stress and positive thinking

I got the list of tasks I need to do to make my home qualify for the certificate of compliance.  I have to bring it to this level for the park to allow anyone else to purchase it and keep it on the lot.  It was a long list. 

After the initial depression set in I sat down to read it again and realized that, for the most part, it wasn't unexpected.  And while it's a lot of work, it probably isn't horrifically expensive.  It won't be cheap but I could do it, a bit at a time and still get it on the market this summer. 

The next step is to talk to a realtor about options.  Before I put any money into the house I need to know if it's worth it to do so.  I need a realtor for that.  So I looked around my house last night and figured I should get everything cleaned up and pretty looking before I invite a realtor over.  I want it to look as inviting as it can and hopefully get a good first impression before I start telling the realtor about it's various issues.  So this weekend (and this week) I will be cleaning!  The sooner I make some decisions, the better.

I think I'm handling this pretty well.  I'm tamping down my fears, worries and stress like a pro!  I'm working very hard to keep a positive, can-do attitude!  But deep inside I have this sinking feeling.  It's like an uncomfortable lump in my tummy.  Makes me want to cry sometimes.  I feel a sense of desperation.  Is there some way out of this?  Is there some way I can just be done with my house without seriously damaging my finances?  Or killing myself off physically doing repairs to try to save some money?  Then, when the panic sets in, I tell myself how I can do this and to stop being afraid and worried.  Take it a step at a time, but keep pushing.  But the panic is there.  Just under the surface.  It makes me wonder how well I'll get thru this process?  I fight off the deeper panic, that I won't be able to sell it.  Of course I'll be able to sell it!  Right?

It's been a while since I've had to deal with a lot of stress.  I'm not used to it.  When I've been stressed over my kid's lives I was able to detach on some level because it is their lives and their problems.  Do what I can and leave the rest to them.  This time it's on me.  I've vaguely worried about this but now the process has started and it's no longer a vague worry that I don't have to deal with yet.  I have to deal with it now.  And for the foreseeable future.  It's not making my tummy happy!

I need to go to the next North Metro Volunteers meeting and inform them that I need to step away from the group this summer and deal with this project.  I won't be doing the Relay for Life.  If they want to do it, I'll pass along contact info.  If not, I'll let the Relay folks know we're stepping out of it this year. 

I'm going to make an effort to take good care of myself in the coming months.  I need to be well rested and healthy to deal with this best.  I am also going to blog here to relieve tension or at least just vent it, and I'm also going to lean on my friends and family for support and the occasional pep talk.  It'll be OK and one of these days, this house will be sold and I will be free!

Ok, that was really, really negative...

Guess what I'm doing?  I'll give you a hint...it's what I do most of the time lately.  I'm doing nothing.  I'm sitting here at work bored out of my fucking mind again!!! 

I need the money so here I sit.  I hate what I do for a living sometimes.  The past few days of work I have hated intensely.  I wish I could quit and go find something more fulfilling.  I feel like the invisible woman around here.  At least I make good money to sit here and dick off most of the day.  I feel like a whore in a way.  Selling my life for money. 

Ok, that was really, really negative.  It's honestly how I feel right now but that was really, really negative.  I need to try to improve my mood now since I'll possibly get a downer in the mail from the Park office today. 

Last Friday I was drinking at the neighbor's and they told me the park had been by to inspect my house that day.  So the requirements for the Certificate of Compliance should be imminent!  On the one hand I'm excited to finally get it and get some answers and on the other hand I expect it will be depressing to actually see everything they expect me to do to my house in order to sell it on the lot. 

I forgot my gum at home dammit.  I really would like minty fresh breath.  Not gonna get it today.  Sigh.

Geez!  I wonder if I even want to blog about my house?  I probably should since it's stressing me out.  I got a valuation notice from the county on Friday.  THAT was depressing!!  They valued it at around $10K if I understood it correctly.  REALLY??  I think that's total bullshit!  But on the flip side, my taxes are lower because of it.  Maybe it's not such a bad thing that it really needs a paint job and new windows!  See, I found a silver lining :)  I doubt they drive by to look at it tho.  Probably some sort of table they use and has nothing to do with my actual house.  So my silver lining is probably a puff of imaginary smoke. 

I'm thinning out my stuff at home.  I feel good about that!  Made some good progress yesterday in my bedroom closet.  Would have gotten more done if I hadn't have spent the majority of Saturday recovering from a mini-hangover that made my ass drag.  Oh well.  Another silver lining...not so interested in having any alcohol any time soon.  The memories of the nagging headache and twisting guts are too fresh.  Maybe it was the eggs?  I ate a lot of eggs on Sat. but I also had beer, whiskey-sours and limoncello shots on Fri. night so probably a combo deal. 

1.5 hrs left of torture, I mean work, to go!  Maybe I'll bake banana bread when I get home tonight.  Something to ponder.

I could freak out pretty easy today.  I'm bored, restless and irritable.  I'm stressed.  I'm onery.  I'm sure you thought I was a ray of sunshine but you couldn't be more wrong!  In order to get it all straight in my head I'm going to outline all of the stuff that is stressing me out:

>  My dog, Bruiser, has been having accidents more often than not lately.  It's now more normal to come home to a poopy mess than not to.  He seems to be having tummy problems despite the fact that I have him on a prescription bland food diet.  This worries me.  At least he appears to be happy enough.  He's always been lazy and that hasn't changed.  He has moments where he is pesty and barks at me and bounces around.  His appetite is good.  If he was sick, this wouldn't be the case.  I don't want to deal with having him put down but lately it's appearing that I may have to deal with this sooner rather than later.  Maybe.  I hope not.  I love my stinky wee beastie!!  My Mom wants to take him if I end up doing open houses to sell my house.  I think she wants to take him permanently.  She loves him too.  I have to think about that.  I don't know if I'm ready to give him up, tho I know my mother would probably take better care of him than I have and I know he'd be very loved.  But it's hard to think of giving him up.  At least not as bad as putting him down.  Some hard stuff coming my way with my pup.

>  I need to sell my house this summer.  That probably is enough said.  It's a stressful thing to do.  I've lived there 14 yrs (I found paperwork when I was thinning stuff out yesterday and can confirm 14 yrs).  While I'm excited to move the prospect of selling my home is daunting to me.  I've never done it before for starters.  I have to fight with myself constantly to keep from panicking that it won't sell and that I'll be trapped in Minnesota for another year.  Or more. 

>  I need money.  Ok - I'm trying to sell my house and realized that when I sell my house I need money for a deposit on an apartment.  Where is this money going to come from??  At the moment that is a mystery to me.  It's also a major concern. 

>  I'm moving to UT once the house is sold... in a year, when my lease is up.  I have work stuff to deal with before I go.  I'm excited to move to UT and live with Ken.  I'm also scared to death to leave my family, friends and work to do it.  And it hurts to think of leaving all these people I love and not being able to see them when I want to. 

>  I don't know what my job situation will be.  Given the economy, that is another big stress factor.  At the moment I have a job, even tho I'm far from loving it.  It pays good money and the people are very nice to work with.  My main problem with it is the utter boredom I suffer on a regular basis.  But starting over in a new situation is a scary concept.

That's just the stuff flying around in my head at this moment.  There's more if I dare to let myself think but I'm trying to avoid doing that any more than is necessary. 

I am unable to end this all light and fluffy.  I still have an hour and 10 minutes before I'm set free from my prison, I mean work. 

need more pictures!

I've been dreadfully bored the past couple of days at work so have scanned some other bloggers.  I've realized I need more pictures!  The problem is that I rarely blog when I'm at home.  I actually have things to do there, unlike at work.  Well, sometimes I'm busy at work but then I go thru these sloggy periods, like now.  It's just because I'm too awesome at doing my job!!

Now I have to figure out how to get more pictures into my blog so that it looks less intimidating.  Blogs that looks like novels tend to make me skip by.  Or maybe I should leave mine like this?  Then it is more like a personal exercise than anything I have to worry about people reading.  Things to ponder!

Sociability, or lack thereof...

It's a slow afternoon at work today and I haven't blogged for a while so, here I am.  Blogging.  Not sure what to blog about.  I have some things weighing heavy on my mind lately but am not ready to discuss them in a potentially public forum.  The thing is, there is an outside risk that someone will actually READ this blog and find out stuff about me.  I sort of use it as mental therapy but have to curb some of that because it is, after all, a blog. 

I just read my daughter's blog about not answering the phone.  My response is to be proud of her for taking care of herself!  Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand and decide that you just can't do it for everyone...that it's too much and you need to shift focus more closely to survive your own life.

I'm a person who needs a lot of "me" time.  Being social is a stressor for me.  I tend to be very content in my own head...I like myself.  When I am social I feel expectations piling on after a while and need to defuse.  Not everyone is like this.  I gave birth to at least one who is highly social so I know.  I had some issues living with her trail of guests coming and going thru my home.  That stressed me out!  Nice kids but they were invading my "cave" and interrupting my regular hibernation time.  I don't welcome unexpected visitors.  I behave but inside I'm resentful.  This is me.  I have some weird quirks. 

Back when I used to party I had to do a mental work up before I went out, to get myself in the mood to talk to people.  It's not my basic nature to be sociable.  I'm more inclined to sit back and watch.  I study people.  I find them fascinating.  By doing this I have gained some unusual insight into people and why they do what they do.  This is helpful when people need advice, unless I give them advice they don't like.  I do that fairly often.  Unlike a lot of people, I don't see the benefit to beating a dead horse.  And some situations are like that.  Some folks come to me thinking I can tell them how to change someone else.  And I can, possibly, but doing this requires changing your own behavior first.  That often doesn't go over well.  The only person you ultimately control is yourself.  The only person you can change is yourself.  BUT when you change, it often forces behavior changes in others.  And these can be unpredictable.  There is no guarantee of a positive result.  There is a chance at least.  Which is better than if you keep doing what you're doing and expecting a different result.  Only place that might work, that pops into my mind, is flipping a coin.  Not changing a partner's behavior to meet your needs.  Besides, I think people should be accepted as they are or let go, so they can find someone who accepts them as they are.  It's kind of stinky to hang on to someone you don't really like because of who you think you can make them into.  Really stinky!  

Anyways, my parents are both very social folks.  Very warm and approachable.  I've watched them and learned how to do it.  I can fake it to some extent.  It's like giving a speech...I'm scared to death inside but from the outside I look confident and at ease.  I took a speech class in college and learned that I'm a pretty good public speaker despite the enormous internal distress the act causes me.  It was good to know that I come off positively since my job involves training and speaking up on occasion.  Now I can do that with a level of confidence.  To get back to the point, this ability to act warm and friendly puts others at ease and can start the interaction.  It's a valuable skill. 

My siblings are similar.  I think our parents sometimes wondered where we came from.  I remember one winter day when they decided we should go out and play.  None of us wanted to.  We must have been driving them nuts.  We wanted to stay in the basement and play barbies, like normal.  We had our own social group and really didn't need neighbor kids to increase our fun.  Anyway, they bundled us up and made us go out.  They even locked the doors so we couldn't sneak back in.  If I didn't know my parents I would think they just wanted some time to fool around but I can pretty much guarantee that was NOT what was going on.  Anyway, we huddled around the dryer vent (Mom was doing laundry) and waited for them to get tired of trying to make us play with the neighbors.  They finally relented, voicing some disgust over our choice of activity on such a beautiful winter's day. 

My Mom was a homecoming princess and my Dad was one of the handsomest men in town.  They were busy and social and then we came along.  We put a pretty big crimp in their social life!  They had a hard time finding babysitters who would babysit us more than once.  We were intelligent, energetic and all had dominant personalities.  I was probably the most dominant, being the oldest.  I was used to getting my younger siblings to do what I wanted.  When our parents left, we took over.  We wouldn't listen unless they did what we wanted - we were highly skilled blackmailers.  I remember one gal who knitted who had to spend the evening teaching us to knit to keep us out of trouble.  Another one drew so she got to draw pictures for us all night.  We'd post a look-out at the basement window to put out the alarm when our parents drove up.  Then we'd fly to our beds, leaping under the covers and feigning sleep.  If the sitters ever told on us, I don't recall hearing about it.  I don't recall our parents ever coming in, knowing we weren't asleep, to scold us for not listening to the sitter. I'd like to think the sitters liked us but since they didn't often return, maybe they didn't find us all that charming.

I'm not exactly anti-social.  I'm quite chatty on facebook and can talk a person's ear off if I feel comfortable with them.  I just don't need to do it that often and if I do it too often it becomes a stressor.  I know that some of my skills were learned watching my parents.  I used to think of myself as socially retarded because I was horribly shy when I was young.  I remember running home crying for various reasons when I was in early grade school.  At this date I can't remember why but I know it had to do with being in front of everyone and feeling humiliated or embarrassed or scared.  I dreaded being asked to answer a question.  I didn't want to be noticed.  My teachers rarely cooperated with this. 

At least I outgrew most of that nonsense!  I wouldn't say I'm shy anymore.  I'm pretty confident and comfortable approaching people.  But one thing has stuck after all these years, and it's my basic need for "me" time, and plenty of it!  At this point in my life I have TONS of me time!  And I'm pretty happy about it 98% of the time.  It is rare when I feel the urge to go out and be with people.  It does happen sometimes tho. 

Tonight I'm going to a play with some family members.  I'm not in the mood, to be really honest.  It's been a busy week and I would prefer to curl up at home with a good book and some wine and go to bed early, rather than go out and be among people.  But since I love my family I'll suck it up, be a sport and go.  And I know I'll enjoy myself in spite of myself!  I don't have my daughter's excuse...I'm not swamped with raising a child or school so I can easily get my "me" time later. 

I'm really proud of her for taking care of herself and her family so well.  Let the others figure it out for themselves...they will.  And hopefully they will be understanding but if not, well, that's life, isn't it?