The Tarantula Whisperer

bronzeashtray:
I've been rather incommunicado lately. I realize this and berate myself sufficiently. ;)

I have moved into a new apartment. It's indescribably wonderful! It's the 3rd (mostly - explain in a moment) floor of an old house about a block away from campus. This is brilliant in that it will save me a lot of gas money, and I'm walking distance to not only campus, but coffee shops and other college experience type things. Whether I'm too old to be excited about this or not has become a moot issue because I've decided to not care.

My apartment is very awesome. I want to take some videos with my camera when I get it all set up (never done that before, but hopefully it will work), but a brief description: An old house with 3 apartments in it. You walk into mine on the second floor into the kitchen. The kitchen is the only thing on the 2nd floor - there's a very large window and sufficient space to actually make a real meal (as opposed to my last apartment where the kitchen was a corner of my main room and not actually a room unto itself). You walk up a flight of stairs and upstairs is a sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom. It's not huge... no, fuck that, it IS huge for less than $500/month, and it's very unique and makes me feel at HOME. I never feel at home. In fact, there's been times in my life where I've wondered if I've ever felt at home. It's hard to explain my childhood, and I'm still trying to interpret it... I wasn't dramatically bad, but lonely and dull can do a number on a 8 year old. Eh, fuck... anyway, I feel at home here and I feel proud of where I live because it's 100% mine, it's not the ghetto, it's nice, and I worked hard to get here. Those are new feelings.

Things are never perfect, but living here makes things seem... well, it makes me feel like I finally have a place where I feel safe from the instability of the rest of the world.

bronzeashtray:
I like msn.com cause they have lots of picture. I look at their slideshows a lot when I'm procrastinating on sleep, and today's made me smile and nod my head in agreement a lot. I thought I'd share the link because it's about happiness, and I think sometimes people forget how to be happy.... and also forget what doesn't cause happiness.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/mental-health/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100210274>1=31009

Speaking of happy, I'm finally moving to my new apartment. I'm handing in my keys here tomorrow and moving over to the new place. I've been on vacation since last Thurs and have off until this Thurs, so that's made the move a lot easier, but it's still pretty lame moving things up and down a bunch of stairs. No biggie considering my new apartment is such awesomeness. I wont have internet hooked up until Friday, but that's also not a biggie. At least I wont be distracted by it while I try to set up the apartment. I'll try to take some pictures and post them for anyone who's interested.

Life's far from perfect, but it's pretty good right now.

beaniesue:

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

beaniesue:
I've spent the afternoon watching America's Ballroom Challenge on IPTV. Currently it's the International Latin finals with fringe and tight pants and pretending to be a bull and a cape. I'm also reading a blog of a woman from Canada who moved to Japan to teach 1st and 3rd graders English. Ole and Kawaii!

heatherie:

Today's word is run.

You have 60 seconds to write whatever about whatever the topic is.

Man, I wish I could run again. I remember running and actually enjoying it when I was a little kid. And now just the THOUGHT of running makes me tired. 5 years ago when I was a nursing assistant at the VA, I would be the code runner sometimes. That's a person who has to run full speed to fetch something during a code. It's life or death and you can't NOT be able to run.

heatherie:

Well, I decided today that I'm going to start the FLY lady thingie again. I did it before I was with Jason, and it helped me out a lot. But then I just let the habits fall. I need to NOT do that.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, www.flylady.com is a website that helps you establish a cleaning routine so you're just spending a few minutes a day cleaning, and staying on top of it.

My biggest problem with keeping my house clean is this: it's really messy, and I finally am un-depressed enough to clean it. So I have to clean for hours and hours (the dishes usually take me a few hours if it's been a long time since they were done) and then I just HURT. And so I don't want to clean again for a couple of days, cause I just cleaned it! So then in that few days, the house gets all messy and crappy again, so I have to clean for hours again, and then I don't want to clean for a few days....... and on and on and on.

But if I can stay on top of the cleaning and only have to pick up for 15 minutes a day and do major cleaning once a week, I could do that. I can do that.

And I do like it much more when my house is clean. It just makes me feel good in my soul. I just hate being the one to DO the cleaning. *heh*

So today I shined my sink. That's her first step - the first habit she has you change. And MAN oh MAN!!! I did not realize how filthy my sink was! I pulled out this nasty black shit from in the crevises and it was gross. But it looks AWSOME now!! It looks so awsome that I think when I go upstairs again, I may start cleaning something else, because it's so motivating to see that sink so clean and uncluttered. She says the shiny sink it a reflection of how much you love yourself. And I'm tired of loathing myself.
So I really hope this helps me out.