Goodbye 2010

Well 2010 will be over in just a couple of hours so I thought I'd write one last journal for the year! Not much news lately though. Tim has a few days of leave left so he's gonna try to get back on a day schedule for work next week. He's spent all of his time playing the new expansion to his game at night and sleeping during the day. I got to go out and do a few important things on my list before leaving the island. Still have a lot to do but the weather has been shitty. I hope that I can get everything done in time! Other than that, just hanging out with the kids and getting some painting and sewing done when I feel like it.
Christmas was good. We set out milk and cookies for Santa, along with the list of toys that Tristan wanted. He talked about waiting for Santa for days! The next morning he totally forgot about Santa and came downstairs to the couch without even noticing all the presents and bike sitting with the tree! We had to point it out to him and it took a few seconds for it to register haha. Guess he just wasn't awake yet. But I know in the coming years he will be crazy excited and waking us up at like five in the morning.
Anniversary was not so good. Nine years. We couldn't find a babysitter, as if that was a surprise, and had to cancel our dinner reservations to a really good restaurant off base. But then we would have had to cancel anyways because Tim got really sick that day. He's still getting over it and now both the kids are sick. Hopefully I won't get sick. I don't have time to be sick. At all. I barely get through some of the days as it is. We still plan on going to this restaurant, the Garlic House or Arin Krin, but we will just have to take the kids with us. When we get back to the states we will actually have friends and family who will love to watch the kids for us, and we can finally have some time for just the two of us.
I am actually looking forward to the new year now. I was of course dreading it at first since we are getting out of the military very soon, but the more I think about some things the more I can't wait to go home. I love Japan and I love this little island of Okinawa, but it's been really lonely for me here since Sarah left over a year ago. I sure will miss it though and will feel very sick when we leave.
Well...less than two hours left...goodbye 2010.

This Life is Over

It's time to say goodbye to the military. The only way of life that Tim and I have known as a couple. It's been nine years and now we have to start over.
Tim is no longer fighting his discharge for failing his PT tests. This way it actually buys us a little bit more time on the island. Now they want to do a complete review of his entire medical history and this might give us a few extra weeks also, if we're lucky. For when they do this they will find some fuck ups on their part for not properly diagnosing and treating a broken back about six years ago. I don't know why that would delay our discharge process in any way but I guess we will just have to see what happens.
So we are supposed to have about six weeks left on the island. Tim is taking thirty days of leave starting Monday which I am very much looking forward to. He gets to relax at home (as much as you can with two small kids around) while I take to the streets of Okinawa and check things off of my last minute must-do list. I am just hoping that what few friends I have here will join me because it's just not fun doing everything alone. Tim does want to get out for a few adventures so that's good.
It's going to be hard starting over but we are lucky to have Tim's dad and stepmom here to help us get back on our feet. Everything happens for a reason and it's just time for us to move on. It will definitely be nice to be home again and have the kids close to family. I am excited to play in the snow with Tristan for the first time too.
With all the things that I love to make now and all the ideas I have for new projects I am hoping to start up my own little shop on Etsy and see what happens. I probably won't be able to get a real job but if it works out then I will still be able to bring in a little bit of money and stay home with the kids. I am also hoping that I can keep up my photography as well. Maybe I will even be able to go back to school and take a few classes at a local community college. All these dreams that will most likely never come true but I just have to keep hoping and never give up!

In other news, Collie bean has two teeth now! She's 16 lbs and 25 inches long. Almost six months. Christmas is right around the corner and I am scrambling to finishing my shopping. I got Collie a cute xmas dress and can't wait to take some nice pics of the kids!
Our nine year anniversary is coming up too. I am hoping that we will have a babysitter to go out to dinner so Tim and I can actually have a little bit of time to ourselves before we leave.
Then comes 2011.....

Crumbling

Tim failed his PT test a few weeks ago so the military started his discharge paperwork and said that he's got 42-90 days before he gets one last retest, though he will most likely get discharged even if he passes. So he's been going to the gym twice a day trying to shape up for his last test. He's also been working with a lawyer who is trying to draw out the process as long as possible because she is extremely against the new PT standards.
Today his shop called to let him know that the Commander has requested his EPR be turned in right away, speeding up the process. I was devastated a few weeks ago but quickly started focusing on the positives instead of worrying about things that I have no control over. Now today I hear this and Tim and I talked about it some more, and I'm so down right now I can't stand it. I hate feeling like this. Like I just want to go lay down and hurt for awhile. Both kids are napping so I thought that I would get some painting done on an important project that's been neglected due to the fact that it's just me taking care of the kids twenty four hours a day. I got everything ready to go...and just couldn't make myself paint. I'm too sad.
New thoughts are running through my head, like where we are gonna stay for awhile and how are we gonna get by with no money. We really don't have any family or friends to rely on. This is all just so scary right now. I'm mad at the military for kicking out damn good workers over a few sit ups. I'm mad at Tim for being too lazy to go to the gym a couple days a week so he wouldn't fail his test again. I hate being so helpless through this and worrying if we are gonna be okay. I hate that fact that I might not get to experience some of the things this island has to offer...that I thought I had two years left to do it all and now I've only got a couple of months IF I'm lucky.
My heart is so heavy right now. Hopefully I'll be able to pick myself back up soon...

Pretty (and) Stupid

"You can't be pretty and smart."

Yes, my mother in law really said that. A few times she would say to my cat, "It's a good thing you're pretty, 'cause you sure aren't smart." She likes to say things like this when I'm around. She must think that I don't know the game she's playing. Just because I choose to stay quiet doesn't mean I don't know anything. One of these days I might actually challenge her little theories. But that's exactly what she wants, to strike a debate with someone so she can use her vast intelligence to prove them wrong and show that she is all knowing. She tried that with my mom the first time they met, but what she wasn't counting on was my mom being very educated about Native Americans as well. She dropped that after the first question haha.
But anyways, I have so many questions about this that I would love to hear her answers for. After all, it's just a cat, what do you expect? A college degree? And since looks are all about opinion, how does that work? Some people think I'm pretty and some don't, so which is it? Am I stupid or smart?
Cynthia, you must be pretty fucking hot because that is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard.

Thoughts

Every time I post in my blog, it doesn't take long before I starting wondering if I should or shouldn't have said this or that. I worry about what someone will think, if I've offended someone. I wonder if I should go back and delete that sentence or paragraph. I wonder who's judging me or if someone might not want to be my friend after reading what I said. But at the same time I tell myself that I'm just speaking my mind in the only place that I feel comfortable. My blog is really for me and what I say is how I feel. This is me, and as much as I would hate to lose any of the few friends that I have, I can't please everybody. I'm really different from most people, everyone I know, and no one will ever understand me. I probably wouldn't have any friends at all if anyone knew everything about me. When I'm shy or just quiet people think I'm rude, and when I try to be confident people think I'm a bitch. I just can't win.

Been too long!

I thought for sure that I would up with a new blog when I got one, and here I am just now writing for the first time since April. Ugh! I start getting behind in entries and then I just don't know where to start....

Well the last time I wrote, I was preggers. Now, not so much haha. Colleen Renee Louis was born June 18th at 12:09 am, weighing in at 9 pounds even! She will be three months old in a week! She is such a little chunk. I think she will be beating up Tristan in no time. I assumed that her and Tristan would be the same growing up, but so far she is almost the complete opposite of him, other than being a big baby. And she absolutely adores Tim! She gets so happy to see him and will stop eating just to stare at him. If she can't see him, she will stare in the direction of his voice haha. I'm only good for holding her :( But Tristan is such a momma's boy so I guess that makes up for it.
At my six week postpartum checkup, I told the doctor that we wanted my husband to get fixed but was told that they won't do the procedure until the baby is six months old. I asked her the reasoning for this and she said that it's in case the parents change their mind about having any more kids. This really pisses me off! My plan has always been to only have two kids. I got my boy and girl just like I wanted. I don't want any more. I would be so unbelievably pissed off if I were to get pregnant again. I would truly hate my life at that point. Of course I would love any child that I brought into this world unconditionally, but I still don't want to go there. If I want more kids THAT bad later, then I'll adopt. That's what people should be doing anyways instead of having NINETEEN. So anyways, just three more months to go before they will snip Tim. Ugh can't wait. Which reminds me, the doctors have also totally fucked up my birth control and won't give it to me for two weeks, so I'll be starting over. Assholes GRRR!

Tristan is going to be three years old in a few weeks! It's crazy. He's been telling me everything he wants for his birthday and it's so cute. I really need to hurry up and start buying some of his presents! I'm sad that we don't have anyone to celebrate his birthday with us. I hate being away from home and not having any friends here.

Halloween is coming just a few weeks after Tristan's birthday and we are so excited! We recently moved into a nice big and new house and apparently this neighborhood is THE place for trick or treating on the base. There are a lot of kids around here which I'm not used to. No one trick or treated in Marek Park so last year was very sad. We bought lots of candy and got Tristan dressed up, but no one came and no neighbors passed out candy. It was very depressing for me. But this year should be better and I can't wait to see what happens. Tim is so excited to stay home with the little zebra and pass out candy, and I am looking forward to taking Batman around to experience the holiday for the first time! We don't want him to have very much candy but we still want him to have fun :D He wants to be Batman again this year and wants a Batman birthday too. He has this little Batman toy that is his best (and only) friend and is with him at all times. It's cute and sad at the same time.

Well it's past my bedtime so I'll have to write some more later, hopefully soon. I just had to write something before bed since it was driving me crazy! Oh, and here's a couple quick rants: 1. If you see someone pulling out of their parking spot, calm the fuck down and just let them go instead of driving around them anyways! Do you really want to be the dumbass who gets into an accident in a PARKING LOT??? 2. It's 9/11 and all of Afghanistan is flipping the fuck out because some stupid American in Florida wants to burn their bible. Really? It's just a book, you have more. And stupid American in Florida, you are not a true Christian and can burn instead. And to everybody else, see what believing in Gods and bibles does to you? It makes you hate each other. You've totally missed the point.

WIC

Women, Infants, and Children. If you are pregnant and/or have kids, you get some free food every month. I get a set of coupons and Tristan gets a set. It's great that I get all of the milk, juice, and bread that I need. It's okay that I get some of the other stuff but I don't always need it. It's stuff that we just don't eat that often. I mean do I really need two jars of peanut butter and four to six boxes of cereal every month?! Right now I have five boxes of cereal and eight jars of peanut butter just sitting collecting dust. I also get cheese, eggs, and some produce that goes to waste sometimes. I don't have to get everything that's offered to me on the coupons but the checkout ladies always hassle me and run to get the stuff that I "missed".
So Tristan and I had our latest WIC appointments this morning. They took Tristan's weight and height. Then they took my weight. Great. There's another fucking three pounds. WTF. Three pounds in one week?! It's not like I'm eating badly, or even any differently than from before I was pregnant so I have no idea where all of this extra weight is coming from, or even where it's hiding. It's rediculous. On top of that, the woman at our appointment is a retired Army dietitian and decides that she is going to pick through the food log that I had made yesterday. It's not enough to just give me my new coupons and let me get out of there. No, oh no. She had to go through everything that Tristan and I ate yesterday and point out our portion sizes and compare them to her chart of what they were supposed to be. So apparently Tristan drinks too much milk and juice (watered down btw) and what the hell was I thinking eating that side of chips with the Subway that I had for dinner. A granola bar?? I'm out of control! I'm sure if it were up to her I would be on a diet right now. Hell, maybe I should be. Maybe I should just eat what I get from my coupons and that's it. I won't get any meat, but that's okay because the cereal and peanut butter are filled with iron and protein. They say not to use "eating for two" as an excuse to eat whatever you want. I don't. They also say not to diet while you're pregnant. We'll see about that.
Nobody eats the way they should. Nobody is perfect. FUCK. OFF. And while you're busy doing that, I'll be sitting right here eating some ice cream. Right before my organs shut down. Thanks.

From Snail, with love.

Today is Easter Sunday but it's just another day in this house. Tim and I have never celebrated Easter together. I used to love all the family gatherings at my grandma's house for holidays but not because they actually meant anything to me. I just loved the food. I am not a religious person so I don't care about the "meaning" of Easter, and Tim absolutely hates Easter because the Christians stole it from the Pagans. But I don't care about all of that. I just want a little basket of candy and cute things! But Tim will have nothing to do with it. Guess I'm a little old for it anyways. But! Now I have Tristan, and soon another one, so I can still have all of my Easter fun with them instead!
Tristan doesn't even know about Easter yet and this year I really wanted to put together a little basket for him. I don't get out much but the last few times that I have gone out to the store I didn't see any things to make a basket. All that I saw were ugly premade baskets filled with things that I don't want Tristan to have yet. I know that I could have just bought it and replaced all the things in it but I kept procrastinating. So here we are, Easter Sunday, and I don't have a basket for Boogies. I guess it's okay though. There is always next year when he's older and I won't mind as much if he has a little bit of candy. I try to keep him away from as much sweets as possible, so I think that I'm doing better than a lot of parents.
I did pick up two cute little Easter toys that I happen to see a few weeks ago though so I was able to give him at least something today, even though he doesn't know why he got them. One is a small snail plushie that vibrates and scoots along for a few inches when you pull his cord. Tristan likes snails, I LOVE snails, and it was just too cute. The other small toy that I got was a plastic egg snow globe sitting in a basket being held by a white bunny. I thought it was perfect for Tristan because he his always trying to play with a big ceramic Christmas snow globe that I have. He always wants to see it snowing. Even though this Easter one is very small and probably not as pretty and fun to look at, I thought that he might still get some enjoyment out of it.
Maybe next year when our friends from Misawa are here we can "celebrate" Easter with a nice big delicious meal. Mmmm. Hopefully they know better than to invite me to church.

Zumba

I had to wake up early this morning to photograph a Zumba class. A very large Zumba class. Over 200 people showed up. It was a Zumba-thon for Autism awareness month. A three hour Zumba-thon.
I had never seen it before but I knew that it was some kind of fun workout that everyone seems to be in love with these days. So it's just like dancing I guess. You follow the moves your instuctor does to dance music. Only it's a workout so you're getting lots of exercise. I used to get just as much exercise dancing back home every weekend when my best friend and I would hit the clubs. And I did it drunk. But since there are no dance clubs here and I'm sure most people would like to get a good workout without being surrounded by a room full of drunk people and smoke, I can see why it's so popular. It's a fun way to get into shape without doing the boring stuff in the gym. And since my clubbing days are far behind me, I wouldn't mind trying Zumba myself since I love dancing.
So I had to just circle everyone like a vulture for a couple hours and constantly take photos of them bouncing around, all sweaty, and probably wishing that someone wasn't pointing that camera in their direction. Sorry guys, I had to. I got paid to do it. It's your instructor's fault.
It was pretty boring. 360 pictures and they all look the same. It was crazy how many people were wearing tops and pants that they ordered that actually say Zumba on them. And apparently the line started at seven o'clock this morning. They didn't even start letting people in the building until nine, and then it didn't get started until nine thirty. I definitely felt odd walking up to the building since I just happen to look like I was dressed for the class. Everyone was probably wondering what this crazy pregnant lady thought she was doing. But I stayed away from the line as much as possible and was able to slip in the front door and hang out on the far side of the gym away from everyone else. The instructors and a couple other people in charge of the event were all very nice though and apparently couldn't resist talking to the girl with the big fancy camera. Everyone else had their little pocket size cameras and were taking pictures of each other and getting their pictures taken with the instructors.  They were all so excited.  I don't know why it was such a big deal. 
I will probably start editing the photos tomorrow. I am definitely not doing all of them though.

28 wk checkup

I am actually twenty nine weeks today, but I had to keep rescheduling my appointments last week. I thought that I would only be there for about two hours this morning but I ended up being there for four hours instead.
First I had to get my vitals taken while waiting to see the doctor. I dreaded stepping onto the scale because I know that I've been gaining more weight than my first pregnancy. I couldn't help but look at the numbers. 160. Ugh. I have gained thirty five pounds already. That's the max weight that I'm supposed to gain for my size. When Tristan was born I was only at 157. Well, that was the day before he was born. I had actually dropped four pounds over night from not being able to eat anything because of my contractions. I don't look like I've gained any weight so I'm glad that I carry it well. But I still have about eleven weeks to go, so hopefully I can keep it in check. I just went for a walk a little bit ago and I am going to keep that up every night from now on. Sucks walking by myself though. If I still had my white cat Ivy I would be able to take her with me. She loved putting the harness on and going for walks.
After seeing the doctor, a whole waste of about ten minutes, I had to go down to the lab to take the glucose test and pick up my Rhogam shot to take back down to the ob/gyn. At the lab the really cool guy at the counter asked me if I wanted to get my blood drawn once or twice. Once, I have to sit there for two hours. Twice, I only have to sit there for one hour. I don't have a problem with needles and needed to get this over with so I opted for getting stuck twice. They drew some blood before I drank the cup of orange sugar, and then again an hour later. Not only was I waiting for the disgusting sugar to do it's thing, I had to wait for them to prepare a dose of antibodies for my blood type to use in the Rhogam injection. After getting my blood drawn the second time, I left the lab with my shot and headed back upstairs. Only the elevators were out now. Fuck. I was on the second floor and had to go all the way up to the fifth floor. One flight of stairs, fine. But three? Goddamn it. By the time I got up to the ob/gyn, not only were the nurses gone to lunch for the next forty five minutes, but the new hole in my arm had bled alot on the way up. Lovely. The entire ball of gauze was soaked. The other arm had bled more than usual, but not as much as this.
One o'clock finally came and all the other patients that had come in were getting called in to their appointments. Apparently my nurse was taking a shower so I had to wait a few more minutes. She eventually came to the waiting room to get me and I was not looking forward to getting this shot. Back in GA I had to get the shot in my hip and it really hurt. It's a bigger needle. But the nurse today asked if I wanted it in my arm or my butt. Arm?! Why couldn''t they've stuck my damn arm last time?! Yes, my arm please. Thinking that I could finally go home after this she tells me that I have to sit in the waiting room for fifteen more minutes before I can go. Uuugh come on. After the fifteen minutes she had to take my vitals one more time and then I was finally out of there. Omg I was so ready to be home and eat something. I had to have a light breakfast because of the glucola test. So I went home, told Tim about my wonderful day at the hospital, and curled up in bed for a nap.
I can't wait for this to be over. When it is, one of us will be getting fixed. I only ever wanted two kids, a boy and a girl, and I will be so happy to have my little Colleen :3

Bunny and Kiwi

A couple of months ago I was bored and was browsing a local website called Okinawa Yard Sales. People here aren't allowed to have normal yard sales so you have to sell your stuff online. I was looking through the pet section and saw that someone was trying to get rid of their rats. Rats? Really?! I had never found any back in Misawa so I assumed that Japan just didn't allow rats as pets. So I emailed the seller and said that I wanted to look at them first. I wanted to make sure that they really were rats, as some people don't really know the difference between some of the different rodent species. Well they really were rats and I was so excited. Tim was very hesitant to let me have them since my last litter didn't work out well at all, but I managed to talk him into it since they don't live long and would be dead before we left the island. We wouldn't have to worry about finding them a new home like sooo many other people that just abandon their pets when they leave the island.
The girl getting rid of the rats had special ordered them but said that she just didn't have enough time for them since she was working so much. She also kept trying to talk me into buying all the extra stuff she had bought for them because she didn't want to return it and get her money back until finally she just gave it to me anyways. Of all the other 25 rats that I've had in the past, none of them were ever interested in wheels, toys, or chewing on the cage. Because of that I didn't think I would need the extra cage, wheel, or toys so I just sold them to someone who actually did need them. The rats did seem fond of the wheel before I took it out but it was just so damn noisy.
Well the girls seemed to be doing just fine for the first few weeks. Then one morning after checking my email and whatnot, I went into the kitchen for a little bit to make breakfast and do the dishes. When I came back my internet was out. I assumed that Tristan had messed with a wire somewhere so I started checked everything. The rat cage is pretty big and takes up the space between me and Tim's computer desks in the living room, with my computer cords running along the floor behind the cage and around the room to the modem. As I looked behind the cage I noticed that my internet cable was all chewed up! I didn't see how this was possible since they couldn't reach it, but when I pulled the cage away from the wall I saw Bunny just sitting their staring at me! It really shocked me for a second and I actually jumped back. I looked back at the front of the cage and the doors were still locked so I didn't understand yet how the hell she got out. Then she decided to be a little smartass and hop back just out of reach everytime I grabbed for her instead of just running away. After a few swats I grabbed her and as I was putting her back in the cage I saw it....The Hole. They had completely chewed out the entire back corner of the plastic base of the cage. I was shocked. And pissed. I didn't know what to do with them at first but ended up throwing them in the tub for the rest of the day until I could go hunting for a temporary cage, which took me about five hours of driving all over central Okinawa. And I can't believe that the very first thing Bunny just HAD to do with her new freedom was go straight for my internet cable. Seriously?
I ordered a new cage right away which cost almost a hundred dollars with shipping, and until in got here the girls would have to reside in a happy little apple tree forest. Haha, that's what I call the small hamster habitat I got that is supposed to look like an apple tree house. They were miserable and cramped in there but at least they couldn't chew out it because of the way it's put together. The new cage and toys finally came in so I set it up and kept the wheel in this time. They immediately took turns taking it for a spin so I know that they missed it. They wouldn't touch any of the nice chew toys that I got for them so I figured that they were satisfied enough with just the wheel.
A few weeks went by without any signs of chewing until last week when I was cleaning out the cage. I put the girls in the bath tub to soak in Tristan's baby shampoo while I washed out the cage. I was about to dump all the bedding into the trash when I saw it. The Hole. You have got to be bloody kidding me!!! I lost it. I was ready to just throw them into the jungle behind my house and let them chew down the damn trees if they wanted to. I decided that I was just going to pack up all of their stuff and drop them off at the pet store late at night. I knew that I was not going to be able to find a new home for them as most people hate rats and I'm not going to lie about why I needed to get rid of them. And I wasn't about to buy another expensive cage for them to destroy again.
The girl that I got them from sent me a message right away on Facebook asking what had happened when I posted that the rats need to go. I told her that they chewed out of another cage and that I had had enough. She said that they had done the same thing to her. Really? For some reason I don't remember that little tidbit being mentioned prior to selling them to me. But whatever. They were my problem now. I didn't really want to have to get rid of them and tried to think of things that I could use for a new base to replace the plastic. Tim could easily make a new one out of metal at work but I knew he wouldn't so I would just get rid of them.
Well today I went to the BX and just bought a shallow storage big that luckily happens to be just the right size for the wire cage to sit in. Yes it is still plastic but even if they manage to chew threw it, which I doubt since its just a flat bottom, they still can't get out because the wiring goes straight to the floor now. Unless Tristan picks up the cage or knocks it over, those little shits aren't getting out this time. I will just keep trying to find new things for them to chew on. I know that Tristan has lost a couple of colored pencils to those piranhas so if that's their flavor of choice, then colored pencils they shall have. With a side of whatever other random object Tristan drops in there next of course.

Base Housing

We have a pretty decent house right now. We haven't really had any problems so far, we live on the first floor, we like our little back yard that feels like we have some privacy, the neighborhood is quiet with no screaming kids or punk teenagers, and we are really close to the shoppette and my preferred gate. But it's only a two bedroom, and with another little Louis on the way we have the option of getting a bigger, three bedroom house. That's awesome, but it's up to you to move all of your stuff, and that's only after you've been on a waiting list and have finally accepted something they've offered you. You get two choices, pet friendly or not even if you have pets. If you decline both offers then you get kicked off of the waiting list for 90 days. That is definitely not awesome.
We have been on the waiting list for a couple of months now and the housing office finally called us last week. They offered us two tower apartments on another base. The towers are not pet friendly. We told them at our initial appointment not to offer us towers because we have cats, and even though housing does not give a shit, the lady wrote it down on our paper anyways. Tim gave them some attitude, and the woman on the phone told him not to worry about the tower offers and that they did have an opening on this base for us to look at. Why didn't they just offer us that to begin with??
So we stopped by the housing office a little while ago and picked up the keys to go check out this house. It happens to be in the oldest and worst neighborhood on the base but we decided to give it a chance and take a look. We get there and it's already covered up because it's being repainted on the outside. It's on a hill...so there are stairs. Now, I am not one of the lazy people that can't handle stairs, or a parking spot far away from the front door of a store. If you ran into me at the BX right now, I would be the only person taking the stairs, waddling my pregnant ass all the way up next to everyone who is on the escalator. Sure it kills my lungs right now since they have run out of room in there, but it's exercise and the only exercise I'm getting right now.
So anyways, back to the house. At the top of the stairs there is an ugly trunk from a huge tree that has been cut down. Hopefully it was just really old and a hazard and not just cut down because it was in the way or someone didn't like it there. I hate not having trees where I live, but since I'm in Okinawa there are plenty of trees and jungle around. A girl and her daughter were getting into their car but they stopped to talk to us and were hopeful of getting new neighbors. That was very nice and I was surprised because I'm used to everyone on my street keeping to themselves. Then we went on our way into the house. Oooh an upstairs and wood floors. And by that I mean cement stairs perfect for cracking your skull open and strips of linoleum made to look like wood floors. I go to peak in the downstairs bathroom right across from the stairs and here a loud drop of water. Hmm...ok. I take another step in and realize that I am now standing in water and that the whole bathroom is flooded. Lovely.
Then I take Tristan upstairs while Tim stays downstairs. The bathroom up there seems nice and has a window, a little bigger than our bathroom now. Really shallow tub though. The one we have now is really deep. All three bedrooms are really small, but the second one is a tad bigger than the first, and the third is a tad bigger than the second. Very small windows in all the rooms and the second bedroom had two big closets, which makes no sense to me. I don't even know if our king size bed would fit in the bigger room. I don't know why all the windows in all of the older housing are so damn small.
Tim came upstairs, so I went down. The living room seemed pretty decent, but again a small window. I am used to having the big sliding glass doors. The kitchen was really small, smaller than any other house we've had. That's okay though I guess, it's not like we spend much time in there haha. Except for when I'm painting. There was a laundry room that was nice and big, so we would finally have a good place to put the damn cat box. There was a door in there leading out to where you put your trash, and the living room had a door leading out to the back yard. Tim said the ceilings were called drop ceilings, meaning it had the panels you can push up on, and it was there to cover up the real ceiling that was so shitty they couldn't fix it. He also said that the house smelled like fresh paint and mold. I am definitely worried about mold issues in the older houses. Oh and there was a cement closet under the stairs with no light and I told Tim that's where we would put Tristan when he's bad LOL.
Well we both agreed that we liked the house but not enough to take it. If they had moved us in there from the start we would have been happy with it, but not compared to what we have now. So we took the keys back to the housing office and no one asked us anything, so I guess we will wait for them to call and see what we have to say about it. I wonder if they will wait to offer us a second house or just go ahead and kick us off the waiting list now. Little Collie won't need her own room right away but I hope to eventually move into a bigger house sometime in the next three years!

My New Blog

So I've decided to try using a new blog. I had one on Myspace but all of my friends and I have moved over to Facebook where there is no option to blog. I also have an ancient blog on LiveJournal that I haven't used in years, and nobody uses that anyways. So I will try this and see how it goes, if I like it or not.

As I was attempting to set up this blog, I realized that I was supposed to have a gmail or Google account first. Well I don't need another email account, so I went with setting up the google account. I didn't get very far, as they asked for my country and cell phone number so they can send me a voice mail of my verification code to continue. Thinking that they might not be able to send anything to my Japanese cell phone, I entered United States as my country and typed in my sister's cell phone number from back home. Upon clicking on the Continue button, I was alerted that the selected country was not supported for verification. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Okay, so yet another problem with my computer being in a different region. So then I tried using Japan as the country, since I am kind of really here and all, and then had to choose between TWO SoftBank options as my cell phone provider. I don't bloody know, it's just SoftBank! So I pick one and click Continue. The next page asks for the verification code. *crickets* Sitting here with my phone. Waiting for it to do something. Nothing happens. Well, shit, maybe it's because I don't get any bloody reception in the black hole that is my house. So I take the phone outside and wonder around my patio and yard waiting for a few bars to come out from hiding. Oh there they are. And there's a cute little jingle alerting me that I have voice mails. I push the button and this is what I get: 5ojyua]dhboa,wenobiuyj35ky6q2340ihzdf. Nothing but Japanese bloody gibberish over and over until the nice lady finally ends the call. Lovely. I walk back in the house to grab my house phone to call Softback and ask them how in the hell I am supposed to switch my phone over to English, since they didn't get the hint when I first bought the damn thing. There's Tim, just waking up from his nap, to rescue me. He told me to just try setting up the Gmail account instead to see if I can get into Blogger that way, since he had no trouble setting his up after he got here. While he gets on the phone with SoftBank to fix the translation problem on my phone, I set up a Gmail account with no problems. Yay. So now here I am, finally writing in my new blog. Oh look, a bag of McDonald's has just wandered into my house, and I just happen to be really hungry.