There is no joy in my life this month.

I am tired of living without a single room that is functional here. I would at least like to have one complete bathroom and a real bed to sleep on. If I can't have a job to work outside of the house, at least I'd like to have a house that didn't feel like a prison.

I do not want to be a joy-killer to someone who is living their dream of home ownership for the first time but he is making bad decisions. Rather than concentrate on having a functional home first and then addressing surface and aesthetic issues later, he has decided to immediately start remaking every room at once and doing all of the work himself. This means there is not a single room here that is functional.

One bathroom now has a chunk out of the tub from replacing the tile and there are no plans to replace the tub - he just intends to live with it. In that same bathroom, there is no sink now because he took out the pedestal sink that was in it and does not have one that will fit the uneven walls to go in now. And there is a tiny and constant leak of water that slowly rises out of the detached pipes were the sink was.

The other bathroom has no hot water and a rusted, nasty medicine cabinet.

The only bed is an inflatable one. It is a very nice inflatable bed that my mother gave us a couple of years ago, because we did not have a guest room and I wanted something other than the floor to accommodate overnight company. It was okay for a few nights but now I am waking up with weird bruises. I assume that is because the air mattress is so hard.

The bedroom closet had a set of racks and shelves in it that he dismantled because it looked cheap to him. There are now shelves in the empty little room that was the bedroom closet now so the only thing in there is the cat's litterbox.

I am still living out of boxes for most things. There is no TV. Thankfully, there is WiFi so it's not all bad. My office, with the exception of my computer, is still in boxes. Somehow, my file cabinet was upturned in shipping and unloaded inches from the closet door. This means 1. I will need a handtruck and help to move the file cabinet enough to open the drawers to access all my folders, etc. 2. when I did manage to open the top drawer just a couple of inches, I could see paper was everwhere. I will have to empty both drawers and reorganize every scrap of paper in the cabinet when I can get inside of it.

I no longer have a food processor, blender, or slow-cooker.

The backyard is full of discarded moving boxes that I am still cutting down and putting in cans as they fit, week by week. We have three bins for city pickups: one to hold all household trash for the week,  one for recycling that they pick up every two weeks, and one for yard trash. They prefer leaves to be put in clear plastic bags in this city - not paper. I see no logic in this. I think everything goes on the same truck and ultimately into the same landfill regardless of what it is. If it does not fit in one bin, it does not get picked up. I am filling the bins as much as possible for each pickup until we can hire a service to pick up the large stuff that will need to be hauled off by professionals.

The rest of the house is in need of painting before any of the shelving and furniture can be set up in a useful manner. Every wall is covered with holes, putty, and primer.  Nearly every electrical socket is dangling out of the wall.

The back sunroom/porch is a dumping ground of tools and parts.

New Digs

The new digs are still a dusty shambles but I am slowly just going ahead and unloading boxes while just wiping things down with a damp cloth. As much as we tried to get rid of before the move, it seems as though the household possessions have doubled in size while the amount of space we have in a house has shrunk.

The cat is having trouble adjusting too but she's on the mend. After not eating, drinking, or pooping or coming out from under the covers on the bed for the first 36 hours in the new house, Ellie appears to be back to normal. She is up to her old tricks and appetite. 

My beautiful hair color has started to fade already because of the cheap shampoo I've had to use until I can find my color-safe shampoo. There are two large bottles of it somewhere in the massive maze of boxes and bags here. I am also doing a bit of Amazon shopping for things that I suspect were left behind, as I find I need them. Probably gonna go broke on Amazon but its so darned convenient and, with John's Amazon Prime sharing, most of it has free shipping.

I did not know we had an active phone land line into the house until I started getting political robot calls. I am kinda glad to be out of touch with the news and media a bit for now, at least until all is said and done with the elections. I'd rather not be sucked into the maelstrom of rage and propaganda on television and radio this week.

Last Supper with Cindi & John

John ordered fragrant rice with charcoal grilled lamb.

Last supper with Cindi and John at Com

Dinner at Com with Cindi & John  on the last night in Atlanta before the big move. I ordered Pho Ga.

this is not shaping up to be a good weekend

MonsterMustDie is in town this weekend. Yesterday was my birthday and between that and the move, I have an obligatory family visit starting this afternoon that he has agreed to accompany me to.

I am getting a strong indication that he does not want me in North Carolina with him. There is a sunroom in back that was once a back porch, now closed in and windowed. I had already put in dibs on that one room in the new house as an area for myself. Just as expected, he is already saying "The neighbors can see what's in there" as if to say he does not want me making a mess, which means he prefers I don't use that area for anything. This is a room that already houses the laundry machines and a big hole in the wall for an unplugged dilapidated window unit AC. His latest comments on things I like are "Great. Another expensive thing to sit around." I wonder if this is how he split with his first wife - through passive actions pushing her until she could not take any more.

Update:
In spite of good efforts to work in a trip to Home Depot on the way and still planning to arrive early, we got to my mother's house five minutes late of the absolute deadline she had given me at 2:05 pm. Or so we thought. There was no on at her flat but her and the dogs. She had forgotten to tell us that plans had changed. No one in the family was coming except my brother and sister-in-law, who would be picking up my mother (thank God she's not driving!) and taking her to a place my brother had picked out in midtown called "Poor Calvin's" for dinner. Reservations for dinner had been made for all of us at 7:30 p.m.

We had not eaten yet, planning on the late lunch/early dinner gathering, and had otherwise planned to do a lot of work on packing and meeting up with people who had purchased used items at the house in the early evening after time with the family. Those plans were now effectively trashed. We agreed that we would all just meet at the restaurant this evening. Then, MonsterMustDie and I headed back to the house to accomplish what we could at the house in the small amount of time we might have before heading out again for time with my family. On the way home, we stopped by Steak and Shake, where he got something he'd been craving for a while - chilli and a grilled cheese sandwich. Then we ran home. He got filthy working in the shed to pull things out and dismantle boards for a couple in the neighborhood to pick up later, and I pulled a few more things out to pack and did a tiny bit of laundry.

October 17

Birthday greetings from Google

no place for a woman

Thus far on the new house, I will not have my own fully functioning bathroom for a while. Instead, there is a second, smaller bathroom with a tiny shower and no shelves or counter space. In other words, there is no place for grooming or toiletries or makeup other than a medicine cabinet.

Yesteday, he told me the kitchen is not a priority for him and he has no need for a blender or food processor - but he forbids me from buy an affordable Black and Decker blender because he says they make poor quality products. The kitchen has an outdated electric stovetop and oven. The space is small. He brought the microwave oven, originally mine, to the NC house and that will be our main source of hot food.

He also keeps repeating that I should have no problem finding work after we move. Either he does not want me there and is passively pushing me out by making my life as restricted as possible or he really thinks I could find a job that would allow me to contribute equally if I wanted to. If I could find a job, I would not be moving. We are relocating to a low-income area that has been in a depression for the last 15 years. 

Things are not going well this weekend.

Treat for Ellie a.k.a. Tiny Dynamine

lost in the weeds

Talked to John today and he admonished me for buying small things and having them sent to the new house because:
1. I should not be shopping for anything now.
2. He does not want anything else he has to put into a cabinet.

In other news, the large bathroom - my bathroom - is not finished, will not be finished, and does not have a working toilet. I will have to make do with the small closet-sized bathroom for the foreseeable further.

Without checking city zoning and regulations, like I suggested weeks ago, he purchased a new wall-mounted mailbox for the house. Today, he got notice in the mail that mailbox will not be to code and must be replaced with a street-side mailbox per current postal regulations. Fortunately, he has time to return the large new mailbox he purchased and get his money back. He has already ordered a new mailbox to install at the street.

I believe his views may be changing on the importance of having sheltered off-street parking. This is a good thing, since I don't want to have to park under a tree at the top of the yard, blocked in by his car.

He is losing time by concentrating on every minute dent and scratch and crack in the wall while he still has not painted any room yet. There is no way he can make every wall perfect and he admits he has lost a lot of time by not being able to just let go of his quest for perfection. The OCD mind does not work well with tight deadlines.

He's working like crazy, to the point of breaking while trying to live his first home-owner dream.

unwell.

MonsterMustDie was home in Atlanta for a couple of days this weekend to visit and load up as much I could have him take to the new house. I know he sees it as stuff to lug inside but anything to lighten the amount we have to load up and unload all at once when we make the BIG move will be good.

Feeling very unwell today. I went out for brunch at Babettes cafe. I had the shrimp grits and wild mushroom soup and 1 (one) basil lemonade before we went to Oakland cemetery to walk around the Sunday In The Park festival. Today, I feel like I'm having a bad hangover - nausea, dreadful headache. 

Now, I've still got to go to Kroger to restock on a few small things like bottled water, etc. I would rather spend the entire day in bed sleeping whatever is ailing me off.

Otherwise, brunch was delicious and Oakland cemetery was fun - perfect day for walking around outside. Music was not so great this year but there were some good vendors of handmade jewelry, period clothing, and something I had not seen before - heirloom plants being sold that were propagated from some of those in the landscape of Oakland Cemetery. The flowers and shrubs they had for sale were beautiful and I was very excited at the idea of taking some of those heirloom plants with me to add to the landscape of a new home. 

I am looking forward to having a more productive day tomorrow when I feel better. 

Regional Delicacies

Interesting because I never know what is specific to the south in relation to products like food, drinks, etc. An old friend phoned me last week to ask if I knew how to make pimento cheese because no one in New Jersey or New York sells it or knows what it is. He also asked if my mother had a favorite recipe for it. 

We are moving away from Atlanta next month (during my favorite season of Halloween *sigh*) and I wonder if what I will miss other than people and what I need to stock up on before I leave, even though so many things appear to be universal, at least on a national or regional level. 

I've never missed anything Southern while in places like New York or Paris France, but I've never set up a house or gone grocery shopping there either. 

I know you can't find peanut butter in France, but I can live without that - or substitute tahini. 

I have, however, done grocery shopping in Los Angeles and know there are regional equivalents to most things, although I think Atlanta has better restaurants. 

missing too many things

After a long holiday weekend of missed opportunities last week and this week, I've kinda pulled away from my Facebook checking and posting for a while, in shame and self-pity.

Meanwhile, every conversation with my mother is increasingly unpleasant. She really is impossible to argue with when it comes to the move to North Carolina in the near future. She even asked me to move in with her, at the retirement community, to avoid going out of state. I can't seem to make her understand that this is impossible. I can't make her accept that the NC move is the only logical thing to do now - for all I know, it might be a positive change if I can find something to do with myself there. I get a small amount of freelance and temp work in Atlanta but it's far from enough to make a living for myself. There is no retirement fund parachute since all my accounts disappeared when my father died and the recession hit all at once. No. North Carolina is the only answer and her escalating disagreements with me make me dread every conversation with her.

After the move, when it's all said and done, I hope that it will be easier to talk to her. For now, I can't deal with it.

I am extremely thankful that MonsterMustDie has a very good job that is only going to be better at the new location. I am thankful that he is willing to support me entirely after the move. I am not looking forward to being a "kept woman" but I am thankful he is willing to take care of me and I hope I can make his investment in me worthwhile.

rainy weekend

We've had thunder storms, briefly, nearly every day this past week. All this after  weeks so hot and dry that everything outdoors was crunchy and wilted.

We met my mother for dinner yesterday at Babette's Cafe, a favorite restaurant for all of us. Great food every time, consistently, and Marla always remembers everything about me and is very friendly when we are there. Usually, we meet for brunch at Babette's Cafe but its been a long time since we met up late enough for dinner and both my mother and myself were desiring a true dinner with a more diverse menu at wine o'clock. I pushed for making reservations as early as possible so no one would have to drive home after dark. I had forgotten about the rain forecast for nearly every day this week. Usually, storms don't last long here. They're over in less than an hour and it seems as if the more intense the weather is, the shorter the duration.

We had a great meal, as usual. I had the chicken and fresh artichokes because I wanted something hardier and more filling than a vegetarian entree. Mother was planning on the halibut, her favorite summer dish at Babette's, until all of us watched a plate go by with the steak and a nice pile of fresh onion rings on of it. She had steak. MonsterMustDie had the veal piccata. Mom and I had fresh blueberry tart for desert while MonsterMustDie had a snifter of Drambuie.

We worked at keeping the conversation light and not dwelling too much on the upcoming move to North Carolina. Mother doesn't want us to go. I don't want to go either but, as we both tried to explain, relocating to North Carolina for John's employer really does seem to be the only viable option for us. It looked like things were going to turn to tears so I switched the subject to my niece's wedding in February. Then I switched it again to health issues of other family members and any gossip I could pull up.

All went well from there until it was time to leave. At the time we paid and relinquished our table, an evening thunder storm rolled in and we sat for 45 minutes in the front of the restaurant across from the tiny bar, waiting and hoping it would slack off soon. I was seeing daylight, another very important factor in my mother making it home safely, fading as we waited for a break in the rain. It was suggested that one of us could drive her home in her car while the other followed, which seemed like a good option to me, but she would not hear of it so we finally made it out into the night as soon as the wind died down a bit with the rain still heavy. She looked like she wanted to cry but she absolutely would not let us take her home. So we had no choice but to let her go alone into a rainy night. Once we got home, I phoned her house every 15 minutes to see if she'd made it home yet. (Why? I don't know. I can't think of anything we could do if we did not hear from her of if she didn't make it home. It's just that need to know she was okay.) I finally got hold of her about 90 minutes after all of us left the restaurant. She had a long slow drive but she made it home all right. I believe this is the last time we will meet her for dinner so far from her home or in the evening. 

We are buying a house in North Carolina and moving soon.

MonsterMustDie is on his way to North Carolina to look at houses for sale again.
I am staying home for this trip. I felt it was important for me to be there to at least attempt to put in my opinion on some of the houses being viewed and, hopefully, guide his decision-making a bit in the future. However, there are so many antique malls and flea markets he wants to visit coming and going, it is easier for me to avoid the death march this time and allow him to indulge his passion alone.

It looks like we'll be moving to High Point, North Carolina some time after October. I am strongly pulling for us to be absolutely in Georgia through one last Halloween season. I'd like to enjoy one more Pumpkin Carving Party and night of trick-or-treaters and awesome Halloween House decor before leaving all of my small joys behind.

Stuff I found today:

Remember when National Hot Dog Day actually meant something. Commercialization dilutes true meaning of this holiday.
— Jim Taylor (@jimtaylor) July 23, 2014