August 2013 in 2010s

SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2013
Someone tried to shoot me in my dreams last night, though I don’t remember any details. I actually had a series of strange dreams. In one dream Tom said he was sure that a dog was living in the carport of a house further down the street, and I wondered if I should mention it to Joy.

Then I had a dream (I don’t know how I knew this) where I was sure that the police helped pick one of my blog posts out for publication for profit by some psych magazine. I then contacted both the police and magazine by email letting them know that since they weren’t authorized to use my work without my permission, they would hear from my attorney as soon as I obtained one.

I was reading back on some old dream premonitions I’d forgotten about and can now understand more of their meaning. I knew the dream where my MIL suddenly stopped sending us money (like she’d ever really give a shit if we lived or died) was a warning sign of trouble ahead. Tom was hurt and worried when her weekly envelope arrived completely empty. I asked him if he thought we’d be ok and he said, “Now, no.”

What was eerie was the date of the entry. It was right around the time the government was set to stop our checks before a red flag went up and before they notified us. It was basically the same warning as in the “whiteout” dream. In the whiteout dream, the man who’d come to give me the bad news was digging. I later realized it represented the digging of our graves till that miraculous phone call/job came at the very last moment after months of filling out every application available to fill out just to be ignored.

Now that September is just hours away I can say I still hate that month, though maybe not as much as December. I hated September as a kid cuz it meant going back to school. As an adult, I hate it due to the onset of cooler temps (though it stays warm here till November), and the holiday madness. But ever since 2011, September’s taken on an even worse meaning for me with the 16th being the day the lovely fuck off letter came and we were so sure we had just two weeks left to live since the streets were no place for us to survive an also no place to die. I still shudder just thinking about it, and I look upwards to a God that may or may not exist and my fists clench with fury. That one terrifying incident alone is enough to make me forever hate Him. I will never forgive Him and I don’t want to forgive Him either. That was a real doozy in my book. As if everything else that ever went wrong in my life wasn’t enough?

Been here 1 month and 3 weeks and I still love everything but the traffic. Tom thinks the traffic will be quieter in the winter when there are fewer companies with trucks and trailers coming to do yard work. It’s not the traffic I worry about in the cooler months, it’s next door. They don’t live outdoors like Jesse did, but will Bob want to live in his garage at that time and maybe saw this and drill that while he adds a little hammering to the mix?

FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2013
Not surprisingly, the fucking garbage truck woke me up, though it was only for a minute. If only the speed bump wasn’t where it’s at. Most of the loud traffic comes from service trucks. Trucks with trailers really make a loud thump when they go over that thing.

After that, I woke up a million times just because. Really hope one of the dreams I had isn’t a warning. In the dream, it finally rained and it leaked EVERYWHERE. As Tom reminded me, though, for just $60 we’d have them come out and fix it. I still hope it doesn’t leak. You never know what may get damaged if it does.

The slave (Roomba) took an hour and a half to vacuum last time around but did a great job. Its tummy was chock full of dirt, dust and hairs… till I made it throw it all up.

I may always be heavy, but it sure is amazing what a few different ab exercises can do for a backache. I did a whole series of warm-up, cardio, strength and cool-down exercises that take about 20 min. It’s been fun seeing myself get stronger and more flexible over time despite remaining so big and knowing I will never again be thin. Not at this age and with this shit metabolism.

When I first started a month ago, I could only reach the middle of my shins when sitting on the floor with my legs straight in front of me and reaching for my feet. Now I’m getting close to my ankles. Will I ever be able to touch my toes again? Probably. Will my waist ever be in the 20s again? Almost certainly not.

Tom is looking forward to his 3-day weekend and together we plan to get more things done around here.

The trolls are still behaving. No pestering me, no harassing friends, other than maybe Aly of course, but they knew her before they knew me. Not surprisingly, though, the account Kim had with a pic of herself is gone. There’s something that bugs me about Aly’s story, though. She said someone hacked Kim’s account and told Kim’s sister of her impersonations and all that shit, but who else besides Aly, does Kim know that could not only hack an account but also that would want to expose her to her sister??? Not that the sister hasn’t already been informed of Kim’s stalking and impersonations; she just chooses to ignore, deny and defend Kim. What could she do about it anyway, even if she did pull her head out of the sand and acknowledge it? Forbid Kim from going online?

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2013
I was asked on Ask to keep my my-diary going cuz it displays nicely on their phone while the other blogs take too long. I think this same person has contacted me there before with similar requests. So they’re really into my blog but won’t say who they are? Really hope they’ll lose their shyness and let me know sometime so I can personally thank them for being such a loyal follower of what I would’ve thought most would consider a boring life. Really, I don’t bite!

So… Blogger and MD will be my blogging spots for now.

Got up late and went for a swim with Tom who had just gotten in from work. There was just one woman there reading at the side of the pool. I was breaking pool rules without even knowing it. I thought the pool opened at 6am, but pool hours are actually 8:30 am - 10pm.

Tammy left a message letting me know what’s up with them. I guess Mark did and didn’t enjoy his trip to Indiana and Ohio. He saw his brother but didn’t get to see his daughter. Not sure if they don’t get along or if their schedules just clashed or what. She said she’d tell me the story by phone, but I’m not sure I care. Or that it’s any of my business. But that’s Tammy for you, LOL, one to gossip and to discuss health problems.

She and Sarah both had the runs for two weeks and were on antibiotics. They wanted to hospitalize Tammy, but she’s too caught up in Mark’s problems now to worry about her own. Not sure why they got sick, but Tammy lost 30 pounds. She’s glad to have lost it, but not by getting sick.

Wish I could lose that much, but the calories required for me to do so at this age aren’t enough to live on. 1000 calories or less leaves me too hungry and tired. Wish I could lose on 1200-1500 like most people, but not with this shit metabolism. Despite still being heavy, I’ve gotten stronger, fitter and more flexible through cardio and strength training. It helps my joint pain, but if I sit still too long I’m stiff when I get up. After my cleaning and working out is done, I try to get up and get moving after every half hour or so that I’ve been sitting on my ass.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2013
Aw, no wins today. At least I slept better. I feel much more refreshed and alert today. Did my usual online work, then I entered sweeps, worked out and cleaned the bathrooms and laundry room. Took me an hour to do the cleaning. My slave will be assisting me tomorrow with cleaning the front of the house. It will vacuum while I dust and clean the kitchen.

Tonight is going to be spent entering the sweeps that expire on the 31st. The last day of the month is when most of them expire. That’s a total of 363 sweeps, though I’ll probably only enter about 250 of them.

I’m also thinking of returning to Blogger. For a while, I was scared off of anything Google (except for searches and translators) due to all the security issues they were having and their joke of a privacy policy, but there are a lot of sweeps connected to Blogger. Also, blogging is one of my top hobbies, and I do love all the different blogs/features, so I’m seriously considering it.

MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2013
I love this house and I love this park, but sometimes I wonder if we made a mistake location-wise. I wanted to sleep till noon since I need to start getting my schedule in order in preparation for my next dentist appointment, but between 10:30 - 11:30 I heard 3 loud bangs that kept waking me up. The sound machine and earplug cancel out loud motors, but not the vibrant sounds that I can feel. I can only be jolted awake so many times before I’m unable to fall back asleep, too. So now I have to spend the day on the tired side, though I think I can still work out.

All of my guesses as to where the slams were make sense but don’t make sense. My first thought was next door, of course, but they usually come and go pretty quietly. Why would they start slamming doors like that all of a sudden?

My next guess was someone parking on the other side of the house since they’ve been showing the house that’s for sale there, but could the sound really resonate across the house like that?

My last guess was someone parked in back of us, but why would they do that? Maybe someone coming to see the house that was lost? Other than that or something maintenance might’ve been doing, there’s no reason for anyone to park in back of us unless one of the houses back there had a lot of company. They’d have to have a dozen visitors, though!

Once unable to go back to sleep, I shut the sound machine off and could hear scattered sounds of someone rummaging around in the garage next door. At least I think I did. But then not much later I saw their SUV return and ran to the bedroom to see if it was any louder than usual when they got out of it. I could hear the door close, but not feel it. It was only one door too, so one of them may’ve stayed home (the one playing in the garage?).

I don’t know what to think anymore, but I still can’t help but wonder if the grass would’ve been greener in Newcastle. Would it have been??? My only worry there would’ve been those stopping in front of the place where the mailboxes were since the bedrooms were by the road. But I would have LOVED having more space around me. Who knows, though, maybe there would have been other annoyances we couldn’t know about without actually living there.

I know we had to move when we did cuz the prices were rapidly rising and we were sick as hell of being cramped in that little trailer, though a part of me regrets getting a place alongside someone’s garage. I hated that in Phoenix, I hated it in Oregon, so what made me think it’d be ok here just because the people are older? And oh, the traffic! I wish we were on a quiet little road that got little traffic. Busy streets are ok when the traffic can whiz by at a normal speed. I’ve lived on busy streets before. But those streets (in Oregon) didn’t allow on-street parking either.

Like I said, I love the house and I love the park. It’s just that I’m sleeping worse here than with the Jes pest. That’s ridiculous. There are more distractions here, too. They just don’t go on and on for hours like with Jesse. A part of me wonders if we should have just gotten a cheap condo, but also in a retirement community, if I had to “feel” like I’m attached to others anyway, for the sake of having cheaper monthly expenses.

Thought of switching bedrooms, but I don’t see how the other room would save me, so I guess I’m just going to have to get used to going to bed knowing that my sleep is hit or miss, especially when I’m on nights. If I have to reschedule my appointment, then so be it. But damn, though, I really wish I could sleep better. I guess it’s just God’s little “punishment” for defying Him and becoming the homeowners He stopped us from being twice and never wanted us to be again.

To be cursed with such a sleep disorder is one thing, but to be such a light sleeper is really adding insult to injury. I don’t understand why some people can sleep through anything WITHOUT sound machines and earplugs while everything wakes me up no matter what I do. What am I doing wrong? What is the trick to tuning it all out? Telling myself I’m in a large, active park on a busy street and to just know and accept the traffic noise obviously isn’t cutting it, so what now?

We talked about soundproofing the bedroom, but we’d have to do the windows too, and that would mean never having any natural light or fresh air in there in the cooler months, and I don’t want to live like that. I didn’t come here for that.

sighs Guess all I can do is hope I manage to loop my schedule around and make it to my appointment. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t, but at least I can know that if anyone gets in the way of this plan, it won’t be the Jes pest.

If I could stop having so many damn appointments that would help, too. But I have two more dentist appointments after this one, not counting cleanings, and then it’s off to a primary care doctor. I’m not going to discuss the details in public, though, for I have learned it’s best to keep health issues private.

Later…

To help compensate for the sleep disturbances this morning, I won an Evian baby tee. It’s adorable and I actually wanted to win this one.

Tom thinks it may’ve been vehicles bouncing over the speed bump in back that woke me up. I totally forgot about that damn thing.

Nane got a bike, candles, flowers and perfume for her birthday. Then she got drunk and said she’d check out my newest photo albums tomorrow. Whatever.

The results of my 26 days of dieting and exercising are the usual. I eat healthily, I exercise, but the weight hangs on. I lost a few pounds, but I’m definitely not going down anymore. Oh well. A few pounds is better than nothing.

Tom asked me to look for workout vids on YouTube for fat guys, LOL, saying that the workout we did was too hard on him. It took him a week to recover, he said, haha. I may be huge and I always will be, but I’m definitely fitter than he is. Still, all this body weight does make some exercises harder than they used to be for me. But the weight’s not going anywhere cuz this is how the older me was meant to be and so I just gotta make the best of it. You adapt somewhat. Really, REALLY don’t want to gain anymore, though.

Signed up for free samples when we moved and today I got a couple of dishwashing sample packs.

Rosy, as we’ve been calling our Roomba, took over the cleaning for me after I dusted the bedrooms. It was so nice to let the slave take over the vacuuming that I would’ve done afterward, though once a month I’ll go around and get the few spots she can’t get. I turned her loose after I finished dusting because I didn’t want us getting in the way of each other.

Tomorrow Rosy gets a day off while I clean the bathrooms and laundry room, then she’ll be back on the clock the next day to do the kitchen, dining and living room floors.

My diary on MD is sooooo damn long, covering 26 years of my life, that I wonder if I should create a second diary there. I’m not sure yet, but I’m thinking about it. Got nearly 7000 entries on LJ, but that site is laid out totally differently.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013
Had a fun day, though we didn’t go to Sam’s cuz the crowds in Target were annoying enough to deal with. It seems there was someone in every aisle, and of course most of the kids were out of control.

Got a new keyboard since my other one was getting old. This one’s wireless. It’s going to take some time to get used to. It has a different feel and some of the keys are arranged differently than my other one.

Since the purple dye never did take to the rough, wooly crème-colored blanket we had before, I ended up grabbing a hot pink one that is so much nicer and softer. A little short on the sides, but plenty nice enough for the hot months when you want something light and airy. All the different shades of pink and purple in the bedroom/bath blend well together.

Got some tiebacks for the drapes that match the rod nicely. These are plastic handles in a silvery finish. I like them better than Mrs. S’s gold ropes.

The thing we got that was the most fun was the adhesive wall décor. I got a set of colorful flowers that are large and tall, as well as an array of butterflies. Some are 3D, which means the wings stick out. They were really easy to apply and gives the place great color. You feel like you’re walking through a flower garden when you go down the hall. The bedroom really needed it. Especially the wall above the two old dressers that will eventually be replaced. There was just so much empty white wall space that really demanded some color.

I think that’s all we got today besides groceries.

So sad to learn that Linda Ronstadt has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Because of it, she can no longer sing. Such terrible news! I haven’t been into celebrities for nearly 20 years now and even came to resent a lot of them with the way they get away with crime and adopt foreign babies that only end up being raised by nannies. Then again, so do the kids they actually have. Linda was not only someone I was attracted to in her younger, thinner days but a vocal role model as well. I never could compare to her vocally, of course, but she was the inspiration behind me getting training and going from a shitty singer to a fairly decent one. Hope she still has many years left in her, even though I’ve heard she’s a bitch, which is the impression she’s given me in some of her interviews.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2013
The couple next door may be nice, but I’ve heard this tapping sound from over there the last two days that’s getting a little old. Not sure if it’s coming from their garage or in back or what, and while it’s nothing the sound of the air cleaner can’t block, I still prefer not to hear my neighbors every single day. Them coming and going is one thing, but if they’re outside this much in 90s weather, I’d hate to see what the 60s will bring. But hey, I knew the shitster above wouldn’t let me have working neighbors or neighbors who weren’t outside much, nice or not. Kinda makes me wish they were older and not so able-bodied, but if that were the case, then they’d be ready for nursing homes, and I don’t want to lose them for people who could be outdoors even more. Besides, I don’t even know for sure it’s coming from their place.

I realized afterward that the garden they mentioned probably isn’t on their property but the community garden by the pool.

The entire trash bin emptied out for once when it was picked up yesterday, and I got a sample roll of toilet paper. They lied about sending the “free” Fire ring, though. Figured they would.

I was kind of pissed to wake up at the same weight 4 days in a row after all this dieting and the rigorous workouts. Why must it take me 10 days to get 1 lousy pound off after I lose the first few pounds? Again I wonder about my thyroid, and I’m also starting to wonder if I’ll lose any more weight no matter what I do. So I’m taking the day off to decide what – if anything – I want to do. I don’t want to damn near starve myself to lose weight I might not be meant to lose, but I also don’t want to go back to gaining either.

Doing laundry and dishes now. It’s nice having all these slaves work for me – dishwashers, disposals, washers, dryers, robotic vacuums… if only they could invent one that dusts. Dusting is my least favorite chore.

Later…

Poor Alison. She’s getting over Dustin and adjusting to life on her own, but Kim and her family are harassing her again. Apparently, someone hacked one of Kim’s fan sites and sent her sister a message all about how she impersonates people. Then Kim and her sister sent messages from various accounts faster than Aly could block them, calling her a bitch and a bully and insisting Kim wasn’t doing anything wrong.

Sorry, but stalking people and impersonating them is doing something wrong. Alison could probably hack sites if she wanted to, but for what? To try to get the sister to see what she simply doesn’t want to see? Kim had the nerve to top things off by threatening to sic the pigs on her as well. Have they forgotten that Aly herself is a federal agent?

Aly gave me her latest aliases, which were variations of her real name and that use actual photos of herself. As we figured, though, the trunkless elephant already blocked me on Facebook. This I don’t get. If you’re going to stalk and follow someone on blogging sites and Ask, then why block them on FB if you’re so interested in what they’re up to? Maybe because she knows I keep things private there? Or maybe it just makes her feel in control. Who can figure the insane? I went to the section that says: Who can look me up. Then I set it to friends. I don’t know that this will do me any good if she’s got me bookmarked or can simply go through her search history on her computer, but non-friends shouldn’t be able to find me by my name. I hate to cut Shannon out, but I haven’t heard from her anyway.

Aly said she thinks I was in on it, too. Yeah, right. Like I care to waste my time trying to get the blind to open their fucking eyes. How could I hack accounts she’s got me blocked from anyway, even if I knew how to do so?

I wanted so badly to defend my friend, but knew that would only get me harassed as well, and cause more trouble for her. There is one thing I couldn’t resist, though, and even Aly can’t wait till Kim sees it. I was able to pull up one of her bogus accounts from Tom’s account. One that had a real pic of her. It was great too, cuz she was turned to the side, making my “Who is this?” story a bit more believable. I posted the pic on Ask saying it had been emailed to me and that all the person asked was if I knew who it was. I said I wasn’t sure although it did look familiar, and that when I replied, the email bounced, and could anyone identify her? LOL

FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2013
Finally met the neighbors, Bob and Virginia. They seem nice and I’d say they’re in their 60s. I heard a strange noise start up an hour after I got up and was curious as to what it was, though I knew it wasn’t the same sound I heard coming from their garage last week. It was Bob’s air compressor pumping up his bike tires, so I learned when I stepped outside.

Virginia said they were beginning to wonder if ghosts lived here (I told them we always try to be quiet), though they did see Tom go to the mailboxes and thought of jumping out to introduce themselves, but they’d always be ready to sit down for dinner, haha.

So after a brief greeting, I went back inside. A moment later there was a knock on the door from Virginia. She gave me a bag containing 6 nice ripe tomatoes from their garden! Wasn’t that nice? I didn’t even know they had a garden over there, though they would certainly have room for one on the other side of their place.

My first instinct was to decline to accept the tomatoes, but she said they had too many and was going around passing them out. I asked if she was sure and when she assured me she was, I thought why not? It’s Atkins-friendly and would make a delicious snack. Hope she doesn’t come over with carrots or celery! Those would surely end up with the rats.

That’s pretty much all I know about them other than that judging by the lights I see go on and off, they sleep from about 11pm - 5am.

They seemed really glad to meet me. Guess they wanted to settle their curiosity, though it doesn’t surprise me. This isn’t a regular neighborhood. These are old people with lots of time on their hands. If they continue to be as quiet as they have and don’t make a regular habit of running loud things too often (and I don’t think they will at this point), I hope they’ll be there for the rest of their lives. That’s how it usually is here, anyway. You either die here or you go into assisted living. Almost everyone here is in the last home they’ll ever own. We’ve talked about Florida and even other countries, but I think we’ll probably be here forever, even though I’m not the forever kind of gal other than when it comes to Tom.

It gets better. I’m getting close to losing pound #8 (yes, I can tell), and our first full electric bill was only $80. $80! We were thinking it be more like $180 being the peak of summer. How wonderful it is to be a real house again! If this thing were built like the trailer, we’d owe more than $180.

Won Tom a T-shirt, too. T-shirts are no big deal to me, but he always likes them. He said it’s encouraging as far as my eventually hitting it big again, cuz if you aren’t winning the little stuff, you certainly won’t be hitting the big ones.

Was a little dismayed to see Kathy checked my blog last night. Shows she hasn’t moved on yet. She never tried to contact me, though, on Ask or anywhere else. Just discovered MD is having issues. That may be why she went to MO, even though she probably knew she’d show up on my tracker. Let me guess… she’s anxious to tell me when the “blueberry” is born, right? Ooh, how exciting! As long as her wonderful God doesn’t stop spoiling her with everything she wants in life, she shouldn’t be spitting any blueberries out till the end of the year.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2013
Happy birthday to my very special buddy overseas! Ich hoffe ihre Gebortstag war ein gute eins, aber das ist alle ich werde sagen. :)

While I don’t care what people think of me, I do care to be respectful of people’s privacy. Within reason, of course. I understand that some people are very private people that do not wish to be discussed in other people’s blogs, no matter how trivial or kind it may be and so that’s why I don’t always get into my interactions with others. Besides, my blog is mostly to share my own thoughts and experiences, not gossip.

It’s been a busy but quiet week. I just got caught up on the day’s sweeps, so now it’s off to work out.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2013
Someone tried to shoot me in my dreams last night, though I don’t remember any details. I actually had a series of strange dreams. In one dream Tom said he was sure that a dog was living in the carport of a house further down the street, and I wondered if I should mention it to Joy.

Then I had a dream (I don’t know how I knew this) where I was sure that the police helped pick one of my blog posts out for publication for profit by some psych magazine. I then contacted both the police and magazine by email letting them know that since they weren’t authorized to use my work without my permission, they would hear from my attorney as soon as I obtained one.

I was reading back on some old dream premonitions I’d forgotten about and can now understand more of their meaning. I knew the dream where my MIL suddenly stopped sending us money (like she’d ever really give a shit if we lived or died) was a warning sign of trouble ahead. Tom was hurt and worried when her weekly envelope arrived completely empty. I asked him if he thought we’d be ok and he said, “Now, no.”

What was eerie was the date of the entry. It was right around the time the government was set to stop our checks, before a red flag went up and before they notified us. It was basically the same warning as in the “whiteout” dream. In the whiteout dream, the man who’d come to give me the bad news was digging. I later realized it represented the digging of our graves till that miraculous phone call/job came at the very last moment after months of filling out every application available to fill out just to be ignored.

Now that September is just hours away I can say I still hate that month, though maybe not as much as December. I hated September as a kid cuz it meant going back to school. As an adult, I hate it due to the onset of cooler temps (though it stays warm here till November), and the holiday madness. But ever since 2011, September’s taken on an even worse meaning for me with the 16th being the day the lovely fuck off letter came and we were so sure we had just two weeks left to live, since the streets were no place for us to survive an also no place to die. I still shudder just thinking about it, and I look upwards to a God that may or may not exist and my fists clench with fury. That one terrifying incident alone is enough to make me forever hate Him. I will never forgive Him and I don’t want to forgive Him either. That was a real doozy in my book. As if everything else that ever went wrong in my life wasn’t enough?

Been here 1 month and 3 weeks and I still love everything but the traffic. Tom thinks the traffic will be quieter in the winter when there are fewer companies with trucks and trailers coming to do yard work. It’s not the traffic I worry about in the cooler months, it’s next door. They don’t live outdoors like Jesse did, but will Bob want to live in his garage at that time and maybe saw this and drill that while he adds a little hammering to the mix?

Apparently, I am missed on Ask where someone asked what they could do to get me to check in more often. The fact that they never tell me who they are makes me think it could be someone I don’t want anything to do with - someone who knows I don’t want anything to do with them - someone like Kim. IDK, maybe it’s Mrs. M for all I know. Even if they did say who they were, could I really trust it to be true?

Our new Roomba Robo vac is amazing. It’s like, wow! I watched it do its thing for two hours. Then the green light went red and I sent it home to its dock so it could charge itself. Amazingly enough, it never got tangled in cords or anything. If it gets stuck it turns off its brushes and tries to escape. The only trouble it has is getting onto the bathmats. If it tries to approach it by a corner, the corner of the mat folds over. But if it rolls onto it from one of its sides, it makes it on just fine.

It’s amazingly quiet and doesn’t go smacking into walls or furniture really hard. It has a sensor that causes it to slow down as it approaches things and then it just gently bumps whatever’s there. It doesn’t move that fast to begin with. The container was full when it was done, but since this is such a big house (I was shocked to find it really is just 1344 square feet when we measured it ourselves) I think it’d be best not to have it do the whole house at once. It comes with a virtual wall – a black box you place where you don’t want it to go. I’ll let it do the kitchen, dining and living rooms one day, and the hall and bedrooms the next. I’ll probably do the baths and laundry room myself cuz it’s just as easy to throw the floor vac over them that the last owners left here.

Some things it does easier than I can like under desks and beds, but some things, like tight corners that it can’t get into, are better off done by me. Roomba still saves me lots of time and I don’t mind hitting those tight spots while it’s doing the rest of the place.

Romeo was so funny, watching with curious fascination from his cage as it rolled on by.

It was quiet all week till now when I heard some landscaping start up. So I threw on some music and now I’m set to write and read/publish some old stuff.

Monday morning at 9:30 they finally came to install our water meter. Fortunately, I was up. But that meant having to have the water off again for a while which makes 3 times in less than 2 months.

I still worry about what the cooler weather may bring in a few months. Dogs barking out of open windows? Next door doing more projects? I hope not, but time will tell.

Yesterday we did some little odds and ends around the house, and Tom was able to replace my new desk’s keyboard tray with the old one, which is wider.

I have been so busy that I’m not always able to do all I want to do, and I forget what I already did do. I thought I had forgotten to mention the cute little farm animals I got, but Andy was quick to point out that I did mention them already, duh. I’m pretty sure I forgot to mention the colorful glow-in-the-dark puzzle I got. Now that we have room for things like that I said, what the hell, and grabbed a puzzle with flowers and butterflies that I can eventually donate to the clubhouse if I want to. They have a million puzzles, books and videos there already, but hey, what’s one more?

I was also mistaken in saying it was one of the anchor teeth for the braces I had that’s being crowned. It’s the one next to it.

The house across the street is up for sale at 62K. That and higher is what most of these homes normally go for. We got a helluva deal on this house.

Lost pound #7 and am amazed at how well this diet is going. So far, anyway. I’ve never lost weight this fast before, but I’ve also never counted carbs before either. I’m not trying to limit my carbs to any set number, but I am making a point of having foods low in carbs and not just low in calories.

Being able to put our food in our little pantry really helps too, so it’s not always in my face. In the trailer, we used most of our little table as a pantry cuz cabinet space was so limited there.

On this diet I’m not always so hungry, I don’t crave sweets and I look and feel so much better even with just a 7-pound loss. Got a long way to go, but just maybe I’ll get there someday. I work out twice a day now. I first work my arms and abs with resistance bands for 10 minutes, then I hit the treadmill for 10 more minutes. Later on in my day, I follow a 20-minute fitness video on YouTube. I eat mostly fruits, veggies and non-fried/breaded meats. I avoid starchy and sugary foods like bread, pasta, potatoes and sweets.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2013
I love knowing that I’m not only finally down to just 3 more dentist appointments as nice as they are, but also when my perps go to jail. :) Oh, the Valleyhead owners will never pay for the torment and hell they helped inflict upon me and my fellow VH sisters, but they sure are going down for fraud! As Nichy said, what you do in the dark eventually gets brought into the light.

The owners lived in a posh mansion on a hill above the “school” we lived in while they collected millions at our expense till the FBI shut them down. Valleyhead was an all-girls school in MA, for those of you who might not know what I’m talking about. They owned a boys’ school in VT named Bennington, but that’s about to go to hell as well. :)

Albeit childish, the thought of my fellow sisters and I sending Mathew a postcard in jail with each of our signatures is kinda funny. Ok, so it’s VERY funny! Too bad the 30 mil they’ve been ordered to repay can’t be divvied up between those who were victims turned survivors of the former hellhole they ran to “help” troubled teens. There were a few good staffers there who actually cared about us girls, but most of them can turn on their stoves and sit on them for all I care.

I asked Nichy about what was going on in a message and she gave me her number and asked that I call her which I did this morning. There was some concern about someone breaking into the mansion and stealing records, but the lawsuit is null and void since the owners are on their way to the slammer, if they’re not already there.

I blocked Ellen, their daughter, now that I know she only friended me just to see what I might be saying about the situation and to see if she could gather any support from any of us. Well, I may’ve had no problems with Ellen herself, but the last thing I’d ever do is vouch for her greedy family. I’m sure she learned this much when she found my blog link and the entry all about VH, hahaha.

Anyway, my dentist took care of a filling and I now have a temporary crown on one of the teeth that was an anchor tooth for my braces. Those damn things really damaged my teeth! The guy that put them on wasn’t nearly as good as the lady I now see. She’s so, so very nice and so is her staff. The guy I used to see wouldn’t even care to take the time to numb my gums with a topical ointment before shooting me with the Novocain thingy. She even offered me a blanket cuz it was cold in there, but I didn’t mind. I knew I’d be sweating my ass off again soon enough. I just didn’t know how much I’d be sweating, LOL. The damn car battery crapped out on us so the receptionist was kind enough to give us a jump. Then we went to Sam’s and got a new one.

The Crest Whitening strips are helping to whiten my teeth but I’m going to wait till I get the permanent crown cemented in before I start using them again. The last thing I want is anything sticking to the temp crown. My tooth looked scary before we found the best match for the temp, LOL. It’s just a little stick now cuz Dr. H really ground it down. She rocks, though. You should take all your cavities and other problems to her if you live in NorCal.

I was telling Shannon, her assistant, about the rats and I guess she may look me up and add me on FB.

After checking in with my online besties – Andy, Nane, etc. – we hit the pool and it felt soooo good. Just a couple of really old guys there.

MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2013
My first shot at nail art stenciling wasn’t too bad. A little shaky with the first few till I got the hang of it. It’s one of those things that’s fun to try for variety, but not something I plan to make a habit of. Maybe I’ll take a pic later.

How could I forget the farm animals? I forgot to mention they had these really cool-looking plastic animals of all kinds that were quite realistic at Walmart. The horses even have horseshoes. I got a black and white horse, a brown and white cow, a gray and white cat, and a golden retriever.

The weekend was dead quiet. Wish it could be like that during the week, but we’re coming up on 8am and that inevitable drone of landscaping equipment. I just hope I don’t hear from next door’s garage or else I’m going to worry it really could be a hobby of his, and even more worried about what the winter may bring when people tend to be out and about more.

It’s been super hot again and last night it only got down to 76°. Today we’re on for 103°. The pool was nice yesterday. We arrived at 1pm when kids aren’t supposed to be there. A couple of bratty boys who were arguing over some stupid thing or another were just leaving with their grandparents at the time. The only other person there at the time was just some guy sunning with headphones on.

I’m back in the 140s and have lost 6 pounds since going Atkins on the 1st. 39 more to go! It’s going to really be hell to lose once I get into the 120-125 range cuz a woman my height and age is no longer considered overweight at that weight. I may have too much muscle and bone density that we tend to get with age to get down to my younger weight of 110, but I can always try.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but I’ve got a lot to do today, so if I remember anything I’ll jot it down in my notes.

Later…

I asked Marie, who is also on Ellen’s friend list, if she ever heard from her. Nope. Is there a lawsuit pending? she asked. Now why would she ask that? I’m still waiting to hear back from her, but that question sent a wave of chills through me. It really did. Why? Because I’ve wondered if Ellen was up to no good. Why would she friend us just to ignore us? If she were that curious about what’s going on in our lives, why not just ask us? And so I not only unfriended her but blocked her as well.

It also sent chills through me because it’s so God. SO God to tear us down now that we’ve built ourselves up. Really, He would send someone to take all this money from us – the money we never thought we’d ever have. And that’s scary. Very scary. He’s used others as a weapon against us before, and paving the way for some greedy asshole to find some excuse to screw us over is EXACTLY what the bastard would do. It’s always a few months after we move (to a place we own) that shit happens as if to punish us for daring to dream and getting ahead in life. Big shit that can’t be resolved in just a few days or even a few weeks or months.

When I walked free of the Arizona sickos I promised myself that no one would ever again tell me what to do or treat me like a child. No one would ever again tell me I had to be here, do this, pay that, etc. No one’s going to tell us what to do with our money. No one. I won’t let anyone screw us and I’ll be damned if I’ll fork over one dime to any possible extortionists out there just because I chose to share my VH experience and she chose to read it.

I’m sure I have nothing to worry about and that I’m just being understandably paranoid based on past experience and where we are right now in life (I don’t even know that she knows I have a blog that I’ve mentioned it in), and even though I wouldn’t let anyone screw us over ever again if I could help it, who needs the hassles?

Still, I can’t wait to hear why Marie asked that.

Someone on Ask once accused me of writing a fake bio. Wonder if Ellen’s connected to that and the psychology lessons?

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
I’m so busy today that I can’t make much of an entry. Life is good, though, and like with Andy, I’m easily the happiest I’ve been! It’s been a fun day as well as a busy one.

We took off for Walmart at around 7:30 after our 5-year-old vacuum’s motor died. No wonder it’s been sounding funny lately. Better now when we were thinking of getting a robot vacuum instead of back when we were so broke we couldn’t even spend $40 on a vacuum, let alone $350. We considered the cheaper $110 one, but we felt more comfortable with a brand name that would let us get parts for it as needed. It does floors and carpets and there shouldn’t be many places in here it can’t go.

When we ordered the Robo vac on Amazon (Walmart didn’t have any in stock), I also ordered a floral tablecloth to give the dining area some color and make the table not seem so lost in there.

On the way to Walmart, I saw this big fancy church and thought it sad that so many people would spend such money on account of an assumed entity that no one’s ever seen or talked to and that all you hear about are stories that can’t be proven when there are so many people out there in need just like we once were, and worse. Even if there really is a God, well, He doesn’t need the things people need.

Got a ton of stuff at Walmart. Mostly groceries, of course, but we did get some household items and some fun stuff. I got a colorful glow-in-the-dark puzzle and some plastic farm animals that look amazingly realistic

Found a nail art stencil kit that oughta be the best thing yet as far as getting designs on nails. It’s hard to get things small enough for my pinkies, though. I’m still as big as a cow yet I have these nothing little fingernails. Even when they’re long they seem so tiny.

With much hunger and sweat – or enough of it anyway – my weight is continuing to drop. I’m proud of myself for getting just one no-no (2 slices of New York-style cheesecake) at the store today. You do get somewhat used to the hunger and the cravings do lessen a bit, as that’s what a high protein/low carb diet is supposed to do.

I mostly love how much better I feel and I’m getting my mobility back, too. I just slipped back down under the obese range, so now I’m just fat, LOL. Not for long, though.

Tom and I are doing several chores and projects around the house and soon it’s off for a pool break!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 2013
Was up early and couldn’t resist going for a swim this morning. It was gorgeous. I took my new finger watch and timed it. I was gone for about a half-hour walking to the pool, then swimming, then walking back. No one was there, which made it nicer, though I could smell more chlorine than usual. At least I could shower it off when I got back home.

I noticed something about our place and next door that I never noticed before. I’m surprised too, cuz I’m usually pretty observant. They have quite a bit of grass next door. It’s on the other side, fortunately, but it runs all the way down to the gully. It’s more of a yard than we have, but have enough trees, flowers and bushes to tend to of our own.

I didn’t realize our patio roof in back didn’t cover cement areas only. There are some dirt sections where plants are growing, though they don’t reach the roof. Wish more of our trees and shrubs covered more of our windows, so I could feel the added privacy of “hiding behind the bushes.”

My swimsuit was noticeably looser, yes! Don’t know how much more weight I’ll lose but I’ve been having so much fun not only swimming, walking, jogging and working with my resistance bands, but doing YouTube fitness vids as well. I’m glad Tom wanted to get this nice new TV. It was funny cuz they say you should have enough space around you to take 3 giant steps left, right, front and back. LOL, we couldn’t even take one in the trailer.

I’ve always been a slow loser who can’t usually lose more than a pound every 10 days after the initial few come off fairly fast. But slow is better than never. Even though I got heavy for a while from overeating and lack of exercise, I have been there before as far as the fitness, nutrition, diet and exercise thing goes and have lost weight before in my life, so it’s nothing really new. It’s just a very slow process and a matter of consistently enduring the hunger, and remembering how important that hunger really is at least to a degree. Hunger isn’t just your stomach’s way of letting you know it’s empty, but the actual burning of fat and calories. It’s something you gotta take one day at a time, one pound at a time.

Tom says I look way down. So it’s not just psychological cuz of how much better I feel, huh? I’ve lost more inches for the pounds due to being so short. Where it takes most people 10 pounds to drop an inch, I can drop more than an inch in just 5 pounds.

The exercises are helping to reshape me as well as strengthen me. Weight loss can be stalled when you initially build new muscles, and I’ve definitely been waking up old muscles that haven’t been used in a while.

It’s almost time to call Andy, who’s as unpredictable as he is predictable, LOL, so I’ll write about my nightmare in my next entry. I thought he’d get a kick out of this young guy doing a headstand with his pants down around his knees, but nope. As I told him, though, I don’t understand why so many men choose to degrade and belittle themselves every chance they get with the half-assed pants and other things. There’s trashy, then there’s classy. There’s sexy, then there’s slutty. Men have always been sluts, but it seems each generation loses even more self-respect. Maybe it’s me, but the half-assed pants thing doesn’t make you look sexier, mature or smarter.

Later…

Had a nice chat with Andy. It’s been a long time since we were able to chat with the shitty connection I had for so long. He still sounds the same. He shared some cooking tips and suggestions, but I’m not as big on spices as he is. “Hey, I’m in training,” I reminded him. Can’t have much in the way of starchy or sugary foods. Still, he’s always been a much better cook than I’ll ever be.

We talked about the annoying things we have to live with as much as we each love our homes. With him it’s yard work and barking, with me, it’s yard work and whatever the guy next door has been doing in his garage that can be heard in here. Not sure if it’s a saw, a sander or what, but even though he technically has a right to be doing that during normal daytime hours, I didn’t come here to listen to the whirring of machinery in here.

He suggested writing an anonymous note letting him know it bothers me, but I’m not going to write a note after just two times of hearing it. If it became a few times a week, then I don’t know what I’d do. Just live with it, I guess, just like I’ve had to live with other things everywhere I’ve lived. It’s not like it goes on and on for hours, and the sound machines and music drown it out. If it were 2-3 hours a day 5 days a week, then I may speak up, but I can’t see that happening. God, I hope not! Especially since this isn’t just any old neighborhood. This is a retirement community. A place people go to live in peace. Besides, no matter how anonymously I complained, they would know it was from this house cuz we’re the only ones who could hear it. The people across the street might be able to make it out a bit if they were in the front of their houses. Tom thinks he’s like him – if he has something to fix, he fixes it, but it’s not a hobby. Let’s hope he’s right!

It’s been a very peaceful Saturday so far. No landscaping, not much traffic noise, etc.

Another thing I didn’t come here for is for the net to drop off the 5 or 6 times it dropped off yesterday. I thought cable wasn’t supposed to do that, but as Tom pointed out, cable isn’t what it used to be. That’s true. All good things do come to an end. Back when we last had it in 2007, not many people had it. Now it’s everywhere, and the more of your neighbors that have it, the less reliable it can be. It hasn’t cut out today that I know of.

Poor Tom. Turns out they also have a similar service here like Goodwill where they come around and get unwanted household items right AFTER he dropped things off at the Goodwill. I guess they do this a few times a year. A few times for furniture and appliances, and a few times for clothes and small household items.

Our tentative plans are to tackle the walls sometime soon and get a new used vehicle either in the late winter or early spring. We’ll probably use our tax return toward it.

Tomorrow we’re going to load up on mostly non-edibles at Sam’s and enjoy spending time together. Where I saw too much of him when he didn’t work, now I hardly ever see him and I miss him. Why is it that so often in life we either get too little or too much of things?

Ok, now I’ll cover last night’s nightmare, then I’m going to get into bed and read myself to sleep. I had a very long, busy and physical day. I was beat after doing the fitness video I was doing today. Gotta remember to save those for the end of my day till I get in better shape again.

It was a very sad and scary dream. I was sent to prison for 15 years, though I don’t know why. It seems I was younger in the dream because I remember thinking I’d be 47 when I got out. It was strange because right after I was sentenced, Tammy came to visit me and they let us chat outside the jail by the parking lot. I was just about to step up to her and whisper, “Let’s just get in your car and go,” But then the guards came and got me.

Inside I was chatting with another inmate at dinnertime and I nodded toward a girl in her 20s and asked what she was in for. “She beat a man unconscious, then stabbed him to death for good measure. Then just as she was about to smother someone’s baby, the cops arrested her.

The thought of spending the next 15 years living with such characters made me shudder.

At night we slept in huge bunk beds that were outdoors but with screens around them. I was lying on my side on the lower bunk with my knees pulled up by my chest when I saw the shadow of a bear approaching. I could tell it was interested in the bugs that walked along the outside of the screen. It started growling and I wondered how it would react if the girl above me woke up and made any sounds.

Suddenly, I felt a great pressure on my knees. They had been close to the screen and the bear had placed a paw on the screen, which bent inward and rested upon my knees. I tried to stay as still as I could but the pain was too much. Terrified, I woke up right as I pushed myself away.

Even Andy had a nightmare last night and we wonder why. Our lives are going so incredibly well now.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 2013
Happy 56th birthday to my sister! Hope she has many more.

Andy and I are going to chat by phone tomorrow. I tried to do a voice post on LJ but it kept saying my login was incorrect. Oh well.

Wonder if the guy next door is friends with the lady in the house across the street? As I was coming out of the bedroom, I saw him walk down their driveway, cross the street, then head up his driveway.

It was quieter yesterday, but today’s the day next door does their landscaping. At least I think it is. All I heard yesterday was some mowing in back right as I was about to listen to music. When I turned it off it was quiet.

That “dark van” I thought was parked in their driveway was probably really theirs, so I realized later on. They have a silver SUV but in the shade of the carport it can make you think it’s actually dark in color. They park in the driveway as much as in the garage.

There goes a mutt walker. I’m still amazed at how quiet they are when they pass by. I thought that every time they were being walked they’d bark at everything and nothing in sight along the way.

My Ellen suspicions deepened when I saw she’d been online but had ignored my pokes, posts and messages. I realize it could be FB making sure she never sees them, but even a VH sister (Maria) said she never replied to any of her own messages after she added her. Maybe she’s just curious about our lives but doesn’t want to actually be in touch with any of us.

I feel so much better since being active again and getting back into regular workouts. My joint pain has vanished and I am slowly losing inches and regaining energy and mobility. I still don’t know how much more weight, if any, I’ll lose, but I like feeling better and knowing I’m healthy. That’s good enough for me as long as I don’t gain any more. But if I lose more, then that’ll be a bonus.

Damn! That’s twice in less than an hour I got knocked offline. This isn’t supposed to happen anymore!

Later…

Today’s really getting to be a bit of a pisser. Half the trash didn’t empty out of the trash bin when they came to pick it up. They don’t come really early in the morning like most places cuz it’s an adult community and cuz they couldn’t get into the park at 6am anyway. The only thing we hear really early is a truck delivering the paper. I forget that some people still get the paper.

We need to start making arrangements to dump our own trash elsewhere if this shit is going to keep on happening. This is twice now. Even with us placing stuff in loosely this shit happens. The bins are just too skinny.

I’m not dropping offline like crazy like we used to but I’ve dropped off 4-5 times today! :( I’m so disappointed. I really thought it wouldn’t do this with cable, but apparently it does. Andy said he doesn’t notice his dropping off, but he’s not home as much either. He says his computer restarts every now and then, but as I explained to him, dropping offline shouldn’t cause your computer to restart. He probably just crashed or had an update come in that required a restart. I experienced that with Windows. When Mac updates it doesn’t usually restart the computer but it does prompt me to close my browser. In the meantime, I’ll have to see if Tom knows of any way we can make the connection more reliable, but I don’t think we can. This is probably pretty normal.

I really can’t wait till the posting of old journals is over. This is a project I am definitely sick of. Proofreading dozens of pages every day when I could be doing other things. Like maybe getting back into writing stories and studying languages. Too many daytime distractions for the languages as I continue to get used to being around so many people, so that’ll be a nighttime thing. As it is my fears of next door’s garage becoming a workshop are manifesting. For a few minutes, I heard what might be some kind of circular saw or sander whirring away in the garage. That’s probably the same sound I heard the other morning that I didn’t think was landscaping of any kind. I had wondered if they were having their carpet cleaned or something. Well, hopefully he won’t do this regularly, but can’t he have the decency to at least shut the garage door if he does? Better yet, can we have women for neighbors only?

THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2013
Why does the smoke detector go off whenever I cook certain things, like chicken wings??? I’ve had this problem everywhere I’ve lived except for our Maricopa home where we had an electronic detector instead of a battery-operated one. Someone online suggested putting a shower cap over it. After all, a real fire would never be blocked by a shower cap. Or my doggy nose.

So… what can I complain about today? Well, Hotmail (Outlook) was down a lot yesterday, and the daytime sounds around here still get annoying at times. Tom didn’t quite have it right when he said adult community living would be “like living in a cemetery,” unless it’s between 7pm - 7am. Then again, it usually goes pretty quiet here between 3pm - 5pm. Most of what I hear is landscaping and car doors. A pickup was in front of the house diagonally in front of us (I’ll call it the yellow house from now on, and the one across from us will be the gray house) with rolls of carpet in the back. They made a scattering of bumps and bangs that were a little distracting, much like the bumps and bangs you might hear in a neighboring apartment, but it’s worth it to know we have a nice big house of our own in a lovely gated community. Never again will I have to deal with pesky landlords, welfare bums, blasting music, screaming kids and tons of barking!

For years I couldn’t seem to clean smudges and streaks from mirrors and glass no matter what I used. But what should I finally discover does the trick well? The Philips glass cleaning gel that came with the TV I won years ago.

I was going to go to the pool by myself this morning, but it’s more fun to go with Tom. It’s just that the poor guy’s hardly ever home and when he is he has time to do little more than eat, sleep, shit and shower.

Passed by a couple on the way to mail Paula’s letter yesterday morning. The woman was tall and slim and may’ve been somewhat good-looking (I had the wrong glasses on so I can’t be sure) and was using hand weights as she exercised. Good idea. However, I’m not sure I want to use them on the treadmill and possibly get thrown off balance.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2013
Next door left (quietly), just before 4am. I’ve never known them to leave that early before. Hope nothing’s wrong. As in they’re about to die and be replaced with neighbors who are noisy and decide the garage would make a damn good workshop. A dark van visits them every now and then and was there yesterday.

The things I thought would be an issue, like barking and people always hanging out gabbing loudly, aren’t an issue at all. Instead, it’s the landscaping. Even Andy agrees that he not only doesn’t blame me for being pissed about the water issues here, but that yard work can be annoying, too. He said it always annoys him when the houses closest to him do that because they take so long to do it. That’s how it is here, though I don’t know why it’d take so long to do these nothing lots. I thought part of the reason for being here was so that there’d be less maintenance. It’s not like it’s 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there. It’s an hour here and an hour there and then another hour… so it adds up and gets old. Especially when I’m trying to watch vids. Winter’s Andy’s only relief from the drone of trimmers and mowers buzzing away. For me, the only relief will be the rain and that’s not a very common thing here.

Still love everything else about the place. Even the traffic seems like nothing since I started sleeping with earplugs when I’m on nights.

I miss the pool. Haven’t been there in a while. I think I’ll go first thing tomorrow morning. We’ve been having temps in the 90s, so it should be nice.

Facebook is its usual mess. Never have I seen a site so glitchy. I doubt I ever will either. The friend-invite I never sent to a guy in Ireland was accepted. I not only never sent it, but never heard of the guy. I told him this and he unfriended me.

Becky had laser surgery, Mark’s going to Ohio to visit family, and Tammy still has her good days and her bad days. She sounded fine in her last message. I know Mark is going to be dealing with his cardiologist and whatnot next month, but I’m still not sure when Tammy will undergo the transplant or how many lungs will be replaced.

Nane’s been busy but has another TR trip to look forward too, and I don’t know what the hell’s going on with Alison. I hope she’s ok. And Paula, too. She finally left a message. It’s a good thing she had one of our cell numbers after all or else I don’t know how I’d get a hold of her not knowing her new address and phone. She left a phone number for me and we talked. I always have mixed emotions for the girl, I swear! She’s annoying as hell cuz I told her not to send me anything cuz we were moving yet she did. UPS Stores don’t forward or return mail. She should’ve just left her new address in the message she left before we moved and I’d have written to her as soon as we moved in here, which was right around the time she sent stuff to our old box.

She is not only mentally slow and challenged, but she’s as crazy as ever. Not Kim/Molly kind of crazy, but she’s delusional at times. She doesn’t stalk people and she’s not dangerous (unless you’re her BF and you piss her off), but half the time she’s pretty out of it. Her memory’s shot to hell and she rambles on, interrupts and doesn’t let you get a word in edgewise, as usual, but we go way back and we’ll always be friends.

She’s now living in Granby, CT and she said no one knows where she is, not even her sons. She says they only know her number. I asked why the secrecy and all she would say was, “Because.” I wonder if recently being diagnosed with pelvic cancer has anything to do with her worsening state of mind. It’s one thing to prefer solitude, but to not even tell your kids where you moved to???

As screwed up as she is, I wish everyone I care about (besides Tom) wasn’t 3 to 6 thousand miles away. She may’ve chosen to go it alone, but it still sucks that she’s got to undergo surgery all by herself. She’s been sick due to the treatments they’ve been giving her, which make her nauseous and have caused hair loss. She said she’ll be ok, though, once they do the hysterectomy they plan to do. I hope so!

MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 2013
Today would’ve been my parents’ 64th or 65th anniversary. Instead, I hope they’re rotting in hell and that if God isn’t just as fictitious as Goldilocks and Rapunzel, He is giving them a taste of their own medicine. I know He isn’t, though. The fact that He allowed them to do what they did to my siblings and me shows He was ok with it. Therefore, He’d have no reason to punish them for it. Karma may very well be nothing more than wishful thinking; something we tell ourselves to make us feel better. But what can we really know for sure?

We had to play water games again yesterday morning. Yeah, I was kinda pissed, and I don’t care who has a problem with me saying so or who thinks I don’t see the good with the bad. We didn’t move to a luxury park just to go through this every month! One of the benefits of returning to the city (supposedly) was no longer having to deal with the problems wells tend to bring. Instead, another main broke. Well, that’s what she said when I called the office to make sure it wasn’t just us, as much as I figured it wasn’t. What’s worse is that she confirmed my suspicions by saying it happens “a lot,” like 6 or 7 times a year. So I was right in suspecting that “occasionally” really meant often when Joy mentioned it in the interview. But 6 or 7 mains break a year? That can’t be! If this happens so much, then why can’t they fix things enough to stop it from happening this often? Now I’m afraid to shower in the daytime. Fortunately, it was at the end of my day and I only had to pee twice, in which I simply closed the toilet lid and the bathroom door as well. I usually close the bathroom door anyway to help make the bedroom darker.

Still, it sucks that we have more water issues here and that I actually sleep worse here, too. Yesterday morning was quieter than I expected so I went to sleep with just the sound machine. Sure enough, a loud truck woke me up later on and so I popped in an earplug. I was fine after that. IDK, maybe I will gradually get used to sleeping here. Took me a while at first in Auburn. Despite these annoyances, I’m loving everything else about the place.

No exciting wins other than a coupon for a 6-pack of Fruit20 water. I will be getting the Golden Fire ring I won, after all. At least that’s what I was told.

I wonder if I should create a Pinterest account like I created a Twitter account for sweeping. Pinterest doesn’t run nearly as many sweeps as Twitter and especially Facebook runs, but maybe I should join. I was just never sure how that site works. You just pin things you like or want to have? Guess I should go find out.

Been getting a regular viewer of my “secret” diary from Enfield, CT, not very far from Stafford Springs where Kim lives. They even have the same provider. Could it be her? Why would she suddenly allow herself to be tracked after going out of her way not to since I dumped her?

SUNDAY, AUGUST 11, 2013
Saw 3D on our new TV for the first time ever and wow! Just wow! I didn’t expect it to be that impressive, but OMG! It was incredible. It almost made me wish we’d gotten a 96” TV, but it was still amazing on our 42”. There was a scene in a forest with bugs flying about. You’d swear the bugs were flying around the room! Some of the plant leaves appeared to extend out of the screen, too. A person was running toward the camera, stopped suddenly and kicked up dirt that you’d swear was going to be flung right at you.

I’m definitely looking forward to watching TV instead of reading or listening to music while on the treadmill. The only problem is I can’t hear much dialogue unless I blast it, so wireless headphones are a must. Even standing in the middle of the room and with a TV this big, it seems a million miles away.

In last night’s dream, I was walking down one of the streets here when some lady pulled up and asked, “How’s your monster?”

I looked at her confused and said, “My monster? What monster?”

“Your house, silly!”

“Oh,” I said, “it’s fine. Very spacious. 1550 square feet.”

“1550?” she goes. “Lady, your monster is 1800 square feet.”

Funny cuz that’s what the Italian lady at the pool said. I doubt it’s that big, but it’s definitely not 1300.

Tom and I talked about the various ways we may arrange the cavernous living room. It’s almost too big, but then again so is most of the place, LOL. The master bath is as big as the trailer bedroom was. We still have tons of empty drawers, cabinets and closet space. We could never even use most of the counter space we’ve got in here. My desk is in the corner of the living room and when I turn to look at the opposite wall behind me it seems so, so far away. Even the windows are a place one could get lost in.

Tom wants to get one of those flying toy helicopters to play with in the living room where the cathedral ceilings are. Better turn the ceiling fan off first, LOL.

Only one wake-up call last time around. Tom still thinks I’ll adapt. I still think I’m the lightest sleeper in the world and I don’t know why. Why can so many people sleep through so much shit without sound machines while I can’t sleep through shit with sound machines???

At barely a quarter to 5am the first of the loud vehicles started up, but then it went quiet again and I remembered it was Saturday. Come Monday, though, and the trucks will be back to coming and going every few minutes. But that’s just life in a big and busy park.

Still getting familiar with the Atkin’s diet and slowly eliminating processed foods and other no-nos like bread and some starchy foods that the diet doesn’t allow. I’m not always sure how to tell if something’s been processed or not, though I know I can’t have any battered or breaded meats. I just learned that those meatballs I’ve been having are not acceptable cuz they’ve got fillers. Same with things like hot dogs. Cheeses are acceptable but not cottage cheese. I’m just trying to up my activity levels and keep all the numbers (carbs/cals/fat/sugars) low except for the protein count and not make this diet any more complicated than it already seems.

I feel bad for a friend of mine who recently started blogging and is getting spammed, bullied, critiqued, judged and ridiculed in every sense of the word. I have tried to convince her to just ignore this shit and to disable comments, but she doesn’t want to block those with kind, positive and interesting things to say. I can relate! I’ve had to deal with every spammer, scammer and joker imaginable. That’s why I disable comments where I can and ignore messages where I can’t, though people are welcome to contact me on Facebook or Ask.

There will always be people who want to control and change us and who think they know us and how we “should” be when in fact they don’t know shit. Instead, they make false judgments, twist our words, or say we said things we never said. You just can’t make some people get things they’re just too stupid to get (or maybe don’t want to get). An observation is NOT always a complaint. People who complain don’t necessarily LIKE to complain but merely aren’t afraid to address the negatives in life as well as the positives. Those who see bad DO see good as well. Those proud of their accomplishments do NOT necessarily think they’re better than others. Those who may have unique experiences to tell are NOT always liars. Those who choose not to give so freely are NOT always selfish. Those who aren’t fans of God HAVE A RIGHT to follow their heart/beliefs. Just because someone does something you don’t do does NOT mean they’re bad, it just means they’re different than you.

But as I told my friend, people are always going to have a problem with anything you may say, think, believe, wear or do. For every person that agrees that honey goes well in tea or who doesn’t give a shit that I may say so, someone else will be quick to insist I’m evil for saying and thinking such a thing.

It’s a waste trying to reason with, defend or explain yourself to some folks, I also told her, because once they’ve made up their minds to believe a particular thing, nothing’s going to change that. Some people are just set in their ways and they don’t always want to hear the facts. Instead, they feel it’s their duty to try to get you to be how they think you should be, and they seem to like to take undue credit for influencing you in directions they never really influenced you in. So any attempts to try to talk some sense into them and to get them to see what’s really true vs. what’s not is often like talking to the walls. No matter how hard you try to slap some people into reality, it’s a place many refuse to ever visit! As I would tell any writer, though, don’t let it stop you from expressing yourself! Those who judge are often miserable people. If others who choose to read our stuff on their own free will can’t handle it, well, that’s THEIR problem. So why make it ours? Just the fact that some trolls choose to remain anonymous and won’t even identify themselves (honestly) is usually enough to tell you something right there.

Later…

I dyed a crème colored blanket and a white shirt dark purple. Only the shirt came out dark purple, though. The blanket is pale pink. Maybe I should’ve gotten turquoise or lemon-yellow dye.

Last night I was shocked to have gotten knocked offline twice. The second time might’ve been because my computer crashed and not because the connection dropped. This is the second crash in half a year. Tom and I wonder if the new Firefox browser is to blame for it.

What sucks more is how much “high speed” internet really isn’t all that high speed. It’s great to be able to stream music and videos and to really have cut-outs, but most of the sites I go to are at the same speed they were in Auburn. Today’s overloaded servers make things way slower than when I first started sweeping in ’05. I’d “Shazam” by the 50s, but now I can only Shazam open 15 sweeps at a time in my My Sweeps section and that alone takes 5 times longer than it would’ve taken when cable was fairly new.

I emailed the guy running the Glyteratti sweep to let him know the free Golden Fire ring worth $55 I was supposed to get for ordering within 48 hours wasn’t included with the necklace I won. Or that I won $20 off of. Then I got some lame reply about how it looks like there were some issues with the previous email they sent. In other words, they never intended to send the ring. Oh well. I probably couldn’t have gotten the $55 it was supposedly worth anyway, since everyone wants something for nothing. If I had to start all over again, though, I would forfeit this win. The necklace is ok, but was it really worth the $22 we paid for it?

Had a dream last night that hopefully means Tom will soon be getting another raise at work. I don’t know where the hell we were going or what it was, but we were about to sell mass quantities of something.

“Will we get rich off this?” I asked him in the dream.

“Not rich, but we’ll be pretty well off.”

Well, we’re pretty well off in reality, but the more the merrier. You can never be well off enough, as I learned the hard way.

I also had a dream where I felt two huge lumps on the sides of each of my breasts, something that couldn’t suddenly just happen. The odds of both breasts in the same spots aren’t realistic either. I didn’t seem worried about it in the dream and wrote it off to the little lumps of fluid that we often get during PMS, which is why we get sore there.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2013
Sure enough, “No one” completely ignored my request that she not contact me again and sent me her usual complisults. She might not have received it, but chances are she’s simply ignoring it just like she’s ignoring the fact that just because I may have things to complain about doesn’t mean I don’t see the good I’ve got going for me. Maybe she just doesn’t want to see it any more than the fact that I really don’t care to hear from her. I haven’t responded to her message. Hopefully, she’ll think – or at least wonder – if I bothered to pick it up since I said I wouldn’t read anything from her.

I don’t know why she feels so compelled to get me to “see” that I complain. Does she think it’s her duty or something?

“you seem to love to wallow in the bad as opposed to the good that does happen, as you’ve said yourself.”

I never said that. I never said I “love” to wallow in bad things; I said I wasn’t afraid to address the bad in my life.

“Finding balance is hard when you’re slipping off the edge. Hope you get some sleep.”

What edge?

“You really are whimsical with words. I think that’s why I’ve continued to read, even though your pessimistic outlook grates on me like nails on a chalkboard…and if nothing else, I’ve at least made you aware of just how much you complain. Look. I know most of us end up with shitty deals in the card game of life. I know you, especially, have dealt with some crazy ass shit in your life. However, focusing on it, feeding it, nurturing it with your attention is just a surefire way to keep it hanging around. It’s like throwing emotional chum in the ocean of life and expecting the shark of shit to NOT come swimmin’ on by. I’m sorry if my words were harsh or sharp. I simply wanted to point out that despite your wonderful husband, beautiful big new home, and a thriving imagination (which is really the secret to a great life), you seem to love to wallow in the bad as opposed to the good that does happen, as you’ve said yourself. I obviously don’t expect your entries to be 100% fluff and bullshit sunshine, but it frustrates me that you can’t see the good all around you, and that you spend so much of you creative energy complaining about mundane, everyday, we-all-deal-with-this-shit stuff. Sorry. Didn’t mean to ramble. I just wanted to clarify a bit. And really, I’m glad you’re paying more attention to the negativity you put forth. Finding balance is hard when you’re slipping off the edge. Hope you get some sleep.”

Heard from my textbook stalker again, too. The one that once sent me text they copied from a psych book on sociopaths and narcissistic behavior. It’s from the book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Dr. Robert D. Hare,
Ph.D.

In between a numbered list of behavioral traits are notes this doctor has supposedly added, but I believe the sender edited some of it, like with this next paragraph.

“In addition to the above two lists of traits, the biggest trait (or magic trick as I like to call it) that makes narcissistic sociopaths so dangerous and effective is their ability to go unnoticed by the rest of us or society. They can do this, because they are good at pretending (lying) and wearing many,many masks (again, lying). Simply put, they lie to themselves and everyone else. They lie so much that some of them are convinced of their own lies, and even try to live them out, which is where evil is born.”

The start of this paragraph may be the doctor’s words, but “many,many masks?” And without a space between the words many? It’s also hard to believe a doctor would use the words, “which is where evil is born.”

At the end is a section that says, “This type of person will tell you things to get you to forgive them and then say they never said that. While they are really still secretly carrying on one of their hidden manipulations, because they know they have this secret hidden hatred towards you. This is a tactic to play mind games with their victims.”

This too, doesn’t sound like the words of a doctor. But who could it be??? I’m totally stumped on this one and I realize it could be anyone. ANYONE. I thought of sharing it with Alison, and then I quickly stopped myself. I just can’t always know who’s really friend, foe or random joker, even if I sure think I do. Even if there’s only half a percent chance someone close to me is behind it, that half a percent is still there. Looming over my head like a storm cloud. And so this too, will be kept private.

It came in at 12:30 am my time. Andy was up at this time because I’d just run into him on Facebook. Maliheh’s known to be up that late, but 3:30 am may be a bit late for Kim.

If the sender did add in the thing about the trying to get people to forgive them while having a secret hidden hatred, why? Who would customize such a thing? The only ones I’ve asked to forgive me in the past were Andy and Maliheh. Kim the nurse, sort of, but I received the first copy of this before I friended her. Would Andy or Maliheh think I did/do secretly hate them? Maliheh may just say that cuz I dumped her in the end (though technically she dumped me first), but if this is Andy’s work, then wow, his trust issues run deeper than I realized. I don’t think it is, though.

I still wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it were connected to Kim, Molly or Kathy, but again, I realize it could be anyone – Dorene, Maliheh, Andy, Alison, the sickos in Arizona, Adonis, etc.

The message was sent from SociopathsCanNeverLetThingsGo@ndContinueToReliveEverythingAsPartOfManipulationFactors.com

So it is someone I’ve mentioned in either present or past entries that doesn’t like being mentioned? Clearly, this is someone harboring a lot of hatred for me. I just can’t believe this is a random joker. No, it’s someone with a grudge against me. Mary? But I didn’t try to get her to forgive me for anything because I never did anything wrong to her.

If it’s someone who’s sick in the head like Kim or Molly, then there’s no rationalizing or making sense of their words. In their minds, they could really believe I tried to get them to forgive me for something. It doesn’t seem like anything the trolls would take the time to copy and paste, but I wouldn’t put it past Kathy or someone connected to Molly. Really wish I’d saved the first “textbook” message so I could compare the two.

Also, what am I “reliving” and what am I trying to “manipulate?” Every time I think I’ve found a reason why a certain person may’ve sent it to me, I find a reason to think they didn’t. I can’t believe Dorene would read my diary, but this is something she would send. Also, if the sender added anything in, they write fairly well.

The person clearly thinks I can’t let things go and am out to play mind games. I haven’t mentioned Kathy and haven’t been contacted that I know of by her and her people in a while, so it doesn’t make sense that it’s her as much as it does.

The black bitch wouldn’t want to leave a trail from her computer to any accounts I use, of course, but I don’t doubt for a minute she’d get her friends after me. That’s what she did in Arizona with the notes and calls. Well, I’ve certainly been posting shit about my days of her tormenting me, but if the part about forgiving was truly added, she’s the last person I ever tried to seek forgiveness from because I’m about as innocent of any wrongdoing to her as my rats are. I also haven’t contacted her in nearly two years, so no one can say I’m trying to fuck with her in any way.

I suppose that in time if I keep refusing to mention them or give them a reaction in any way, they’ll either get sick of me or they’ll get more determined to get my attention, even if it may mean identifying themselves.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2013
Got less than an hour before I enter the sweeps that came in on the 9th. No win notices today, but you don’t get many at this time of month anyway.

I’m struggling to catch up on things, but lately there doesn’t seem to be enough hours in a day. I haven’t been to my old Ask account in days. Once this damn proofreading and posting of old journals are done, that will free up some time. Maybe then I’ll get back to my story writing.

I’m happy in the head, but yucky in the rest of me right now. Where my PMS is usually a 6 or 7 as far as how bad it is, this one’s a 10. My back aches like hell and for the first time ever pain relievers are worthless.

The fucking trucks in back still wake me up at times, too. Most of them are park workers, the rest are a combination of delivery and service trucks. We also hear daily yard work. Still, the amount of noise you hear here is reasonable for the number of people whereas the amount of noise we heard in Auburn was not at all reasonable for just one person. Instead of hearing the same few sounds that go on and on for hours at a time, now it’s more like many sounds that don’t last long. Despite any annoyances here, it’s WONDERFUL knowing I’ll NEVER again have to listen to barking for 10 minutes a day let alone for 10 hours like would be the case before Jesse stopped working and before he got a roommate to shut the mutts up on Go Out and Get Laid Nights. It is also WONDERFUL to know I can crash in the mornings when I’m on nights and not have to worry about him coming down to pester me, even if the traffic sort of helps make up for it. But I don’t have to go to the door and acknowledge anyone in any way. Things can happen on OUR time and when WE say they will unless it was an emergency. Yes!

It’s dead quiet at night here, but for daytime sleeping, I’m going to add foam earplugs to the sound machine. I’m sure they’ll do the trick and I don’t mind wearing them. Wax plugs work better but only if I’m sitting upright. I can’t get a good seal when I lay on my ear.

I only had one bad dream, which was a little sad and scary. I was living in a cottage-like house with 5 or 6 other women. It was almost like I was young again and they were some of my VH sisters, though it was in modern times. A vicious storm erupted and someone came in a van to bring us to safer ground since we were out in the woods. It almost looked like Jesse’s place. Anyway, I got into the van, placed my purse on the seat and then ran back into the cottage to pee. When I came out of the bathroom I saw that everyone had left without me.

I tried not to panic as the storm worsened and I realized I could be left without power for days and maybe run out of food and freeze to death. I dropped to my knees and prayed to God to back the storm off and let my purse safely find its way back to me, untouched. Instead, the storm grew even more fierce and I fell asleep. When I awoke I ran to a laptop that was set up to check the weather before the power could go out, but on my way, a strange light outside caught my attention. I peered through the blinds hoping to hell they were the headlights of someone coming to pick me up, but instead, I saw that it was just tons of lightning. I woke up as the rain beat on the window and blurred my vision of the outdoors.

We got the TV mounted. The bracket’s super long screws would go right through the thin little walls of Jesse’s place, LOL. We discussed possible ways to set up the living room. Meanwhile, tomorrow marks one wonderful month at LV!

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2013
Had a long, productive and fun day, even if an hour of it was spent in the dentist’s chair. Shannon took x-rays and we made small talk along the way. She too, moved to Citrus Heights recently. She was amazed to learn I’m 47. She thought I was 37 (that’s what the realtor thought). She said my skin is in excellent condition and I have no wrinkles at all.

“That’s cuz I’m fat,” I said, and she cracked up laughing. I also told her I recently started the Atkin’s diet. Turns out she was once on that too, and got really slim on it. The diet focuses more on low carbs than low cals cuz when we have more carbs, more of them get stored as fat. I still have to watch my calorie intake, though. Unfortunately, it can’t be over 1000 a day, but having more protein, another thing Atkins stresses, helps reduce cravings and keeps you fuller longer. I’m still having some frozen/processed foods, but not as much. Then again, I’m not having as much of anything.

Dr. H came in at that time and said, “You look beautiful today.” That was a nice compliment even to one who cares more about health than looks these days. The doctor and the rest of the staff are super nice.

I told them I’m back to winning again and asked Dr. H if she’d been to my blog (I gave her the link during my last visit along with my win list which she was curious about) She said she had and mentioned me being famous. LOL

I don’t know how often she follows me, so I’ll be careful what I say in public, even if it’s all positive things anyway. Like I said, they’re very friendly and they do a great job. Today I had just a cleaning and she got all the nasty build-up off my lower i-teeth. This was caused by the permanent retainer that’s cemented in back there. For many years I wasn’t able to get to a dentist so they got neglected badly.

Gotta go back on the 20th unless one of our schedules prevents it. This appointment I’m not exactly looking forward to. I’m not a fan of Novocain and deafening drills stuck in my mouth for what seems like forever, but I have two teeth that need work. One needs a filling and the other needs a crown. It’s something like $800 worth of work but we’ll only pay $200 of it. Fortunately, my wonderful, patient, loving and understanding hubby can make that in about a day.

They even scheduled my next cleaning for February, which will be around the time of my next eye exam, another thing I’m not looking forward to. I worry the doctor’s going to tell me my OH is still hanging around. If it is, that could mean bad news for me in the future, especially if it’s worse. Torturous treatments may one day be necessary to keep me from going blind. Gosh, I hope not!

After the dentist, we got a basic membership at our local Sam’s Club and picked up a new 42” Vizio TV and some Crest Whitening strips. They taste like peroxide, but that’s pretty much what they are. I also got a new wind chime to put in front. It hangs off the awning.

Things are still going well here and we’re getting more and more done around the place a little at a time. I just wish there was less yardwork going on. They were so loud across the street when I got up that it could easily be heard in back of the house. I thought it was next door at first. Tom said the guy had been at it for over an hour. Over an hour to do that little lot?!

I wasn’t too tired today, and again I slept well and didn’t have any nightmares. It’s going to be nice being able to take a break from alarms for a while and just let my body get as much sleep as it needs.

I have sooo much to do tonight! Gotta get this posted, get sweeping, and much more. Oh, and if you’re a Facebook friend of mine, I’m not checking the news feed as thoroughly as I once did. Too much spam to weed through and not as much free time. So if there’s something you really want me to see, be sure to let me know or post it to my wall.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2013
Waking up to find my third win in two days helped brighten my foul mood. I won a $20 Glytterati Gift Certificate plus a free Golden Fire ring worth $55. I’ve narrowed my choices down to 3 pendants.

Other than this I’ve been having a real pisser of a day. Sorry, “No one,” but I must, must, must do nothing but bitch during the rest of this entry. :)

Barely 5 hours into my sleep a loud truck woke me up and it took me an hour and a half to fall back asleep. I also ended up sleeping an hour later than I’d have liked to.

I don’t understand all this traffic we got going in back here. And it’s not like they can just breeze on by either, cuz there’s a speed bump back there. Why so many loud trucks? We’re in a retirement community, for God’s sake, so where are all these large vehicles going? I thought car doors and landscaping would interfere with my sleep at times, not loud UPS-type trucks. I had even turned the sound machine up louder too, yet I could hear the rumbling over it. It’s like being back on a busy street minus the loud car stereos.

If I could only sleep at night every night!!! I could try to “justify” God siccing this sleep disorder on me and telling myself that He only gave it to me to keep me from working outside of the house, cuz if I had been lucky enough to be out there working with everyone else, a disgruntled employee would’ve come in one day and gunned me and everyone else down. Yeah, that’s the only reason He gave this to me. rolls eyes He’s just looking out for me, right? Well, others are welcome to believe what they want to believe, but I feel I would only be kidding myself if I truly believed that. Yeah, sometimes something up there may truly look out for us, but other times its intentions are solely to harm, curse and punish. I know this is a scary pill for most to swallow, but I’m only going by my own personal experience. Not everything that happens to us is for the better. What justifies the killing of innocent children? I think things may be meant to be and they may happen for a reason, but can all of them be for a good one?

I also realize we can’t help our beliefs and that while things may happen to influence them, our beliefs aren’t usually something we can pick and choose any more than we can pick what colors and flavors we like.

To make matters worse, I kept waking up a million times either just because or due to bad/weird dreams. The scariest was learning that the crazy terrorists attacked most of Europe and my first thought was, “Nane!”

There were other weird dreams like waking up in the master bedroom of the second house I grew up in back east to a loud thump. My dream self feared someone had broken in but was too tired to go investigate.

Something must’ve happened to Tom in one dream because my sister took me in after we sold this place, and I worried about what I would do when I could no longer hold my schedule on days and the money from the house ran out. Tammy tried to assure me that I could get a home job that could be done at any time of night or day.

Anyway, this is a definite, definite curse from above that makes life very hard. Really, it takes a lot of hate to sic this on someone, though I know it’s better than being blind or paralyzed.

So tired, cranky old me gets up to face a day of insatiable PMS hunger that only us women can understand. Then she gets to listen to the annoying buzz of landscaping. I wish they’d designate all landscaping projects to just one day of the week only. That way we could know we’d have the rest of the week to live in peace other than traffic noise. Tom said he could hear it when he was out watering and said it was a super loud edger that was actually coming from a block away. Wow, I’m glad that thing doesn’t live right next to us!

When I found a notice on our door yesterday I was like, oh no, now what? Well, they have cleanup days 3 times a year. This is when they pick up not trash or recyclables but things like old furniture and appliances and things like that.

Tom thinks I’m just having trouble sleeping now due to the stress of trying to hold my schedule for my Thursday dentist appointment and having PMS. I hope he’s right. He usually is. After all, I usually sleep just fine here. Only the first few days was it hard, but that’s to be expected in a new place. Just wish there wasn’t as much traffic, but had we been on a dead-end God would’ve made sure next door DID have an edger as loud as the one a block away. He really would, No one, He really would.

Later…

I chose the pink stacked garden butterfly necklace with the discount I won, and will probably flip the free ring that comes with it.

Slept better last night and wasn’t plagued with nightmares or anything like that. I can still hear the loud trucks rumbling by over the sound machine, which is the only real negative to the place. By late afternoon, though, it’s dead quiet. Most of the loud vehicles pass by in back in the mornings. Other than scattered yard work, you don’t hear much here.

I’m now down 5.2 pounds and am looking forward to getting my dentist appointment out of the way tomorrow. After that, we’re going to pick up a new 42” TV that’s more compatible than the 32” one I won in 2008. That one was worth a grand at the time, but the TV Tom likes is half that.

Maybe I’ll also find a wind chime I like for hanging in front.

Having high-speed Internet has been both wonderful and disappointing. It’s great that we can stream so much easier without having to wait for things to buffer, and it’s great not having the connection cut in and out and in and out, but many sites are disappointingly slow due to a combination of slow servers and ads. It used to be that the ads were built into the site, but now the ad hosts have to call up other sites when you access them and that helps to slow things down more than it used to when we last had cable in 2005.

MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 2013
Day 1 of sweeping and I’m already a winner. They’re small wins, but they’re WINS! A coupon for a ThermaCare product, and some Brew Over Ice samplers/tumblers. I’ve already won an ARV of over $20. Someday it will be thousands!

Up in Auburn where we used to live was a place with tons of dumpsters set up to take cardboard. We’ve got so damn much of it Tom said it just may be worth the half-hour drive to get rid of it since there’s only so much we can throw in the recycle bin, which only gets picked up every other week.

I joked about him egging the Harley while he was at it, or maybe going up to the house and asking if he got the rent ok, and just totally playing with his head, LOL. When the Jes pest goes, “But you moved!” we could be like, “No, we didn’t.”

Tom thought it would be even funnier (if Maryann’s already picked up the shed) to go up there saying, “Someone stole our shed!” haha

I had just turned my head when the rats knocked over the pail by my desk. They were pulling out tea bags, tissues, and napkins and sifting through the goodies when I scolded them away. They ran behind the drapes for a few minutes, LOL.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 2013
Slept well enough and didn’t wake up nearly as tired as I expected to. I’ve also lost a total of 4 pounds. I was sure to load up on protein, fruits and veggies this week, which is what Atkin’s calls for. I did get some processed and packaged foods, but not much.

Had a dream Tom was laid off and that’s a scary dream to be having if you’re like me. Tom says it’s so unlikely with all the OT. Also, they’ve been bringing back people they’ve laid off, not letting people go. Still, I don’t need to be having these dreams. You don’t need to be rich to live here but you sure as hell couldn’t live here on minimum wage either.

Went to the pool again yesterday and saw that the clubhouse and pool parking lots were packed. I thought, wow, the pool sure is crowded today! After all, it was in the 90s and on a Saturday. But once we stepped out of the car we could hear some boring country music spilling out of the clubhouse. Just one person was by the pool sunbathing, and I wondered why so many people would rather be indoors listening to that crap than out there enjoying the pool and sunshine, even if the sun isn’t as healthy as many people think it is just because it feels good and gives us a tan (or a sunburn in my case).

The sunbather wasn’t close by, and not having my bifocals, I thought it was Joy at first. Then I thought it a bit strange that Joy would be off sunning by herself, especially with an event going on. I then thought it was the Italian hottie across from us, but when she got up when we were finishing up with our swim about 15-20 minutes later, we saw that she was Italian (and even admitted this when I complimented her tan), but not the hottie. The hottie’s a little taller and slimmer. Turns out she looked at this house a year ago and while she loved it, she got a really good deal on another place.

So much for thinking the swim would perk me up. Instead, I came back so drained from the sun itself that I had to fight to keep from taking a nap and screwing my schedule up even more. Sure enough, though, it wasn’t till after dark that I perked up. One thing to help that is that this professional sweeper went back to sweeping! Yeah, I was a pro sweeper who once won thousands of dollars in cash and prizes. It paid the equivalent of a part-time job, and then the economy soured and I had to hang it up a while. I don’t know if I can win like I used to due to all the competition out there these days, but we’ll soon find out.

Tom got our wireless color laser printer up and running again, connected the Kindle to the Internet, and now he’s going through the storeroom. In rearranging it and going through what things they left behind while working his stuff in, he learned that the guy who lived here was a financial planner. He also smoked pipes since he found a cigar box with pipes in it, along with some handy tools. He just said he thinks he may be able to use my old desk in there, and I’m glad the white pickup that parks in front of the house next door doesn’t live next door. It’s kind of loud. Almost Jesse kind of loud, but at least he doesn’t sit there gunning it for 10-20 minutes like the Jes pest would.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 2013
It’s getting harder and harder to get up, though my appointment isn’t until Thursday. Wish I was one who could fall asleep earlier to make up for lost sleep, but that almost never works for me. I considered skipping the alarm tomorrow and just letting my body catch up and get all the sleep it needs, but that would only make it even harder the next day. Ugh! So frustrating. Half the time I do fine with 8 hours, but the other half I need 9 or 10, which makes it even harder. I’ll probably crash tonight around 4am and need to sleep till around 2pm, but I really should be up no later than noon. I can’t have my schedule jumping ahead that fast this soon. I’m usually ok once I’ve been up an hour, but I’m still feeling fuzzy-headed right now.

The intense hunger pangs don’t help, but I’ve lost 3 ½ pounds so far, so it’s worth it. I can already see and feel a difference because I’m so short. One won’t usually lose much weight if they don’t cut calories, especially older women, so it’s either be hungry or be fat. I don’t mind being fat from an appearance standpoint. I have a husband and good friends that would love me no matter what, so I don’t give a shit about looking fat. I’m not young and looking to date either. It’s when it starts affecting my mobility and overall health that I draw the line. We’re supposed to have extra weight when we’re older, though, so it’s going to get harder and harder. If I think of this endeavor as a whole I’ll go out of my mind, LOL, so I’m just taking the one-day-at-a-time attitude.

yawns Between the lack of sleep and food I’m rather tired today, but with my shit luck, I’ll be wide awake later on and wishing I could fall asleep a couple of hours early.

Other than lost sleep and hardcore dieting, things are great. Tom and I took a dip in the pool after work yesterday and it was so nice even though the water was cooler than I’d ever felt it to be. We had a couple of days where it dipped down into the 80s. A couple of women were sitting on pool noodles chatting, but they didn’t speak to us. One was in her 50s and the other was in her 60s, from the looks of it.

Even though we weren’t there long, we got a little burn. After our swim, we headed toward a nearby green area with a bridge over where the gully runs. I’m not looking forward to it being cold, cloudy and rainy, but I do miss the rain. It’s just so rare here, especially from May to October.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2013
How interesting it is to be friended by Ellen, daughter of the former Valleyhead owners who was a living hell for me and many others before the FBI finally shut the “school” down in the ‘90s. Never had any problems with Ellen, though, and I don’t know much about her other than that she’s a lesbian. We have a few mutual friends, which is how she was able to add me, but why now? Someone in her area visited my blog, so I wonder if it has to do with that. Let me guess, she friended me in hopes of getting my VH bashings out of public much like Maliheh friended me to keep her name out of my book. God knows people can’t just ask, right? Then again, only she knows why she friended me and maybe it’s not under false pretenses at all. Time will tell.

It’s been a very quiet day save for the garbage truck going through. Sorry, “No one,” that I don’t have complaints to fill this entry with.”

Then again, I kinda do. These trash cans are too damn skinny! Even one bag can get stuck in it and that’s what happened to us last week. After I spilled a full trash bag into it, took the bag back inside to dump the rats’ bedding in it, then took it back out and loosely added that as well, it was already ¾ full. We still have their trash to get rid of us as well like old rags, wicker baskets, broken lamps, etc.

Came down 2 pounds thanks to yesterday’s near-crash diet at just 700 calories, excluding drinks. It was tough, hunger and fatigue-wise. But can I do it over and over again till I get 40 or so pounds off of me? I have my doubts but I sure am going to try my best. A doctor may find my thyroid is a bit off, yes, but only I can help myself. Not any fantasy angel, magical fairy, mythical God, magic pill, amazing person… just me. So that means more exercise and less food. I’m not going crazy with the exercise, though, cuz that would make me hungrier. I’m doing just enough to keep active and strong. Believe it or not, I still do have a lot of muscle buried underneath all this fat. Going swimming with Tom when he gets in from work, so that will give me some exercise right there.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2013
Sure enough, the longer we’re here, the more I hear. I guess one of the houses across the street recently sold, according to the newsletter that was delivered yesterday, and so there have been some service trucks doing whatever around the place. I could see that one of them was an electrician.

Then the guy next door started with the blower, and well, sometimes I wish the mornings were a little quieter. What’s important is that it’s nothing that could override the sound machine and wake me up and that we no longer have to deal with pesky landlords.

I was a bit worried for a minute when I read the newsletter and saw that they were to be grinding streets one day, paving them the next, then striping them the next day. I was like, what are we, back with the Jes pest and all his annoying projects? But then I saw it wasn’t the whole park they were going to be doing in a couple of weeks, but just one street.

Chatted with my overseas hottie and now Tom should be home anytime now.

I have found that cutting back on food is much like when I’d try to cut back on smoking many years ago. It doesn’t last long. You either smoke or you don’t. So now I’m applying the same attitude towards eating. I know it will stunt my metabolism even more, but sometimes the healthier route fails to work and then we resort to the unhealthier route. The hunger and fatigue is a killer, though I did have a drinkable kiddy yogurt a while ago.

I love that I can turn my head and see this beautiful pink rose bush right outside the window. I just wish the bushes in front were a little higher as that would add privacy.

Now someone’s working on something across the side street. :( And I thought I escaped the hammers and the saws forever. Goes to show that if you’re me, the past will always return to haunt you. :(

Later…

What’s with the hypocrisy tonight? I get messages from this woman from time to time and every single one of them has been to complain about something I wrote in my own blog. What, does she think it’s her duty to critique and judge me? Tonight she’s complaining that I complain too much, thus being guilty of the exact same thing. Never does she point out the many positive things I’ve had to say, though she did say I was a good writer. Yeah, well, that’s very nice of her but if she doesn’t like what I have to say, then maybe she needs to go read someone else’s blog. It’s fine that not everyone agrees with me and all that, but no one has a right to judge me or try to change me. If I want to change something about myself it will be for me and me only. Not for society, not for any group, not for any person, and not to be “normal.” Also, just because I may point out a service truck doing something that was a bit distracting doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a complaint but just an observation I’m making. Still, I make NO apologies for how I am. “Never apologize for being you,” someone advised me years ago and that was the best advice I was ever given. I realize I may say, think, feel, believe and do things that some would consider different or just downright wrong, but I’m me. Period. And I’m not about to apologize for being who I am! :)

Regardless of how others perceive my words, the place went dead quiet after 3pm like it usually does. It’s so wonderful and peaceful other than the usual landscaping sounds you’d expect to hear in a nice neighborhood during the morning.

Andy recommended I get weekly massages cuz I sometimes have backaches, but nah. I’d only like them when I was sore and it’s not really a high priority. I’d rather save half our money and put the other half toward the house. Tom agrees though we’ll use a little of it for fun here and there. Other than nail polish and perfume, I’m not like most women who are into all kinds of things like massages, clothes, fine dining and other luxuries in life. I’m more of a simple person. I also couldn’t guarantee I’d be awake or not busy doing other things at the time of the massage. He cracks me up, though, “A hot woman rubbing my back.” But what if it was a guy?

Anyway, I look around me and I can’t believe all this is ours! I could go on and on about the wonderful points of both the house and park, but then I’d be writing till my fingers felt like they were going to break off. No, it’s not perfect any more than any other place, but it’s pretty damn close compared to how we were living before. We lived so poorly for so long that this is all the more appreciated and wonderful to us.

I try not to think of that old saying about how all good things come to an end. I don’t know why but I still get the nagging feeling that something up there did not want us to have this place. Something a lot more powerful than I’ll ever be. And sometimes I worry about being “punished” for it, especially me. If money isn’t a convenient weapon to use against us with how much he’s making at his job and what I’m generating online, I worry it – whatever “it” is – may go after my health instead. Well, the funny thing is that my feet and ankles are still swollen. I think it’s cuz I’ve been more active since getting out of that cramped old trailer, though, and that nothing serious is going on. I hope not anyway. I’ll get checked out after I finish dealing with the dentist.

If anything there have been positive changes. My schedule isn’t rolling as fast and I’m having fewer days/nights of being up 18 hours, which made it much harder to stop it from rolling. I always did say that if my schedule miraculously held steady or they came up with a cure for this thing, then with my shit luck it would be when I was too old to work. After all, I always believed I was given the damn disorder to keep me from being able to double our income. Better later than never but right now I don’t see how it could change for the better that much.

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Last updated August 17, 2024