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Here We Are

It’s now 2025 and we await whatever fresh hell will be rained upon us.

First thing out the gate: a crazed ex-military whackjob murdered 15 people and injured 30 more in New Orleans. He was promptly dispatched by the police. Of course, the wacky right media claimed he was an illegal immigrant. NOPE, SORRY, he was one of YOURS.

Then Cybertrucks start exploding. One blew up in front of Trump hotel in Vegas, killing the driver. I did think it was genius that it blew up THERE, tho. Then, here in GA, a Cybertruck caught fire and burned up on the dealer lot in Decatur. If I had one of those monstrosities, I’d not park it near my house.

We watched Amy Adams in Nightbitch last night. What an odd movie! It is very weird but basically a meditation on what women go through when deciding to have kids and the resentment caused when women give up THEIR lives to be SAH moms. The movie displays these feelings in VERY strange ways. It’s basically a vehicle for Amy Adams to show her amazing acting chops. She slays.

The movie confirms why I never had any interest in breeding. It also confirms what I sensed my whole life from my mother: RESENTMENT. She hated being a SAH mom and I knew it my whole life. I couldn’t verbalise it as a child, but I knew my mother was not a happy housewife. She hated cooking especially, which is why her food was gross.

So, yeah, welcome to 2025. We have plans to get ourselves out of CC debt and start actually LIVING our lives. We are being brave and doing what needs to be done to sever this anchor of debt dragging us down since Nick’s three years at Minuteman working a low paying job. We are getting rid of the debt and starting fresh. NOT a bankruptcy, but we’re draining our investment account. Once the CC debt is gone, we will be able to actually use the money we make to move forward rather than simply tread water like we have for five years.

We want to reconnect with people who matter to us and we want a fucking vacation this year. It’s been over a decade since we’ve gone anywhere. That is just SAD.

So, cutting loose the negatives and setting a course to better ourselves. I hope this country doesn’t collapse or whatever. It will derail our plans and piss me off royally. I hope the infighting of the Shitgibbon brigade will render them ineffective and they’ll piss away their four years. Then we can get the country back on track. Hopefully.

It’s a new year. Let’s get on it.

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Musings on Life and Everything

First off, this post is about NO ONE in particular. It is about me, and Nick as well, where indicated. But mostly me. The things I bring up are things that have been bumping around in my head for a day or maybe 10 years. SO, do not assume anything – OR if you must, then assume this is about the fucking socials – which are CHOCK FULL of Teh Stoopid™. I’m trying to get back into blogging with actual content – not only recipes or the book list. This is the first really personal thing I’ve written in a very long time. This is a muscle that will need to be stretched…

First up: I am tired.

I am mentally tired of many, many things – and physically tired, too. I’m old, I’ve been there and done that. My patience for DUMB is pretty much NIL. Let’s address the things I’m tired of first – in a nice list, in no particular order.

I am tired of:
– people who cannot or will not adult and then whine about it and/or expect everyone else to accommodate their bullshit
– people who make bad decisions but refuse to change the way they do things
– people who are fucking EVIL and think that no one knows. Uh, we KNOW, darlin’. WE KNOW.
– gender discussions (sorry, y’all, but I am)
– working for a pittance (this is mostly Nick, since I cannot do SHIT)
– having my hands be too weak to ever work in a pro kitchen again (pay sucked, but I liked it)
– not being able to get above breaking even
– pulling money from the goddam TINY investment account to keep us afloat (we’ll end up with NO investments, eventually)
– just the relentless GRIND with nothing to show for it

Money is, as always, the issue. I’m tired of this, too, but we have to live, so it’s always front and center. If we just had an infusion of, say, even $100k, that would significantly get us going. I wonder if my mother re-wrote the will to leave it all to my brother? I’m betting YES, since I am noncompliant and he is her servant. If she didn’t, it is to be split between us, which means that fucking place is getting SOLD. It’s about 10-12 acres of land in an area that’s growing like crazy. The house is a big ole ill-kept monstrosity and the out buildings (garage and barn) are shit, too. No one will want that crap, but the land is perfect for expanding the subdivision. Zillow says $570k, but the description is 100% wrong – wrong house, only 1 acre lot. I think it’ll be close to a million with all that land. It would be great if I could count on that, but chances are slim June would leave anything to me. Sigh. I’ll have to make do with the vintage vinyl records, some tchochkis and an Asian secretary (desk, not an actual Asian assistant) that I have always loved. I don’t look forward to having to deal with my brother in any case – but if it’s selling that fucking place, I’m betting lawyers will be necessary.

As for physical, aside from my hands that are toast, we’ve stopped drinking during the week and that seems to be helping with sleeping, a little. I bought some herbal tinctures from Apothekary which are supposed to help you not want a glass of wine. We’ll see. It’s pricey AF, so I doubt we’ll use these constantly, but I thought it was worth a shot to get us off the wine.

We have decided to try to make more connections this year. We are on the path of establishing some good connections with old and new friends and that has us excited. I am particularly excited to be able to GO to someone else’s house rather than be the constant host. Being the constant host is exhausting and kind of expensive, too.

I love my reading list and I’m happy to have kept it up for so long! Looks like 2017 is the first full fledged list, with a gap in there for 2019/2020. Lots of books read, with short reviews. Here is the category.

I’m poking around for a p/t WFH job. There are a million listings and most are CRAP. Sigh. We need more money and I need to find something to fucking DO. Fuck.

We’re not coming into this year with a lot of enthusiasm. With the election looming, it’s more trepidation and anxiety than anything else. That fucking orange shitgibbon will run. YOU WATCH. And if he wins, we are FUCKED – ALL OF US. Not the rich as much, but still.

If we could flee, we would, but we cannot. We have no fat stax in the bank and we’re too old. Many countries have age and income requirements and we don’t meet them. We could go illegally, but then what? We don’t have money to live on for several years while we get established in a foreign country. So we are trapped here, with Gilead coming in hot. Hey, at least I can be a Martha since I can cook.

So yeah. Not a chipper post, by any means, but I guess it could be worse. We are mostly healthy and the cars mostly run. I think that’s about as good as it’ll be for us for the foreseeable future. We’re trying to get our shit straight and be more present. And pray the cars don’t die. Happy fucking new year! LOL

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Wow, 2014, you’re a douche!

I tell you, the end of ’13 and beginning of ’14 have been pretty stressful. I’m already pretty beat down and ready to just give up on EVER getting the fuck out of here – this house, this state and this RUT. Ugh.

AS you probably know, Nick’s 99 Ranger bit it about a week before Xmas. It was a shock, but I managed to find a replacement that same day. Bye bye $8700. That was about 2/3 of our savings. Then on the heels of that, the dishwasher decided it’d be great to start burning the insulation of its wires. Bye bye another $350. (I did get a Bosch dishwasher which is awesome.) And we’ve still got to get the plates for the new 05 Ranger, which will run probably around a grand. That would be $10,050 for those keeping score at home. We’ll get a little from the sale of the 99 Ranger, so let’s just say $9050 for fun.

Then we had a horrible New Year’s Eve/Day thanks to some very bad decisions made by the people hosting the party we attended. We are traumatized by that scene and it’s not really helping the rest of this shit. Dammit. Our stress was definitely cranked up by that shit.

Also around this time, we’ve been discussing our need for new digs. This place is too small for all the projects we’ve got going on, especially the arcade games. We’ve toyed with the idea of building onto this place, but what’s the point? The loan is tangled up and it’s about $47k under water. We’d previously looked into renting and not only is it pricey, but I didn’t find anything we’d be happy with. So, we decided perhaps it’s time to try to buy another house.

We’ve known that this house was in a grey area. It was “technically” discharged with the bankruptcy 2.5 years ago, but since we kept paying, Wells Fargo didn’t move on foreclosure or short sale. Now that we are wanting to make our move out of this house, our folly has come back to bite us on the ass. Although we don’t “technically” own this house, it’s still under our name since Wells didn’t foreclose. Which means as far as mortgage companies go, we are on the hook for the remaining $89k of this mortgage. See where I’m going? This albatross is preventing us from getting a loan for a new place. On top of that, if we do let it foreclose, then we’ll be banned from any mortgages for at least 3-4 MORE years. (Those of you in the know will notice that these rules are EXACTLY the same as they were before the “new regulations”. New MY ASS, the banks still run everything the same fucking way, to THIER benefit and no one else’s. AND they got TRILLIONS in free money from us, as well.) There is a chance we could do a short sale, but we’ve got to have somewhere to go! Conundrum.

There is a slim chance we may qualify for a(nother) mortgage loan since this house is the ONLY debt we have. But it’s slim and I don’t expect it to pan out. I’d like to know how all these other fucking people with shitty credit, tons of debt and 3 houses keep getting loans? If anyone knows a sketchy loan company, PLEASE let me know. I’m not afraid to go sketchy. The thing is, once we get another loan and get moved, Wells can do whatever they wish. We’ll be long gone and the foreclosure won’t matter since we’ve got another loan. BUT the banks, poor things, they don’t want that kind of “risk”. RIGHT. We’re pretty much fucked at this point. HARP is bullshit.

On top of all this awesomeness, Nick’s work may lose one of its two big clients. This is the client that has always been solid. The second client has always been wobbly and could go at any time, so this means that BOTH clients are now wobbly. Not good. If Nick loses his job, we are pure-T FUCKED. We have practically nothing in savings thanks to the above expenses.

So, yah, we’re stressed out. We both didn’t sleep well due to stress dreams last night and the night before. I am really tired and cranky. I’ve been foul for days. Foulapalooza continues. :(

And the cherry on top is: I’ve got company coming in next week. ::sob:: I hope I can hold it together. I know, between us, Nick and I will pull off the visit next week without a hitch, but it’s just all this CRAP that’s piled on top of us…

I don’t have any energy to give to anyone right now. We’ve got PROBLEMS. Potentially devastating problems if Nick’s job is in jeopardy. This is why we have begged off most social stuff. 2013 was a bastard and it seems that 2014 will be one as well. We are in survival mode, so don’t take it personally if we decline invitations. We are just trying to hold it together. We are not ones for panic, but we are very cautious right now. I’m thinking that Heroes Con may not happen for us this year. We need to save money like crazy. We always succumb to the siren call of Heroes, but I think we’ll need to be strong and skip this year. ::another sob::

We have a home, paid for cars and groceries in the fridge. It takes a lot of willpower to concentrate on THAT rather than the rest of this shit. When things get like this, I just need quiet. Lots and lots of quiet. Which is why having company will be extra hard for me.

We are grateful for what we have, despite the uncertainty of our situation. Hope springs eternal.