i put an application in for an apartment yesterday.
I'm a little hesitant to broadcast it until my application gets accepted. The only issue I'm going to have is that I haven't paid 2 mortgage payments (on the counsel of my bank mind you) so i don't know what kind of hit my credit score has taken and whether an apartment manager would see me as too much of a risk. Hopefully if there's an issue they'll let me explain that they should be able to see my last NINE years of ownership i haven't missed a single payment.

I'm excited about the apartment itself - it's in a new building and the unit i want to habitate in probably won't be ready until Mid-November unfortunately. There are three phases of building and phase one is done - but these units are all around the pool and phase two will be around a courtyard/garden area. I think that would be super more pretty to look on.

The building has pretty much the same amenities as the others - a fitness room, common areas with perks, completely gated - and whats even nicer is the parking lot itself is not only gated but the entrance from to the apartment building is within the garage. That seems safer to me.

It's also located in a different neighborhood than I'm in right now - it's located in Inman Park in a section called "Old 4th Ward" - so it's a good mix of super old houses and new complexes like this one. It's also 2 blocks from some good restaurants and cafes and shopping AND the interstate AND really only 5 mins from my work. I'm paying a bit more to live basically downtown/midtown but I think it's worth it. You can see the Atlanta Midtown skyline from some of the units (like the ones over the pool which I don't want). OH and i forgot to mention each unit has very sizable balconies which are covered which means I could probably put a couch out there or something!

So, I'm excited to start moving onward and upward!
Even though i have to be patient and wait a little longer (and hope my house doesn't sell in the meantime so I'll be homeless) i think it will be worth it and it just gives me more time to go through everything that's been in my basement packed for a year and decide whether i actually want/need it or not. Maybe I'll have a garage sale ... or just freecycle it all. Which would be easier!

Last night I was in a fragile mood and got a couple of art journal pages completed.
In my new art journal #2 :D (in case you missed it, i got my first art journal ever done!)

Yeah ... I was obviously listening to U2 last night :D :-p

( Read more... )

my realtor called me at 6pm last night to tell me she was relisting my house that night.
my bank had called her earlier in the day to tell her they've esclated my short sale case because i missed my mortgage payment but needed proof we still had a buyer.
which we don't.

so now we're offering it at a crazy price - $140,000 (if you recall i originally listed it exactly one year ago at $199k) - hoping to get an offer within 1 week.
She has 2 weeks, i guess, to get the paperwork to the bank.

anyways, i cleaned like i haven't cleaned in 2 months.
which is true.
cause i haven't cleaned in 2 months.

i didn't get to the bathroom, but i got to the kitchen and the bedrooms and half-assed the livingroom.
just in case someone wants to see it today.
i hate the stress of having to show the house - especially since i've been so busy at work it would be a big deal to leave during the day to show it. And i have to work all weekend, so i'm thinking of doing something crazy and bringing the dogs with me to work. They should be fine - i'll keep them on leash or barricade my cube entrance so they can't get out.

ready for madness to stop.

Daily Horoscope Wednesday, August 12, 2009
No matter how difficult things seem to get today, you need to try to keep moving forward. You may surprise yourself -- and quite a few others -- as you make progress against all odds.

Yes, please ... may I have another ...

Universe is again ganging up on me and it's taking all my power and energy to not just "take 2 xanax and call you in the morning".

First, my brother is terribly sick and in London.
He was in the USA when it happened and spent a night in a hospital in Long Island and had an MRI and other extraneous tests done - all UNCOVERED by insurance. He was found to have kidney stones AND pnuemonia and was given drugs for both - UNCOVERED by insurance. My dad is FREAKING out about how much this will cost... I'm sure Dan will to once he gains consciousness again. (He's not in a coma, just sleeping 22 hours a day).

But then he goes back to London and ends up back in the hospital for 3 days in what sounds like hellish conditions. I can't wait to learn more about the Brits emergency healthcare system after he gets healthy...

But to pile onto all of this my parents recently sold my mother's parents house that my mom had been holding onto for the last 4 years since her mother passed. She has been unable to part with it. But my father finally convinced her for mostly financial reasons - and not only is she uber-depressed and morose about the sale of the house, but is super pissed at my father who is also super pissed at her so they're a joy to be around or speak to at different times. From what I gather they go for days without talking to each other even though they live in the same house.

Lessee, what else.
Oh, my divorce is dragging on and have been told by my lawyer for the last 3 weeks "almost done...." but there keeps having to be more shit signed. But, I think I got the last of everything signed and Fed Ex'd and today was the deadline for the judge to have everything. So, perhaps this week it will be done.... Eric left one year and 8 days ago... I haven't felt regret, just remorse.

I can't afford my house. The buyer pulled out and the bank is dragging its feet on the short sale. My realtor talked to them a couple of weeks ago and was told the only cases they are proceeding with any expediency now are people who aren't paying mortgage. So, I have been advised to skip my next mortgage payment. While I should feel relieved that I have an extra $1200 ... I do not. There is more to just skipping a payment - my near perfect credit score being shot to hell, eric's credit score being affected unbeknown to him, the anxiety of foreclosure ... etc ... etc ... however, this $1200 is already spent because 2 weeks ago the two credit cards i have been using for things like grocery and gas decided to lower my limits to their current balances so now i have no credit. So I make $2000 a month and have $2200 in expenses and no credit card ... ya, i'm a little stressed and about to dip into the last of my Kinko's 401k from 10 years ago.

Brian is depressed and distraught beyond words because his own life has fallen apart. I can't comfort him, especially since he lives 750 miles away. I feel like i'm clinging on from the sidelines.

It's either this damn Prozac or stress but i have no creativity or creative impulses lately. It's really really freaking me out and bumming me out. All i want to do lately is sleep, eat pizza and drink wine. So, thats nice - i've gained back more than half the weight i worked so hard to lose and don't have money to buy new clothes since i threw out all my "fat" clothes. Why did god make it so it took a year to lose 4 dress sizes, but only 3 months to gain them back?!

At least i have my health ... oy vey ....

trying to keep it together.
man, i am sick of life throwing curves!
serenity now!

( financial )

uh oh
starting to feel like i'm loosing a little bit of grip....

i got an offer on my house!
but it was super low and today i put a counter offer in.

i have two major issues that could effect the sale:
- i can't afford the money i would need to bring to the closing if the sale goes to low and the bank won't loan me any money (they will ONLY do a short sale which is laaaaammmeeee. i mean wtf, i'm trying to be responsible and save them money and they say stfu ... wtfever)

- my divorce is draaaaaggggiinnngggg due to circumstances beyond my control

not to mention when my house sells i finally need to figure out the next step in my life...

Plus work the last week is the suck big time - it's beyond chaos, it's beyond manageable. The only positive thing is cha-ching overtime pay. But it's almost not worth the stress it's putting me under.
I hate it when management makes decisions without actually having been educated in the environment for which they are making decisions for.

i don't care if that doesn't make sense. my head hurts...
i'm so overwhelmed i, for the first time EVER, locked myself out of my house tonight and had to call my dog walker to let me in. I'm so overwhelmed i have no desire to create art which bums me the most :(

first of all, twitter and fb are killing my journalling abilities.
let me just admit that off the bat.
anyone else having this issue?
why spend 4 paragraphs when you can spend 140 characters?
anyways

yesterday i had the most productive day and i am a little in awe of it.
a little in awe because just weeks ago the amount of stuff i did would have been insurmountable - it would be overwhelming and have me paralyzed in confusion and self-pity.
So, i consider it a line in the sand i have passed!

At noon i went to Freddy's weight lifting class. He was subbing which is why i went - i haven't been going to the weight lifting classes for months because i'm so out of shape. But i love me some Freddy so i went. And he picked on me half the class cause i wasn't neccessarily half assed doing stuff but for real these days i can only do like 8 push ups before feeling like i'm going to fall on my face. Not to mention tricep dips. But good on him, for the first time in so so so so long, my muscles were twitching after class and that felt AWESOME!

OK, so I've decided to get my house back on the market ASAP and i was aiming for this weekend. My new realtors recommended doing a bunch of stuff first so since Saturday I've been doing it! But Monday night i took everything out of all my closets (4 of them) to either throw out, pack, freecycle or put neatly back in. But then i received some disturbing news from a good friend and decided to have a couple shots of scotch to calm down. That kind of killed my momentum.

So, I decided to leave work early yesterday to finish up cause it was stressing me out living in a house torn apart! I left at 2pm. So this is what i did between 2:15 and 8pm:

- put back all 4 closets worth of stuff in a very organized fashion

- painted living room wall cause i had spackled and touched up painted but the paint was the wrong shade so i ended up just painting the entire wall.

- made 6 trips to the basement with shit i packed

- swept and mopped my entire house

- went to Ross and got a bedding set for $40 to stage my extra bedroom. Also got a pretty painting of an angel and woman

- went to Lowes and got hydrangea planters for the front of my house. i've been wanting hydrangea's since basically moving to atlanta and discovering the most beautiful flower

- came home and planted and mulched plants

- moved extra futon into backroom, went back downstairs and brought up 4 large packed totes and propped the futon up on them to make it look like a bed. Then took the $40 bedding and wrapped the skirt around the bottom and draped the comforter over the top. The futon is a twin size, and i bought queen size bedding so it totally obscures the fact it's not a real bed! I thought that up all on my own biatch!

- reorganized my bedroom so i could sleep in it :)

- dealt with the 8 things i have on freecycle right now (thats more work than you would think!)

- went through all my dvds which were stacked after 3 months of not going through them and i packed away anything i probably wouldn't watch for awhile and kept out everything else. I am incredibly surprised and impressed that i was able to find all 36 Seinfeld DVDs and put them in order! I was watching alot of Seinfeld that month i couldn't sleep so they were spread all over the place.

i believe that was everything.
The only things i didnt do that i had wanted to was put together an end table i had bought and put up 4 pieces of artwork on the walls, but i didn't feel like finding tools after that and Idol was about to come on.

Oh, my realtor came by at 5pm to do a final walkthrough and since i couldn't get the guy who is going to pressure wash the outside of my house to come before Saturday we decided to list next Tuesday (on the assumption the photographer can come Monday). However, she will probably put the sign up Monday. I have a good feeling about this ... i mean i have to, right?!

what the fuck is going on
i have like an army of earwigs in my house and i just went on my porch and there are like fucking 100 leeches or nasty wall worms all over the place.
and when i came back in one of the leeches was on my living room wall.
i think i'm going to be sick.
i vacuumed it up, but this is really nasty.

i don't remember this happening before here.
of course it would have to happen when i don't have anyone around to kill them all for me.
yes, i admit it, i'm a fucking prissy ass girl when it comes to bugs and creepy crawlies.
can't stand them.
at all.

god, i think i'm going to be sick.

i hate feeling stressed out about everything i want/need to do over a weekend.
yesterday i did alot, but not really.
its list time to sort my head out about what needs to be a priority and what can be pushed.

first, saw The Faint last night.
I believe it is my 6th time seeing them, but something makes me think there is a 7th i can't remember.
It was at the Variety Playhouse again, a venue in Atlanta with some of the best sound. However for some reason there were all sorts of PA problems last night, including it totally blowing during the Ladytron set and the show had to be stopped for about 15 minutes. Boooooooo
But the Faint was pretty fun as usual, although Gretchen and I couldn't quite put our fingers on it, but it was a little more lackluster than the other times we've seen them.
I know I was feeling ill from dinner so don't know if that had any cause.

Yesterday I also met with my realtors and went over what needs to happen with my house to make it more market friendly (in their opinions of course). I think i can do it for more cheaply than i thought but, ugh, it's going to be quite a bit of work. And i think Ikea might be my best option since i don't want to spend alot of money AND its stuff i most likely won't want to keep when i move. But OMG I hate Ikea with a passion - PASSION. That place makes the vile in my throat creep up.

I paid some neighborhood kids $100 yesterday to mow my back back lawn. It was worth it because even though i don't own the land i think it will really help sell the house to the right buyer. Everyone who has seen the house comments and asks about the land, and it had gotten so overogrown my dogs couldn't run back there. But now they can! The kids also cleaned up a bunch of wood eric had left behind when he was going to build a fence. Ya, that's how long its been since that area had really been touched!

Soooooo, now i really need to get up (it's 11am!!!!) and shower and start the day.
So much to do, I need to make a list to figure out what is priority.
I also need to get some coffee. Pronto!

- Clean up the living room because the realtors moved my furniture around to make the space larger and its inundated with dust bunnies now! - Priority TODAY

- Finish organizing crafting supplies and creating a SINGLE box to keep upstairs to use. Friday night i pulled out everything I own from the house and the basement and started to purge/organize and repack. Unfortunately everything is still in my living room and kitchen because i didn't even get halfway through - Priority TODAY

- Buy an outfit for NYC which is next weekend! But, I've gained weight and really don't want to go shopping. My depression or something has made it stupidly challenging to go to the gym and not emotionally eat and worse off drink alcohol! - Must get done by Wednesday

- Organize closets and kitchen cupboards - they are all a mess and the realtors say people subconciously see more value in houses with this kind of shit organized -Must be done by Friday

- Move bedroom into backroom. I've been wanting to do this since April switched the rooms on me last fall but to do so i need to take apart the couch in the backroom to get it through the door so i've been lazy. But realtors are right that the backroom would be a much nicer bedroom AND i've been wanting to sleep back there again anyways because now i'm in the bedroom right off the street which makes me feel a little less secure. Do By Friday

so, i believe i have made the decision to switch realtors.
i hate having to make this decision and it's part of why i was in such a shitty mood yesterday.
between dealing with selling my house and figuring out if i'm getting fucked over by my divorce lawyer i'm trying everything in my power to utilize some of the coping skills i've learned over the last 7 months.

but, so, i met with a new realty team yesterday and they are definitely HIGH energy.
Which is super good except overall it is just freaking me out even more about some additional expenses i should spend to make my house more attractive.

Their major advice is to stop thinking of my house as a home and more as a hotel.
I have mixed feelings, of course about this, since i do have to spend much of my life in the house AND right now i am on a creative streak i'd rather not break. But, over the months i have accumulated more stuff I need to get rid of - especially my scrapbook stuff. I now have an entire closet stuffed with scrapbook stuff which apparently doesn't look too good. But, that's cool - I've been so focused on art journalling anyways, really all i need is my art journal, paints, adhesives and pens and an office envelope full of scrappy clippings.

Which speaking of, I got a new kit in the mail from a blog called Gauche Alchemy that is so awesome i don't know where to start. It's called the Acme Kit in case anyone wants to look at it on their etsy store, but there is so much inspiration in it - whooooo boy. And it's all found stuff which makes it even better because as soon as i opened it i could smell the history. Very cool

OK, thats all i have on my mind right now.
Seemed like the 160 character tweet limit wouldn't suffice.

OMG - MORTIFIED!

A realtor with potential buyers just came to look at my house unannounced and i was sitting on my couch pretty much naked eating pasta.

And of course the house is messy - i asked them to wait a minute so i could get dressed and quickly kicked my bra and dirty underwearS under the bed and let them in then ran to the backdoor to pick up the dog pad which thankfully they hadn't used.

OY.
But it would be funny as hell if this turns out to be the actual showing that sells my house!

Yikes, I haven't updated since my birthday on Tuesday?
Crazy!

LOL - but there's really not much to update, I guess.

Day 3 of the Master Cleanse detox is today.
This time has been a bit harder cause i went into it alot less healthy than last time.
Today I feel better than yesterday definitely - no headache anymore (at least not yet) and seemingly a bit more energy. The day is still young, so we'll see how this all pans out.

This time I'm craving food like crazy though! It's really amazing how strong the cravings are and how much I need to "talk myself down" from the ledge. I mean, last night, i was thinking, thank god no one delivers pizza to my neighborhood cause i was craving greasy ass pizza with pineapple sooooo bad.

But,i can do this - i just have to keep telling myself that i am strong enough to follow it through and that it is marking a transitional period for me. I'm kinda cleansing my body getting ready for a new, well, return to, healthy living - mentally and physically.

It's Friday - i was trying to drag myself out of bed this morning, i was so friggin warm and snuggly with Herschel spooning my back and Charo curled up at my chest and i reminded myself i can sleep in tomorrow. I'm not a big "stay in bed" kinda gal but i got a little used to it over the Thanksgiving break in Ann Arbor. Anyways, this weekend will be full of ME time - crafting and cleaning. Sunday I'm having an Open House, maybe 1 person will come this time. I feel bad for my realtor, I think she is really freaked out about the market right now. We went looking at some comparison houses on Wednesday night trying to decide if i should drop my price or not and I just got the feeling from her she's kinda fucked. The real estate market is just HORRIBLE right now. HORRIBLE :(

Oh well... I'm employed and can scrape my mortgages by so far so i won't complain.

Oh shit, and ya, i haven't updated since my birthday.
It was actually very nice - I didn't get depressed once!
Brian surprised me with a candle-lit fruit cheesecake and balloons when i got home from work which was AWESOMELY SWEET.
And then we grabbed some food which was delicious and talked ALOT about the future and about African Well Fund and it was just really nice and low key. I definitely went to sleep with a smile on my face :)

OMG
house is going on the market friday.
i feel kinda dizzy about it.
its going this time - i swear to god.
photographers have been hired to take pictures and papers are signed with the realtor.

i'm nervous but optimistic.
optimistic is my word of the week y'all.

back in atlanta.
back to reality.
that wasn't really a vacation.
as hard as i tried i know i never relaxed.
never stopped thinking, erm, obsessing.
now today is the today to get things done.
as of right now i feel well rested and ready to go - hope the momentum lasts.

the contractor i hired 3 weeks ago to do some fix it work on my house promptly cashed my check for $500 and never did any work. either me or brian or my realtor called him every day in the last 3 weeks and every day he said he would be there that day or the next day at 9am to get it done.
now i have to deal with that - firing him, getting my money back somehow (yes, he also promised numerous times to send me a contract which also never happened) and hiring someone new to do the work.

my bff is coming next week to help - i can't do any of this by myself.
i'm already overwhelmed and have only returned 14 hours ago.

hope to have pictures later of spain!
it'll be a nice break to the day.