We're in like Flynn

Adrian and I are finally in our new house. We started sleeping here Friday night and we're almost totally finished clearing out the old place. We're both taking Monday off to finish it up, so we can start the cleaning part, which I always dread.....
I LOVE this new house! I can't believe I actually own a house this nice. Dinsy loves it too. She's been running around and checking things out, but she's decided that it's home. She's made herself very comfortable, right from the start.
Wow.....I'm a homeowner.

Again

Those damned voices are in my head again. I know it's because I'm stressed out and exhausted from the long move and not sleeping well. They just keep popping up: "you'll die early like your mother"......"if Adrian dies before you, you'll kill yourself"....."you won't enjoy the house because you'll get really sick soon and die".......
I'm just waiting for this month to be over, so I can be in our new house and try to rest. I'm so tired and achy I feel like I'm coming down with the flu, but I know that the fibromyalgia. It makes me feel constantly like I've been run over by a truck. We've had to do this entire move by ourselves, and it should not take two people an entire month to move a two-bedroom house. We just have entirely too much crap.
I have no problem intellectually with getting older, but physically, it really sucks.

tired......

Painting, repairing, cleaning....and more painting. That's what skeleton and I have been doing for the last week. He repaired the hole in the living room wall, I cleaned the kitchen and the bathrooms, we both painted and are still painting. It's a BIG place, at least to us it is. We'll actually have room for everything. We'll be able to see records and books that we've had stored up in boxes for years.But for now, I'm just tired......

Music-related dream

Last night I dreamed that I was in a Taco Bell with the band New Order and Britney Spears and her entourage came in: baby, white trash husband and all. A ferocious hurricane was blowing outside, so we were all stuck there. Britney looked at each member of New Order like "don't you want my autograph?" and the members of New Order were looking around with expressions that said "get me the fuck out of here!! NOW!" and completely ignoring Britney, causing some consternation among her bodyguards, who whispered to each other.Then I woke up. The hurricane made me want to go to the bathroom.

Wh-huh??

The seller has agreed to pony up $8800 for plumbing repairs, which is the figure that the plumber his realtor found came up with (how's that for a badly composed sentence?). I can't believe it. That means that the seller is basically going to make no money at all from the sale of this house. He didn't agree to also replace the breaker box; that will be up to hubby and I to deal with, but at least we can roll that cost into the financing and not take too much of a hit payment-wise. I don't want to jinx it, but we may actually get this house after all.....
Went to my semi-yearly visit to the neurologist today. I asked her about going off the Topamax since it fucks with my memory and coordination, not to mention having to search for words constantly. It's hard to convince people that I have a BA in Linguistics when I'm going "duh, duh....." like a retard. She gave me loads of samples of my migraine meds and told me to just go down on the dosage of the Topamax and that should take care of it. She also told me that I HAVE to get more sleep (HA!!!) and gave me an article about the relationship between migraines and insomnia. She wants me to start taking melatonin at night to help with the sleep. Sure, why not? I've tried everything else......
I still have some cookie dough left! Hot damn!

the wild cat has left the building

Sophie has gone to her new home with a very nice family! I repeat, Sophie is GONE!

I get what I want

I just made a big batch of mint chocolate chip cookie dough in my new food processor. Now, instead of baking the cookies, I'm eating huge forkfuls of the raw dough. It's minty, chocolatey goodness.....there's nothing better than raw cookie dough.
I like my new food processor too. I had to fight off some old ladies at Tuesday Morning to get it. They can get quite stroppy with their walkers and canes, but I'm taller, faster and 40 years younger. I got my Cuisinart and left the oldies wobbling on their walkers......
Now, back to the cookie dough....

Once again.....

Great.....this house has a $10k plumbing leak too. The seller is considering making the necessary repairs, but we won't know for sure until tomorrow morning. The seller is now wanting to terminate and look for bids to do the repairs and we're trying to convince him to just extend our option instead while he's looking for someone to do the repairs. He may want to put the house back on the market at a higher price, since he's not making much profit, especially if he's paying for this.
I feel bad for the guy, I really do. I remember going through all this when I was trying to sell Mom's house. Some buyers wanted everything; I remember one lady wanted me to pay for a new bathtub because she didn't like Mom's jacuzzi tub. Another wanted new carpeting because the color didn't suit her. I refused both of those, of course. I did end up getting stuck for a new roof, only because the realtor I was using was selling the house to a friend of hers and told her that the roof was old (it wasn't) and she told me that the house wouldn't sell at all unless I did replace it. I went to that closing sobbing, knowing that I was getting completely screwed out of the house that my mother had loved so much. My grandfather had built it, I had installed and stained all the cabinetry myself. This realtor has known that I was grieving for my mother who had died only months before and had completely taken advantage of me because it had taken longer to sell than she thought. So she unloaded it at a deep discount to a pal of hers and I was left with not even enough money to pay off the remainder of my college loan.

Houses & Kitties

The house has a plumbing problem; how bad, we don't know yet. The seller is having the plumbing looked at today and will let us know if they want to pay to have it fixed. The is another case of "can't sell the house without fixing the problem", but the seller may not have the money, who knows?
Sophie the kitty still hates our guts after 3 weeks now. I placed an ad on Craigslist and a nice man who rescues cats answered it. He doesn't have room for her at the moment, but he's working with me to find a home for her. Dinsy has lost her fear of Sophie now. Dinsy has no problem waltzing into the bedroom and giving Sophie the kitty version of "neener neener", which prompts a huge explosion of hissing and growling from Sophie, while Dinsy strolls back up to me as if to say "this is MY house, don't you forget it!" I wish it could have been Sophie's house too, but she just won't get with the program......

house inspection

The inspection went fairly well; only the hot water heater leaks, the shower pan needs changing and the breaker box needs to be replaced, along with a lot of piddly stuff. Now for the plumbing test today......*teeth chatter, knees tremble*

YAYY!!!!!

They accepted our offer this time! The house will be ours......hopefully this one won't have the problems that the other one had........

Two kitties are NOT better than one......

This kitty may not be for us. She fooled us a bit on Sunday, but since then, she hasn't really let us come near her without a huge show of hissing, spitting and growling. We've tried everything we can think of and she's just not liking us at all. I called her vet this morning and asked for advice and they said that she may be too old to accept a new family, let alone another cat. So, they said they would call me if anybody called wanting a cat.
I really hate this. The woman who gave her to us told me that she was friendly toward other cats and that she was just past the kitten stage herself, like our Dinsy. Turns out that Sophie is over 6 years old, the vet tells me. I wanted to email the woman but Adrian said that would be a bad idea. Sophie is our problem kitty now, we'll deal with her.
I so wanted another kitty for Dinsy to play with. Dinsy wants a playmate too; she was so curious about Sophie, but now she's scared to death.

A nice, quiet Sunday

Sophie is doing a bit better today. She doesn't run and hide when we come into the bedroom, and even meows quietly when we say her name. She let me scratch her under the chin without freaking out, but I got a small half-hearted hiss afterward. I put a few drops of Rescue Remedy in her water dish and that seemed to help. I had forgotten I had some in my purse. That stuff helped me tremendously when my mom was ill. Plus, we slept in the same room with her all night, so I think she's getting used to us.
Oh no! Rush is on TV, an old film of them playing "Tom Sawyer". I remember seeing them on the Midnight Special back in the Seventies. I remember looking at Geddy Lee and thinking "that's the ugliest woman I've ever seen in my life!" He hasn't gotten any better looking either.....Get thee behind me, Geddy!!!

World War Three

Oh, the hissing, spitting and growling that going on in this house! And it's pretty much just from Sophie, poor little kitty. She's just had her whole world changed and now these strange new people want her to make friends with another kitty too? On the same day?
After I got bitten once, I figured that maybe she would prefer to be alone in the bedroom for a while until she gets used to all the strangeness. She promptly wedged herself underneath my 1920s vanity table, in a tiny little space under one of the drawers. Any mention of her name is greeted with a growl and a hiss and if I put my hand on the floor next to her, she swats at me.
This is not a happy kitty. I hope she can eventually calm down.....

Two kitties are better than one

We're going to take a break from house hunting and get a playmate for our kitty, Dinsdale. Sophie will join our household this weekend! Dinsy's been so bored, maybe she and Sophie will get along well and play together. I hope, anyway..........

I'm so tired...I haven't slept a wink

The house has been on the market for over 21 days and the seller has recently lowered the price. He refused our initial offer AND our counter offer which was just $5000 shy of his full asking price.
FUCK THIS SHIT.

Back to the grind......

We've been looking at other houses lately and have made an offer on a very nice one in east Austin. It's in a very nice neighborhood, and comes with newish appliances. The house itself has two large bedrooms, two bathrooms and a fireplace. The seller has made a counter offer and we're still waiting to hear whether our counter offer has been accepted or not. We may have to leave this one too.....
I'm really sick of house hunting.

Syd Barrett RIP 1946-2006

Goodbye, Syd........

Full Stop

The house is over and done with. It won't be ours. There is a $10,000 plumbing leak that the seller refuses to fix. He is instead going to lower the price and put it back on the market. Since the house would not pass an FHA appraisal or house inspection, we are out of the picture.
The slimy realtor actually called me at work to suggest an "alternate plan", which consisted of "not telling FHA since they wouldn't find out anyway, and the seller could just give you the money to fix it yourselves". It was brave of him in several ways, firstly considering the manner in which our last telephone conversation ended, where I yelled at him and hung up on him; and secondly, because I work for a MORTGAGE COMPANY AND CAN REPORT HIS SLIMY UNETHICAL ASS TO THE TEXAS BOARD OF REALTORS. What a fucking piece of work this guy is.....
So....back to the drawing board. At least we have a nice ethical and hardworking realtor that we will be working with in the future and we won't ever have to deal with this slime ball again.

Songs that make me go "ahhhhh"

Everyone has their favorite songs, but there are some songs that give me a physical, almost visceral reaction. These go beyond being mere "favorites"; hearing them become necessary to my happiness in life, even if I just listen to them once every year or so. These songs are so important to me that I could literally listen to them over and over again for hours and not get tired. I did exactly that when I was a kid, much to my mother's consternation. I would play the same song over and over and over, getting the same thrill every time and discovering new facets of the recording in each listening. I considered this part of my "training in progress" at the time; I wanted to be a record producer. Fuck that, I wanted to be Brian Wilson or Phil Spector but without the mental illness and bad hair. I didn't get to be a record producer and I've struggled with mental illness, but I've got really nice hair...;-)
Now, on to my list, in no particular order:

Wolves, Lower - REM
Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Stroll On - Yardbirds
Surf's Up - Beach Boys
The Yellow Princess - John Fahey
Gardening At Night - REM
Victoria - the Kinks
Be My Baby - Ronettes
See No Evil - Television
Anarchy In The UK - Sex Pistols
Sunflower River Blues - John Fahey
Point of No Return - Georgie Fame
Over, Under, Sideways, Down - Yardbirds
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band

that's all I can think of at the moment.....what are yours?