Well, easy come, easy go, that’s what they say.

The first house M and I made an offer on didn’t work out. We made a rather generous offer and the sellers sent a counter offer. We didn’t agree to the terms and didn’t want to start a ping-pong match, so we decided to withdraw our offer before things got drawn out and ridiculous. At first, I was crushed but I think it’s for the best. In retrospect (a whole two days!), I guess that house just wasn’t the right one for us. And it’s the sellers’ loss anyway!

So we’re still looking and have several more already selected. I sent the listing numbers to our realtor, who funnily enough has made himself kind of scarce since the first offer fell through. He says that he is going out of town for the next couple of weeks, so maybe he is just busy making personal plans–but prior to our offer, he was really quick about answering my emails and now I kind of feel like we’re getting the brush. Just a little. I had to leave him a voicemail today to get any response from him, which worked, but I’ve since sent two follow-up emails and have not yet gotten responses on those. hmmm.

My parents, sister, and brother-in-law think I should use their realtor friend who sold my sis and BIL their house. We might decide to switch to him if our current guy doesn’t work out. We’re supposed to have someone else from the team working with us while he is out of town, but if I have to keep bugging him to answer my questions, then we are *definitely* switching to the new guy.

All that said, I am relieved about a few things, because believe it or not there were a few things about the first house that I didn’t like. But nevertheless, I am still kind of bummed because this just delays the process. I know we shouldn’t rush things but I am very eager to get out of the House of Crazy at Chez Parents, and I guess if I’ve made it this long–over a year since I moved back in!–I can stick it out for another couple of weeks.

Also, I have learned from the incident of the first house that I do NOT like red carpet. This is not meant as any offense to you if you have red carpet, but personally I go for 1) wood or wood laminate flooring with area rugs or 2) neutral shades like tan or cream or taupe or any variation thereof. Do you know how hard it is to search for couches that coordinate with red carpet? Like, maroon-ish burgundy-ish carpet? It’s not as easy as it should be. Please, if you’re selling your house, ix-nay on the red carpet.

oh, and today I saw a listing online for a house with each room painted different colors, which is fine, but the colors were just…technicolor teal, shiny lavender (I don’t think they used flat paint because that wall was just SHINY!), and tangerine family room. It was interesting, to say the least!

Also this weekend, my older sister graduated from Old Dominion University with her Bachelor’s degree in Business. She jokes all the time about having been in school forever (she graduated high school in 1994) but better late than never, I say! (And easy for me to say, since I graduated in 1997 and will just this year finish my B.A.) And actually, it was rather anti-climactic for her, since she still has one class left but wanted to be able to walk in the spring ceremony rather than the winter. At any rate, good for her for getting it done!

And my parents finally met M and did not hate him! What a concept! I had spent so much time freaking out over it (seriously…stress x infinity), but they seemed to like him just fine. It blew my mind. I think mainly they were just so fixated on us NOT getting the house we made the offer on that they didn’t really focus on him too much…and now we aren’t getting the house in the “rough” neighborhood, so I hope they’re happy.

I am also toying with the idea of quitting my second job. Since I paid off my Bank of America credit card (still has a $0 balance, muahahaha!) and we’ve lowered our price range for the house, I’m wondering if we’ll be able to manage financially once we find a house. I think what I’ll do is wait until we’ve lived in the house for three months or so, just to see how the bills play out and how much everything costs in reality. If we can manage comfortably with just our two jobs (M’s and mine), then I might quit my night job, even though I like it more than my primary job. That would be tough, but in the end I have to do what’s better for my mental AND physical health. Let’s not revisit the Great Month o’ Sickness, otherwise known as MARCH, home of tonsillitis and other viral surprises. Really, I’m just tired all the time. Plus my class starts at the end of this month, and I am questioning whether I can pull this Superwoman act and hold two jobs as well as an A grade point average. I don’t know if I can do it after all. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll be able to pay the bills and live comfortably, even with the new mortgage and all that comes with it. If we can, I’m going to quit the second job. I need the break!

oh yeah, and I haven’t talked about my lovely one-year performance evaluation at my day job. hmmmphhaaahaaaa. Well, I had it. And it didn’t SUCK, but it wasn’t GREAT either. I got something like a 42/60, with high points for organization and efficiency, and almost the lowest score possible for–get THIS–initiative. INITIATIVE. I, who has not one! but two! jobs AND I’m going back to college AND I’m trying to buy a house. Initiative! Can you believe the audacity??

To be fair, I agree with my boss on some points–like I need to interact more with our “customers” and “contacts” from the various companies we deal with. I’m a very shy person and I deal mostly through email–I HATE dealing with people over the phone–so most of the work I get done, my boss doesn’t even KNOW about because I cc him on few messages (at his request, because he is already swamped with emails from other people). I could have argued with him, I guess, but what would that have accomplished? Between you and me…I think he knows that once I finish my Bachelor’s degree, I am soooo out of there. Obviously he’s trying to crack down on me while he still can. Needless to say, I remain uninspired. I guess I’m just tired of being called out when I make a mistake (yes I freely admit when I make them!), and rarely called out when I do something RIGHT. That tends to wear a person down, you know?

For example, I think I got penalized on the evaluation for a stupid incident recently. Our company (main/day job) had its annual awards dinner but I had to work that night at my other job. I initially told my boss that I would go, but then changed my mind because that’s when M and I decided to try to buy a house and I figured I could use all the extra money I could make, so I canceled my plans to attend the dinner and I think that irked my boss. When I told him I was trying to buy a house, I got a smirk and a “well good for you” in response. (I am not even making this up. He can kind of be an asshat sometimes.) Anyway, I think he deducted points from my evaluation because on the last page he wrote in a comment about “more interaction with field representatives” and he had told me previously that the awards dinner would be a great chance to meet them and of course I ended up not going.

Look, in a sense I get where he is coming from, but in another sense, let’s follow the logic. I know in theory I probably should have attended the dinner, but I didn’t on the grounds that I needed to work *at my second job* which I have in the first place because *he does not pay me enough at my main job.* The reason I have the second job is BECAUSE I work hard to make ends meet and thereby demonstrate determination and the willingness to work hard. But apparently I still lack initiative. grr arg.

Then, to make matters even more confusing, he proceeds to tell me that despite my fair-to-middling evaluation, he has recommended me for a raise. He doesn’t know how much I’ll end up getting, but there you have it. Personally I’m seeing it as something of a BRIBE, as in, “please don’t quit this job because then we’ll have to hire someone new and start all over again and I don’t have the time for that.” How confusing is that??

The fact that I haven’t quite had a true mental breakdown yet still fascinates me, but such is my life of late. Any suggestions? Advice? Should I take up yoga again, become a vegetarian? (By the way, I tried removing beef from my diet, and lasted not even two weeks. I concede. I am a carnivore.) I do the best I can under the circumstances, but still find myself struggling. Money is the biggest problem, then jobs, then everything else just kind of falls into line after that. I’m still hopeful about the house situation–I know we’ll find the right fit soon enough. And sooner rather than later, probably, because there are plenty of homes to choose from, thankfully. But I just question myself sometimes and end up confusing myself, I think. And my life has become a never-ending To Do List, filled with work, work, laundry, house hunting, a bit of time to scratch my dogs’ tummies, fun spending time with M, get into confrontations with my parents, crying, work, work, fast food, work, sick again, work…and I just realized that I’m making this sound like such a pity party, so forgive me! I tried keeping a “real” journal again recently and it didn’t work either. So here I vent.

Tonight while I’m doing laundry I plan to cast on that test knit sweater for SWTC, so maybe I will find a little solace in that. I can always rely on knitting to retain my sanity for me. Let’s hope it still works.

Posted: May 12th, 2008 under Deep Thoughts, My So-Called Life, Working Girl.
Comments: 2

I went to the beach today. Even though it was very chilly, I’m so glad I went. It was the first time I had been to the beach since moving back to Virginia in March of 2007. Today when I first caught sight of the Atlantic, I got these really strange–but good–tingly feelings inside, as if I was seeing the ocean for the first time. It was kind of magical.

Now I really feel like I’ve come home.

Posted: January 13th, 2008 under Deep Thoughts, My So-Called Life.
Comments: 2

It’s already the end of the first work week in January 2008. sheesh! Where does all the time go? Really, where does it go?

I’ve been packing my lunches since declaring a yarn/book diet, and saved quite a bit of money already since I wasn’t eating out this week. The yarn/book diet, btw, was quickly renamed to the yarn/book fast, as “diet” just did not seem to encompass the feeling of a very long six months ahead.

When I was at the grocery store earlier this week, I bought a lottery ticket, one of the scratchers–and won $5. I need to redeem it. Also, after waiting something like 6 months, I finally received a rebate check from Sprint for $50, yay! Sprint bought back my phone from my previous service with them (I’m with T-Mobile now). Rebates always take so long to process (allegedly), but it’s nice to receive a check eventually. I’m thinking this will go straight to savings.

But I’m not excited about having to buy a new tire for my car today. I don’t think I ever mentioned it here that the car I’ve been using since I moved back is officially mine now. My parents gifted it to me, since they had no use for it–they bought a new car when I moved back in. So it’s in my name and it’s my insurance (another expense woo), and consequently, I need to buy a new tire. (It was patched a few months ago and now it’s leaking air, lovely.) oh the joys of adulthood, hm?

I really dream of moving out and being truly on my own, I know I talk about that all the time here…at least it seems like I do. I’m just SO fixated on that goal, it’s driving me crazy not being able to do it. I’m basically a homebody, I think…I like being at home by myself most of the time, with just my dogs for company…I know that’s kind of weird but I like solitude. I like having the quiet as a backdrop for knitting, thinking, creating, just peace and quiet. And that’s something I don’t often have anymore, if ever. I don’t know…I ramble…but I just want to do the things *I* want to do finally, and not have someone looking over my shoulder and shaking their head at my mistakes…

I know some people have it a lot tougher than I do, I know that. Life is one day at a time and paycheck to paycheck and it’s hard to see past it all and feel any joy. What is that? Is it real? Will I ever find it?

I think I need more sleep, staying up too late is taking its toll on my thought processes, maybe.

Posted: January 4th, 2008 under Deep Thoughts, My So-Called Life.
Comments: 5

The older I get, the more of a Scrooge I become. I’m sorry! I know some people absolutely love Christmas/the holiday season, but I’ve never been that way, even as a child. It’s weird, but I guess as an adult I associate Christmastime with so many bad periods in my life, so whenever it rolls around the following year, I just feel…blah. I’d call it winter blues, except I actually enjoy cold weather now and bundling up in sweaters and coats and scarves…

Work is still going pretty well. The library job helps to balance out the crapola at my day job. The head librarian is throwing a holiday party on December 8, which I might go to. I’m off that whole day, and I need to take Autumn back to the vet that morning for her booster shots.

I feel really sad lately about my dogs–I hardly see them during the week anymore, though I say good morning and good night to them every day and give them pats and kisses and snuggles, it’s just not the same. I used to have them around me constantly in NM, to the point where they would sit next to me while I knit or watched DVDs, and it was so comforting. I would do laundry and Autumn would follow me around the house, literally. (Orion was usually sprawled out on the couch or tiles.) I would go from room to room and Autumn would shadow me. Then if I had to go to the bathroom or something, she would actually lie down outside the closed door and wait until I came out! Soooo sweet. I miss that. Now that I work so much, I’m gone an awful lot, and I barely see them during the week. Also, I haven’t been able to work with Autumn on the leash the way I was doing daily, and it seems she has forgotten her training because she pulled me around when we went to the vet a couple weeks ago…sigh. I feel horrible, like I am neglecting them, because I do think of myself as a dog parent and it’s like I’m being a deadbeat dog mommy! My parents help take care of them when I’m at work, but they don’t play with the dogs–just feed them and clean up after them. And dogs really need some love and attention. I’ve noticed a change in Autumn–she seems more sedate now, though still happy to see me at the end of the day…holy crap, I feel like crying right now! I need to stop. I keep telling myself that I’m working so much in order to be able to give them AND myself a better life for the future, but it doesn’t feel right lately. I don’t know anymore.

See, the holidays are so melancholy for me because people talk about “cheer” and “joy” and all this, but all I feel is sad about a lot of things. It’s hard to explain. I want to feel joyful and celebratory, but since I don’t really have a strong connection to family or religion anymore, I just feel…kind of empty, I guess. I’ve reverted into my shell during the day–in the mornings I listen to podcasts and knit while sitting in my car before work, and do the same during lunch break. It keeps me distracted, but obviously not enough.

It just seems like I am wasting away, not just mentally or whatever, but kind of physically, too. I’m not even 30 yet but my health isn’t all that great. This Saturday I have to get my blood drawn again for my cholesterol re-screening (can you believe it’s almost been 3 months?), and I highly suspect that it’s still going to be high. I’m sort of dreading it, but then I dread a lot of things like my day job and working so much in general and mean people I have to deal with and the holidays and all sorts of things. Melancholy and dread. Not exactly comfort and joy, right?

I hope all this subsides, I hope that I can pull myself out of this rut long enough to get to a point where I don’t need to have two jobs anymore, where I can sit and knit with a dog on each side of me, and just feel content. It’s awfully lonely where I am right now.

Posted: November 28th, 2007 under Deep Thoughts, My So-Called Life.
Comments: 5

I just want to keep posting today, I guess I am feeling particularly bloggy!

So far Monday has gone by rather fast, thank goodness. (That’s obvious, since this is my third post today and work isn’t even over yet. Then again, work is light for some reason and my boss just left early for the day. Must be nice!)

I have to get some groceries after work today–I have been eating oatmeal like a fiend every morning. I wonder if my cholesterol has gone down any. I had planned on going to SnB tonight, but unfortunately I am going to play hooky once again. (Tasha, don’t kill me! ) I am still SO nervous about my interview tomorrow morning, so I’m going to try to go to bed early tonight, for once. (Early = not 11 PM or later on a weeknight.)

When I’m not obsessing over my forthcoming interview, I’m fighting the urge to cast on something new. Lately, either out of laziness or…um…yeah I’m just lazy, I haven’t been dragging out my swift and ball winder. I’ve just been winding my yarn by hand. (Except the laceweight. That, I refuse to wind by hand. Luckily, JaggerSpun Zephyr from Sarah’s Yarns comes pre-wound.) I think it started with my Malabrigo–it’s just so buttery soft that I didn’t want to put it through the winder and potentially get it all fuzzed up in the process. And last night, I wound my skein of L&V Dancing With the Yarns in Rhumba. I loooove the colors, but I have no clue what to knit with it. I do know that I want to do some type of lacy scarf, but I need to choose a pattern.

And then there’s the problem of continually rearranging my Ravelry queue. Sometimes I go through it and think, “why did I queue that in the first place” and then I remove it. And yesterday after doing this, I promptly added a bunch more projects to the queue. Then again, if I never bought new yarn between now and 6 months from now, I could probably burn through my stash pretty well, don’t you think?

(I’m well aware that this post is rambly and all stream-of-consciousness but I had too much caffeine today and I am all worked up about the interview tomorrow! Have I mentioned that??)

oh, something else I’ve been doing lately? Reading. Yes, I have resurrected that hobby from under all those piles of yarn that have been taking up my time the past few years. I read Ghost Hunting and loved it, naturally. Then I found out that Nicholas Sparks just released a new book, The Choice, which I got for $13 at Barnes & Noble, thanks to their 40% off for members and an additional 15% off coupon. I <3 B&N.

Now, here’s the thing. I know Nicholas Sparks writes these chick books and they’re semi-cheesy sometimes, but I’ve been reading his books for years and I’m definitely a fan. (But still, I’m not as fond of some of his books. Nights in Rodanthe, um, sucked, if you ask me, lol. And I don’t normally say that about books. And I’m even a fan of his! But if you ever read The Bridges of Madison County, don’t bother reading Nights in Rodanthe, basically.)

I think something happens often with writers, they have this initial spark when they write their first couple novels, then it’s as if something fizzles and the next couple books are just ok. It was like that for me when I read The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, and A Walk to Remember. I’ve read nearly all his other books, but those three stand out for me.

And funnily enough, even though I went through a drought of reading his books, I continued to buy them as they were released–I have The Wedding, True Believer, At First Sight, and Dear John, none of which I have read. Yet. Since finishing The Choice in 3 days (!), I picked up True Believer and I’ll likely mow through the rest of them since I’m on a roll.

The Choice, btw, was rather interesting. No spoilers, but I will say that he (Sparks) threw a curve ball in the story about 3/4 of the way through that I really wasn’t expecting. And while I thought the ending was a little…”eh,” the book still made me cry. And something that affects me that much gets at LEAST 4 stars.

I’ve missed reading so much. That was basically all I did before I took up knitting, and now it’s interesting trying to do both. (Not simultaneously, though apparently there are some multi-tasking talented people out there who can read and knit at the same time. I have never been able to accomplish this. The minute I drop a stitch, either the knitting or the book is going to go flying across the room and I can’t be held responsible for anyone injured or offended in the process.)

Before I moved back to Virginia, my yarn stash hadn’t quite reached the proportions of my book stash. Thankfully, I broke ties with all the books I knew I’d never read, as I was merely collecting them and they were quite literally collecting dust. I ended up donating boxes upon boxes to The Salvation Army in New Mexico. It was a weight lifted (literally), and now my library is much more manageable as well as realistic. I *can* read all my books in my lifetime now, as opposed to before, which never would have happened.

There are some books in my library (and when I use that word, I mean merely my “meager shelf and stacks piled by my bed”) that I’ve always meant to read, like the biographies on Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath. And then there is my first Stephen King book, which I had a heck of a time choosing because he writes so many books and it was challenging trying to choose just one.

But then there are books which are dear to me, which are on my shelf now because I brought them with me across the country, which I couldn’t part with no matter how limited my space was. These are the ones that bring me comfort in some way, the ones where all I need to do is glance at the cover or the spine of the book and instantly I think of the characters, people only on paper and in my mind but who seem, and feel, so real to me. (And not just the Outlander series. I do read other books. )

Where am I going with this? I guess I mean to say that all this knitting and reading and pondering my next knit and planning my next read and wondering about tomorrow’s interview have all got me thinking very deeply about my future. I don’t want to say that everything depends on this possible second job, because if for some reason I end up not getting it, I would be crushed. I will say, though, that just the sheer possibility of a better life for myself and my beloved dogs makes me feel, for the first time in nearly 7 months, hopeful. And hope is a good thing.

I’ve had a post saved here that I haven’t yet published because I wasn’t sure I wanted to put all my feelings out there in such an exposed way. It’s still sitting there, in case I change my mind. But I think the act of getting it out, of putting down one’s thoughts, even if no other human ever sees them–that, in some way, is powerful. And that is something else I have missed along the way: putting down my thoughts, even if only I read them, even if I never go back and re-read them. But just getting it out of my mixed-up brain is good for me.

I’ve mentioned many times that The Shawshank Redemption is my favorite movie ever, hands down. There is a line from that film that I have always loved and held as a motto, a mantra, a dry twig of hope in the past year, while I’ve gone through some of the roughest stuff I may ever go through:

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

That says it all for me. I can’t tell you how many days and nights I’ve sat and emptied my brain of all else, only to sit and wonder: what am I doing here? Not geographically, or every day when I get up in the morning and go to work–really, what am I doing with my life?

I still don’t know.

But I do know that I need to make another choice. Everyone’s alive, but not everyone is living. And we’ll all die someday, but we don’t have to resign ourselves to being miserable while we’re still around.

I’m not saying that you should look on the bright side, because sometimes there really is none. But I will say that you can go through all the crap and all the heartbreak and all the spilling out of your guts and somehow, though beaten to a pulp and looking like hell, you can come out on the other side. And I guess that’s worth it.

I realize that this post still makes no sense. I’ve started out babbling about knitting and books and somehow have ended up pondering the meaning of life. My brain just works that way.

Posted: October 1st, 2007 under Bookworm, Deep Thoughts, Knitting.
Comments: 3

You ever have days when you just feel extremely lonely, but you’re not entirely sure why?

That’s me right now.

Posted: July 26th, 2007 under Deep Thoughts.
Comments: 5

I think I’m actually kind of bored with knitting socks right now.

Who’d have thought that was even possible? I guess it’s mainly because we’re in the dead of summer and I haven’t worn socks in months. So I’m more interested in knitting my latest Clapotis, even though I won’t be able to wear that even further in the future than I’ll be able to wear socks, but who said my tactics ever made *sense?*

Earlier this afternoon, I bought a couple books on Amazon (thanks, Annie!) and was pleasantly surprised to find a new novel by Anita Shreve. She used to be my absolute favorite author, until Diana Gabaldon surpassed her in my mind. So I ordered Anita’s new novel, Body Surfing, even though her novels tend to make me feel very pensive and sometimes even depressed. But as much as I love Diana’s books, it’s Anita’s writing style that I feel most inspired by.

Which reminds me, I haven’t written anything (creatively speaking) in a very long time. That makes me sad. I used to feel inspired and would stop whatever I was doing (literally) to jot down a phrase or potential plot, an idea for a character, anything. Seriously. Sometimes I would pull over while DRIVING and jot down an idea because I knew if I didn’t, I would probably lose it and never remember it. Where did my writing mojo go?

I wonder if it has been absorbed into my knitting. Knitting, after all, is still creativity in action. I just miss the writer in me. It’s kind of like an actual person that I used to know, but lost touch with and now I’m trying to track them down through Google and can’t find anything, or something. You know?

I wonder what would happen if I didn’t knit for one week–would my brain spit out a short story? Why can’t I knit AND write? It’s weird. Maybe my poor brain can only handle one creative expression at a time. Not very genius, that. At this point in my life, I can’t imagine NOT knitting. I really believe it keeps me sane and has gotten me through some of the toughest times I’ve ever been through in recent months.

Then again, I used to think that I could never imagine not writing either, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Or not doing, as the case may be.

sigh. I hate the feeling that something which used to be so important is now missing, but it’s one of those things that you can’t just snap your fingers and manifest, get back that easily. It’s a huge bummer!

Someone help me track down my writing mojo!!

Posted: July 15th, 2007 under Bookworm, Deep Thoughts, Knitting, The Writer.
Comments: 3