It's been a while...

So here it is, the last nice Sunday of the year and I'm probably going to spend it inside. :( I want to read and right now would be a perfect time to do it outside. An early October day that's unseasonably warm. Not uncomfortably warm like it can be during the summer with all the humidity. But just wonderfully warm...I digress....
Why am I not reading outside? Because my back patio, as I have mentioned before, backs right up to a forest. Hello sunshine? Where did you go, all I can see are shadows from all the trees. Not bashing trees, it'd just be nice to be able to sit out back and enjoy the sunlight. Don't want to sit out front either because that's where my trashy neighbors like to live. Yes, I said live. I don't know why they bother renting a place with a roof because it seems as though they are always outside.
The multitude of kids that are over there (mind you, only two actually LIVE there) at all times are usually playing basketball. No, that's not a typo, I meant to write BASKETBALL in a small, four unit, apartment parking lot. I think some of them are confused as to the object of the game because rather than actually making the ball go through the hoop, they seem to think they are supposed to aim for cars by first bouncing it off the rim. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that ball bounce off of my car or Chad's truck (Sometimes when he's still in it!), well, we'll just say I'd have a lot of dollars.
And if they're not doing that, they're riding their bikes. No, not around the (sort of) wide open spaces of the parking lot, it is apparently more fun to circle cars and bump the handlebars into them causing eight inch long scratches. Oh yes, my car has one of those and Chad's truck has matching scratches on both sides. (No wonder no one ever wants to come here to hang out....) It's always nice to walk out to the car in the morning and see a fresh scratch of some sort on my leased car. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. The best part is that the adults/parents are usually nowhere in sight, and if they are, they're just sitting there calmly with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth looking like they don't have a care in the world. Love it, really, I do.
I should've taken it as a sign when I moved in here on one of the last days of January last year when they had their easily removed Christmas decorations still up (and they remained up until May). If I wasn't so desperate for someplace affordable, I might have looked elsewhere.
But I hold out hope that I will be able to buy a house soon. I've been looking and looking. I really shouldn't since I haven't tried to get pre-approved again since last fall and it's only good for one year. The city I live in (and want to buy in) has this great program for first time home buyers that give assistance up to $3,000 for half the down-payment and closing costs. I had that approval, sort of. To get it, you have to take this class offered by some neighborhood association. I never was able to take the class before I gave up and decided to wait a little longer. I can't even remember how many times I tried to take the class. The whole group running it is about fifty cards short of a full deck. The first time I tried to take it, they didn't even have me on the list. And then, as I sat there waiting with two other people, it was cancelled because the person leading the class didn't come in. The next time I tried to take it, they told me I was in the wrong class because I was already pre-approved. So I had to sign up for a different class. I can't remember what the deal was for that one but something happened and it was cancelled. Before I attempted to head back downtown the next time, I actually got a phone call saying the next one was cancelled because some drunk had crashed into the building about a week prior leaving it, "structurally unsound." So once again, I rescheduled for the class in December (started trying to take this class in August). Day of the class rolls around and I'm thinking it's finally going to happen. Until I get downtown, park my car and walk up to the building to find out it's locked up tight. I tried calling the lady leading the class (the same one that I've been dealing with most of the time) and got her voicemail. I'm at the end of my rope with this whole thing at this point and I left her....not a mean message, but not a nice one either. When I finally heard back from her, she told me the class was cancelled and that everyone was called. I was like, hello! No one called me! Then she told me they weren't going to be doing it for a few months, I can't remember what the reason was for that. And thinking back now, that must be why I gave up.
So in my efforts to get the ball rolling on all this again so I don't see another perfect opportunity house (three bedroom, one and a half bath, basement, two car garage, fenced back yard - all for $50K, it was a really cute house) get snatched up after being on the market for less than a week, I sent this lady an email to see what the class schedule is and what class I'd need to take since I'm not pre-approved yet. That was sometime last month. Do you think I've heard back from her? Of course not. I'm wondering if the group even exists anymore.
I decided to then start on the paperwork portion of this whole thing and forgot that I pretty much have to tell them everything about myself down to my blood type and what I had for dinner three years ago. I really don't remember filling all this crap out. And since nothing much has changed since then, I'm wondering if I can go back through my sent emails and see if I maybe sent scanned copies of all of it the first time. Usually I hang on to paperwork like that and file it. But I tried to look for it the other day and came up emptyhanded. Knowing myself, I probably chucked it in one of my cleaning fits thinking I wouldn't be getting a house in that time period anyway, so why keep it. Oh stupid me.
Anyway, I do need to get going on it though. Not just because of my crappy, disrespectful neighbors (who like to party in their minivan with the bass up all the way until 12:30am, yeah, that's their newest BS), but because I now have contraband. And by contraband, I mean a furry, little, charcoal gray, four legged furball with a squeak for a meow. I am no supposed to have pets and I abided by that rule until three weeks ago. I finally decided that if those morons can have a basketball hoop and cause property damage to other people's things, I can have one little, tiny kitten.
I got sick of waiting and waiting to get a house before I got a cat or a dog. I figured a cat would be easier to conceal for obvious reasons. And unlike my neighbors' kid's, little miss Roxy hasn't caused a lick of damage to the apartment. She's been using her litter box as she's supposed to, never once had an accident outside it (knock on wood), and I have those Soft Claws things on her so she can't scratch anything up. (I refuse to declaw her after reading the horror stories on that.) She provides a lot of comic relief when she's not up playing at 4:30 in the morning or waging war on my plant.
I have however, learned my lesson on gettting a super young kitten from someone off of Craigslist. She was about seven and a half weeks old when I got her. The girl I got her from said they couldn't keep her because the family was allergic and they didn't know until they got her. She had gotten Roxy (she named her Mya, but I changed her name because that is suddenly the popular pet name and I like to be different) from a friend who'd found a stray that'd had kittens. Poor thing was flea-ridden and the girl had doused her in flea powder which seemed to have gotten rid of most of them. She hadn't been to the vet yet for anything, so I made an appointment for her.
The first time I took her in, they found out that she had two types of worms. So I had to pay for two medications and the test to find the worms on top of the regular vet visit. Bye bye $120. I just took her back Wednesday of last week for a re-check and she had to have another round of one of the worm meds and got her first vaccination. Those and the visit cost me another $80. They told me she needs to come back in three week intervals for vaccines until she's 16 weeks - which means two more visits. Ugh! So much for a free cat! Next time I'm adopting from a shelter where I can pay less up front and have all this done. I haven't even had her spayed yet and the vet is telling me because they use a different technique where they make an incision on their side (instead of on their belly), it's just over $200 for that. Holy crap Batman! Little miss Roxy has turned out to be quite an expensive little kitty.
And here's the funniest bit - Mr. I Hate Cats (Chad) has been cuddling, snuggling, playing, petting, talking in a high pitched voice, and even kissing the cat. Yeah, he sure does hate cats alright.

Rain, rain, go away....

It seems lately that every time it rains anymore, it's a full-blown storm. What ever happened to the nice, peaceful rain that just fell without the need to announce its impending presence with thunder and lightning? The weather has just been so crazy lately. And while I try to act like storms don't bother me, they do, oh yes they do. That is why I am up now, at 1:30 in the morning - because I seem to think that if I'm up and able to watch the outside world, nothing terrible will happen. Where does this rationalization come from??

We were getting that crazy, non-stop ligtning earlier that reminds me of a strobe light. To me, that's scary lightning - tornado lightning. It stopped, but after pulling up the radar from The Weather Channel online, I don't like the looks of the orange, red, dark red blob coming this way. So I tell myself I'll stay up for it and see it through and all will be fine....I hope. :)

Something to (sort of) take my mind off of this - I started to read Caprice Crane's new book, With A Little Luck.  I had been anxiously waiting for the library to get it in all summer because of all the positive things I've heard about her other books. She's a favorite author, and friend of one of my favorite authors (Jen Lancaster) so that just further hyped me up. *Sigh*

I started reading it the other day and I gave it 79 pages. 79 pages! That's double what I normally give a book I can't get into. And I don't know what the problem is, there are some great one-liners in there that would make me chuckle to myself. But I just couldn't get too involved with the main character Berry. I guess I thought she was kind of......I don't know, whiny, in a way. (Somebody PLEASE tell me if I EVER start to sound whiny.....or if I already have!!!) I just didn't care for the character. Or maybe I've been reading too much YA lately and am not quite in the mood for anything else. I don't know.

Ok, well, that's all - sounds like the worst of the storm is about to hit. I think I'll go watch it out the window. Kind of like a in-your-face challenge to the storm. LOL!

C'mon, really?

Ok, seriously, I know there is a forest (yes, in the literal sense) right behind my apartment, but why does nature insist on being inside my apartment instead of out? This morning, after I got done brushing me teeth, (Remember, I said, “after,” so all the water and everything has run down the drain.) a freakin’ earwig comes crawling up from the depths of the drain. And I was like, Really? REALLY? Unbelievable. How did that thing make it UP the drain? How? Well, doesn’t matter now because he went for another water ride around the toilet bowl.

All these bugs and bats make it sound like I live in a shit hole. But it’s really not. The building might be a little old as I’m sure it was built in the 70’s at the very least….any maybe that’s how so many critters get in there. Anyway though, it’s pretty nice actually. The city I live in isn’t huge by any means, but it is a lot bigger than the sticks that I grew up and went to school in. It’s one of those cities where there is a lot of “city,” but right next to it, you’ll find “country” too. As in my case – I live right off the main road through town. I think I remember seeing an article once that said it was one of the busiest streets in the state. And I live not even a quarter of a mile off the road, yet there is a forest directly behind me. As in, I walk out of my basement not even 20 feet and boom, I’m in the woods. There have been deer on my concrete slab more times than I can count. (The deer here are NOT afraid of people or cars, something I’m still not used to after ten years of living here.) Given all that though, it’s kind of a good transition for someone like me, coming from the sticks. I’m ready now to move to a bigger city, but I’m stuck due to custody restraints and all that fun stuff. But, I digress….

The apartment itself is pretty nice in regards to size for what you pay for. It’s almost like a condo or a townhouse. Only instead of having an upstairs, I have a main floor and a basement. And the basement is a half finished walkout, which is really nice. I believe the concrete slab I mentioned before is meant to be used as a patio. I had high hopes for a flower garden and maybe a few home grown vegetables out there when I first moved in. But because of the trees, it hardly gets any sunlight and in my opinion, tends to be cold because of all the shade.  I do have a table and chair set out there, but never go out because of the cold and bugs. Plus the trees are always pooping tree stuff all over….let’s just say, I don’t do well with “real” nature.

I promise my blogs are not always going to be me complaining about some random bug (or bat) being in my apartment. The ones that I find crawling on the walls or anything like that just don’t merit being written about. It’s the crazy that stands out. Like how a bug can make its way up the drain after water has been going the opposite way.

So I just finished the book I’ve been reading. The Secret of Joy by Melissa Senate. I am by no means any good at writing reviews of books. But I’ll give it a try. On the GoodReads website, I gave this book four out of five stars. It’s a bit of a slow starter and I usually only give books 20 to 40 pages to hook me. (I feel bad about this sometimes and if I didn’t have such a long TBR list, I would make myself read the entire book.) Since this is a Melissa Senate book, I knew better than to put it down. And in the end, it did not disappoint. I love how she made the characters feel like real people that I might know and her descriptions of Wicasset, Maine make me want to vacation there even more. (I’ve always wanted to go to Maine.) I love the way the story played out with the conflicts between the characters and I even got teary a few times. A few tears always automatically means a good book to me. Seems you can never go wrong with a book by Melissa Senate. I haven’t read all of hers yet, but I’ve read most and I’ve liked every single one. :)

One of those days....

Ever have one of those days where you could sleep the entire day away? That's been my day. I hate days like this, I feel like I've wasted a precious commodity. I've been awake maybe nine or ten hours of the day today, and I'm not sick! (Or at least, I hope I'm not.)

Ugh, anyway, going back to my first post - I did eventually find the bat. But it wasn't for several hours. Since Chad was coming over, I closed the windows and turned the air on for him. He looked everywhere he could think of for it and never found it. So we left, went out for dinner and a little grocery shopping. When we got back (around 7ish) he was sitting at the dining room table, surfing the web. I came up behind him to look at something and happened to look out the window - where I noticed something in the upper right hand corner that wasn't normally there. At first I thought maybe a leaf was stuck to the screen outside. But then it dawned on to me that it looked particularly upside down bat shaped. And I said, "Nuh-uh!" Chad was like, "What?" And I told him, "I found the bat!" And I told him where to look and he thought for sure I was seeing wrong, until he got up and walked over there to see.



Sure enough, it was my little friend. The poor thing was wedged up under the top window in between the screen and the window. I hadn't noticed him earlier because the windows do not open all the way up, there's a good two inch space between the top of the window and the top of the window well. So I was right in my thinking that he was somewhere in the dining room/kitchen area. And the scitchy scratchy noises I kept hearing probably was the bat. It was probably trying to find a comfortable way to get up in that spot.

So I knocked on the glass right by it and it didn't move. This alarmed me thinking the poor thing has been trapped there for the better part of the day. But then I also thought, maybe it was sleeping. So after a short discussion on how to catch it, Chad and I raised the window up. He was holding a towel against the window in case it was scared into flight. And I had a shoe box to trap it in.

But it was freaking sound asleep! Because of the window not going all the way up, I couldn't get to him with the box. I tried pounding on the window to wake him up and that didn't work. So I grabbed a rubber spatula and prodded at him a little bit. He woke up finally but wouldn't get out of that spot. And he wasn't liking that spatula. I couldn't quite get him without possibly hurting him so I kept trying to get him to bite the spatula with the hopes that I could kind of pull him out while his teeth were sunk into the rubber. And boy did I piss him off, he was screeching at me and biting that spatula like there was no tomorrow. But he wasn't budging!

So I finally had to get a little more forceful with him and he moved out, but he kept inching along the top part of the screen just behind the window. It was so frustrating. But I felt bad for him at the same time because we literally scared the piss out of the poor little guy! I'm not kidding, as he's inching along the screen you could see liquid dribbling down from him.

Anyway, after 20 minutes of fighting with him, going back and forth between the corners and trapping him once only to have him get free of the box and scrabble back up to the top - we finally caught him! Chad took him outside and (I kinda feel bad for the bat about this) flung it on the ground away from him. After the bat got its bearings, it took off.

LOL, I think Chad was kind of scared of it and it made me laugh. He's supposed to be the man and here he was freaking out over a little bat. Too funny!!

I was supposed to be able to sleep in today...

Ok, so I've been kicking around the idea of starting a blog for a while now. The one thing that has really held me back - other than, well, thinking NO ONE is going to read it - is that I don't know how much time I will be able to devote to it.

But as I'm sitting here at just after 6am on a day that I should've been able to sleep in as I don't have to work and I don't have my child, I figured - Why not?

Here's the story....

After going to bed kind of late last night....sometime after midnight, I woke up sometime between three and four am because I heard a noise. A noise that sounded like something fell over, not a big crash or anything like that. It just sounded like a stack of papers fell of the dresser in my room. Which is really odd because there isn't a stack of papers on my dresser.

Half asleep, I laid there quietly listening for something else. I happened to be looking at the ceiling where there's a faint blue glow reflected from the light on my air purifier. As I'm looking (and listening), I see what appears to be a black shadow cross that blue reflection. At first, I thought I imagined it. But there it went again, really fast and sort of smallish. Must be some kind of play on lights and reflection with car lights from outside, I thought groggily, or I'm just that tired, my eyes are playing tricks on me. So I get up to use the bathroom, then flop back in bed and go to sleep.

About two hours later, I am again woken up by a noise. What IS that, I think again. It sounded like there was air blowing through the floor register making the strings to the blinds sway, and those little plastic things at the end were knocking into each other. Huh, that's all it is, I tell myself and close my eyes to go back to sleep. Then I think, But I don't have the air on...... And as I'm puzzling that, I hear something crash into the blinds and my eyes snap open. All of the sudden I see it, a black shape flitting this way and that in my bedroom!

WTF?! You have GOT to be kidding me!!! Another one?! Another freaking bat in my house??? This is SO not something I want to deal with right now! Damn you Chad for not staying the night! Come ON, this is unbelievable! And about a zillion other thoughts were going through my head as I watched it swooping around my room. How the hell am I going to get out of bed without that thing flying into my head?!

Now, let me just say, I'm not scared of bats, but that doesn't mean I want to touch one, let alone have it fly into my head and get tangled in my hair. So as I'm contemplating how to get out of bed, sit up and crouch low, slide off the mattress onto the floor, tuck & roll, the damn thing swoops lower and lower and I'm worried that it's going to hit me in the face as I'm lying there. So I stretch my arms out above the bed and pull the sheet up with it to form a barrier between me and the bat. And I start to slide my legs over the side of the bed. Then I remember, the lamp! My bedside lamp!

With one arm holding the sheet up, I use the other to reach over and turn the lamp on and there it is. And it's freaking huge! I'm not kidding, the wingspan on the thing has got to be at least eight inches! But now that I've turned the light on, it darts through the doorway. Perfect chance! I jump up out of bed and come out of the bedroom, closing the door behind me. It's flying around the living room, dining room and kitchen so I hurry up and close the bathroom door and Morgan's bedroom door. (Thankfully she isn't here for this.) All the while I'm having to keep watch on the bat because it's flying all over the place and I keep having to duck to avoid it. My main thought at this point is how I really don't want it to fly into my head and get tangled in my hair. Especially as I didn't have my hair pulled back and it was already a rat's nest from sleeping on it.

As I'm standing (and ducking) there, I realize again how much bigger it is than the other one that was in my house last fall. (Yup, this is the second time I've had to deal with this!) And I really don't want this sucker in my hair, so I run for one of the blankets on the back of my  couch and I hold that up in front of me while I'm contemplating how to catch the damn thing. Meanwhile, it's still flying around and flies into the window and falls to the window sill. I don't want to hurt it and I feel bad for it. I keep flipping lights on so I can see it and I think by doing so, I'm disorienting it further. Suddenly, I remember I was able to catch the last one in a shoe box (as it clung to the cold air return in my daughter's bedroom). So I slowly backed up to my bedroom door and ducked inside. I grabbed a shoebox out of the top of my closet and dumped the shoes on the bed. I crack the door open and look out to see if it's nearby and I hear another noise like it crashed into something else. I don't see it so I come out of the room and shut the door behind me.

Did it fly down to the basement, I wondered? So I started walking down the steps with the box out in front of me. After a slight pause at the bottom, I reach around the corner and flip the light on to the finished side. Nothing. Ok, maybe it's flying around the unfinished side. So I turn and reach around the corner to that side and flip that light on. Nothing! WTF?

Leaving those lights on, I come back up the stairs keeping an eye out for it. Still not seeing it, I decide to grab my broom and start poking around, in the plant, under the table, behind the stack of tubs full of garage sale stuff, etc. Still nothing. So I decide that maybe the lights are too much for it and it's hiding. I flip a few off, then decide it's still too bright so I turn off every single one except the one over my basement stairs. That one operates on a dimmer switch so I turned it down really low and I stood there for a few minutes convinced that it is somewhere in the kitchen/dining area.

All the while, it is getting brighter and brighter outside. Finally, it gets to the point where I can shut the dimmer all the way off and still see reasonably well. Then I got really sick of waiting in the dark and got to thinking that this would probably be an amusing story for others that aren't living it (I'll find it funny later, after the bat is out of my house). And I start thinking about the blog thing again. I've been told I should do one and I guess, what better way to start it off, right?

Well, here it is, almost two hours after it woke me up the second time and I still don't know where it is. I'm trying to patiently wait it out and hope that it starts flying again, rather than having to try to suss it out. But I don't want to do that, because, again, I don't want a bat flying into my head!

I thought maybe it would reappear as I was writing this, and while I've heard a few noises that may or may not be it moving about in its hiding place (I still think somewhere in the dining area), it remains unseen. Ugh, I think I'm going to have to go look for it. What if I don't find it though? What if I have to wait until tonight? What if it shits wherever it is? I don't want batshit in my house! OMG, I am so not looking forward to this.......