I know you all know who I’m talking about.

There is a protest in St. Louis, near Northwest High School going on tomorrow by this Westboro Baptist Church.

These ‘rebels’ protest gays, transgendered,military personnel of any kind… you freaking name it. They spout off about their right to protest, their right to freedom of speech…and yet, they protest the funerals of our fallen soldiers, the very people who fight to defend their right to say those words. How unreal.

These people know nothing about what it means to be Christ-like. Now, I make no claims to being a religious guru or a spiritual guide, but I’m pretty sure God, and Jesus Christ alike, would be disgusted to see their good names used as daggers towards people He allegedly created in his image in the first place…

Thankfully, they are staging a counter protest to support our troops and help encourage equal rights between all humans.

Westboro Baptist Church knows nothing about what it means to be Christian. I’d consider them more-so a cult than a religious group. I hate to see them continue to chip away at the good name of ya know, God and Jesus. Probably isn’t smart because Hell’s no resort in the Bahamas…at least I don’t think. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.

First of all,  how do any of these so-called ”Christians” know what God or Jesus was thinking, how these deities may or may not feel?  Have they met them? The Bible is a work of man, not the words of any deity. Just saying. Unless you’ve met the big man personally, shut your mouth and quit pretending like you know some otherworldly or celestial secrets from the universe. Go home, watch some reality tv amd shut your damn mouth.

Being a straight, non-religious woman, who is actively trying to promote equal rights amongst all humans, I am absolutely disgusted to see this kind of hatred still existing in our society today.  Haven’t we evolved? Haven’t we come to a higher plane of understanding when it comes to human evolution?

There is a church in Maplewood, MO that has a sign out front that says “Whatever you are, whoever you are – you’re welcome here!” That’s Christianity, if there has to be a definition for it.

Gay marriage? Who cares, doesn’t affect you. Gays? Who cares, doesn’t affect you. Hate war? Talk to the fanatical terrorists who do nothing but think and meticulously plan to kill us on a daily basis. You live with hate against others or hide behind that mask of “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” It’s all one in the same. You either accept people or you don’t. Period.  Saying “I don’t agree with homosexuality, I don’t agree with that lifestyle, but I don’t actively condemn them either.” You might as well.  Hateful words don’t need to fall off of your lips to portray what is really going on in your head.

Equality and the EQUAL right to pursue opportunities and EQUAL freedoms. Why are we still acting like cave men? Time to grow up, America, and accept everyone.  While you’re at it, think about heading down tomorrow to the peaceful counter protest, support our troops and support equal rights amongst all humans, races, orientations!

Rachel: ‘Zach, don’t you think the office is getting stupid?”

Zach: “uhh… you mean, like the people in this office?”

Rachel: “No, I mean like the show “The Office”!”

(explosive laughter ensues) Wow… I needed that to help get me through this Tuesday and my stack of protocols!

As you all know, we’ve been unpacking as much as we possibly can after long work days and getting two kids from childcare and getting everyone fed, doing grocery shopping, cleaning, etc… we’re tired.

We decided to hit up Denny’s last night for dinner. I chose the wheat pancakes and egg whites.

A ‘helper’ to the server was bringing our food and set down a little carafe of warm syrup, right in front of my 14 month old.

In goes the hand, right into the syrup.

I move it, she apologizes.

Then she sets the second carafe of syrup down right in front of him.

In goes his hand, right into the syrup. I move it, she apologizes again. As I am wiping off Flynn’s hand she sets down my plate of pancakes – in front of Flynn! He sticks his hand into the melting butter that is on top of my pancakes.

She thinks she gets the hint and moves a glass in the middle of the table to set my husbands food down, but guess where she moved the glass of ice water, too? Right in front of the baby! Mr. Grabby Hands goes for it!

I move it. She moves the community table-dwelling ketchup bottle over to set my daughters food down – right in front of Flynn! He goes for it again and is trying to put it into his mouth! (Can you say swine flu? ew.)

Listen, Girl, I understand that there is not much room left on the table for things to fit comfortably in front of their respective owners, but please for the love of Jeebus, stop setting things down in front of the baby!

Oh, and also, please don’t give my 14 month old a crayon set, he promptly reached over while I was wiping my shirt off after dripping some butter on it, (little sneaky bugger), and bit the tip of the orange crayon off. Nice.

As of Friday, October 30th 2009 – after much hassle and stress. We purchased our first house. We bought the cutest Craftsman style Bungalow built in 1935. We woke up bright and early, headed out to the city where our credit union is located to await for the (very late) final number needed to close on the loan.

Phone calls were exchanged, our closing time came and went, and then finally, the phone rang while lounging by the water cooler at our credit union. We grabbed the cashier’s check and ran to the title company in a flash.

We pull into the parking lot and Robert looks over at me and says “Wow, I think I’m having cold feet..“

I reply with. “What the hell? Why?” in a joking manner.

“Gee, I don’t know, big decisions.” and I replied with the same thing every woman whose ever been married has said at least one time in their life. “Honey,  everyone gets cold feet in the middle of a major decision.“

We went inside, signed our life away on the dotted line – and suddenly, we were different.

Suddenly, we were no longer the struggling teenager and twenty something who could barely feed themselves. Suddenly, we were no longer the people who spent money with reckless abandon.

Suddenly, we were responsible adults with two children, though people have been telling us that for the last couple years,  but for the first time we actually believed it.

Today is the first day since we began this home buying process, that I have not been on the phone with the lender,  one of the assistants, one of the real estate agents (one who happens to be my aunt) or discussing updates via email.

Our appraisal came in yesterday and our house met all of the requirements placed upon it by the FHA’s guidelines … and now that our loan is off in final underwriting land we officially had our first day of silence.

Friday Friday Friday!

Starting to gather a headcount for people that are coming to our painting party! We are going to paint all the rooms in the house, well, not all of them, but the majority of them in one night! We are going to have a lot of extra hands for painting! Need to get more brushes and rollers!

Can’t wait. Pizza, Booze and Family, what’s better than that?

We had to go over to the new house today to meet with my husbands Uncle Mike, who is an electrician, to look at running some wiring in the house. The current owners, who are really nice, had already moved all of their furniture out and it was the first time we had seen the house without any furniture in it.

There is a very large unfinished basement, with one section of the basement that we’re going to finish and the other side has the heating/cooling units and such and the workbench and the washer dryer, etc.. then there is this room that was packed to rafters with storage boxes and fishing stuff. Well, I  didn’t realize how large the space really was until it was empty.

I have an office!!! A Craft space!! My own office. I forfeited the fourth bedroom for Robert to have his own office since I spend most of my time on the laptop. I have a list of all of the things I’m going to do to that room, in order. Now don’t forget the space is about 4ft by 7ft. It’s a small space, but we are going to build a desk in the far end, there are already shelves in two sections, AND a safe in the wall…

And a….. wait for it….. wait for it……….

An antique ice grinder on the wall..

I… I mean…. WE couldn’t be more excited!

We are packing like crazy this weekend, ok well, not right now, we had dinner and we are having a really hard time getting re-motivated you could say.

As of right now we have one corner of our apartment stacked up 6 feet high with packed boxes…our daughter is wearing a bumble bee costume, while we all watch Monsters Inc.

Yes, we seem to be incredibly productive, right?

We planned our meals for the rest of the week based on what we have left in the house, we’re trying to eat and use up all of the food in the house before we move so we can just do a grocery trip when we get to the house. I think we’ll manage, there’s plenty, but that just means that somebody must remain motivated enough to actually cook when we get home in the evenings.

Somebody yell at me, somebody tell me to turn the radio on and go pack… somebody tell me to get away from this blog and go finish packing, we move in 6 days. We close on our house in 6 freeeeeaaaking days and we’re still not ready.

I hate moving, all the moves we’ve had in the past have started out something like this…

“Oh, look at all of this stuff, we’re going to organize these into sections, pack them with packaging paper, all nice and neat, oooooh looky, I’ll use this label maker and it will be all nice…”

A few days before moving day…

“Son of a bitch, throw this in a box, I don’t know where the fuck this goes?? Do you?? No! Throw it in the box with the shower curtains and bath mats…!!”

Yeah…that’s a pretty accurate timeline..

In 2003, a year after my husband and I started dating, my husband went to the ER for chest pains and pressure in his head, which we later find out (in 2009!!!!) was a major tooth infection  causing all of that mess. He didn’t have insurance at the time but we felt it was worth it to go to the hospital and get checked out.  The bills poured in and he was steadily paying on it for a year.  Got the balance down to a reasonable amount then lost his job. It went to court and then a judgment was filed against him and his credit report to boot.

Fast forward to the birth of our son, I was on short term disability so I qualified for a charity grant from the hospital to apply towards all of our collective medical bills, little did I know that the charity grant went in retrospect and paid off 80% of the remaining balance on my husbands court judgment from 2004 until I received a letter stating so.

Neato!

Fast forward again to us buying a house, the lender calls and tells me that small remaining balance must be paid before closing. The judgment has to be completely paid prior to closing – in 9 days.

Thank GOD that grant went in retrospect and paid 80% of the balance or else we would not be closing in 9 days… because we would not have been able to pay that amount in such short notice.

Maybe things do happen for a reason…

Eleven days until we close on our house.  We are getting down to the final details in the paperwork for closing on our house on the 30th. There are so many hoops you have to jump through for the FHA loan program it’s crazy. They have definitely tightened up the requirements for loans. We are getting excited, picking out paint, planning a paint-party where we supply pizza and beer and everyone comes over, grabs a brush and paints….and…filling out more paperwork than we will ever fill out in our lives.

A day has yet to go by where I have not communicated with my lender, my lenders assistant, his processor, our real estate agent (who also happens to by my aunt) and other such family members about favors for things that need to be done on the house.

The new roof is finally on. They did an architectural style, without us having to ask, which thrills the hell out of me as it looks gorgeous! One less thing I need to worry about.  Today we pulled the plug on scheduling the appraisal so we have a fighting chance of getting it done and receiving the final documentation for it before the 30th. Very important.

Things are going fairly smooth and there isn’t a lot left to do on our end besides faxing papers back and forth, dropping off originals and holding our breath.

Eleven more days… and we so are not even packed. We need to get off our lazy asses and start getting into some hardcore packing and stop making excuses and being lazy. I hate packing. We moved into this townhouse with the intention of living there for a good long time… exactly one year later, we’re moving again. I’m so tired of moving… Anyone want to come over and pack for me?

Ok so, we are moving into our new house on the 30th, the day we close, and we have decided on most of the paint colors for the house. The kitchen, we settled on a sage green for the kitchen. The bottom half of the kitchen is white chair rail and a white paneling. We really both like the sage green idea, but we also love modern… I thought these zebra print dishes would make the room still seem modern and not so “just green”… We decided on chrome accents and we currently have a blue set of dishes, which we got from our wedding registry – it’s time to update with the new house… I fell in love with this dish set, I thought it would make the room super modern and funky – I like funky stuff. As my husband sat across the room after brunch I sent him the link on GoogleTalk and he gasped in horror.

“What? You don’t like the dishes?”

“For our kitchen??…like to eat off of??”

“Um.. yes?”

“No way! Uh-uh. Zebra print?!”

“Sure, why not?”

“Because…it’s zebra print… and the kitchen is…green!?”

…

And that was how zebra printed dishes got vetoed today. It’s so unfair! I think they’re awesome and you can tell my husband is completely void of taste.

My inner monologue:

Am I really about to do this? Make a move from my comfort zone into something new? I’m really going to miss the banter that is a daily thing here. Am I really training somebody new? (Ok so fine she isnt new… she has been here part time since she covered for me on maternity leave and hung out part time after that.) Is tomorrow the last day I’ll really get to use that super new and cool Flavia coffee machine that we’re demo’ing? I’ll miss my boss. This is familiar. This is my familiar place. This is what I’m used to – this is where I’ve been growing and changing. What about the Christmas party? I really like our Christmas Parties – we always have an open bar and have a great time. I have to. Maybe the University will be exciting? Maybe I’ll grow there too? I know this is the right thing to do, the happy thing to do.

Tomorrow is my last day… how scary…

Day two of quitting smoking.

I am watching re runs of season four of Family Guy and Brian the dog is smoking a cigarette… it’s irking me, it’s bothering me – it’s making me want a cigarette.

However, I have one bonus going for me – I have a LOT of new and exciting things going on in my life right now. New House, New Job… so it helps to keep me busy and keep my mind off of wanting a cigarette.

Anywho, speaking of new job, I began training my replacement today and I’m excited for her. Shockingly, I’m excited for the person who will be replacing me. The job I currently have has afforded me a lot of opportunities and taught me so many new things.

I began working at my job during a time of intense struggle in my life. My husband had moved out of the house after we had struggled for months with my serious depression and his lack of maturity – hey, we were both guilty one way or another despite my depression. I was a stay at home mom and my life was headed into the crapper, he had lost his job, was living with his friend, our daughter was two years old and I had no financial support and everything was falling apart. Rent was coming due and I didn’t have a job.

I started going to temp agencies and putting in my resume.

I got a call a week after submitting my resume for a position as a receptionist covering for a girl going on maternity leave and it was 14 weeks long.

I took it and became independent, my husband and I later reconciled but in that period of time I showed him, my family and most of all myself that I could be independent and provide for my daughter and build self esteem that I never had by excelling at this job.

In the three years I have been there, they have given me more responsibilities than is typically afforded to people in my original position. I started out as a receptionist and then they started trusting me confidential material, then information technology billing and coding and then it became monitoring indirect spending and our corporate wireless account. So yes, I’m excited for her to have those same opportunities that I was given that are leading me to this amazing opportunity at the university.

I’m so nervous but I really cannot wait. I’m scared but I am excited. I’m going to get myself a nice new blouse and do my hair nice and do my nails and go in fresh. Non-smoking. Starting a new job. Starting a new chapter.

Come on 30th – let’s close on this house!!!

New. Exciting. That is all.

I’ve decided to start tapering off from smoking, again. There are too many new and good things going on in my life to be setting a ticking time bomb on my health when the women in my family have a history of various types of cancers.

I was smoke-free for three years, then started up again in May after a rather difficult family ordeal that left me at the mercy of the only vice I ever had.

Last night, I smoked a cigarette, came inside and said “I think I’m done.”..

My name is Alyssa and it’s been 16 hours since my last cigarette.

• I survived getting stuck in traffic this morning without a cigarette.
• I have passed my 10AM break without a cigarette.
• I don’t have any cigarettes in my possession.
• I am skipping lunch for the next three days so I am not tempted to buy a pack on my lunch break like I typically am.
• I’m drinking more water to try to keep a straw in my mouth.

I smoked about a pack every 3-4 days. So I wasn’t by any means a “heavy” smoker, but I need to quit again, I hate the way people look at me when I smoke, like I’m white trash or like I’m not professional at my place of business.

I look at the women who work upstairs who take a smoke break every hour on the hour, and they all look so much older than they are and every time they pass me that smell horribly and I don’t want to be like them. Don’t get me wrong, they are nice ladies, but you can tell they are prematurely aging for late 30’s women.

I already appear older than I am, I don’t want to add to it.

I’ll update again tomorrow and eventually if I don’t relapse, I’ll get  a ticker for my page.

That today is my blogiversary! Woot! I think?

I need to be more concious about updating this – diligently.

Lately with the new job coming up, trying to keep all my ducks in a row for the new house and packing – I’ve been lost in the abyss and haven’t had much time to do anything else.

We’ve been pouring over paint colors for our new house. We have decided that the living room, foyer and hallway colors will stay as is from the previous owners since we like the colors, however, we have settled on olive green for the kitchen, with stainless steel and brushed nickel accents. A light rose and a pewter grey for the guest bathroom. It’s going to be AWESOME. I’ve picked out this giant cherry blossom decal for the bathroom and two wall colors as well as a trim color. It’s my own personal little project. We are letting our daughter help pick out her bedroom colors and she has cove ceilings with no definition line so its going to have to be across the ceiling too and so far she has picked fuschia and lime green.

We are still confused as to what color we want to do our bedroom and  master bathroom in. Oh well, I’ll worry about that later. I have an addiction to interior decorating and now that I have my first house, I’ll be able to feed that addiction in a way that probably should not confessed out loud, or to my credit union. No, really.

Anyhow, we close on October 30th and I’ll be adding a swank little ticker to my page to  watch the days go down. Each day that passes brings us closer and closer to home ownership. We’re so excited!

Even after the inspection came back with some things that needed to be fixed via the current owners – it didn’t scare us off, we love the house and it’s so charming, it’s not like these boxy, pre fab, modular that are nothing but two by fours and sheet rock. It was built in 1935 and it’s got excellent bones. We’ll enjoy updating and entertaining in this house for years to come.

So in less than a month we were pre-approved for a loan and found a house, made an offer, got a counter offer, accepted it, got a closing date and now I’m freaking out…

I’m finding so many reasons why everything would go wrong. I’m expecting something to go wrong. There are so many things that have to go right to make this happen. Quite frankly I think I’m causing misplaced stress to loosen the screws on my dear husbands patience.

We close on October 30th… on the perfect house, the one thats got old world charm, that was built in the 30’s, recently renovated and its exactly what we want. I would be devastated if anything pulled the rug out from underneath us.

Is it always so stressful? Somebody tell me that loans being pulled out from underneath you in the table cloth trick style way and are un-fixable doesn’t happen very often? My loan officer told me to go home tonight and take a xanax.

Secondly, I was offered a new job… I am psyched. I’ll be working at the university with my husband. It’s a bittersweet move. I am really going to miss the people I work with, it’s like I’ve built a second family and now I’m really going to miss them… We’ll do some sort of going away happy hour soon and then on the 12th I’ll start a new chapter in my life and a new house and all of these new exciting things and I still can’t stop being stressed.