UGH

It should NOT be this difficult for me to find a job!!!!!

To-Do

There are lots of things I could be doing right now. Perhaps I need to purge my thoughts before I can organize my day.

Still no job but I applied for several today. What else is new? Was just about to walk out the door to take an application up to Starbucks, but called ahead and the manager is out of town. Now I think I'll wait. Some more.

In other news, I had to schedule a biopsy on my thyroid for next week. I'm not so excited about this. Beside the fact that they're going to be sticking a needle in my neck, the doctor said it was a 10-15% chance that it was something serious. Obviously, that freaks me out, so I think I'll stop thinking about it, starting....now.

Kennedy and I worked all weekend on the house. Since I don't have a job, Labor Day was the opposite for me. While everyone else rested, I worked. Kennedy worked too, but he never stops working. We replaced our front porch lighting fixtures, as well as put one in the kitchen that the dear previous owners decided to take with them (along with all our switch plates and outlet covers and shower heads - do I bring that up too much? I feel like I've said that a lot already...)

Kennedy also trimmed some more branches out front so the house is now visible from across the street.

Our old lighting fixture, available on Craigslist soon!

Our new fixtures (There is one on either side of the door)

Here is the light fixture we FINALLY, after about a month of talking about it, decided on.

This is what the trees out front looked like before...

And here it is after...There are still more limbs we want to trim back, but we do not have the necessary ladder height at this time.

Kennedy and our neighbor, Chuck, repaired the columns on the back patio that had been chewed apart by the dear previous owners' bull dogs. Then Kennedy and I painted over all the stains, dirt, and who knows what else. They now look nice, new, and white.

This is in the process of repair - I didn't get any before pictures of the columns, but you can see around the corners where the dogs had chewed holes in the columns. You can also see how dirty and stained the wood was.

Here they are, finished!

Here's another column with some of the monkey grass my mom and I transplanted from the front yard.

I painted our stair risers and have started to paint the baseboards and molding in the stair case. Of course, now I'm going to have to paint ALL THE MOLDING in the house so that it will all match. But it all needs new paint anyway, as there are lots of chips and scratches and stains.

Here it is before....

Here it is after....or in the process, I should say. You'll notice I got white paint all over the walls, but that's only because I'm going to paint over that awful grey/purple/what is that color anyway?

This house continually needs work, but it's such satisfying work. It's been so fun to see the house come together, little by little. I'd like to start painting our shutters and front door this week, if I can talk Kennedy into climbing a ladder and taking them down for me...We shall see.

"It's all about who you know"

That's what I heard someone say behind me in line about 30 times this morning. Well guess what? I don't know ANYONE in the Mansfield school district, which is why I stood in line outside the Stadium for 30 minutes, only to be turned away from a substitute teaching orientation.

The economy is really bad, guys. Everyone is saying it, so it must be true.

That was supposed to go until 11:30, but here I sit. Disoriented.

Job searches are exciting for about 3 days, and only when you still have your old job that sucks, but you see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now I'm in that "light" and I have a sunburn, so to speak. By this I mean, I've been overexposed to the light that is quitting my old job that sucks. Is any of this making sense?

In other news, the house is coming along. Two nights ago, I FINALLY set up the office. It's cleaner, and better, but not finished. Still needs paint, new office furniture, new closet doors, etc.

Last night, I FINALLY implemented Phase 1 of cleaning our master bathroom. Actually, I guess it would be more accurate to say I completed Phase 1, since we'd already been using this bathroom. LONG STORY SHORT, I put shelf paper in all the dirty drawers so now my stuff can sit in them without my worrying that someone else's hair or makeup is contaminating my things.

I swear, every time I try to clean something in this house, I go through an entire canister of Clorox wipes, and find things that continue to amaze me. Last night, one of the bathroom drawers was filled with sawdust. I can't help but wonder if this is on purpose? Surely, it is....

Elvis has developed a love of the swimming pool. A few minutes ago I peeked in the backyard and he was sitting on the edge of the hot tub, just staring out over the pool. He's even claimed his own pool float. Luckily, he's only really interested in it when we're in it.

Elvis on his floatie.

Looking like a wet rat.

So hopefully, some progress will be made on the house this weekend, and I can post some more pictures. I did paint our bedroom last week, and Kennedy installed his surround-sound in the living room this week. More painting, maybe?

Waiting...

Well, I got some Adobe products the other day in the mail, and am just getting a chance to install them. Little did I know it would take 1-2 hours to completely install. I'm probably not helping the situation by surfing the 'net, but it's 11:33 at night and I have to find something to keep myself busy as I eject and insert disc after disc.

So as I sit here, the only thing I hear is the constant chirp of a cricket behind the fridge. It's LOUD. Loud, as in, I went upstairs and Kennedy was watching TV (which is always on full volume) and I could still hear the chirp. And I wouldn't really describe it as a chirp, because it has not ceased. It's more like a long whistle, or an alarm clock, or "the most annoying sound in the world" that Jim Carrey makes in Dumb & Dumber.

This cricket is not the only pet we've inherited with the property, by the way. We've also inherited about 30 geckos, which all prefer to stay in the house and run along the baseboards. There are also some screaming locusts in the backyard that like to jump on you when you're sitting at the edge of the pool at night, those jokers. And then of course, there are cats. I wonder if Kennedy knows that we have cats? So far I've seen 2 that like our back yard, and torment Elvis by lingering near the window when he's trapped inside.

I think I'd rather just have another dog.

So, Saturday evening, Kennedy and I hosted our very first "event" at our house - a family cookout/thank you to all those who helped us get this place livable. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately, I didn't really stop to take any pictures. There is 1 on my iphone, but I'll have to figure out how to get that on here another time. But I'll probably forget, so just imagine lots of family sitting around our nice, clean patio, chatting and eating burgers.

Tomorrow starts my guerilla-style job hunt. It's time to go to the trenches and get this job thing wrapped up. More on that later.

Time to insert another disc!

Takin' a breather

I'm finally getting a moment to sit down and rest! I've been going non-stop for the past week. Kennedy and I FINALLY (3 1/2 months after we put in our offer) closed on our house last Friday. It has been a long and torturous journey but we finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel. There was a mountain of trash/overgrown yardstuffs/more trash to wade through before we could have our own stuff moved in. And with our stuff came a new wave of boxes and packing paper!

Here are some pictures of what we encountered when we first arrived on Saturday morning.

An upstairs guest bedroom with be-be pellets all over the floor, among other things...

Laundry room with soap stuck to the floor, a broken cabinet, and a snake-skin in one of those drawers!

Our swamp pool.

Not pictured is tons of grimy dirt and junk that had to be wiped down before it was livable space. There is still lots to clean before I feel OK about it! The house is slowly becoming ours and we're looking forward to doing lots of entertaining here.

We couldn't have done any of this without help from our family and friends. They've been so helpful and supportive throughout! (For example, my mom used 4 of her vacation days just to do our yard work, and uncovered some treasures along the way.)

As I'm writing, Elvis is curled up in my lap sleeping like a little angel. He has been so neglected this week (not literally, but starved for attention) and I look forward to having most everything in order so he can get the attention he deserves.

Another thing I'm looking forward to is getting back on the ball about finding some employment. Also, I'm in the process of learning the adobe products and some web design so I can help out my dear mother-in-law with her ministry's website, www.prayinglife.org.

I'm hoping to learn enough so I can take it over completely! Muahaha.

I'm currently running on fumes here, needing a little bit of a break. However, the work is never-ending here! I'm off to tackle more rooms.