed to hold onto all day was just gone.

There I am, standing in my driveway at 10 o'clock at night (hmmm, sound familiar ?), crying, and I say out loud, "You're never coming back, are you?"

And then...

...I hear...

a "mrwow"

That's what Booger says, "mrwow." Not "meow." Not anything close, just "mrwow"

ZOMFG! He had actually come home! And he came slinking out to me, and was all, "Sweet Baby Je'asus, Woman! Where in the He'all have you been!?" Get me back in that house!" Yes...just like that, in a Southern Accent.

And all was right in my world again.....At least until my roommate came home and told me he was moving out 6 months shy of the expiration of our lease.

To be Continued...