My Pictures and My Things

So I’m house/pet sitting this week, you know? I’ve decided I really don’t care for it much. It requires so much getting ready for, on my part, and I’m not even going anywhere. It’s like the worst possible vacation. I had to pack up all my daily stuff (including picking out 5 days of work clothes which is completely unheard of for me), clean my house like I’ll be gone for a week, not sleep in my own bed for 8 days and take care of someone elses pets. Plus, my commute time has been increased to 30 minutes instead of 13 minutes. A whole hour of driving compared to 30 minutes. Basically it sucks all around. Wedding shoes...wedding shoes....wedding shoes. That's my motive for doing it.

Anyways, I don’t really like being away from my apartment. My apartment that has pictures of Seth everywhere I look. My apartment where I have memories of Seth and me in it. My apartment where I have my own morning routine, my own bed, my own shower, my own toothpaste (they use nasty Arm and Hammer toothpaste that feels like sand on my teeth, ugh, it’s gross, and I hate it), my own apartment where I can do whatever I want when I want, how I want. My apartment that has my own computer, my own things.

Most of all, I miss my pictures of Seth. On the nightstand, I have a few different pictures of us that are the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up. One is a picture of us kissing in a picture frame that says LOVE. I remember taking that picture so clearly…it was the evening before he went back to Iraq and we walked to the park and held hands, and he told me he was “in like” with me. I also have a few other pictures of him on my night stand…one of him in Iraq in a HUMVEE (I’m guessing), and he’s dressed in all his gear and he wrote on the back that he was going out to a FOB. He sent me this picture in a little care package for me before we met in person. I also have a picture of us on the morning he left to go back to Iraq and we had just gotten out of the shower and he was making fun of me because I had my hair wrapped up in a pink towel, so he put his little bit of hair up in a towel too. (Little did I know I'd cry so much that day I could have used the towel to absorb my tears instead of multiple boxes of Kleenex...) I also have a picture of him standing in our living room in his uniform when he was home on leave from Iraq and basically I just wanted him to dress up in it because he’s so damn sexy in it, although he dislikes having to wear it when he doesn’t have to. I think it’s funny because he’s wearing a black shirt under the uniform and that is not allowed and he has a very annoyed look on his face and his head is cocked like, “really? I’m dressed up only so you can take a picture of me?” When my alarm goes off in the morning, I roll over and hit the snooze button and then I say good morning to his picture and tell him I hope he’s having a good day and I love him. Before I turn off the light when I sleep, I have a little chat with his picture and tell him I miss him and tell him I wish he were there with me in bed so he can cuddle me and I love him. (Does anyone else talk to their pictures??) Sometimes I even lay the picture on his pillow on the bed and pretend he’s sleeping there, but then I put it back on the nightstand so I don’t roll over it at some point in my sleep and make it wrinkly. I packed a book to read before I go to bed and I exchanged my usual book mark for the picture of him all dressed in his gear in the HUMVEE. I still talk to his picture before I go to bed, but it’s not the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up and I don’t like that. So, I shall now set his picture on my substitute nightstand for the remainder of the week and look at that first thing when I wake up.

It's Definitely A Monday

A stupid Monday at that.

I’m sleeping at my parents while I’m house/pet sitting next door to them, and I forgot to plan in time in my morning routine to go let their dogs out and feed their animals. So my hair looks like shit this morning and I’ve felt like a frazzled mess all day long. Our cat, Pancake, was annoying me and trying to climb up my leg while I was doing my hair. Once I rushed through my regular morning routine, I finally went next door to go let their dog out. I stepped out the front door and noticed that trash was littered ALL over the street. And of course it comes from the house that I’m house sitting. They had set their trashcan out by the road so that was one less thing for me to have to do. It was a nice gesture of them honestly. What wasn’t nice is that some punkass teenagers (probably) decided to tip the trash can over, littering trash down the road, and hauling the trashcan down the road, and eventually letting it go (I assume flying) into someone else’s mail box in the neighborhood, breaking the box part off the stand part. Since my morning was rushed to begin with, I cleaned up as much trash out of their front yard, and planned on doing the rest after work (fuck that noise, I wasn’t going to be late to pick up trash…I would have honestly picked it up after work). So there I was at 6:45 a-fucking-m cleaning up trash. Trash is bad enough to begin with, let alone someone else’s trash. I didn’t even see the trash can until I finally left for work, and then I called my mom and she kindly told me she would retrieve the trashcan and pick up the remaining junk from the rest of the street. She even called the trash company and ordered the neighbors a new trashcan because it was rickety and broken and she didn’t even know if it was going to make it back to their house. I still neglected to feed the fish in the morning because I just didn’t have time. I hope I remember to do it when I let the dog out tonight.

I work at a school district, and we don’t start school until September 7th. That’s still a whole friggin month away. Why are teachers so anxious to get back to school? I’ll never understand. I have one thing left to accomplish on my summer work to-do list, which involves mass amounts of shredding, and for a good 2 weeks earlier this summer, the shredding machine was broken. This has set me back quite a bit, and I don’t know if I’ll get it finished before school starts. By “massive amounts” I mean I have a TON of paper to shred…multiple huge boxes, courtesy of a school that sent it to me, when it was their responsibility to shred. Anyways, today was a rain day and no one’s at the beach, they must be dreaming about going back to school, so I got quite a few calls and emails on how and when they do this or that. Jimney Crickets relax people! Enjoy the last 4 weeks of summer.

I definitely don’t time to be blogging at work anymore. :(

The two good things about today though, is that Seth told me to look up the pretty luxurious hotel in a city north of us, and said that we should go there when he’s home for leave. I called them and got a few price quotes on the lux suites but not for the one room he specifically wanted. I emailed them about that room and now I’m waiting to hear how much it will be. Although it’s a good few months away, the thought of having a romantic weekend away from home with him super excites me. The other good thing is my computer is finally done and my coworker has removed the virus from it. Figures that I won’t even be at home to test it out and make sure things are working well on it for a whole week. Ugh. At least it’s done.

House/pet sitting, spiders and another care package

I am house/pet sitting for a family I babysit for, for the next 7.5 days. I'm really not looking forward to it, but I'm doing it to afford my wedding shoes. That's bad to say, but it's sorta true. They have lots of pets, and I get itchy and my eyes get watery when I spend a long time there. Luckily (actually I don't know if this is lucky or not), they live right next door to my parents, so I'll actually be spending the night at my parents house, and hanging out and going for walks with the animals here and there. I love my parents and all, but I will be so over seeing them by the time the week is over. I'm somewhat dreading it. Parental overload for sureeeeee.

I should really be packing up my stuff right now, but as you can clearly see, I'm not too excited about it so therefore I'm procrastinating. I'm even watching Police Women of Memphis on TLC. I also keep watching a hugeass nasty spider on my balcony screen door. I keep thinking about killing it, but it's rather large and it has pinchers I'm pretty sure. (It's trapped between the glass slider door, and the screen door, so it can't get me right now). It looks to me to be a baby tarantula. It looks furry. I'm no spider expert, but I'm sure it could pass for one. I'm contemplating killing it to death with a shoe, but since it's rather large, I'll have to press pretty hard on my screen door and I don't want to break my hand through it. I don't know if that's even possible, but I don't want to find out. I wouldn't worry too much about this, except I want to spray the bees or wasps or whatever are now building another stupid nest on my balcony railing. I don't want to let this sit for the next week while I'm gone. Lord knows how big the hive will be by then. I'm wondering if I could vacuum up the spider, but then I also think that won't actually kill the spider, which is my ultimate goal, and the spider will eventually crawl out of the vacuum, which brings me back to square one. I would SO make Seth be the killer of spiders and sprayer of the bees of the household, but in his absence, I need to grow some balls, suck it up and kill the damn thing if I'm afraid of it. It's what he'd want me to do anyways. It's just that this one is bigger than other ones I've seen.

On the bright side, I went to the post office and mailed Seth some care packages again. This time, I got another newish lady. It always amazes me that with how often I go in there, they've recently just begun asking me about Seth a little bit. I've been going to the same post office for over 2.5 years and for the most part, it's been the same staff members. This lady, Deanna, was pretty nice. She was talking to me about "support groups" (for lack of a better word) for military spouses in our area, which I have yet to find, and how there is an older lady who comes in very frequently and her church collects and donates stuff to military members. Deanna said she would try to ask the lady if she knows of support groups in our area. Deanna also asked if I needed more boxes, and I told her I had plenty of home, and she said that I could get the special, "America Supports You" flat rate boxes that aren't just out for taking. I guess they have to be specially asked for. So she hauled out a huge box with 25 large flat rate boxes!! She gave me the whole box! I'm so excited for this. She thanked me for Seth's service too. She said that when she was younger, she dated a guy in the military and he was in Vietnam and she said it makes her teary eyed (which I could see in her eyes) when she remembered sending him care packages, and being separated from him. So, I like her. Tis what my life consists of.

I'm going to kill the stupid spider now and then start packing I suppose. Time to get my ass in gear.