I’m a homeowner?!

I’m ready for a nap now.

Before and After pictures. The before was actually taken at the beginning of June

After

There are about 40 people in my office.

Yesterday 12 of them received notice that they are being laid off.

One group is done August 1, another group is done December 1.

Thankfully, I was not one of the 12 people.

I’ve been struggling with this for years now. For awhile it was out of control and I was having frequent panic attacks. For awhile it was completely under control and I almost forgot what it was like to have an attack.

Unfortunately it looks like my meds aren’t working anymore, maybe I need a higher dose or just a different med. I don’t know. But I need something because what I have now just ain’t workin’.

Granted there is new stress. Serious job uncertainty in a world where the job market STINKS. Credit card debt to dig out of, which isn’t fun to begin with but pair that with the very real possibility of losing your job and the “badness” increases exponentially. Add to that the cost of home heating oil and I think my head just might explode.

Found my resume last night, which is huge because I haven’t been able to find it since….oh…..forever. The really funny thing is, I found the hard copy that my now finace faxed to the company I now work for….he faxed it back in December 1996. Thank goodness I kept that. So I don’t need to start over, just need to update and get it on monster.com. I was feeling a little better after finding my resume.

But then I woke up this morning. In a cold sweat. Damn I forgot how awful that is.

Then the engine light in my car went on today. A normal person would probably get irritated, swear a little and then say “ok, need to bring it in to get looked at”. Me? Nope. I broke into a cold sweat and stayed that way for the entire 25 minute ride home. Fought back tears the entire ride too. I couldn’t even stay to visit my parents like I usually do, for whatever reason I HAD. TO. GET. HOME. Apparently to me, the engine light was the end of the world. I have no idea why. I still get freaked out when I look outside at my car.

The anxiety is starting to come back in a more constant state now, instead of just being an over-reaction to a bad situation it’s happening randomly again. Not good. That’s the worst part, the randomness. I still remember one attack when I was living alone. It was really late at night (or, really early in the morning…) and I was watching I Love Lucy on Nick at Night because I wasn’t able to sleep. Funny show, right? So what do I do? I start the whole crying, trouble breathing, “have to get out” etc routine. It was awful and it came out of nowhere.

So anyway. I have to call my doctor tomorrow morning to see if he’ll give me a new script so I can get through this. And I took a vacation day, but due to “stuff” that happened (or, more to the point, DIDN’T happen) on Friday I think I’m going to go in. And, I’ll have to take my car to get looked at. Hope it isn’t anything expensive. Maybe it’s just a bad sensor or something.

*sigh*

Damn.

Went to work at 9am at Target this morning and gas was $3.93.

Came home from work at 4:45pm this afternoon and gas was $4.06.

There’s something very, very wrong with that.

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Lots of yardwork today. Used my good camera to take pictures of the other part of the yard so I can’t download them yet, but here are a few of the side yard where I dug up 2 shrub stumps and 4 yukka plants.

The well pump apparently died somewhere between 12:30 last night and 6:00 this morning. Oh the joys of owning a house. Right now it looks like it’ll be at least $2,000, hopefully it won’t end up being much more than that. Thank goodness I set aside money in a “house fund” for times like this. Although to be honest, I figured we’d be fixing the boiler first. So I’ll have to replenish the fund…so much for the big credit card paydown. I’ll do 1 check for the credit card and the next for the house fund (Target checks…not the regular ones) for awhile. At least the well guys are nice, right?

****updated*****

we have water!

apparently we need a new water tank too, he thinks that’s what blew the pump. So his original ballpark that he gave me was around $1800. now add $800. While you’re at it, round up to $3k to be safe. We can handle it. that’s what the “house fund” is for. But nothing else can go wrong for a long time….

Just thought I’d throw out a few random things. With pictures.

Yes it’s pretty but I’m soooooo done with winter

We’ve had a lot of rain so far this year.

My knitting project, and my helper.

The bulbs I planted last year are growing!!!

And just cuz she’s so damn cute

Well. A lot has changed since my last post. The biggest change is I now have a second job, I work part time at Target. I’m really surprised, I don’t mind working there. The people I’ve worked with are really great and it’s certainly not brain surgery so it’s not difficult or anything like that. Two major drawbacks though. 1. I’m exhausted. My usual shifts are 6-11 and there are nights we don’t leave until 12-12:30. Makes it tough to get up the next morning for my real job. and 2. I never see John anymore. I keep saying that I”ll do this for a year and then re-evaluate. Maybe after a year I’ll cut back on my hours (right now I’m doing about 20 hours/week. We’ll see. The primary goal is to pay down as much debt as possible, and throw some money into the house fund for repairs, etc.

 Bought myself a Nintendo DS…loving the SuperMario (just like the original!) and I got Zelda last night. Addictive. *sigh* We also have Guitar Hero for the Wii, we gave it to Ryan for his birthday. Played that for about an hour last night. Fun stuff! (everything paid in cash, not adding to the debt, just not reducing it when we buy stuff like this….but the Wii game was a gift for Ryan and the DS…well….yea, I should used the money on debt but I’m really having fun with it)

I’m currently knitting a scarf…nothing complicated at all (k2 p2 and then purl the last stitch of every row. I think it’s called mistake rib?)  but I like the way it’s coming out. Also bought double pointed needles of death and yarn to try a pair of socks. *shudder* I apologize in advance for any swearing or screaming you might hear coming from my house. I don’t exactly have a lot of patience and I have a feeling that will be a problem. We’ll see.

Going on a scrapbook bus tour on 4/5, excited about that. It’s fun to go to a bunch of different stores and not have to worry about driving or getting lost or anything. Heck, I can even knit when we’re on the road. Kind of makes me sound like a grandma doesn’t it? LOL This is one of the few scrapbook things I’m doing this year. We didn’t do the Cape crop, which is very sad because this is the first year we missed it and we always have such a good time. But we just couldn’t justify the cost this year. So sad. Maybe (hopefully) next year. I will be doing the SDV though, even if I end up going by myself. I can swing the $160ish for a local package (ie. no hotel) and since I have zero free time now, it’ll be nice to get some pictures scrapped. I need to work on the house album….the cruise album (my goodness….the cruise was in September 2006 and I barely have any pages done!) and we won’t even talk about my Disney albums from 2003 and 2005 trips. I hope I can get some preplanned page kits ready so I can really get stuff done.

I guess that’s about it for now…