Yesterday we headed to meet up with our friend Tonya who was in town for one night only! She was to crash her last night but instead we and stayed up chatted.  This meant I was in bed rather late today and then sleeping in the couch, but once I was up and feeling a little better my Favorite Egg got me in gear and I pointed out all of the spots that needed touchup paint for him.  He mixed up what was left behind by the previous owners (the builders really left it I suppose) and went to town with the roller and brush.  That's a huge thing off of my list that I had been putting off.

I wanted to get a couple of other things done with our time together over this long weekend, but given my need for sleep they didn't happen.  That's okay I guess, we'll get them.

I've posted my in depth tribute in a less public venue, but wanted to share her obituary here.  My dear sweet friend, Christine, will be missed tremendously.

I think I'm averaging one every other week a this point, and that's not counting the people I hear of passing that I knew but didn't really know well.  This time it is someone I considered to be a very close friend.  Admittedly, we haven't gotten to spend much time together as of late, but we had a get together on the calendar - it was scheduled for this month and put off until closer to the normal birthday celebrations.  We had been emailing recently as she was bored on home lockdown with what started out at the beginning of the month as an asthma issue diagnosis, quickly turned into a pneumonia diagnosis, and was leading towards other tests later this week when the antibiotics didn't seem to give the improvement that was anticipated.

I can't put a name out there since the obituary hasn't been posted yet and I'm sure people are still being notified, but I couldn't go to bed without putting my love out into the universe.  My friend, I will miss you.  I cannot believe this is where we are this evening.  You were too young.  This makes no sense and I'm angry that your doctor dismissed you on the 1st, leading you quickly down this path.  You were so excited for our big news and not only will you not get to meet her, but you didn't even get to see me all fattened up.  I will cherish the books you sent for her and think of you every time we read from them.  Rest in peace.

To my other friends, if you are not feeling well, I do not care what your doctor tells you.  Find a new doctor who will get to the root of the problem.  You are more important to so many people than that one medical professional would have you believe.

I've had a few other ppl bringing subjects up with me wrt the kiddo that have upset me greatly in the past few days.  I really don't get how some people think what they're saying is okay or how they have the nerve to say it (especially to a hormone-laden woman).  My favorite egg came last night so I could share things in person and gave me some comfort on it all, but I have to admit it changes my views on some people right now and makes me question some other things.  Hopefully I can mentally get past it.

With the help of family a wall was painted upstairs and is ready for a decal once it is dry through and through.  That's one more huge relief.

Updates from late last week:
Friday at 3:30 the insurance information for the concrete company came in the mail.  Since the borough closed at 4, there was no way to get down there in time.  This morning as I left the house first thing to take the paperwork to the borough the concrete company arrived.  I dropped off the paperwork, the lady at the front office didn't know but took the papers and said if "he has any questions he'll call you".  Ok.

They have the area dug out and ready to go, and the dirt they moved he offered to move to the end of the yard where it drops off - this is great, except the bobcat has shredded the whole yard pretty good and it creates a drop off back further but in front of where the fence guy was going to run things, in effect it could make the fence really more like a 4' fence.

I called FedEx again on the BBB item.  I didn't get a call back on Friday like they said I would because no one actually opened a case.  *sigh*  Of course, the location that has my package right now is closed on Mondays.  Hence, I wait.

Stuff goes wrong in life.  I know this.  I've gotten better about not letting things ruin my day, but I'm struggling these past few days - and it's dumb stuff.

I'm trying to get the paperwork to the borough so I can get permits for the concrete work and the fence.  Well go figure when I send my best effort drawing to the fence guy to review to help me get the paperwork in order he comes back with their drawing which shows the fence WAAAAY into the easement.  I noted at the initial meeting that I didn't want to go far into the easement and even provided him a look at the survey, which I followed up with an emailed copy of the survey.  To make things more annoying he then commented that since they already ordered the materials if they can't use them they'd still come to me (aka I'm paying for it anyway).  So at best, we move things around a bit as to not risk being too far into the easement and my back yard fence line looks odd - worse is that I overpaid for what I needed - and even worse is that I have jack-shit fenced in.

Next stupid item:  two out of three items I ordered from Bed Bath and Beyond have arrived to finish out all of the curtain rods matching on the first floor.  I made a special trip to the closest store 25 min away to see if they had them, and ended up ordering with them in store because they could get them even though I couldn't get them online.  The third item that didn't arrive is showing as undeliverable, something about the tags confused FedEx.  I call Bed Bath and Beyond and that item is no longer available.  They offered me a larger rod - which would look ridiculous there or a double rod, also not what I want.  So now I've called FedEx and I'm waiting for someone from the location (an hour away by the way) where my package is now sitting (in theory).  Please please please find my stuff and get it to me.

Tonight I need to get a bunch of cleaning done.  Last night we ended up going to a Pirate's game since my Favorite Egg won his company's tickets, so that was a lost evening for progress.  Fingers crossed I can keep myself moving.

Small bursts - and I hope that will help me get things in order by the end of the week.  Today was cleaning up dog fur both on the main floor and in the basement (which will need to happen again later this week), taking some soapy water out to scrub the dirt off of the deck, windex washing some windows, brushing Saffy out a bit, taking a few more things to the basement, and getting a few bulbs in around the mailbox (gladiolas, let's see if they survived the move from Jtown and take).

I feel crappy only doing a windex wash of some of the windows, but it's what I could do right now - the ammonia can wait.  While the lower part of these windows swings in it does not lift the whole way out like the last house.  Let me tell you how impossible it is to wash the outside of the upper part of the window with the bottom swung in.  No, they don't seem to pull down, so I can't even reach out from the top to get to it.  I need to take something to the sliding door to chip off paint or something that is on the outside of the door, where did that come from?

I didn't go walk the dog tonight.  As you can imagine I'm not eager to stroll back out there after last night.

I also was able to get out for a long lunch with my new pastor today.  It was a nice opportunity to get to talk and know each other a little more.  My membership information did come from Oakland, so I guess it's a done deal.

In other news, the concrete guy called yesterday and thinks he'll be here next week to get that job underway.

Today I walked Safyre and had a dog come charging at us from a yard because the lady couldn't keep ahold of the leash.  Seriously?  Thank God the dog wasn't mean, but how am I to know that at the time?  It was twice Saffy's size.  I can't even pick Saffy up right now to try and protect her all I could do was try to keep myself between them - and how bad could that have been if it WAS mean?  I'm not sitting on the couch, sobbing, gasping for air, and waiting for my inhaler to work.

I have myself a little achy again, but things need done, so I'm not sure what else to do but buckle down and suffer it.  It isn't even like I did _that_ much yesterday.  I was up and out the door to do a little shopping (curtains, chairs, etc) made a stop at Aldi for some groceries (I didn't have time to also hit Iggle), and then I mowed the lawn, loaded the items waiting to be donated into the vehicle, showered, and headed back out.  First stop was the donation center for those goodies, then to meet my Favorite Egg for dinner before we headed out for a game night.  It's been a while since we've hit Outback, gosh I love that place. I had an amazing filet with lump crab.

I did find a small orangish colored chair I liked for the entry way, now I just need a different stand beside it to hold the lamp and maybe a plant.  Bed Bath and Beyond was able to order more of the same curtain rods that are downstairs for me (they weren't showing the smaller size online) so I will have matching items throughout the first floor.  Now I just need to find curtains I really like (I even stopped at Ikea out of desperation to find some - no luck).  Then the big buy - I stopped at the Lazboy gallery and made the leap, I think Daddy would be proud.  This chair will go upstairs for now and when I no longer need to rock throughout the night it can come downstairs.  I'm pretty excited about this purchase - I've always wanted one - of course, it will be 4-6 weeks until it arrives.

Saffy woke me around 4am by jumping up on the bed with me.  Within a few minutes I heard the low rumbling in the distance of a storm coming in.  She always used to lay down and cuddle with me to get through storms, but lately she seems too agitated to even do that.  Instead she's up, she's down, she's pacing around.  I took them outside quickly and worked to get her calmed down - then after she was back out I was laying there awake for another half an hour.  Thanks Saf.

I neglected to report earlier that I made the transfer to do the recast on my mortgage last week and that money is already showing on the account!  I'm excited to see my balance drop a good bit and to know I won't have to make as high of payments if I don't need to moving forward.  Progress is good.

Yes, I headed to the basement. I'm now wiped and sitting on the couch with an achy back.  But I did make really good progress down there!  I even have my fancy wine racks that Mr Law made for me many many moons ago back together and loaded down with wine... wine I can't touch for a very long time.  *sigh*

The weather has cooled back down.  There really is no win.  I find myself either saying "it's too cold for me to..." or "it's too warm for me to...".  This weekend however I have crossed a few things off.  I was up and moving pretty early yesterday to get grocery shopping done, anticipating my Favorite Egg visiting.  He ended up with something else going on, so he came later, but that bought me time for a nap.  After he came my grocery purchases forced my hand and got me out on the deck to scrub the grill.

The past two summers I've thought there was something wrong with the grill as often it would not come up to temp and would only get to around 250 degrees, obviously not good for grilling out. I had recently started searching expecting to be directed to a replacement part only to learn that I am probably causing the grill to go into bypass mode because I would turn things on too quickly!  After we cleaned her up we turned her on in the way directed on the one website and boom we had ample heat!  It is out on the deck, so I did have to pull it away from the railing and put a drip protector (yay Amazon) under the whole thing.

Today I was up again early to get to church.  I didn't make it up and moving early enough last weekend so I simply had to go this week.  I sure wanted another nap today, but instead I headed to a LuLaRoe open house here in my neighborhood by a consultant I've been following and snagged a couple more items.  I had also placed an order with Zulily this morning as I've been hunting for maxi dresses that are simple/solid colors to use for a photo shoot in July.

New furniture I ordered for the rugrat room comes on Tuesday, so I needed to do some work up there.  I moved the existing dresser into the closet, reorganized some more, vaccuumed, put together the changing topper for the dresser (again yay Amazon), and started another load of laundry for linens etc.  We don't have the mattress yet, but I can fake it and make it look a little more put together in time for my Favorite Egg's Mom to come in two weeks to help me get a wall painted.

I'm not done. I'm going to head to the basement next.  I really need to move some stuff around and do some reorganizing there so it doesn't feel so crowded thanks to all of the rugrat stuff and boxes of wine I brought back earlier this week.  Wish me luck!

I was blessed enough that a friend invited me to the 4th game, 2nd round of the Stanley Cup playoffs (Pens vs Caps).  It was hard to figure out what jersey to wear, after all I do not own a Pens jersey.  I do own a Caps jersey, but out of the two that isn't who I would cheer for.

Typically whatever team I'm cheering for looses.  This is why I assume Sid got hurt the other night, it's like they knew I was coming.  Instead I got to watch the Pens take home win number 3 in this series!  Great evening out and I'm only a little worse for wear this morning.  Hopefully I won't be begging for a nap around 2pm.

I have felt slightly productive as of late, but I know they're minor strides, but since I haven't posted in a while I feel like I have a lot to catch you up on.

Last week one night I made another trip out to look at furniture.  I knew if I could just get the furniture for the kiddo room selected and ordered I'd feel a lot better.  I ended up having an epiphany that some of the furniture in the kid's section was named the same as the furniture in the adult bedroom section.  Boom! Kid's dresser and an adult's lingerie chest make for just what I need:  something smaller to fit into that room, ample storage/drawers/moderate pricing - but still real wood.

I do still need to find a rocking chair of some sort for there, but that's a whole other story.  The debate goes on if I'm getting all new living room furniture of just trying to find that one piece, using it in the bedroom for now and later moving it downstairs.  I can always get couches etc at some other point - but then they're not likely to match.  If I know they won't match, should I cave and go look at lazboys?

I would have hung several pictures, but damnit the studs aren't in the middle of the places where I need them to be.  I guess that means I need to put those huge plastic things in the wall and make gaping holes.  If you're building a house, that should be part of the design of the structure, just sayin.

The letter came back from the HOA approving the concrete and the fence.  Now we see when they can/will come, right?  I left a message for both contractors.  The fence guy acknowledged, but nothing from the concrete guy yet.  *sigh*  I know you're not ready to come do the work right away, but at least let me know you got the message.

Saturday we had plans to go to game night out of town w/ my Favorite Egg's friends, it was a nice evening out.  We were supposed to get a few other things done earlier in the day but he had a headache (which fortunately went away in time to attend the evening activities) so that didn't get completed.  Instead I did get some banana bread baked (which I just finished off earlier today thank you very much) and a batch of brownies to take with us.

I mowed Sunday and about melted it was so warm.  I had talked to the guy who tends to the neighbor's yard and gotten a quote from him (yes, it's high, but I was willing to go that route).  My Favorite Egg nixed it saying he would take care of it, so we'll see how that goes.  Monday night I about melted again after hauling a carload of my wine/liquor/limoncello up from my Favorite Egg's.  I wanted it out of his garage before it got too warm.  I'm definitely needing the exercise as I feel like I need to start being careful about weight.