To start, not this just-past weekend, but the one before was loaded with gaming fun. On Friday we had met up with our play testing group and begun working on characters for that game. I had a blast meeting the new peeps.

nosslins, manicgiraffe (henceforth to be known as Broe), xinejaquette, and khinderer (henceforth to be KurtXine) came over on Saturday night for din-dins and fun. KurtXine made a casserole which was so darn tasty we all finished it right off. Then onto a round of Phase 10 and finally to finish the evening Drunken Pictionary. Much enjoyment, as always and I believe it was Manicgiraffe came up with the notion that all women need to wear see through pants, ala Jasmine from Aladdin. Honestly, I can't remember the string that got him to that sentiment as I was on the girls team, also known as Team Inebriated. Broe left the Dosialovelins at home for the evening as the three Bully breed doggies together are a handful to deal with. Although I know Shelbo missed her terribly.

This last weekend, KurtXine came over on Friday and introduced us to a new game, Ticket to Ride. Jamers seems to be as addicted to it as Kurt, and I caught him this afternoon looking it up on the interwebs with all it's various incarnations. KurtXine stayed pretty late on Friday, especially when Jamers and I get up at 5 in L morning. As they headed off Jamers asked them if they would like to go with us to Voodoo Donuts the following day.

I know some of you Portlanders know of Voodoo, I myself did not until recently. Apparently they are pretty well known among Portland for their crazy donuts. For example, the whole reason I wanted to go, was not because I'm a donut fiend, but because they have combined two of my favorite flavors, Bacon (um. . . . bacon) and maple, to make a Bacon Stripped covered Maple Bar. Must have for the Bacon lover! So, we load up in the car Saturday noonish to head down to Portland Proper to gets some donuts.

I navigated pretty well through the downtown traffics, and we found a parking place right around the corner from the shop. Perfect! Get in, get out, get eating! We round the corner and walk into the hole in the wall, donut dive, that is Voodoo Donuts. Now I don't always mind the divey places, Roxy has got some terrific greasy yummies, but sometimes it does bother me.

We walk in the door and Kelly is immediately encountered with problems.
1) I iz clawzstrofobic so after about 5 minutes I had gone beyond my comfort level, because
2) The place was fricken packed and as such
3) They didn't need to take Debit cards, cash only and their ATM was sooooo not working. As in the fracken thing was unplugged. Honestly, how many peeps carry cash nowadays? which caused us to
4) Walk down a block to the Saturday Market, hop on the Max, get off at Pioneer Square, pick up the cashes, and jump back on the Max to get the donuts. At this point, Pickle, is getting slightly irritated that we are jumping through hoops for a donut.

We get back go in and the crowd is even bigger than before. I tell Jamers to get me the bacon maple, and a variety of other weird ass donuts to try, before I go outside to stand in the rain.

After 10 or so minutes, he comes out and tells me they won't have anymore maple bacon bars for oh, maybe two hours, I said, why did you get out of line to tell me that? I told you to get a variety of weird donuts. He said, it's okay I can go back to the front. Whatever.

He walks in KurtXine walks out and informs me that pretty much all their weird donuts aren't available, and they ask why Jamers came out and went back since he has to get in teh back of the line. At this point I looses it. I open the door and tell him we are leaving this is ridiculous for donuts especially since he needs to get in line all over again. To make the story shorter, he came out later with 3 regular donuts.

We went out to real food on teh way home and ate our donuts later as we enjoyed more Ticket to Ride and Phase 10. I can say that their popularity most be solely based on the weird donuts, cause the regular ones were nothing special. It was pretty disappointing really. I'm sure the weird donuts are totally awesome, but I just don't think I'm going to put that sort of effort into trying again and more than likely failing at obtaining one of their donuts.

The rest of the weeekend was okay, more house cleaning on Sunday. The bedroom is pretty clean right now as is teh computer room, which has taken on a new flavor. I think as time goes on we'll refine our rooms' themes and eventually the house will be just as we want it.

Other than that, work is work. I have my good times and my bad times there. I think for the first time in my life I'm truly take it or leave it with my feelings at my current job. People change often in positions so everything seems disorganized and there is unfortunately a ton of "its not my job" or "that was so and so's job originally, so I have no idea". It is getting incredibly old and draining.

No baby news :( still

Honey is coming along. She has had a pretty good streak these last two days in not being terrified by everything :) She is eating with out as much proding, and she seems to be getting more social with James and I. She still has a tremendously long way to go until she is a "normal" dog, but that is okay. The weird thing, when we go out in teh backyard (when it isn't raining and cold) she acts like a normal dog. She jumps like a kangaroo, she runs, she places, she fetches, her whole face lights up and she comes to life. When she is in the house, she is quite, and timid. Very weird.

Anyways that was a much longer post than anybody will ever care to read, sorry. I went back yesterday and skimmed over my first few posts on lj back in 2005. I really wanted to just delete the entries since they were all whiny about a boy, but that was the state I was in back then so I thought it better to leave them, for now. Now onto din-din, and character creations as I want to get them done and not wait until the last minute like I usually do.

Just a little over 24 hours before we leave for the airport to go to Portland for the weekend. While there we get to sign the lease and see in real life our new place. We'll shop and stock it up. James will interview on Monday and hopefully get a job. We will fly home on Monday with keys and an idea of what our new place looks like.

To find out why, go to angille's entry from today.

In fact, I'm so angry (still) that I couldn't eat dinner last night, breakfast this morning, and I don't think I'll be eating at lunch today either. On top of that, add housing nightmares to last night and I'm a raving zombie of pain.

We now have an address and a place to live in Portland, Beaverton to be exact! I'm sooooooo happy! Sid here in the office said, yeah, but do you have a job? I laughed at him, I said, "I'm not worried about a job!" So yeah! I'm just bouncing here in my chair. I now have all this energy that I need to expend.

Jamers has handled the whole thing so well. I really counted on him to get it all worked out and he did. I'm so thankful to have such a loving sweet husband. And he has two interviews scheduled for our mid-May trip up there. Rock on.

So effective June 2006 the Pickle will be relishing life in Portland!

1) My lj friend of yesterday, the one with the angry comments, he has gone friends only. Which would be cool and all, but he removed me as well and I can't figure out why. Makes me feel pooplins.

2) We have one of those fax/printer/scanner/copier machines here at work. It was in the middle of printing my check batch, 35 or so checks. About 2/3 of the way in, it receives a fax, and instead of storing it into memory until the check batch is done, it printed the fax on one of the checks. The remaining 1/3 were one check off. I've never seen this happen. The check batch gets sent to the printer in one lump sum, so how the hey could that have happened? That too makes me feel pooplins, although Christine didn't care and told me to just keep the checks as is.

3) Tweed should be getting our application fee any time now. I'm so excited. Looking at the pics of the house, it looks like it is a little more dark than I would've liked, but I'm not complaining. It is quite large and for a year or so we can put up with it. This makes me happy!

4) I've decided based on the pics that we saw and the fact that brand new carpet is getting laid down as I type this, we need to get area rugs. I want one under the dinning room table (we have one now) and one under the couch/coffee table area. That way we can eat without my anal retentiveness rearing it's ugly head. I think our house will also be no shoes inside. That way the carpets stay cleaner, and well, I've watched way too much Fruits Basket. They have "house" shoes, "school" shoes, and outside shoes. I still find that odd, but I'm sure it helps to keep the house nice. So money will need to be spent on rugs, once we get there, but I'll get cool rugs and they will add flare to the house. This makes me happy.

5) Mr. Sunshine is out again today and the office is rather quite. I really want to be out on a walk right now, but it isn't going to happen. However, last night we did get some walking around town in with Lila. It was such a loverly night. I went outide around 9:30 and I didn't get cold. We slept with some of the windows opened. I can't even remember the last time that happened. This made me happy.

6) The house is getting a walk through from the real estate agent in about 15 minutes. It brings the house one step closer to leaving our family. I was thinking about granny again last night and couldn't help but be sad. It would've been so much easier to let the house go if she were still alive. That and I was also thinking, that at least will be in a completely different state and out of town when the new person/people move in. At least that was a comfort, but overall feelings of the pooplins.

7) I love Korn. They are playing on the radio and I just had to put that out there.

Toodles everyone. Hope this day finds you happy and healthy.

BTW, does anyone like my new icon? Jamers made it for me last night after I made him watch the utter WTF that is David Hasselhoff singing Hooked on a Feeling.

not related to assholes, good news on the house hunt. Tweed told angille yesterday to go ahead and send up the application fee. Apparently, he liked what he saw on the app, and is moving forward with doing credit and rental checks. I went ahead and fedEx the payment, along with a rental reference from our current landlords to him. He should get it tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll know within the next week or so if we get the awesomeness that is our potential new rental.

Assuming we do get it, we've now got a weekend to spend when we go visit that won't be for house hunting. I would say, "let's fit in more interviews." but somehow I don't see most job interviews happening on a weekend.

My sister is going to be going up with us to pop's house on Saturday. I've invited her to dinner with us, but I don't yet know if we'll be able to get a reservation or not. I've got to call after 3 to see.

Oh, last night in our "shopping" our way to see Ryan and intrepid_glory we stopped at the mall to see if Bablyon 5, Season 2 was in yet, it wasn't. However, Sam Goody across the way was having a going out of business sale. A sale to the tune of all DVDs $5.99 or less. Whoopee! So there wasn't a great selection left, but who could resist such classics as Julius Ceasar starring Charlton Heston? Or White Zombie with Bela Legosi? Anyhow, we ended up with 9 DVDs for $35. Not that big a deal you say? Howsa bout the fact that one of those nine boxes has like 12 cheesey horror movies, another four, etc. I figure we got close to 25 or so movies last night! noss, we're going to have quite the cheese fest once we get up there chicky!

Anyhow, now that I'm back to calm and not hating, I hope all you great peeps have a loverly day.

Did I mention that we have a beautiful, glorious, warm sunny day today? I could get used to this, just in time to move up to the rain.

It was beautiful this morning, and now the fog-like clouds have returned. No sun to be seen. I'm so very bored here at work. Christine couldn't come in today, and I've done all the work I can conceive of to do. Right now I'm shredding piles o'paper, but that too will come to an end.

Jamers faxed over the rental application today. So far I haven't heard anything, I'm thinking that is a bad sign. Jamers will probably say that not hearing isn't necessarily bad, but I would think that if he wanted to go the next step, he would call us and tell us to send the application fee. My credit is outstanding and the only thing I can think of that would be a detereant is the fact that we don't yet have jobs. I really hope that won't count against us.

My aunt and uncle went to our house today to walk the termite guy through. They are also having a gent look at the bathroom problem to see how much/what can be done about it. Last night I went through and cleaned the walls and the ceiling. It looked so much better than it had, but it still needs work. I'm finding that I do better cleaning the apartment right now when I do different parts of different rooms instead of one sweeping "bathroom" or "kitchen" cleaning. Not sure why this is other than the fact that if I target a specific thing, windows for example, I can see after a light cleaning just how much work I'll have to put into it. I think I'll just keep doing bits and pieces up until the last week or so. Then I'll tear through the serious cleaning, one room at a time. That way when we move the stuff into the Uhaul, I'll only have to do light cleaning and I'll be done.

I still have to call the credit cards, banks, and other miscell bill type peeps to set up forwarding. I don't trust the USPS to do anything correctly. I still receive mail for someone who has never even lived in my apartment. I'm hoping that if . . . er, when...when we get the house I'll be able to start calling those places by the end of this month.

Furkids go in for the leukimea booster shot on the 29th. We're going to go see my dad on Saturday. It'll be nice to visit briefly, and we'll go to Verizon and get my cell phone off my dad's plan. That way I'll be able to switch the number to a Portland number and be on my way. Sadly, as of late, Alamahombre (my cellphone) has been acting up. His banner says "Verizon" instead of his name. I've checked the settings, and it is there to use his name, but the phone won't display it. This last weekend I kept getting distortion when using the phone. Sounded like I was underwater, which didn't help when we were calling people to come pick us up when the truck broke down.

I dropped off the drapes yesterday at the dry cleaners. They'll take a week to clean. Am I cleaning them too early? I can't imagine that they will be all cacka by the end of May.

I don't have to worry about the carpets, they're getting replaced thankfully.

That is about all I can think of to take care of when leaving the apartment. Does anybody who is still reading this have any tips or hints or can you think of anything I've missed? I would like to leave the apartment in spectacular shape. It is what I would've done for granny afterall.

Well I babble on and the shredding calls. Toodles all!

Things on my mind:

Why does it have to be so fricken sunny and nice on days when I have to work? We're supposed to see Lila tonight, so maybe we can walk down on the beach this evening. That would be loverly.

I really, really want us to get this place we're filling out the app for. It is a nice 1600 sq ft, 3 bed, 2bath(+)? in a nicer more secluded part of Beaverton. The rent is a little higher than we were looking for, but the area, yardage, and fact that it has a 25 ft long walk in closet make it well worth it. This makes me happy.

I'm bored here at work. There is nothing else for me to do. I'm sure in a few months when I've got a job up in Portland, I'll be longing for these days of slowness. That thought actually makes me happy.

One of the last emails I received prior to pulling my resume off the internet was from a placement agency. When I emailed the lady to let her know that I wouldn't be looking to begin working until the second week in June, she replied to let her know if she could help in the future. I'm thinking I'm gonna call her and schedule a generic interview for the 15th of May. I can't hurt can it? I'm sure that she'll be able to line something up for me starting that second week in June. Maybe I'll call her in a little bit. That thought makes me happy as well.

In speaking with my mom yesterday, she is really gung-ho about moving to Portland. She said the only thing is my sister has to want to go. My plan was already to get my sister to see as much and experience as much of Portland as possible when she rides up with me for the move. She'll be staying with us the first week. She keeps thinking that when she is there, we'll be hanging out with our friends, or working, or doing something that will force us to leave her at the house by herself. I keep trying to get it through to her that I want her to spend time with me. That is why I invited her up there. I've wanted to get her up there all along, and now that my mom has given me the "secret" talk to get my sis interested enough that she wants to move too, I'm all jazzled up about it. I may get them up there yet!

My cousin Jeff who I saw yesterday at Easter dinner, is thinking about moving up to Portland as well. He has had a couple of friends move up there. That is so fricken cool! I would love to have him up there as well. We have completely different lifestyles, but I love him so much. I told him, should he want to come up and scope it out, once we have a house to live in, he is more than welcome to come and stay with us.

We got our fed tax money already. It is really going to help for the next couple of months until we're both employed.

The truck is dead at Jamers work. His dad thinks it is the distributor cap. I think we could afford to drop up to a couple hundred on it to keep it alive. Anything more than that and it probably wouldn't be worth it. James looked up the blue book for it, $600, so yeah, a couple hundred is about the limit to fix it.

Anyhoo, I'll toodle off now. I hope this loverly day finds all of you well.

That has been our day. It started last night with going down to the Boardwalk to turn in the 3000+ tickets I've been hording for the last decade and get some craptastic prizes. The little dude behind the counter took our tickets for a movie (Bridget Jones' Diary - I had it before, lent it to someone and it never came home. I don't know who I lent it to and it has been gone many years.) Now there is a sign up on the case where the movie was that said that you must make arrangements in advance to obtain any of the wonderous items behind the glass. I asked the little dude about the sign, and he said, "Oh. I'll just call my supervisor and they can come down and get it for you." So he takes the majority of our tickets, pages a manager, and shreds our tickets. We puruse the rest of the items to use up the rest of the tickets. While we pace back and forth, lil dudelin pages a supervisor several times. We finally decide on something for my sister and a couple little rubber duckies. Finally dude tells us that we should come back in the morning. I'm like, well, you already took and shredded our tickets. How are we to get the movie tomorrow? After about ten minutes of Jamers and I conviencing both dude and his coworker that we need something signed, they sign a paper and we head on home.

This morning we walked back down there (we got two nice walks in in two days!) and little dude was working. He instantly remembered us and called a super, who came down and gave us our movie! W00t! We head home and shortly thereafter, momma Donna shows up. We had a loverly time with her and went to Hindquarter for lunch. (One less restaurant off my list) She left around four I think, and James and I walked downtown to get some cleaning supplies.

*Insert "Meanwhile . . ." We have quite a few houses for our Portland peeps to scout out for us. Bryan and Noe were nice enough to take time out of their home buying search this weekend, to rental house search for us. They took their digital and took pics for us of the two places they saw today. They emailed them to us, rather promptly:), and we instantly agreed that the second house they looked at is the one we want.

When we got back from Longs, Jamers gave the guy who we are talking to about the house a call. He told the guy, who I shall call Tweed, for no apparent reason, that we were extremely interested in the house and would like to fill out a rental application. Tweed and Jamers talked about things and Tweed said he would go to the office to fax a rental application to Jamer's work. After I had had enough cleaning for one day, we decided to head out to New Leaf to spend the remaining gift card I got for work for Xmas and to head to his work to pick up the rental app. I suggest we take the truck instead of Forlori. It is nice to not drive all the time. We were both soooooo jazzed. I'm excited that we may get a house we both really like and at the same time, worried that the Tweed won't want to rent to us for whatever reason.

We take off and after the first stop at New Leaf on Mission, we head towards James' work. He goes in and checks, no fax. Otay, so we decide to head on over to New Leaf in Capitola to get what we were looking for. We get not but three blocks away and the truck starts going all wonky, again. James pulls over and after playing around for 30 seconds, decides to continue on. We round the corner after stopping and then the truck goes . . . dead. No noise, nothing. He pulls it over to the side of the road in front of somebody's house.

He does the normal "fix" when the truck goes plop, but it doesn't work. He calls his dad and tries again, but no use . . .the truck is dead. I call AAA and the give us a thirty minute window for the tow truck guy. We both then start trying to call people we know, with cars, that could give us a lift home from James' work. Do you know how difficult it is to reach people, even on cell phones on a Saturday night? Nigh near impossible. Finally I got ahold of one of my uncles, Uncle Rich, and he came over and picked us up when the tow guy was done towing the truck. He gave us a lift home and here we are.

The funny thing is, since we had the truck towed to Jamers work, we were in the parking lot and Tweed called. He said he was faxing over the app. James went in and grabbed it and I was trying to fill it out 20 mintues ago, but it is so blurry from faxing, that I can't read what it is asking for half the time. We'll have to call Tweed tomorrow and see if the is a better way to fill this out for him.

That was our day. It wrapped up rather nicely, almost like a tv show really. Now I'm sitting here drinking alcohol concoctions to use up what alcohol we have here before we move. Tomorrow I'll be heading over to my aunt's house for Easter whilst the Jamers stays here and runs game. It will probably be my last Easter dinner with my family and that is sad. Oh well, hopefully I'll get some more of them up our way soon enough.

So toodles all! Here's to wishing that tomorrow goes a little bit smoother than the last two days.

With nary a cloud in the sky! What a wonderful day indeed! It looks like we may have an in for the house we want unless the one couple that got a chance to look at it wants it. They took it off craigslist, as the house was not in the shape they feel comfortable showing it in. The owner told James that they are going to wait until the other couple moves out and they've fixed it back into good shape before they rent it out. They are looking to push back the rent date. Originally they were looking to get it rented by May 5, now they've pushed it to May 15th. We are flying up there May 12th in the evening, and flying back May 15th in the afternoon. Of course, we haven't bothered to check with our Portland Peeps yet about crashing at houses, but we're hoping it will be cool with them.

The plan is to go up, check out rentals on the weekend, and schedule interviews for that Monday, the 15th. The only snafu is it falls on Mother's day weekend, but my mom is okay with it and I'm sure Momma Donna will understand. In any case that gives me a month to step back from my resume and cover letters and revamp them so that I can get interviews on that Monday. Keeping my fingers crossed . . . .

That is all. I wish we didn't have gaming today. I want to to outside and soak up the sun. Who knows? Maybe Duane will cancel? Toodles, all.

I've removed my resume from Monster, hotjobs, and careerbuilder. They haven't produced anything remotely viable in the last, what, 2 or 3 months? I think I have to accept the fact that I'm just not that interesting on paper to warrant calls for interviews.

The house thing is all wacky now, so I don't know what is happening there either.

The boys are taking a gent out to lunch today that Matt wants to have do my job. This is making me even more depressed. I don't have a new job. I don't even have people (other than temp agencies) interested in me. Now I have to watch somebody else get this most amazing job and sit here and be all happy lala when there is nothing up ahead for me.

I guess I'll go eat my salad now.

rentals not to buy, at least not yet. I looked on craigslist again this morning/afternoon. Geez louise there sure are a lot of houses for rent up in Portland as well as apartments. I'm feeling pretty confident that even if we get stuck living somewhere that isn't our ideal, things will still be okay. I've sent some initial emails out and tonight I plan on going through and doing the dreaded calling. Why dreaded you ask? Well, quite simply put, I've never done this before, like ever! I'm so out of my element, out of my comfort zone. I mean, give me a vendor to call and tell we aren't paying them this week, I can handle it no problem. Give me an employee who needs me to call the insurance administrators to find out why some one has been dropped, I've got it covered. Ask me to call someone in another state about a house I can't even look at, and I don't even know where to begin. What do I ask? Most of the questions I would have are in the ads, other than physically looking at the place. I'm mostly concerned with number of bedrooms, square footage, is it okay to have cats? Those are the questions I have. Let me play the part of damsel in distress, hmmm (clears throat), "Oh won't somebody out there tell me what I should ask about when I call these people? I'm so naive and innocent(hahahaha) I need help!"

Can anybody heed this call?

I changed my address on my resume on Saturday, to a Portland address. Then I sent it out to a couple of places that are hiring. Now remember previously, I've been applying for jobs left and right with not one response. This morning, I've received a response from one of the applications I sent in. The lady would like me to call her to schedule an interview. Damn my California address! Thank you sooooo verry much my Nosslins! Your address is going to be my ticket to employment!

I'm very elated. Now the problem, how can I interview up in Portland whilst still down here? I think I should wait a day or two, see what other responses I get, then make a plan to fly up and do rounds of interviews for a day or two. I don't know. My brain is now flying at the possiblities of what is to come.

Yippie Skippie Batman!

to rent a house as opposed to an apartment. Really, I'm just not designed for close living quarters to other people. We don't want to have to get a storage facility as well, so a 2-3 bedroom house with lots of sq ft sounds like something that we are willing to shell out the extra dough for. I've begun the search today for houses. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks we'll having the housing situation all figured out! James went ahead and reserved the Uhaul. We got the 26' which I'm truly hoping will fit all our stuff. The extra furniture from granny altered our original plans, but I'm most definitely not complaining.

Now if we can just find jobs! I've changed my resumes to reflect the Noss' address (Thanx Noe!) and have applied for a bunch of new job postings. I'm hoping that I'll get a reply or two out of it. If not than maybe I should respond to one of those, "I saw your resume. . ." jobs for some sort of sales position. I don't want to, but I need to have a job, right?

Anyhoo, breakfast, er . . .looking at the clock, lunch is ready and I shall toodle off.

Last week was a crazy time here in the office as we are bidding a pretty decent sized job. It kept me on my toes and occupied last week to the point that I didn't really get to relax, which is utterly and totally fine on the workfront. Being sick the first two days this week hasn't helped to calm things down either. I'm all caught up with my paperwork, but now I'm starting to stress. Our estimator was out of the office today, fishing, and is going to be gone tomorrow and Monday in Socal for personal business. Normally this wouldn't phase me, but with this bid going out Thursday next week I'm definitely feeling pushed.

This job isn't very difficult - mostly time management and organization skills, with a cheery upbeat attitude (at work I do have one) The problem now is that this bid needs the estimator to start piecing together the subs bids, see where the holes are, and direct me on who to get what too. I'm not an estimator, nor do I really understand how to read plans or what sub gets what spec section blah, blah, blah. The problem is I have absolutely no direction or assistane on this until Tuesday and by then things are going to be real difficult to fix. I addressed my concerns with Christine today and let her know that I was feeling like I was way out of my element. I called the estimator and asked him some questions on behalf of the subs, coordinated a landslide of paperwork, and made all the necessary calls, but I feel like I'm sinking on this one.

I can count on one hand how many times in the 11 months I've been here how many times I've felt stressed. This just isn't like me here at my job. It's just the opposite. I'm wondering if it is just that this is the last job I'm assisting in estimating and I feel like what is the point? I won't be here if they get the job. I won't see the building erected, or pay the subs or fill out the preliens or any of it. I'm thinking that now that I have only T-Minus 8 weeks left here that I'm slowly going to care less and less. And trust me, that isn't my consious decision either. In fact, I'm actively trying to get all the little things, the projects I'm working on, the whole kit and kabodle up to way above par. That way whoever takes my job will have an easier time learning and it won't be as hard on the Slatters either.

I know that my work issues are just that, mine. I'm aware that half the crap I put in this journal is just me babbling away about my daily stuff. I hardly ever put anything here that really means anything in the grand scheme of the world. I don't post things that challenge the mind. I don't make posts about my political views. I don't write stories that keep people coming back for more with my witty intellect. I've been feeling progressively less and less needed by the world. Jamers is not the world, he is exempt from this feeling. But Portland doesn't seem to want me. Apartment places aren't replying to my inquiries. Places I've sent my resume and cover letter to don't even bother to reply.

I guess I just feel like I'm loved and wanted here in SC, so why in the hell am I putting so much effort into going somewhere that doesn't appear to want me? Yes, I am a riceball.

the sun was gone again, pooplins. Tonight we shall finish what we didn't get done last night, mainly the house cleaning and stuff to storage. I will feel infinitely happier when the house doesn't look like a junk yard.

Forlori is in at the shop today getting regular maintenance work. The shop I took her to by recommendation seems real honest and nice. They called to tell me that she needs a tune up in addition to the extended servicing, the total estimated price is like $340, which compared to the last place I took it, is infinitely cheaper. Plus they got 'er done today, well, we'll see, but she should be done today for afternoon pick up. Which is good, I don't like not having her around.

Tomorrow we takes Pretty Lady, aka: Velvet to the vets to get her caught up on her shots. Next Saturday Bazzy goes in for his catch up. We got taxes, Jamer's resume blast, and the pics/statements to the AAA lawyer mailed off today.

When the house gets clean today, and with the above all done, we are in pretty good shape for the move I think. We'll look into getting a PO Box later tonight/tomorrow, so that we can give a forwarding address to the bill peeps in the coming month or so. It is all beginning to come together!

Ohhhhhh! Matt let me borrow the Star Trek movies DVD box set for the weekend in exchange for me letting him borrow Firefly. Last night we special ordered Babylon 5 Season 2, it should arrive in a month or so. It costs just as much as Season 1, which made me almost choke. However I have $70 in replay certificates, which will cover most of it thankfully. We were debating whether or not to start collecting Red Dwarf with the certificates, but I think poor Jamers is now addicted to Babylon 5, so we really should get it now.

Anyhoo, hopes everyones' weekend.

Hey beansbouf, I know you gave me the info on various areas of Portland before but I can't seem to locate it. Could you be ever so sweet, and give me the rundown again? Or noss, manicgiraffe, or anybody else out there in lj land that knows the area - any information I can get now would be greatly appreciated. With only a little over two months left until the move, I need to hone down where we're going to be looking. Since Nosslins and ManicG appear to be moving out of the Beaverton area and KurtXine are only going to be living with Xine's parents for a few months before they locate an apartment, we should probably evaluate all the areas of the big P before picking one. I think we were looking before in the general area where Noss/Manic, Hunter/Jen, and Xine's parents live, only because they would be near to us. I'm planning on getting a PO Box up there soon and I would like to get one in the general area of wherever we end up living for the next year or so.

I invite anyone and everyone to comment about P.

No clouds in the sky today, yippie! It is a gorgeous day today and I soooo want to be up the coast at my fav beach hanging out and reading my book. Alas, I am stuck here in the office, pooplins. However, I am leaving for lunch today to go down to the county center and put in my passport application. Yesterday I went and got my oh so horrid picture for it, and today I'll go pay the high fee to get it earlier. I will feel much relieved when that is done.

In other news, we got a lot done yesterday, but not everything. Tonight when we go drop of poor Forlori for a servicing, we'll stop by Gottschalks and I'll take the skirt in to have the tag thing removed. My sis who just quit her job at Mervs, said that Gott. is famous for forgetting to take those taggy things off.

Tonight is house cleaning and paperwork night. Taxes will be mailed off. Jamers resume blast will be mailed off. Bills will be paid. The floor will be vaccumed. The bathroom and kitchen will be cleaned. Taking care of these things, along with the passport app going in, and the sun is going to make going into this weekend carefree. I won't be (shouldn't be)worried about anything and I'll be able to enjoy this weekend to the fullest! I'm so happy for that.

The yard sale is getting put off until next weekend, which means Xinekurt can't participate, but it means that we won't have to get up early Saturday! Saturday we'll have pizza and movies and Kurtxine over and maybe my sister and whoever else wants to come. Then Sunday Jamers will run his last adventure with Xinekurt physicaly present and my sis expressed her interest in coming to watch. I'm so happy for that too. I've been trying to get her involved in gaming for years. I think she would enjoy it, plus she would get to meet new people and perhaps make new friends. Its just too bad that we're going to be leaving in a few months for Portland and she won't be able to game with us. I figure it is just another way I can bait her to move up. That and I told her about Kurtxine's hobbit house they plan on building. She was uber excited about that. So we'll see.

Anyhoo, must be toodling off now. Got work to do.

at least according to this Pickle anyway. The rain has stopped . . .for now anyhoo and that makes me smile (insert big ole grin). We are supposed to have a couple of nice days here before the rain starts again. This is extremely weird weather for SC, but normal weather for Portland me thinks. That is great though, it's getting me ready for when we move up there(bowing head in reverance, "Oh thank you goddess!"). At this rate the transition weather wise should be pretty unnoticeable, Woot!

I'm alone in the office, again, pooplins! Just about the only thing I can think of that I won't miss from this job is the fact that I spend so much time by myself. I've got a stack of invoices, but I'm gonna take my time getting em done cause like then I'll have nothing to do, right? So I'll post this update and then code and input and look around the office for more stuff to do.

I think Jamers and I are going to have a nice little nest egg in the checking account for when we move. Hopefully that will be something that the apartment rental people see and go, well maybe they haven't got jobs right now, but they have plenty of money to pay for rent for like 6+ months, so we can rent to them. I don't know. I've never really done this sort of thing. I'm so scared. Scared that we won't get into a place despite our excellent credit and our savings just because we don't yet have employment. I think James is getting ready to send out his resume blast. We're hoping that he can get at least a few places interested enough in him to get some interviews lined up, if not a job, by the time we get there. I'm going to continue to respond to job postings with my resume and cover letters and see what happens from there. A few of you have given me some good tips and other temp agencies that I may go to once I get up there if nothing else pans out. They do have quite a few accounting jobs up that way though, so really I should be able to get a job rather quickly. I mean when I applied here at Slatter, I was one of like 70+ applicants. They only interviewed a dozen or so, and Christine has since told me that she knew the second I sat down for the interview that I was the one for this job. If I can beat out that many people for a job here in SC, I should certainly be able to get a job where the market doesn't appear to be saturated with applicants, right?

The baby thing is just driving me crazy. I've got zero patience and the waiting until health insurance again is going to kill me. I had this brillant idea that we could just go on cobra, right? But that is so expensive I'll have a heartattack just at the thought of the payments. What is six or so more months anyhow, right? Having other things that need attending to helps. Like taxes, packing, cleaning, job hunting, etc. Then once we get up there, I'll need to set up house and get to know the area, so hopefully that will take up some time. I'm hoping by the time I'm out of exteraneous stuff to do, we'll be ready to start trying.

Tonight I've got to get down to the place and have my passport pic taken so I can take it in. Then we are going to my mom/sis's house to take the chest of drawers my sis is giving us that matches the chest of drawers I already have, that just happen to match the bed :) Funny how things like that work out sometimes. I'm gonna do her taxes for her (sometimes it does bug me just a little that a 27 year old can't do her own EZ taxes. Seriously, if she just read it I know she could do it herself, but she wants me to do it, so I will. It will be the last time anyhoo, so no biggie. From there we head to storage to drop off the dresser and put clothes in it (for easier moving). After that, we have to go to Gottschalks so I can have the moron who forgot to take the plastic tag thing that sets the alarm off (not that it did) off of my new skirt. Finally home for dinner and relaxing!

The nice thing is tomorrow I don't think we have plans to do anything with or for anybody. So, we'll send off the taxes, and I'll do some book work and get caught up on the house cleaning! Yea! I'm not going to tell anybody other than LJ friends that we don't have Thursday gaming. That way I'll actually be able to have the day to just us.

Anyhoo, must off to work now. Toodles everyone!

I just want to throw my finger up at the world right now. This weekend's plans are all fubarred. I'm getting worried about the housing situation in Portland, again. Now I call the stupid temp agency people and in order to work through them I need to take tests. Otay, so my degree means what? My 10 years of work experience means what? My references will mean what? Fuck that! I'm not belittling myself for a temp job! The whole point of a temp job is for the place of employment to "try" you out and see if you're a fit. The only reason I was going to go through one of those places is so that when I get there, I would be able to start ASAP, but that wouldn't be the case anyhow. So I won't go with a temp service, I just find that way too demeaning. Back to square one I go.

Now I don't know what we will do. We can't get an apartment until we have jobs and salaries to prove that we can pay our bills. We can't get jobs until we get up there and can interview. How in the Hell does anybody ever move? I'm so stressed out now! I feel like curling up into my little ball of ignoring the world and crying. Why can't the magic move fairie come and make it all work out? I don't want to be homeless. I don't want to have to worry about these things. I've got a great job where I am loved. I've got a place to live. Someone please remind me why I'm giving up these comforts?

Maybe the only way for this to work is for one of us to move up first, get an apartment and a job, while one stays here (probably me) and lives with my mom, to pay the bills up there. Once James gets a job up there, I can move up and then his income will support us until I get my job? Sounds like a horrible way to live, but I think that is the only way it can work now.

No matter what happens now, it will be the Pooplins.