I feel bad and beautiful

I spent most of yesterday and this morning finding out what needs to be done to shut off our current utilities (when the time comes) and trying to track down contact information for the utility companies that service the new place.

Apparently, the city/county we'll be moving to is notorious for making this sort of thing very difficult.

Our current power company helped me track down the new power company, so that was nice.

I called the city number listed under the water entry on the form our current realtor gave us when we first rented this place, but that number went to city hall. City hall informed me that even though the street we'll be living on has a postal address for their city, the water was actually serviced through someone else. Eventually, they gave me the number for that place, who needs us to show up with a copy of our lease, our driver's license and something "official" with our social security numbers on it. I didn't even need all that to rent the house in the first place.

Our trash company not only does not service that area, they have no idea who does. But they do know that they've heard that customers find it very difficult to find a waste removal company in that county. Of course they do.

Our car insurance rates are going up, and the employee I spoke to can't tell me why. She mentioned something about distance to hospitals and miles drived everyday and other drivers in the area and costs of parts... I pointed out we're going to be closer to base AND the hospital, so I'm a bit confused about that. I suspect it has something to do with a higher crime rate in the zipcode area or something, but she didn't feel comfortable flat out saying, "Someone might jack your car, yo, so we're gonna charge you more, just in case."

The cable company was all "YAY, you're keeping us! No discounts or anything, but if we don't show up between 8 and 10 on the morning of your appointment, you can have $20 off your next bill. You know... because we care." Whatever, just keep my internets running and I'll forgive you lots, Comcast.

Still no idea who our gas company will be. I sent Captain to go talk to the housing people on base and see if they've got some idea regarding gas and trash. Pretty sure we're not the only family living on that side of town.

As to packing, since yesterday was spent hunting down utility info, I didn't get anything packed. I did have the brilliant idea that we would just shove clothes/pillows/blankets/sheets/etc into garbage bags for the move instead of boxes, because boxes cost money and garbage bags are seven bucks for a billion or something.

Yesterday I noticed that my left leg was doing that annoyingly painful and also strangely numb thing it likes to do when I've managed to fubar the pinched nerve in my back, but I'm used to that happening so I just shrugged it off and resigned myself to spending the next few days in pain. However, last night when I went to bed I also noticed that my right hip and upper leg were stiffening up and hurt when I went to bed. I couldn't get comfortable at all. Of course, by the time I woke up, I could barely move, and now I can't really put any weight on that leg without fearing that it's going to crumple up beneath me and I'll end up faceplanting somewhere.

Good times all around.

Anyway, that means packing has just become twice as difficult, what with the borked back and legs and trying to walk around carrying boxes and bending over and sitting on the floor and standing up again and just general moving-aroundness.

Not going to stop me from doing it, mind, because we're picking up the key on the new place on the first and the moving of the furniture is scheduled to commence on the fourth and the U-Haul is already reserved and at least one person has foolishly volunteered to help lift heavy crap, so I'm sort of on a deadline as far as getting shelving and furniture emptied, if nothing else.

Also, I'm pretty sure that was a major run on sentence, but I'm not trying to submit this post as a formal paper or fic on an archive, so I don't particularly care.

The game store owner couple (or at least the wife half of that couple) volunteered to help us if needed, but I would feel very guilty if we took them up on that offer. Might still do it anyway, but still... guilt.

Okay, time for another round of Ibuprofen and then it is time to start packing up ALL the DVDs, of which there are nearly six hundred according to the last inventory, which sort of tells me that perhaps it is time to find another hobby. Or buy more shelving. Either one.

There was a smallish, local gaming convention this weekend - almost exclusively historic tabletop battle things with little armies and tanks and whatnot, which is pretty much as far from "my thing" as you can get and still be in the same game store. However, the people who own the local gaming store that we frequent were running the con this year and I could see they were very overworked, so I asked if they needed any help this weekend even though Captain and I couldn't afford to attend as players.

They took me up on it.

So, I spent the last three days having people fill out registration forms, accepting fee payments, selling t-shirts and raffle tickets, going over hotel contracts (I don't even understand how that happened), counting money, directing vendors and gamers to the right tables, handing out medals, organizing the crap out of some very disorganized files, matching payments to registration forms because no one remembered to make a note of the people who had pre-paid...

Captain popped in after work on Friday to help out where he was needed, which was - apparently - mostly hanging around to keep an eye on the Game Store's vendor table when the person manning it had to go pick up his kid, and making a food run for dinner for several of us.

However, Saturday morning we arrived an hour before the first gaming sessions started so that we could deal with everyone who needed to register that morning, and about thirty minutes after the first session started I happened to get a chance to finally look at the list of events for the day...

There was Captain's name, listing him as an Event Host for Open Board Gaming at all three sessions for the day. Luckily we had packed some games in the car, just in case there was some free tables and someone wanted to kill some time. Perhaps I should have noticed that our name tags both said "Event Host" a bit earlier? Mine also said "Registration Assistant" so there was a lot of words on mine, in my defense.

I wasn't really expecting anyone to be interested in board games, but we tried to lure them in by displaying all the games we'd brought and setting up the Mansions of Madness board. Suddenly we had a full table. I left after running the first game because I needed to get back to the registration desk, but Captain demo'd several more games and had someone who wanted to play Mansions again today (so I ran them through it early this afternoon).

I met all sorts of people I will probably never remember the names of (or possibly even see again), got a free massage (Again, I don't know how that happened), was given a medal for being an awesome volunteer type person (that I have to share with Captain), and won a con shirt.

It was a very, very tiring weekend.

And I think I offered to possibly help with next year's con before we left today.

Because I'm a softie.

We signed a two year lease on a rental house yesterday afternoon. We asked for a two year so that we could be absolutely positive that the new house would not be yanked out from under us before Captain's current enlistment ended. If he re-ups and we end up staying here, we'll attempt to extend the lease after that. If not... That is what the military clause in the lease is for, the realtor even suggested it when we expressed our concerns.

I already sent in the rent check on this place, so we are paid up until the last day of February. I'm hoping to be out of here by the 17th, which would mean getting my check back and writing them a new prorated one. Our current realtor is a bit hesitant about giving the home owner their full February payment, because it is notoriously difficult to get money back from homeowners, so she's leaning toward withholding their payment. Which... On the one hand, I feel bad for them, I know they want in this house, but they're also sort of depending on our rent checks. On the other... They can suck it, really. They're the ones who are kicking us out and they are "encouraging" us to leave ASAP.

I say "encouraging" because they can't ask us directly to leave, because that would count as defaulting on our written lease and then they would owe us $750 for each month they've cut off the lease.

So, I'm not really feeling too sympathetic to their plight.

Especially since this move has taken my entire nest egg savings--which I thankfully had, because if I hadn't been squirreling away spare money like nuts for the winter we would have been totally screwed, and we will barely have enough to pay the normal bills in addition to what amounts to three rent payments and deposits on five new utility accounts.

Anyway, I've got a house to pack up, pretty much on my own since Captain will not be asking for more than a day off work when we pick up the key.

I've got my Exchange_Bingo prize (which is finally completely researched and has two scenes mostly outlined and notes on four secondary characters that I think I'm going to enjoy writing, and the most vaguest of outlines for a story EVAH) to write by April. I think it's supposed to be done by April? Probably needs to be sooner, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be overwhelmed until mid-February with the house thing.

I've got a baby blanket to finish. (Binding it off every spare moment I've got in the car or during a game when I can get away with not looking like I'm paying complete attention to the GM. I would feel bad, but I'm a girl, and it is a universal truth that women are fully capable of doing more than one thing at a time; therefore, I knit AND roll dice for massive damage vs undead. Because I am just that awesome.)

I've got the fourth (and last, I hope) Dwarven Battle Bonnet to finish. Helmet part is done, except for horns. Haven't started the beard yet.

I've got the WIP that I've been very excited about working on, and would love play around with, but I can't because I would feel extremely guilty since the Exchange_Bingo fic needs to be worked on. I'm considering compromising and finishing a scene in the prize fic, then one in the other, then back to the prize fic.

Finally, I have another sixteen shelves worth of DVDs to add to my phone's inventory App before they can be boxed up. Although, I'm thinking that since the DVDs are mostly alphabetized anyway, I could just finish the letter I'm working on and box the rest up to finish inventorying after the move. Actually, I think that is a brilliant idea, and I shall do that as soon as I finish typing this.

Item checked off current To-Do list. Awesome.

So, packed all the books in Captain's room yesterday. Hoping to get the ones in the living room, and possibly get started on the DVDs today.

This weekend will be a bust in regards to packing as I have volunteered to spend the next three days working at the local gaming convention and won't be home.

TOO MUCH TO DO!

Ohmygod, I am thirty-six years old. I can not function on four hour and a half hours of interrupted sleep anymore without feeling like I'm going to rip someone's throat out.

More than usual, at any rate.

Screw fasting blood draw at the hospital around noon. I am not attempting to look at two houses this morning -- without strangling my husband and/or a stranger -- without some caffiene, my morning meds, and something in my stomache.

People would die.

Seriously.

>_>

Although being in a house I have no actual connections to would make it easier to hide the bodies.

The house hunt is still not really going anywhere. I am also not making any progress on packing because I have no boxes with which to pack things. I should probably make some sort of effort on the box front soon.

The biggest problem I've found with making myself bleed three times a day (other than the obvious I Am Making Myself Bleed OMG Needle OMG Blood part) is that I've pretty much limited myself to one side of four fingers due to ease of poking positions and the amount of OUCH involved.

( Random place to shove an LJ cut is random. )

Punctuation is weird.

I mean, I knew that before, obviously.

But Lariope has been trying to help me clean my fic up so I can submit it to the Archive That Shall Remain Nameless For the Moment, and she has been explaining all the changes (mostly punctuation) and why she's changing them.

And then I had to ask her to explain several of them again, because I was the crappiest English major on the planet and never really bothered to learn about things like comma splices and dangling partiwhatisits and when a comma is appropriate and when it should be a semicolon.

Last night she explained the differences between hyphens, em dashes and en dashes. I am just going to admit outright that I didn't even know an en dash was a thing. Seriously, I figured they were all sort of just hyphens, I swear. One of them was just bigger than the other, like an uber hyphen.

Apparently, this is not the case.

ALSO, did you know that there are no spaces between em dashes and the words before and after them?

I didn't.

That just completely blows my mind.

How can you even read things like that? With the words and the uber hyphen all smushed up together.

ALSO ALSO, did you know that an ellipse isn't supposed to be three periods in a row? It's supposed to be three evenly spaced periods . . . With spaces between them, according to the punctuation guide on the Nameless Archive that I was looking through in an effort to figure out how to make uber hyphens not look like two hyphens just hanging out together. How is that not awkward to look at?

Anyway, I've got to go back through the corrections I've already made to both parts of Neither the Laurel Nor the Rose, so that I can do the em dash smush (which sounds like a new dance craze that those young whippersnappers are always coming up with), but I think I'm going to just pretend I don't know about that rule in my every day typing of words sort of thing. Definitely not going to do it when I hand write things because I will never be able to read any of it.

My handwriting is made of pleh.

This post is brought to you by the letters E, R and M, and the number i.

One of the suggestions I found during my exhaustive two second search on Google regarding why my blood sugar is so stinking high when I wake up, was to get up between two and three am and take a reading.

Apparently there are two things that can happen to cause the high readings in the morning - and I've totally forgotten what they're called because... two thirty in the morning - but one of the ways you tell them apart is whether or not you've got a high reading between two and three am. A high reading after a normal dinner hour means... something, and the lower reading (mine was 110 just now, and a whopping 145 when I woke up yesterday morning) means that your body seems to be kicking things into high gear around four am/whatever time you normally start to wake up in and effort to help you get up and out of bed and moving.

Honestly, I can't remember the details right now. However, I thought that since I'm supposed to be making an appointment to see New!Doctor Asshat in the next few weeks, it would probably be helpful if I show up with this list of two thirty readings so that he doesn't send me home with orders to take two thirty readings. Sort of "haha, I already thought of that because I am smart enough to use the power of the Google!" kind of thing.

Anyway, the point of all that is that it's very early in the morning and while I would very much like to be back in bed, I'm not because my alarm went off at two thirty and then I had to make myself bleed and now I'm all awake.

I tried futzing about on the internet, but that did nothing for me this morning since it all looks pretty much the same as when I left it at bed time last night.

Screw it. I'll go back to bed and poke the husband until he stops snoring and try to pass out. With any luck, that should work. I hope.

Oh yes, I remember this well.

That point during a diet where my stomach insists that I am starving.

Yesterday it was that uncomfortable hungry feeling, but a sugar free hard candy dealt with that for the most part.

Today it's audible complaining. Loud, angry, gurgly complaining.

It would be embarrasing, but I haven't left the house today so no one can hear it but Captain and the furballs. Captain keeps giving me funny looks, but he knows not to say anything because I am a woman on a diet and I will cut him if I have to.

I warned him long before this farce started that the first two or three weeks were going to be uncomfortable at best and hellish at worst - for both of us. Because if I'm cranky as all get out, there's only going to be one poor soul in the house to take it out on.

In other, equally annoying, news - I know for a fact that I have had very little in the way of sugar or even just plain old carbs for the last four days or so because every single thing that I eat (even my cough drops) gets entered into my stupid calorie counter thing... So why the hell am I waking up with high blood sugar numbers every day? Seriously, this is vexing the ever loving crap out of me.

Gah, I hate that horrible nervous feeling I always get every time I submit something new to an archive.

Doesn't matter how many people look it over before hand, I'm always afraid it's going to be rejected without a chance to make corrections.

Blerg.

First part of Neither the Laurel Nor the Rose sent off. Wish me luck.

Yesterday was a total wash in regards to productivity.

Seriously. I don't even remember what happened between my waking up and Captain coming home to pick me up for the drive to SC for my Crazy!Doc appointment other than my face hurt due to sinus congestion. I must have taken a shower at some point because my hair was wet and I was wearing Going Outside clothes. I had to put my morning pills in a baggy to take in the car, at four pm, because I hadn't remembered to do it when I got up.

Last night the Board Gamer group met up at the game store, and I managed to drag my hinny there in time, barely, and played a game of Carcassone and Dominion without making a fool of myself (I even won Carcassone some how), but then I came home and pretty much crashed.

Today has been much more productive, even though I slept late. I'm hoping this means that the cold is finally starting to go away.

So far today I've managed to remember to do all the daily things I'm supposed to do to maintain my health, hahaha. You know, pills and blood sugar readings and putting on the lotion so I don't get the hose again and eating lunch (which I forgot to do yesterday). I've even got one of those fat/calorie counting apps on my phone so I can make myself feel all sorts of shame for eating too much/not enough everyday. This, by the way, is one of the main reasons I hate dieting. Obsessing upon every single thing you put into your mouth is not a good thing, I do not care how overweight you or your doctors think you are. However, that's not the point of this post so I'm going to move on.

lariopefic has been kind enough to beta my 2011 sshg_exchange fic - Neither the Laurel Nor the Rose - and today I'm hoping to make those corrections and then attempt to send the first chapter to TPP to see if it will be accepted. This will be the first fic I've attempted to submit to TPP, so we'll see how that goes. Keep your fingers crossed for me. If things go well, I'll try to get some of my older stories posted to that archive as well.

We've made no progress on finding a new place to live, which is annoying the heck out of me. I know it's only been three days since we found out we'll need to move, but I want to have a solution NOW, because I'm horribly impatient.

Aside from the dual sinus and chest cold I've got going on right now, the New Year only waited two days to take a giant dump on my life.

The realtor for our rental house called today, to let us know the owner wants his house back. ASAP, if possible. However, he is very kindly willing to wait until our lease expires on the second of April. If he has to. And he might even be willing to consider not penalizing us for breaking the lease early if we find a place to move into before April.

Isn't he fucking swell?

While I sympathize with his wanting to move back here because his job in Tennessee sucks a bag of soggy Fritos, we're only signed up to stay down here for another year and three monthsish. But now I've got to find a new place to live, that will be willing to allow us to commit to only 12 months (there are a lot of people who unofficially give prefrence to families that can commit to long term multi-year leases rather than soldiers who will be moving along at any moment thanks to deployments), and who will agree to let us have the furballs.

Colonel Brandon, as adorable as he isn't, can not pass for a 20 pound dog, which greatly limits our housing options. And don't even get me started on the fact that we've got three cats, which is well on our way to becoming the Crazy Cat lady and her husband.

Captain keeps pointing out that we've got a few months to deal with this and don't need to find a house OMG RIGHT NOW, but that's not how I roll. I have anxiety issues, dude. I see a problem, I itch to get it taken care of NOW. So I've had him e-mail the realtor about looking at a townhouse (blerg) that she's got available right now, for the same price we're paying for this place, but one less bedroom, but it claims to have a basement, which would mean storage, so yay? I've also been on the Army housing rental database thing, looking at places there. Some lovely homes for real cheap that very suspiciously do not include any pictures of the yard/neighboring area. Because they are lovely homes in the middle of a crack house strip mall sort of thing.

The base housing people like to issue a bit of a warning to people looking for homes, they warn us all to avoid living outside gate 5. Which is, coincediently, where all the available housing is.

So totally annoyed, it is not even funny.

ALSO, Saturday, or possibly Friday, I don't remember, I've had a lot of cold meds since then - At some point in the not too distant past the PA of New!Doctor Asshat called to tell me my test results because we called asking for them, and also because I need a new prescription for the cholestral meds he insisted I needed to be on. Anyway, PA was all "Umm... so, your test results... Did you do anything different? Change your diet? Something besides just taking the Liptor?"

I'm thinking I'm dying or my kidneys are failing and they don't want to be responsible for giving me some sort of poisonious drug that is killing me. "Nope. Just the thing he told me to take. Been on it a month at that point. Why?" I asked, suspiciously.

It appears that while my blood sugar only dropped a few points with the latest dosage upgrade, my cholestral went down by more than half. Just BOOM, huge drop. Apparently, while something like that is technically possible, the PA thinks that there could be a slight chance that there was something wrong with the test or my sample, and he'd like me to come back in and do it again in a week or two, kthanxbi.

Whatever.

ALSO ALSO, I started my stupid diet today - which I am NOT doing because of New!Doctor Asshat. As a matter of fact, his smarminess almost made me want to not do it just to spite him. Anyway, new diet + hungry + having to figure out how to afford to move plus finding a new home = a Missmiah who very much wants to go to a Japanese steakhouse for some comfort food.

I told Captain that I would feel really sucky for cheating on my diet on the first day, but that didn't mean I wouldn't necessarily do it. He told me to wait and cheat tomorrow, then.

In practice, who knows what will actually happen.

Captain and I just spent a rather tense thirty minutes trying to make Semagic understand that I have multiple blog accounts and that I want to post to ALL of them. Okay, only three right now, but I want to post to those three AT THE SAME TIME.

Mostly because I'm too lazy to just copy/paste.

In retrospect, when you factor in my case of the dumb from all the coldmeds and the half hour of both of us looking stuff up on-line and the "Try this." "I've already -done- that, three times, grrr, why are you still talking to me?" sniping that sprang up, it probably would have just been easier to resign myself to the copying and the pasting.

However, it's too late to turn back now.

Long story short, attempting to post via Semagic.

Pushing button.

Now.

I haven't updated for awhile, but there hasn't really been that much to say that anyone other than myself would be interested in. Honestly.

So instead of actual content I bring you... the answers to the 36 question meme beeform wanted.

( Behind the cut to save the flist from boredom )

Let me just start by saying that I'm in a much better mood today than the last time I posted anything. MUCH.

Last time had been the kicker to a rather craptastical week, the highlights of which include: Emo Cat spraying the C shelf of DVDs (including all seven seasons of CSI), Colonel Brandon forgetting he was housebroken for three consecutive days in a row AND having an upset innards issue (the second probably being the cause of the first, in retrospect), Captain at Fort Bliss for extended training, and all around depression/stress due to the upcoming deployment.

( Since then Captain has come home and we've left the state to bum around... )

I have some pictures, not a lot because I constantly forgot I had the camera with me - I did get some shots of our band, Gnome Pie, rocking away in the basement, including guest drummer Sophie! - and hope to get those loaded somewhere once I get home.

Fuck off and die.

At the very least, leave me the hell alone until Monday.

- Miah

Now that the masterlist for the sshg_exchange is up I can say thanks to _odella_ for the gorgeous artwork that was my gift. I love that piece.

My contribution was fic (since I can't draw to save my own life) written for annietalbot.

While You Were Sleeping can be found at the exchange or at darnedchild here. Eventually - in a day or so - I'll work on adding it to another archive or two, but not tonight.

Also - Extreme Thanks and accolades to all the Exchange Mods and their helpers for pulling off a massive feat in organization and participant wrangling, all while creating their own gifts for the exchange. And thank you all so much for granting me that extra time, I'm so glad I was able to be a part of the exchange.

Let me just start by saying this morning was not my finest hour.

( Miah's Terribly Embarrassing Moment for Today )

In other news, last night I finished working on a short companion piece to a drabble I'd written a long time ago. The original was called "Reflection" and the second piece is "Temptation." Both can be found here at Digital Quill, or at either of my fiction journals - darnedchild on LJ or darnedchild on IJ.

"I was talking to Beck about tomorrow and I had a brain storm! We could watch some holiday appropriate movies-"

Captain interrupts, "With zombies?"








Zombies, as you know, are appropriate for every holiday.

I've managed to fall behind at the sshg_exchange again, but this time it's only 10 gifts (instead of the skip 80 it was at one point), and I can catch that up pretty quickly. Or, at least, I could if Captain didn't have a four day weekend and Thursday wasn't VD Day.

While there is a chance I'll be able to read/review everything tonight and tomorrow, I suspect it will be next week before I actually get caught up (perhaps later if more get added), but I will do it. Reviews for everyone, dammit!

Am also in the midst of a huge knitting project with a self-imposed deadline I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make (luckily, I can knit while I read fic, therefore two birds/one stone), have three WIP fics of my own sort of bouncing about in my head demanding attention (yet every time I finally settle down to work on those fics they suddenly run off leaving me going "but, but... the entire time I was in the shower you were all 'hurry up, come write me, I has things to say!' and now you've buggered off! Dammit!"), have a new scrapbooking project (with yet another self-imposed deadline I'll probably miss, as I do) I need to start, and some fiction journal housekeeping that needs to be dealt with, not to mention I want to go through my old posts here (several years worth) and find the ones I'd hate to lose so that I can copy them over to my Insane Journal for safe keeping (not that anything is going to happen to this journal, but my IJ is pretty much barren and needs something to fill it up and I still haven't figured out how to post in more than one place at a time without the miracle of copy and paste and boy isn't this post full of parentheses today?).

Finally, I purchased the Sims Castaway Stories last week and have spent the last several nights when I should have been doing any or all of the things mentioned above playing the story mode of the game. It was fun. I suspect that rather than doing any of the things mentioned above (other than knitting while I'm waiting for my sim to finish sleeping and things) I shall spend tonight playing some more.

I suppose I should make an effort to figure out how to cross post to this journal as well as my LJ - not that I've been posting on my LJ that often in the first place - but I'm terminally lazy about these sorts of things.

To be honest, until the latest Greatestjournal meltdown news I'd sort of forgotten I even had an InsaneJournal.

Hopefully I'll do better in the future.