the house loan closed...! there's a lot more to update on but i just wanted to throw this here! we closed yesterday. i'm so excited!

weirdly, there was less paperwork than when i bought my car haha. it was only a 15 minute process. and our realtor is offering to buy us some wine to celebrate! such a kind person. i'm just happy that "phase 1" is done.

now it's the actual moving part... which is going to suck lol. but at least the house is ours now! (we do have to wait 2 weeks for current seller to get out)

when i get a chance, i'll talk more about the new place & how the seller has been. long story short, she's been super nice and clearly cared a lot about the condition of the house & making sure that she was handing it off in the best possible way. not all sellers are like that, so i really consider us to be super lucky. 

hey! sorry i'm behind on answering comments - life has been super hectic! i'll try to get to them some time this weekend. thank you for your patience :)

TL;DR updates:

turns out being married to someone who you haven't seen in 7 years because she refuses to cooperate with divorce is actually a huge deal when you're trying to get a house loan, especially in a community property state, especially since she has since acquired a house.

the loan is being put in elias' name to get around it, but it just reminds me how much i dislike her. i went through all the legwork of filing for divorce, and in the end, the judge refused to grant me it because he misread some of the paperwork (told me i filled it out wrong) and refused to admit his mistake. so all that trouble for nothing.

i have to refile, but i'm going to wait until i'm settled into the new house. it's just more important now that i'm buying a house in a community property state.

the house will still be in my name, just not on the loan until i can figure the divorce situation out. annoying.

also, i have about 140 physical entries from my old journal to digitize, i'll work on that whenever i have time. i've been in bare minimum mode just trying to keep afloat ever since i went off my antidepressants. 

i forgot to say this in the other entry, but it's probably better to just say in a new entry anyway.

being deaf* is making all this shit like a thousand times more difficult. EVERYONE wants to talk on the phone to figure out this house shit. please just send me an email so i can respond in text!

it's very hard for me to use the phone, so i use an app that auto captions calls in real time for me. also i have bluetooth hearing aids, so i can get the calls right in my ears. but even with accessibility options, the phone is still hard! the captions take a few seconds to show up, add that on top of the slight delay that bluetooth adds and you have a very slow convo which is sometimes with impatient people.

i'm going to just start having Elias field the calls, because this is getting ridiculous. i can only do so much lol.

literally the only advantage i've had is that my phone app saves the transcripts so i can go back and reread them later if i missed something, because i almost always miss something. ugh.

this is somewhat unrelated, but i was talking to Elias about this tonight and will look into it in a minute, but both of us really need to get our asses into gear learning ASL. as far as i know, there aren't many free resources. i want to look and see if there are any free resources specifically for deaf people and their immediate family but haven't had the chance.

it's really not the greatest idea or sustainable to rely on technology forever for communication. especially since my hearing somehow manages to get worse every year. i will eventually not be able to use tech to bridge the gap.

*not profoundly deaf. i have severe hearing loss, but i am able to hear with hearing aids. i can also "kind of" hear without them, but it's akin to a person who needs glasses seeing colored blobs. in context, i know that big green blob is a tree, but it is still a big green blob ultimately. same idea.

i don't call myself hard of hearing anymore because hearing people don't seem to get the severity of my loss. though it's also awkward to call myself deaf, because a lot of Deaf (capital D) people only "count" profoundly deaf as deaf. i'm considered deaf to hearing people, and hearing to Deaf people, so i can't really win. i do call myself hard of hearing if i am in a Deaf community or talking to someone else with hearing loss typically though.

btw i also have a sensory disorder that makes it difficult to understand the words even if i can physically hear them with hearing aids 🎉 

apologies for leaving some comments hanging. my life has been a complete busy mess lately lmao. I will get back to them asap, probably on a computer. i think when you read this entry, you'll probably see why i haven't had time hahaha.

i am going to try to put a cut here but it's been broken so i'm sorry if this spams your reading page with a thousand paragraphs LMAO.

tw for suicide ideation/other mental health talk

we got some of the more complicated stuff coordinated like pricing out movers. our house is set to close on 7/31, the old sellers won't move out until august 14, and then we have to be out of this place by 8/31.

unfortunately we have a BABYMETAL concert down here on 8/30 so we are going to need to drive two hours south back to houston from our new place. damn it lol. we have had that booked for months so whatever.

the inspection was successfully completed on friday. we couldn't be at the inspection because we had an doc appointment (more on that later.) nothing too shocking, especially for a house this age. the only important thing is that we have to get the seller to fix the roof, which was already anticipated because anyone with eyes could see that it needed to be repaired or replaced. our realtor Lacy is getting that arranged.

lacy is so good and nice! it helps that she's probably gen z or younger millennial so she kind of understands us better than the other realtor did. we did have a realtor named Paola who we really liked, but she kept taking vacations and we were on a time crunch, so we found one close to the city we are moving. Lacy is amazing! i keep trying to do stuff myself and she's like STOP!! i can do it! lmao kind of like Elias. 

in my past marriage I had to handle everything and deal with everything, so when there's something big happening, i just kind of autopilot to handling everything. Elias told me that he wanted to be more involved though and that I was pushing him out of the process unintentionally, which made him feel bad. so i promised to try and not just leap into action and get shit handled like i'm used to doing.

there was a bunch of needless drama that happened re: house loan that i won't go into here, but it's fixed now lmao.

with regards to our current hellish landlord (or rather third party realty company because we Aren't Allowed to talk to the landlord): I sent a written request for repairs both physically and to their email. I detailed every minor issue with the house and explained why they couldn't be fixed by us, or that they were noted in our move in checklist as issues. there are a lot of issues that we can fix ourselves that i left out, but a lot that require professional help. i also once again reiterated that they need to yknow actually provide me with cleaners they want or else i'm going to hire randos.

they are SUPER uncommunicative so i'm 100% sure they are going to not fix anything and then try to take our deposit when we move out, so i am documenting everything for when i inevitably need to take them to small claims court.

btw the tree they fought me about not wanting to trim fell over in the storm and hit the house, it looks like it may have damaged it. poetic justice motherfucker.

update from today: loan officer called me. explained situation with ex, still being married, etc. she says it isn't a problem, but she needs to talk to the underwriter to find out of extra paperwork needs to get filed. i'm going to flip a table if they try to use my ex wife's finances in the equation of the house because she was awful and in a ton of debt.

manager being a dickhead as usual. i moved on from a position where metrics matter (got promoted) but she's still trying to pigeonhole me into metrics which is fucked up. also the CEO is being cheap and instead of hiring more labor he just expects the already overworked team to do even MORE. and idiot manager justifies this with "well i have a couple of people hitting 1200!" yeah i can hit that number too if i cherry pick what i work on which is 100% what matters. the median is more important but god forbid they use logic.

instead of even trying to empathize when i basically said it's fucked up to expect overloaded people to work even harder because the CEO is stingy about money, she just sided with the CEO. not a great look for a manager to not be able to validate but explain that it can't be helped. instead just repeating herself like i have a comprehension problem. honey i comprehend you just fine, i just don't agree.

i missed 3 days this week - holiday on the 4th, sick on the 5th, planned doc absence on the 7th. i've been being productive but just in other ways.

im still working on getting into a sleep study but insurance is dragging their heels and requiring my GP to provide certain "evidence" that a test is necessary. so i emailed him and told him that narcolepsy was happening. like i've been sleeping sitting up and the other day i fell asleep standing up in the bathroom brushing my teeth. but yknow not "medically necessary"

i got off my antidepressant because it was likely the problem. after getting off it it got s little bit better with the sleep but not by much.

it does cause other issues though...

first, i am actually feeling my feelings again which sucks somewhat, but it's nice kind of? i've been in this weird mental fog/zombie state for over a year now and suddenly i'm feeling again which is overwhelming. whew. i have been super good about putting down boundaries though which has pissed a lot of people off because they are used to walking all over me. too fuckin bad lol.

i also kinda got suicidal the first few days i was off of it but i'm feeling better now. just white knuckled it through it and used my support system.

my OCD symptoms are through the roof right now though, so exhausting. back to having to count every second of the day and track what i'm doing or else i have panic attacks lmao.

got my ears pierced again! (lobes) they are super cute.

elias is getting surgery next week (top surgery) i am super happy for him. but it is a tough time to get it lol. it can't be put off though because they're backed up until next year. just that he can't help with boxes or whatever.

i've been able to connect with some old friends which has been nice. i've also been talking more to lyn and hikaru which is nice, as i haven't been talking to them regularly much. and i'm happy for my new DW friends! twitter is going to shit, so i made a discord for my lil fandom i am in, it already has over 60 people lmao.

um that's it, i'll go reply to comments and comment now. ha

the amount of executive functioning required to close a house from A to Z is going to make my brain explode. that is all.

heyyy guess who officially owns a home now 🥲 the seller accepted our offer without even countering and even was willing to throw in concessions along with willing to replace the entire roof and AC! happiii 💗🎉

 tw: suicide. comments fully welcome but fully not necessary if you don't know what to say. this is a tough topic. i'm mostly venting. 

my husband almost died of a suicide attempt in february. he was in the ICU for a week. i was told on the first night that we wouldn't know if he would make it until the next morning. i was also told if i had taken him in even an hour later, there would have been nothing they could have done.

it was the worst night of my life. i kept it together by his side, but when i got into the car after they took him into the ICU, i couldn't stop crying. i don't think i've ever cried that hard in my life.

our lives are never going to be the same. he's already seeing health repercussions that will last a lifetime. not to mention the trauma it caused to myself and him. i'm very fortunate to have a good therapist who was open to a ton of texts and unpaid time to assist both of us through that time. but the trauma is lasting. i'm still struggling with it in therapy. i don't even know how to scratch the surface.

suicide jokes have kind of hit different since then. and not in a good way. i feel kind of like a grump or buzzkill, but i just can't handle it anymore. it's not cool or cute to joke about killing yourself. better to do it in company that won't be upset by it rather than the internet at large. 

 WE PUT AN OFFER IN ON A HOME!!!! This is so exciting for me! this is my first home that i've owned!! 

eeeeeeee! we got approved for 375k but the house we chose is 200k. it's a v pretty lil house 💗 i'm so excited!! 

i'm kinda mad that one of the alters in my system is tumblr famous cuz i wish i was that funny. da fuq. (joking of course)

btw i saw someone on here talk about DID and kinda forgot that other people have DID... even though both me and my husband have it... LMAO.

i don't really talk about it much because like, whenever i do, no one seems to give a shit 🥴. except for other systems lmao.

i am also kinda judgy because i think The Children (esp tiktok lmfao) have started to warp what it means to have DID into like, a fun little role playing game instead of something that comes from severe childhood trauma.

so like, i try to keep myself away from the Internet Community for DID. honestly it's a miracle that i met hubs who also has DID cuz i do try to stay away from the online DID comm. but i'm trying to find rational people with DID to connect with.

feels like trying to find a diamond in a coal mine most of the time... but yeah. ughhhh.

ANYWAY! all that to say if y'all want to hear anything about my experience with DID, my alters etc feel free to ask. otherwise like, i likely won't focus this journal much on that experience (even though it literally colors my entire life lmao) 

tw: disordered eating

i am on adderall and have been for a long time and it's always killed my appetite but now i'm also on wellbutrin and i'm like!! never hungry!!! it's a real problem

like hearing that most people eat three times a day im like "isn't that a bit excessive?" cuz i only eat once a day... and it's usually pretty small. i'm just like, not hungry. it's extremely bizarre.

i feel like eating more than once a day would legitimately make me sick. the psych suggested to eat before taking my meds and once they wore off in the evening but that's just not convenient enough for me. if i have to eat before i take my meds i'll forget to take my meds lmao. and by the time i get hungry in the evening i'm already winding down for bed

p much the only time i'm interested in eating is when i am cooking because that's a big hobby of mine haha 

my birthday was so good! it was my 33rd birthday. this is the stuff that elias got me! he knows i am super into planners so he got me a small printer (kodak zink) so i can put pictures in my planners! he also got me a washi dispenser which has been a GODSEND. and a bonsai starter kit (trying my best to get them to grow, i have a black thumb unfortunately) and some earrings that came with the extra gift that he would pay for me to get my ears repierced!

the cake was super good, too. it was a frozen yogurt cake from menchie's. it had coconut froyo and cake batter (the vegan kind) froyo, along with white cake, white frosting, caramel center with resee's, and sprinkles! it was super yummy. i'm really glad that we ate it before the power went out haha.

i have a friend from japan named hikaru, and we decided to exchange gifts. she spent $170 getting it shipped to me (dang!!!) my gifts were about that price to ship as well, but i told her i'd have to ship it over several months lol. it was filled with lots of good stuff including the new 2023 summer starbucks japan cup i wanted and lots of snacks!

from wednesday evening to saturday night, my power was out. that is quite a long time for the power to be out, but it would have been tolerable... had it not been summer in houston, tx. it was literally 85 degrees inside the house, super humid so the temperature felt like it was even hotter. literally unlivable. so, me & Elias (husband) and our two dogs and one cat all packed into my tiny sedan and lived in there until saturday night. come saturday night we were finally frustrated enough to get a hotel... and of course, two hours later, the power came back on. just our luck lol

we didn't get a chance to get any house hunting done, but we're now looking at the fairfield area. there's lots of houses that are there. but our realtor is being kind of flaky (has had a couple of vacations within a matter of a few weeks) and only is available weirdo times (like 11am? i have a 9-5, 11am isn't going to work ha.) so i'm looking into getting another realtor.

i had already contacted a different realtor, but she's being SUPER overbearing and annoying. she texted me being like "why did elias unsubscribe from email notifications??" like maybe because they're annoying as hell? & i told her we were looking more north and rural (fairfield) and she was like, "i don't serve that area. are you sure you don't want to live more south?" lady i am not buying a whole ass house in an area i don't want just because you don't feel like coming up north and showing me houses there.

omg... i watched the anju final BIG LOVE, and i don't have many words for take-chan's grad but i am super, super sad. she has been my fave ANGERME member since 2011 (12 years!) so i cried a lot when i watched her grad haha. it was just... really, really sad, but i'm glad that she's moving on and doing something she loves! calligraphy is an awesome career choice for her & an unusual one for an idol.

my doc put me on auvelity, which is apparently just a dextro/wellbutrin mix. i heard you can DIY which might be better than buying the med, because the med is brand new and not really covered by insurance. there are coupons, but what happens when the coupons run out & my insurance doesn't cover it? i'll talk to my psych about doing DIY auvelity with OTC dextro and rx wellbutrin if it comes to that. not super happy about this psych though because she requires in office visits every 3 months & i'm planning on moving away...

new guy starts today at work! if you didn't know, i'm the trainer (the only one lol) at my work, so i'll be working with him pretty closely once he's done onboarding. i'm super excited that we have a new person on our team! it's super overdue.

i made some icons, should i make a new dw for them or just post them here? hmm... 

we have been living out of our car since wednesday afternoon because i live in the hottest part of texas and a storm took down 500,000+ people's power and they are fixing ours last 🥲 we finally got tired of living out of our car and took ourselves and our pets to a hotel. ughhh.

holy shit i need a break from all this house shit. i made a throwaway email and phone number (thanks mysudo) just for movers because i know they spam the shit out of you and that was the smartest thing i ever did. i have literally over 200 emails from people trying to get ahold of me...

i hired a lawyer yesterday to help deal with the landlord. they've gotten so bad that we are honestly just at an impasse. the HOA agreed to not move forward with any action until after aug 31 when we are moved out, but still. ugh. can't wait to ream them out online when this is all over.

it seems like my gp called back, but i was in the shower. unless he was telling me he's sending over the sleep apnea study referral, then it probably wasn't important. i need a sleep study done very desperately. i haven't been able to sleep, even worse than usual in the past few weeks. which is exacerbating my exhaustion with everything else. 💤 

house hunting update! too tired to talk about bday today, but i can do that soon

on thursday, we drove about 30min north to the next biggest city (conroe tx). we are wanting to move more rural, because the city we are living in right now (spring tx) has become overpopulated, especially since covid.

our realtor is very nice, but seems to think the lesser populated suburbs are "rural." i grew up in a town that was 30min from the closest store and had 1,000 people so my idea of rural is way off from hers. anyway, we hit up the closest houses.

the first one was... bad.

it looks really nice from the outside but it 100% was not worth the 315k(!) asking price. yard was tiny, kitchen was tiny, layout was awkward, needed a ton of fixing up to do. it somehow managed to make 2,000sqft look tiny. nope, pass.

the second house i liked a lot.

this thing is HUGE. 3,100sqft, 5bd, 3ba. completely move in ready except one or two little things. it was at the top of our budget though (325k).

when we walked in, the alarm started going off high pitched, and our realtor didn't have the code- it wasn't given to her on the app. i tore out my hearing aids which helped a little, but then i went and explored the rest of the house.

you don't really realize how big over 3000sqft is until you're actually walking around. the thing was massive. i liked it a lot. the only downside is that the backyard was tiny and it was kind of close to a river. it wasn't technically in the flood plane, but you always have to be aware of that in houston.

for some reason, elias wasn't feeling it. i read the sellers disclosures and it said they were divorcing. and i was like "well, what is one guy going to do with 3000sqft house?" and the realtor was like "what are two guys going to do with it?" 🙄 lady don't test my ability to fill a house lmao.

so elias and i weren't seeing eye to eye on that one, but we put a pin in it for now.

third house we both agreed that we liked. 270k/1700sqft

it has some major curb appeal, and the design aesthetics fit me perfectly. i'm not one to particularly care how a house looks on the outside, but it's a nice bonus.

decent size, lots of natural light and windows, lots of built in cabinetry, nice walk in pantry. basically one story. whenever i walked in, i was seriously wowed and instantly crossed the other big house off the list in favor of this one. however...

there's not a very big kitchen and there's not much room to expand with new counters. it's serviceable, and i could probably find a way to work around it, but still.

the layout is super, super closed which is also a downside to me. it has an interesting feature where it has a staircase to a very small little den upstairs and that's the only thing upstairs. there is also a mystery sink up there?

another HUGE downside is that the laundry hookups are in the garage and don't have their own space. that would be fine if we were living up north, but whoever put those in the garage must have been smoking crack because we are in southern texas. we have been above 110 regularly this week. yeah, i'm not going to get heat stroke doing laundry. so we would have to install new laundry hookups somewhere in the actual house.

it was also a bit small for the asking price. yes, it's move in ready, but there a few upgrades i would need to do. 1700sqft is also close to our minimum (1500) and the actual house is probably 1500 because of the weird upstairs den. we are still potentially short listing this one.

fourth house looks like shit, but hear me out. (250k, 2000sqft)

already we liked this house because of the area. our realtor DEFINITELY did not because she is so much about curb appeal, and this one looks like dookie from the outside. the metal siding is actually a huge plus in texas, because it reflects the heat and can't be eaten up by bugs. it does need a fresh coat of paint and some front landscaping though. 

unfortunately our realtor was primed to be negative because she didn't like the way it looked on the outside. however, it has a super nice inside. it's really big, open, jack&jill bath between two bedrooms (which we would use as our office) and the master bedroom is really nice. huge laundry room (inside!) and i can't emphasize how much the layout was open, in a good way. it made the 2000sqft look like 2500 where the other house made the 1700 look like 1200. 

it also has a ton of land, nearly an acre. 

it's not perfect though. a fence would have to be built so we could let our dogs outside. it doesn't have a carport, which isn't a big deal to me, but i might want to add one in the future. the kitchen is fine but definitely i would like to remodel it. the realtor expressed concern that it wouldn't pass an inspection because there was a bump in the floor. i am not sure if that was her picking out the negative because she was primed for it or not, but it would definitely have to be addressed. 

all that being said, that one was shortlisted too. 

after we were done with the realtor, we drove an hour and a half north to a rural little one stoplight town that is more what i'm used to. it is a VERY nice little town with a hugely low crime rate. the biggest complaint some people have is "great for retirees but boring for everyone else" doesn't bother me, im a homebody lmao.

since we like that town so much, we decided to start looking at properties there, and wow! you can get so much bang for your buck. i think the other two houses we liked will end up being crossed off because of that. 

i never know what i'm looking for. maybe i should like, start watching house hunters or something? 

either way, we are going to look some more on friday. very excited!!! 

tomorrow is my 33rd birthday 🎉🎂

i'm old and balding someone help 

tw: sexual abuse/trauma, weight, eating disorders

venting about 600lb life

i really shouldn't be watching 600lb life in the throes of an eating disorder relapse but here we are

i have like, a love hate relationship with the show?

i love to see that the show seemingly goes out of its way to portray fat people in a way that seems to humanize them (at first at least.) they make it very clear from the beginning of the show how much their weight affects their ability to live a normal life and that it's primarily caused by trauma. almost everyone on the show has been traumatized at least once, most of them multiple times, many of them sexually abused

HOWEVER, dr now seems to do like, nothing with this information? the people on the show are always in need of some heavy therapy for their PTSD. but he just throws a pamphlet that says LOW CARB, HIGH PROTEIN, 1200 CALORIES A DAY at them and lists fruits and vegetables and to only eat three times a day and expects them to just... bootstraps themselves out of their eating disorder??? thanks it was useless. i would say 80% of people know why they're fat and a VLCD print out isn't going to help that much.

then he gets pissed off at them and blames them for not "wanting it enough" when they inevitably fail because this diet is just a bandaid for the underlying eating disorder? like dude this is the equivalent of printing a big ass smiley face on a piece of paper that says "don't worry, be happy!" and then telling a depressed person to look at it when they are sad and shocked pikachu when they relapse or never make progress in the first place

like, it makes me mad that the first thing that happens isn't immediate therapy. he only makes the people go to therapy like half the time, and usually 6+ months into their weight loss attempt, IF they are in danger of regaining lost weight (god forbid). otherwise he's just like "there's nothing else we can do for you, you don't want this enough"

i get that he wants to put them on VLCD to fix the immediate negative physical ramifications their weight is having, but can't he do that at the same time as therapy? he also only requires (provides?) one session a month. that is not nearly enough for people with trauma this extreme. the show i watched last night, the woman was sexually abused over her entire childhood and early adulthood by multiple unrelated people and incidents. you can't bootstrap yourself out of that!!

and the drive to houston is super problematic and sometimes straight up dangerous. instead of having them make the drive and sometimes move all together, he should really consider having them do local therapy or teletherapy for X sessions first.

ALSO, sometimes he sends over nutritionists. this should 100% be part of onboarding for every single person on the show, or at least be introduced a few months down the line regardless of their progress. most people on the show scoff at it and ignore it, but i saw an episode the other day where that was a major turning point for the lady because she genuinely didn't realize the stuff that she was eating was high calorie. she was extremely receptive (albeit somewhat embarrassed) and switched out all her stuff to low fat (read: low calorie) and... surprise! she started losing weight.

like, i also don't even know if i like that the show airs out all their trauma on live Tv. i'm almost certain it's a requirement to be in the show(and get free weight loss help) but a lot of people are like "i've never trips anyone this before" and now the whole world knows!!!

i feel like the implication is also that you can't be fat unless you have some "reason" to be, like overeating due to trauma. when like, you can have an ED that is not linked to trauma, and you can also be a big eater without trauma, and naturally big.

kinda feels to me like the entire show is dehumanizing and a sideshow type thing where people point and laugh because this person doesn't look like us "healthy" people, under the guise of "health." dr. now can be incredibly cruel and rude to the point of some of the rude things he says becoming memes- "why you eat so much?" with his face is a top selling magnet on red bubble for example. it's the same rhetoric that a lot of online concern trolls pill "i don't care about them eating, i just care about their health!!!!"

as an aside, i heard they pay people to shower on camera so every single episode starts with them showering on camera which is yucky. not yucky because of them showering but yucky because it feels like they paid vulnerable poor people to depict themselves in a way that dehumanizes them, with somehow also having a voice over of them talking about their trauma? and they seem to have no moral quandary about this. the entire show seems predatory to be honest and the time spent talking about their trauma is like 3min at the beginning and then it's instantly buried in the other hour and a half unless it's a direct plot point

dats all. peace 

are you ever so tired that you feel nauseous? yea dat me. i got the worst sleep in the world last night!! i think i'm all worried about the house? though i am going to have a sleep study done soon because i'm like 98% sure i have sleep apnea which def isn't helping

i am very, very lucky and blessed to be working from home so i can roll over to my home office and try not to fall asleep at my desk

i work in the ophthalmology field... sites send us pictures of eyeballs they took of patients in clinical trials taken in various ways and i look at them and make sure the sites didn't fuck up. basically QA

i don't really do that as much anymore because i was promoted to ophthalmology training specialist (fancy title) so i mostly train people now and spend a lot of my day fussing around in powerpoint to make sure that images are aligned properly

but!! that means i'm not as subject to the metrics as most other people (i still worry about them tho.) a typical IQCS (image quality control specialist) is supposed to look at and process 1000+ images per month but i've been told it's okay if i do 300-500 in a normal month and less if i'm training people

but i still get paranoid and end up doing like...700 a month every month because i'm neurotic

i can't do that tho because we are hiring a few new people soon! so i'm scrambling to make sure all our newbie powerpoints are updated properly

i'd honestly rather be messing around in powerpoint than processing images, but my manager has been weirdly micromanagey towards myself and everyone else lately so it's been hard to, yknow, actually do my job lmao

i'll find a balance one of these days 😭 

my birthday is on the 18th! i made a colorful journal spread~

also we got approved for a house loan!!! some crazy person decided to give us $375,000 to buy a house lol

i'll try to keep this updated with our progress!!!! 

I cooked swordfish for the first time...! It was a little tricky because I haven't bought a food thermometer but it still came out really good. Thickest fish I've had to cook, so it was a bit difficult. I marinaded it and paired it with tricolor quinoa and asparagus. Then for dessert I had this really good Cappuccino gelato.

I really needed a way to calm down today after all the drama - the landlord is claiming watering the lawn for an extra 30 minutes per week killed it (!!!) No, this was my landscapers suggestion, and the suggestion of the 10,000 other websites I checked first. She still refuses to admit that she is wrong and needs to cut down the damn gigantic tree for the lawn to recover. And has the nerve to threaten to evict me over a small brown patch on the yard caused by her negligence!!

Oh well. It can't be helped. I had a really good dinner, so I'm happy for that. 

So, I've been fighting with the HOA right? or at least I thought I was. they sent a threatening letter a few weeks ago about our front lawn being dead, saying they were going to take legal action if i didn't fix it.

I sent a ton of receipts showing i had done everything in my power to fix it, and now it's on the landlord to trim the GIGANTIC tree in the front yard that is not allowing the freaking grass to grow

surprisingly!!! the HOA lady was super nice and on our side:

she only lives two doors down from me so she came to my house to vent about shitty landlords. she only took over the HOA because the old one was awful. she seems like a genuinely kind person.

The realty company not so subtly threatened to not renew our lease for this which is super illegal in the state of tx so i will be pursuing legal action if they choose to do that

SILVER LINING - this finally kicked our butts into gear to move and we are considering buying a house!!!! there's a lot of shit that goes into buying a house tho.

elias (husband) told me last night, "we are getting super ripped off there are cheaper, bigger places for rent around here for less money"

and i was like "i know, why do you think i rant and rave and am in a shitty mood all day every time we get a lease renewal and they hiked up our rent" 😭

to be honest, i'm glad they pulled this shit when they did because now we actually have time to move lmfao 

This freaking journal is ancient. If I end up adding anyone else, please don't judge me from my past entries. There's only a smattering of entries, and when I started this journal in 2009, I was 18 and going through a lot of shit.

I'm now 32 (turning 33 in a couple of weeks) and still going through shit, but the shit is more like, adult shit and not so much teenage trauma type shit. 

um, where do I even begin? the last time I made a substantial update was in 2017 or 2018, so 5 or 6 years ago.

I've been through 2 jobs since then, and on the third one. (I swear I'm not a job hopper, the first one laid me off and the second one treated me like garbage)

I was in the linguistics industry, then switched over to my current job in ophthalmology. I work in research studies now.

Toni still pees all over, but she hasn't peed on me since then. We just diaper her, as it's a medical problem. Evil is still a butthead, but not a kitten anymore. We adopted another dog from Elias' mom.

I moved from my tiny apartment into a house in 2019. I am actually currently in a legal dispute with the landlord and expect them to (illegally retaliate) not renew my lease at the end of August. So now, we are looking into buying a house for the first time.

It's wild to look back and look at the kind of stuff I was worried about as a teenager. Like, celebrating that my dad finally let me have my computer in my bedroom (in the days before smartphones lmfao) and fussing over my grandma not wanting me to live with her.

My grandma actually passed away shortly after that, and shortly before she died she apologized about not letting me stay and said I could stay whenever I wanted. What an awful thing to think about now. i was acting like such a brat. I don't know why I couldn't just enjoy her company without bickering over something useless.

I've made a shit ton of progress since that first entry (almost 15 years ago!!)

I just can't believe I was so worried about my computer not being in my bedroom... 

honestly i'm tired of being treated like garbage consistently from literally everyone i know but what can i do

Oh my god I am so tired. This weekend was just exhausting. Toni keeps peeing everywhere and peed directly on me. We got the cat neutered so he was throwing a fit. We went to D&B for the Fall Convention at work, and that was fun. We also created a Halloween gingerbread house, or at least decorated it. I got pushed out of my tier for bang dream because I dared to go to sleep. I mixed something I was really proud of and my friend tore it down. Basically, I'm just glad the weekend is over for once.

prompts i missed:

27 What are three things from this past month that have been eye-opening?
1) meditation works
2) i need to exercise to feel good
3) hello fresh is amazing

28 What are three things from this past month that have been antagonising?
1) trauma shit as usual
2) pure exhaustion from having to do so much
3) work

29 How are you feeling today?
see above, first paragraph