twice in the same week!

I am determined to write in this silly thing more often.

Ok, let’s see. The latest:

 

I’m at work, again. 🙂 No, seriously, it’s been a surprisingly fast-moving day, for which I am grateful. I am so ready for the weekend. We are going to look at a few houses this weekend north of the town I work in. Our lease is up at the end of April and we really really really want to be closer to where I work. The town is adorable and very community based and we like that. There are all these town festivals through the summer and it seems to be pretty thriving, unlike a sad number of small towns in America. Plus, with gas prices threatening $4 a gallon, saving money on the drive is vitally important. Right now, we drive a total of 2 hours a day to and fro. Of course, we only have one car and he works 25 minutes from home and I work another 20-25 minutes past that. It’d be a little less for each of us if we had two cars, but it would still be a lot of money. Our car is holding up like a champ, but it’s almost 13 years old. And, honestly, it wasn’t taken fantastic care of by the previous (related) owner. We’ve already replaced one strut, the alternator and the battery. We’ve had to unhook a good 1/3 of the electrical system b/c there seems to be a short somewhere that messes things up on a regular basis. We can’t use the rear wiper b/c it doesn’t work. And the driver’s side rear strut is awful. We’re not sure if the actual strut is bad (probably) but we do know that the housing at the top of it is rusted out completely and when you go down an even remotely bumpy road, it rattles like crazy. Very obnoxious.

 

So, anyway, we’re going to look at a few houses. We want something big enough to withstand all 5 of us and our junk, but small enough to be affordable. We still have to rent b/c our credit is outstandingly awful, but we are shooting for landing in a rental for 2+ years and working on our credit and saving as much as we’re capable.

The one house we’re both prematurely excited about sounds perfect. It’s a 3 bedroom (whoo hoo) 1 bath (not-so-whoo hoo) 2 story farm-esque house on maybe ½ an acre at the end of a row of fairly spaced out houses. It has a really great yard and a 1 car garage which Joe is jumping happy about. The owner has just put a lot into it aesthetically, as well as functionally. I guess he just replaced all the flooring inside, put a new kitchen in (all new) with ceramic tile in the kitchen & bathroom. He also re-insulated the whole house and put new heating/central air. And he only wants $600/ month. That’s incredible. Of course, we have to pay all the utilities, but I think our budget can handle it if we’re smart, plus the new insulation and heating/cooling system will help w/ costs.

 

We’ve both been kind of dreaming about living in a place like this. But there are downsides, too.

 

It’s pretty isolated. I mean, there are ‘neighbors’ fairly close, but it feels isolated and it’s very removed from all of our family and ‘friends’. His family would be almost 30 minutes away, and he’s never lived more than 15-ish from them his entire life. My family would be almost an hour away. I waffle back and forth between thinking this would be a good thing (for both of us) and a bad thing. For one, we’d be eliminating our emergency babysitters, almost entirely. No last minute “can you babysit b/c I’m already ten minutes late for work and the sitter is sick” deals anymore. We’d definitely have to structure ourselves and learn to deal with problems. And, see, that’s good and bad. L I think it’d be good to be ‘grown ups’ though and have to learn to live like that. We are a complete family unit now, and I truly don’t want to have to lean on our parents forever. I’d like them to be able to be just grandparents and I’m sure they feel the same way. At the same time, I think we’ll see our families a lot less. I’m sad about that. I know that most of them can’t/won’t/don’t care to take the time to come see us and I should probably write that off as them being douchebags, but we do love them, flaws and all. We already have problems making time to see everyone with our hectic schedule. I think what would be good for us, though, would be learning to structure our social life (which Joe has finally admitted we do need) with our busy work and home life. We’d have to learn to make an effort to get out of the house, with and without the kids. I like that. I like the idea of being (while busy) active people with an active life. *sigh* Why does growing up have to be such a process?! J

 

On another note, Yani signed herself up for a 5k marathon in May. She starts training with the school on Tuesday. I have committed to training with her starting Monday. We are going to run 20-30 minutes Monday and Wednesday. It’s going to be interesting to see how I do. I’ve never been a physically active person, but I think, along with all the other changes in my life, I’m ready to change what I’ve “always been”. I want to learn to like running, even if it’s just a few days a week. We’ve always lived in great areas for being outside, but I’ve never really taken advantage of them. How sad that makes me! So, starting Monday, Tia is going to start learning to be a runner. Weird, right?

 

<span style="font-siz

e: 14pt; font-family: "Bradley Hand ITC";”>In other news, there’s a girl at work (I should probably call her a woman…) that I’m not really happy with right now. She and I don’t seem to mesh for some completely unknown reason. Joe mentioned that, sometimes, people just don’t get along, personality-wise, and I agree with that completely. I have had a number of people that I just don’t care for. It’s not their fault or anything they’ve ‘done’ to me, I’m just, for whatever reason, not a fan. I believe this may be the case with this girl, but her attitude leaves much to be desired. When I have one of those people in my orbit, I tend to gently ignore them as much as possible, and when that is not feasible, I am on my best behavior and very civil and polite. Now, she hasn’t been downright rude, yet, but her whole demeanor becomes irritated when I’m in the same general space as she. We work in a very small office; no one is ever more than 50 feet from another, ever. It’s not okay to constantly be shooting me dirty looks when I speak or rudely stare at me when I have an opinion on something, then act like my opinion was shit. These are the things that I get stewed about. I have never, and would never, intentionally treat someone like that. Maybe I’m guilty of expecting something more out of people in life, but I do not believe this is rocket science (surgery!). At any rate, this all came up b/c she just again walked by my desk saying something (to someone else, I assume) about what was in a cookie bar sitting in the kitchen. The other person didn’t answer, perhaps unaware of the correct answer, so I answered her. She, no joke, looked right at me with the most awful expression, and then spun (SPUN!) on her heel and walked away. Are you kidding me? I’m very sorry that I answered your damn question, you over-dramatic, childish pain in the ass. I’ll keep my mouth shut the next time there’s an allergen in your fucking food. Jeez!

 

Okay, I should probably get to work (read: look busy).

 

Have a wonderful day, everyone. I’m hoping to get out of here early today. Maybe I can hit the grocery store before getting the girls tonight so we can have a decent dinner early, for once. 

 

Adios!