I changed my mind. That's what women do.

I kept the Blackberry. I'm not sure why.

I still have time to take it back if I want, but it is kind of convenient.

Although there are numerous features that I disabled because I will never use them.

And now I have even more reason to complain about people forwarding emails.

It's bad enough to receive 42 silly poems and jokes every day. (Which I rarely read, by the way, so if you are someone who sends them, you are wasting your time and mine. Unless it's really short, or something political, in which case I will try to read it if I can find the time.)

But if you want to be sure that I will not read your email, forward it, requiring me to scroll through the hundreds of email addresses it was forwarded to before me.

That's annoying on the computer. It's torture on a Blackberry.

IT'S SIMPLE TO COPY AND PASTE!!! TRY IT!!

And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop sending me those email angels or pictures of Jesus that tell me I am going to burn in hell if I don't forward them.

Please. Just stop.

Anyone want to help me move?

We still aren't finished moving. Except for the furniture that I hired movers for, I've done it all by myself.

So I spent the weekend slacking off.

I was so excited yesterday when my husband said he was going to the old house to get some stuff. Finally, I was going to get some help.

He came back a few minutes later, with some fishing poles and a bait bucket.

I'm pretty sure that he could have fit more than that into the truck.

And he keeps talking about how stressful moving is. I don't see where it has caused any inconvenience for him whatsoever. He left the old house one morning, and showed up at the new one that evening. His bed was made and the cable was hooked up. What more could he ask for?

Maybe he's stressed because he can't find his way home anymore. I was following him the other day, and he turned on our old street. I had to call him and remind him that we didn't live there anymore.

Bye Bye, Blackberry

During one of my husband's temper tantrums last week, he destroyed yet another cell phone. It's really a shame when a grown man can't control himself enough to avoid breaking things when he's pissed. I'm being conservative when I estimate that he's probably destroyed 10 phones in the 10 years that I've know him. Thankfully, it usually happens while he is working, so I don't have to see it. But I always get to see the results. This time, the phone looks like it was hit by a semi. I can't imagine what he did to it, and I really don't want to know.

The last couple of times, I've refused to go get him a new phone, but made him do it himself instead. Why should I be burdened with replacing something that he destroyed on purpose? However, today I did go to the Alltel store and get him a Blackberry.

In case you aren't aware of this, we own a commercial pool service and repair company. We have some large country clubs with high-tech equipment on their pools, and he gets email updates when there is a problem with chemicals, etc. He's able to look at the chemical readings and decide what needs to be done to correct any imbalance. Apparently, it's easier to check email from a Blackberry than a regular cell phone. I didn't know that until recently. (Even though I do have an iPod now, I'm apparently still way behind technologically.)

For those of you who are as clueless as I was until this morning, a Blackberry is basically a phone that is a computer, as well. As a matter of fact, I guess it could also be considered a camera, address book, notepad, GPS navigator....I'm really not sure if there is anything that it doesn't do. It even has a few features that I'm too scared to try.

Anyhow, as soon as I got home and tried to use this thing, I knew he would hate it. Never mind that web surfing is painfully slow. He probably wouldn't do anything other than make calls and check email with it anyway. But the keys are so small that even I can barely use them. Dialing out on it is difficult, and his fingers are larger than mine. It's hard to hit one key without hitting two others next to it. For him, that's grounds for smashing it into a thousand tiny pieces. And he doesn't need another excuse to do that.

I have been told that I can have this thing if I want it. But I don't think I do. I have always said that I don't need my phone to take pictures or video. I don't need any games. I don't need a calculator. I don't need any special ring tones. And I definitely don't need internet or email access on my phone. I just want my phone to be a phone. Is that wrong?

When I'm home or at our store, I have to be glued to my computer. And I'm rarely away from one or the other of those places for more than a couple of hours. Gosh, I think I'd rather NOT have to deal with email during that time. Am I going to pay $50 a month to be harassed by our customers while I'm trying to take an hour break by the pool?

I think not.

How to get rid of a Rash

**Rated R for violence and language.

Since I know you are all wondering what happened to poor Randall, I won't keep you in suspense. He almost got his ass kicked the other day. No, not by me. Although I felt like it. He pretty much hung out here all day Tuesday. He would leave and I would think that was the last of him. But NO. A few minutes later, I would notice the Dodge Caravan in its hiding place. Oh, and he told Mary (the homeowner) that the spot he parked in was the only parking space available, which is exactly what I knew he was going to say, but was a complete lie. He also had a ridiculous excuse for why the boxes were stacked up in front of the sliding glass doors. He has an answer for everything. Bullshitters always do. And Mary believes his BS. She had even gone in to look at the room, and told me that she initially agreed with me that he might be planning to stay there, but of course he explained her suspicions away.

The last time The Rash drove up and came walking toward the townhouse on Tuesday, I couldn't take it anymore. I asked him what the hell he was doing here and when he was going to go away. Anyway, he locked himself in his living quarters, and while the locksmith was changing the locks on the front doors, I called my husband and told him that he needed to come physically remove Randall. That probably was not a good idea on my part.

The locksmith picked the sliding glass door lock, giving my husband access to Randall. :) (Looking back, I'm actually a little surprised that the locksmith was so helpful. But he did mention to me that he was scared of my husband, and wouldn't want to be Randall.) As it turned out, the only reason Randall is not in a body cast is because he was cowering behind his boxes, and my husband was probably just happy to see him so afraid. I guess he figured that was enough to keep him away from here from now on. In the meantime, Randall called the police. Yep, we hadn't even moved in yet, and the cops were already here.

No one was arrested, because technically no one had done anything wrong. I got Mary on the phone. She talked to the police officer and told him that we were renting from her, and that Randall had access to that room.

Never mind that "access" doesn't mean he can just hang out there all day.

After the police left, I spoke with her and told her that she needed to tell Randall to leave, and to leave NOW. She told me she would. She even agreed with me that there was no reason for him to still be there. So she called his cell phone and talked to him for 15 minutes, but never really made him leave. He smoothed it all over with her. Again. Then, after she hung up, he told me he was not leaving until he had finished. He was putting locks on the sliding glass doors so he could get in from the back, since he knew he wouldn't be able to come through the garage. He wouldn't leave, and told me that if the locksmith changed his locks, he was just going to change them back. He was inside the room, so I suppose he was just going to sit in there and wait, and then put his own lock back on. I knew it wouldn't matter anyway, because even if we did change the locks, we would have given Mary a key, and she would have given a copy to The Rash.

By this point, we had pretty much decided that we were going to have to move in here, and then start looking immediately for somewhere else to go. What fun.

To make a long story even longer, yesterday I was given a tour of "the room" by Mary. She thought she could prove to me that it was only being used for storage. She brought The Rash with her. He needed to "get some things". (Of course he did. He was here all day doing nothing for 3 days, and now suddenly he needed to get some things. Whatever.) Anyway, I requested that she not bring him in during my "tour". So he waited in her car.

He has a table set up in there, with desk items on it, like it's an office. He even has his printer there, so he can hook his laptop up to it. The cushions, blanket and pillow are shoved into a corner, even though she had insisted to me that they were not in there. As I already knew, the boxes are stacked from floor to ceiling, and literally have to be pushed out of the way when entering through the sliding glass doors. It would have made much more sense to stack them out of the way, as he has to enter through those doors. They are clearly there to block the view from the outside. But she is really so brainwashed by this guy that she can't see this.

I asked Mary if she has actually seen the place that he is supposedly living now. She says she has, but she didn't sound very convincing to me. And considering that he has no job, who is paying for it anyway? Oh, that's right. She gives him "money to live".

She has now offered to move all of the "storage items" to a warehouse, if we will pay a little more rent. She said she can't do that for a month, so we can take some time to decide if that's what we would prefer.

I will say that we have not seen The Rash or his van lurking anywhere. Come to think of it, so far, today is officially my first Rash-free day since we got the keys to this place.

Of course, it's still early.

Randall the Rash

From now on, that is how I will refer to him. Because his name really is Randall, and he just won't go away.

Having been assured that Randall would be gone this morning, I wait until 2:00 to go to the townhouse. I drive up and am thrilled that the 1982 rusted out Dodge Caravan is no longer in the driveway. I am even more ecstatic when I go in the house, and then enter the garage to find everything has been moved.

Just to make sure that the back room behind the garage hasn't been turned into a guest room for The Rash, I unlock the door and open it. GUESS WHO IS THERE!!! That's right!! It's Randall!!! And he's NOT happy that I have entered his room. Not happy at all.

So, at this point, I am EXTREMELY pissed off. I can't put it any nicer than that. Actually, that is putting it nice, because there is a lot more I could say.

So I tell Randall that I thought he was going to be gone by now.

He says, "I'm doing what I'm supposed to do," and he looks at me like he wants to kill me.

Seriously.

So I say, "No, you are not supposed to even be here."

That's when he slams the door in my face.

So, after unloading my truck, I walk around the parking lot a little, and find his piece of crap van parked on the other street in the same community, but in a way that some bushes block it so it can't be seen from our townhouse. As I walk back, here comes Randall, with a psycho smirk on his face, walking to his van.

As soon as the van pulls out, I go back to "his" room, and find that in the span of ten minutes, he has changed the lock on that door! Okay, that's fine. I don't need to get to their stuff. We did agree to let them store some things in that room. But I'm so curious as to what he has going on in there, so I walk behind the townhouse to look in the sliding glass doors. Conveniently, he has boxes piled from floor to ceiling, so no one can see in. That's when I realize that the ONLY way into that room is through our garage. Even if he can unlock the sliding doors, there is no way to get past the boxes. Meaning that he can't get in there unless he comes through our house or garage door. And I have already been told that he might need to come get things out of there occasionally. And I think we know what "occasionally" probably means to Randall.

On top of all of that, yesterday I put new batteries in the garage door opener. It worked fine all day. Today.......nothing. It will not open the door.

I dare you to call me paranoid, because we all know that Randall did something to disable the opener. It wouldn't surprise me if he has his own remote and has reprogrammed it to work the door, so he can get in anytime he wants, thereby giving him access to his stuff.

I am now back at the old house. But I have to go now. I'm meeting the locksmith at the townhouse in 30 minutes. All locks are being changed TODAY.

And yes, that includes the one that would have let The Rash into his bedroom.

There's a freeloader living in my garage

So, we finally got the key to the new townhouse. The only problem is, the guy who has been staying there WON'T LEAVE! According to the lady who owns the place, this guy is her business partner. However, he tries to insinuate that they are a couple, and that he has some kind of rights to the place. I suspected that he was full of sh*t from the second I met him, so I've been questioning her a little bit. She says that he is her partner in this new product, one that he came up with, and she funded. I don't know where they met, but for some reason, she really thought his idea was a good one. She had some money, so she invested in it and helped to get it developed. Now she is stuck with him, at least as far as the business goes. But he does not own the townhouse. She does. When I mentioned that to him, he said "Yeah, her name is on this one," implying that there's another one in his name.

I'm not sure how it evolved to this point, but he has been living for free in her townhouse. And now he is mad that she is making him leave so she can rent it out. So, he's simply not leaving. I find it really strange that she would let him live in her townhouse for free. Not to mention she doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that he has framed 8 X 10's of her all over the place. She says he tells her they are for good luck.

Um, ok.

Today I asked her if she is supporting him, since she did admit that he doesn't have a job. First she said that she doesn't support him, then she said that she "gives him money to live". Where I come from, that's supporting him. I don't quite understand the difference.

Yesterday, I finally pretty much told him that he needed to get out, since we have paid rent as of the 15th and it's ours now. He got really annoyed with me. (Imagine, me not wanting him living in the townhouse with us!)

He has now moved his stuff down into the garage. Today he promised me that he'd start moving it out (to the back room behind the garage, because we agreed to let them store stuff there for a while), and that the garage will be empty by Wednesday. I told him that yes, it will be out by then because that is when my movers are moving the rest of our stuff in, and we need the garage.

So, he has been there ALL DAY and has not moved ONE THING. He's been in the back room where he is supposed to be moving the stuff, doing God knows what. Well, I do know two things he's doing. He's smoking and drinking. And the smoke is stinking up the entire house. Never mind that he already did that, because he was smoking inside the house as well, which he was not supposed to be doing. And I smelled liquor on his breath at 10:30 this morning. (You might be an alcoholic if you're drinking before noon on a weekday.)

At one point, I put two items of my own in the garage. He looked at me like I had just invaded his personal space. When I said I was dropping a few things off to clear out the back of my truck so I could move some more things, he just said, "Oh" and gave me an annoyed stare. Gosh, I am SO sorry that I want to move some things into the house that we are paying for, and he has been living in for free.

So I left, and when I came back an hour later, he had moved my stuff from the garage into the house. I guess it was in his way.

Anyway, tonight I called the lady and told her that if she didn't tell him to get the hell out, I was going to. So she called him. Conveniently, we showed up there to move some stuff while he was on the phone with her. (The phone that she is no doubt paying for.) He was throwing a fit in the garage, and I mean a fit similar to what you would expect from a 3-year-old. (And I already have a 3-year-old to put up with.) He was throwing things against the garage door and screaming some words that are not fit to say here. (Since when have I been afraid to put bad words here?)

So NOW he is supposed to get his stuff out tonight and be gone by tomorrow. I'll believe that when it happens.

I had someone clean the house for me today. I really would like it to stay that way. She says that he knows not to go back in the house at all. He's only allowed in the garage, and he has to use the bathroom by the pool.

She really acts like she believes he will abide by those rules.

I just hope the towels I left in the master bathroom are soft enough for him.

The electric company is evil

I called to have the electricity turned on in the townhouse. They said they would check my credit to determine if they could waive the deposit.

I did not qualify.

I qualify for a sizeable mortgage, but not for electricity! I can't imagine what credit score they require.

So they want over $400 as a deposit! As if moving isn't costing us enough already!

And it's not like I can call another electric company.

Regional monopolies suck.

I should probably start packing, huh?

About six different times, I tried to meet with the lady who owns the townhouse we are supposed to be renting. Every time, she had a reason that she wasn't available. One day last week, I even drove to the townhouse to meet her husband/boyfriend/business partner/whatever (that's another story), and he didn't have the lease ready. Finally, on Friday, I told her that we had to get it done this weekend, considering that we need to start moving on the 15th. She told me to call her back that evening and we would make arrangements. I called her a couple of times that night, and twice on Saturday. I couldn't get in touch with her. I was pretty sure we were going to have to start all over and try to find somewhere to live. Finally, she called me Sunday and we met them last night.

After all of the aggravation, I was expecting to hate this woman, but I really like her. She's a nurse, like me. She hates it and no longer practices, like me. She used to work in the neonatal ICU, just like me. And she's a conservative and willing to vote for anyone she has to in order to keep Obama out of the White House. So you know she must be very intelligent, like me. ;)

Unless you are a liberal. Then we are both racists. *eyeroll*

But most of all, when she found out my age, she was shocked and said that I look 28!! So now I LOVE her!

Anyway, we signed our lease. And she wants to sell us the townhouse, so we're going to talk to her about that in a couple of months.

I love the townhouse. Even though it's not right on the water, there's a community dock just a short walk away, and we can see the drawbridge and intracoastal waterway from the porch on the second and third levels. But the main reason I want to buy it is because we haven't even heard on the house we made the offer on yet, but we have to move now, and I'm tired of being a nomad. I don't think I'd want to move again in 6 months if someone gave us a house.

Party!

Here are some pictures from the big 3rd birthday party. It was a Cars theme, and if you haven't seen that movie, you should. Not that I've actually sat and watched the whole thing, but what I have seen is really cute.

I spent all day working on the cake.

You don't really believe that I made it, do you? Actually, I know a girl who has a cake business, and she can make a cake to look like just about anything you want. So she made us a road with the Cars characters on it.


She even had some extra batter from another project she was working on, so we had a few cupcakes, too.


It's nice having a summer birthday, because you get to have pool parties!

Happy Birthday Captain Chaos!

My baby turned 3 yesterday. His party is today, but we had a cake for him last night, too. After all, you can never have too much cake.

Time wasted

My mobile broadband card has been going dormant and disconnecting me for a couple of weeks now. It is important that I am able to go online from our new retail store, so that I can remotely connect to my home PC and do my work from there. So, I spent an hour in the Alltel store today. I ended up with an upgraded version of the card, that connects using the USB port rather than the express card slot. It connects using EVDO Rev-A, which is supposedly faster than what I had before. The sales rep also upgraded the PRL. It's always nice to have your PRL upgraded. And now that you are impressed at how techie I am, let me tell you that I don't completely understand what most of that means. All I know is that now I can connect to the internet for more than 3 minutes at a time. On the other hand, I wasted the 2 full days that Captain Chaos is in school, by spending hours on the phone with Alltel and in their store. So I got no work done.

As if that wasn't enough, I got back to our retail store and decided to find more excuses not to work.

So I cleaned out and reorganized my wallet.

Now I have a stack of unfinished paperwork, but my credit cards are in alphabetical order.

And I have a speedy net connection, allowing me to blog about it.

I mean, the whole morning is shot. You don't really expect me to start working at 2:00 in the afternoon, do you?

(These Publix brand fat-free banana creme pie flavored yogurts taste like banana pudding! YUM!)

Moving....

I know I haven't been blogging as much. I've been really busy. I'm sure my regular readers who don't really know me have given up on reading this, since I no longer post the witty, thought-provoking stuff that I used to. Ha.

So, this is for family and friends who are wondering if I'm still alive and what is going on with me.

We finally found somewhere to move while we wait to see if our offer on the house that is in pre-foreclosure is accepted. As it turns out, we found a townhouse that we really like. We almost like it better than the house we are trying to buy. I didn't expect much, as we were really just looking for a way to live cheaper for a short time, but the townhouse is much larger than I thought it would be, and it has a lot of features that we really like. There are 3 bedrooms, plus a bonus room that could be another bedroom or office. The living room is huge, and the kitchen is pretty good size, as well. It's three stories, with a 2 car garage on the first level, and balconies on the 2nd and 3rd levels. There are 2 pools, and although this particular unit isn't on the water, the community itself is, and there is a nice dock and a boat slip available. Even better, the people who own it are wanting to sell it, and offered us a lease-option.

I was worried about not having enough room if we moved to a townhouse, but it's actually bigger than the house we are in now.

I don't know what we are going to do about the house we've been wanting, but it's obviously going to take a while. It's a short sale, and we aren't even 100% sure that our offer has been presented to the bank yet. The people who own the house are going through a divorce, and they HATE each other, so everything turns into a huge fight when they try to discuss it. So, we might end up buying the townhouse. It would be nice not to have a lawn to deal with. And even though we wouldn't have a yard for Captain Chaos to play in, the playground that I sometimes take him to is literally in the backyard. You can see it from the window in the master bedroom.

So, I have no idea where we are going to end up eventually, but I do know that it's time to start preparing to move, for the 6th time in 5 years. :(