The World is an Anthill

The first thing that came to my mind when I made the post title is this Smashing Pumpkins song, replacing vampire with anthill. Anyways.....my world has turned into a GIANT anthill! I am going nutso over here! It all started the week before we went to the lake. Well let me back up.....it started about 5 years ago when I started to working with the company I work for. Every summer we get an ant raid. This means no food in the trash, no food in your desk, no food in the refrigerator. Seriously we had to clean out our fridge, microwave, and Arrowhead cooler every summer! It sucked and I felt itchy ALWAYS! The owner saw a trick....pour baby powder around the water cooler and the ants will stay away. We did that and we have been sans ants for 2 summers! YES! This year they are back, but just in the main bathroom! Buggers (no pun intended) just wont GO AWAY! They are looking for water I know!

So the week before we left for the lake, D left a bowl of food out on our balcony for our pup (Mon). Well she didn't get to eat it, cause those little bastards made their way up two flights and attacked the hell out of it. So my friend Mr. Raid came in. I love raid, however I hate that I have to clean the area after it, because its so toxic. So I used up the rest and sprayed ALL THE WAY down the trail. The next morning (Tue) there was a trail of ants around the coffee maker...so I tried to use up whatever was leftover in that raid container and made a note to get more bug spray on my way home. (Wed) I come home from work and start to pack for the lake. I get hungry and go to look for a snack. Damn things have SWARMED our pantry!!!!!!!!! So I have to pull apart the entire pantry....trash everything that they got into, including pups food (what they were really after) and scour it. Then put everything away and pack for our trip. Not something that was really very fun! Especially when the fumes of the "organic" bug spray that you bought from Target smells like Bengay and you have a gianormous headache!  The smell lasts all night and through the next morning.

We were gone Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun and we returned Mon around 10PM. We get home dump our stuff and go to get a drink. Open the refrigerator and they are in our fridge and FREEZER! I look defeated. I say to D "Your turn!" and go and unpack the suitcases. The good thing about the organic spray is that its non-toxic....bad thing IT DOESN'T LAST! Cause come Sunday morning those bastards were back in my freezer! I pulled out the fridge, pulled everything out of the cabinets and discovered that they are coming from above the cabinets, down inside them and making their little ant trail around the edge of the freezer door and inside. Once inside the freezer they die of course...freeze to death. I had enough! I called our leasing office to ask them what we can do. They sent an exterminator out to "spray" our apartment. This was last Wednesday. I bought ant traps and sprayed my organic spray again (have gone through the entire can in under 2 weeks!) No inkling of ants for 3 days. I am a happy camper. I wake on Sunday, go into the bathroom and boom....invasion from our sink overflow! >/ Looks like they didn't do a thorough job. Back out they will come! Save me from the ant invasion before I got nuts!!

Scrambled Eggheads!

That is exactly how my brain feels. A lot going on in it and mushed all together that is resembles a scrambled egg.. So my apologies for my scrambled thoughts.

I feel like I am being pulled in a hundered directions. Everybody wants me to be there for them or do something for them. I have this bad habit of trying to make everyone around me happy. I am "The Fixer." I put all my time and effort into things, don't get me wrong I love to do it, but sometimes I would just like to have a little bit of control and not somebody constanltly looking over my shoulder and wanting more. Give me a little bit of credit and know that I am not going to slap some piece of crap together and give it to you. It seems like today people have less and less faith in one another. The theory "to get it done right, I'll just do it myself." Yes I am guilty of this too....but I also know my limits. However if time and time again prove that I am capable of doing something, then for crying out loud LET ME DO IT! I guess I need to just take the time for me every so often to keep my sanity!

I truly need to start a fashion police list. I need to keep a pen and paper with me at all times and write some of this stuff down! It's just comical! I mean yesterday I was sitting at a restaraunt outside and more then half the people that walked by me must have "forgot" to check the mirror. I mean from WAY to tight jeans that resembled a breakfast item (were talking "muffin" top here) and a "dressy" version of gym clothes. I mean your leggings tucked into knee high boots and and scarf over your tank top does not make you a fashionista. Don't get me started on the crocs, or Ugg boots....I mean if your feet are cold enough to wear those then you should wear pants and a long sleeve shirt. Not a cut off mini skirt and a tank. Your sending mixed messages!

Week 2 at the gym was interesting. I mean when you completely burn out a muscle group that is completely shaking when your done you think to yourself "hmmmm probably gonna suffer for this tomorrow." Well yes, I am thoroughly exhausted when I get home, take a shower and crash. It feels so good. However, the next morning when I think I am going to be suffering, I am sore for about 2 hours then I am good for the rest of the day. Then I think to myself, should I up the weight? Naw! It's just week 2 can't burn out my muscles out yet, but it's truly interesting to see the change already. No I'm not a model yet, but I can see the little flab on the belly trimming down and my dancer legs are starting to return! YAY! You know what they say, muscle has memory. It probably helps that I have cut way back on the soda and the sweets while at work. Stay tuned.

Sorry for the rambling....just needed to get some of it out. Looking forward to my weekend at Disney and seeing some family and our Goddaughter! I'll leave you with a little thing to make you smile!

The Joys of Apartment Living

We all dream to one day grow up, have a family and live in a big beautiful house with a white picket fence and a dog. Well at least that is my dream. For the last 4 years it has seemed to just be a fantasy. Why? I live in Southern California. The real estate market took a dump in 2008 and when it was supposed to be "the best time for us to buy a home" all we found were foreclosures that had ZERO potential to be anything but a complete loss for the bank. Every year my husband and I make the trek out around our area to see what's available in our budget. Let me tell you, we have a decent budget.....for every other state in our country with the exception of New York! Our first year out we saw upwards of 30 condos and town-homes all in the upper $200k price range and they were all garbage. We went into one foreclosure that literally had no kitchen. The residents took out all the cabinetry, sinks, appliances, they took the pedestal sink and the toilet out too! Oh but they left the dryer in the garage. (yea thanks buddy just what I wanted a broken dryer that I will have to pay someone to take away!) Darin visited a foreclosure that had a foot of water in the kitchen! WHAT? The banks were asking $275-290K for these properties! It seemed like a loss so we decided to just stay where we were. Our one bedroom apartment, with our pup.

We have been content in our apartment for the last 2 years. It's close to necessary conveniences like shopping and entertainment, pet friendly, relatively cheap (comparatively) and is a nice layout. Year three things took another turn. We had just decided that we were gonna stay, when out of no where some moron decides to have a party in our community center, has a fire in the fireplace but whoops they forgot to open the flue and up in flames it went. There went a lot of the amenities that we pay for, including our gym. Then they decided to INCREASE our rent! Um hello? We are loyal residents and we are staying here despite losing vital amenities and your gonna screw us We didn't have anywhere else to go, so we had no choice. (By the way this happened in February of 2010, its now the middle of Jan 2011 and the new clubhouse still isn't finished) Not only were we without clubhouse, but due to construction they had to close one of our 2 pools. When summer hit that was a nightmare. You got all the kids, plus the underage drinkers, and the elderly people all at one pool. They decided to send out a letter that each apartment was only allowed to have 2 guests attend the pool! WHAT?!?! The lease that I signed said nothing about people restrictions to use my amenities.

Not only this, but over the course of the summer we had some issues with our kitchen sink. It kept overflowing. We woke up on our anniversary to a gray water nightmare. Overflowed onto our counter and our apartment SMELLED! When I called the leasing office they told me that it wasn't an emergency and they would send someone as soon as they could. How is this filth not an emergency? It's a health hazard. Two and a half hours later someone showed up to snake the drain. YAY. "Happy Anniversary honey! Gift? Well I got you this nasty smell and a wait! How thoughtful!" 2 weeks later it happened again! This time it left an inch of water on our kitchen floor! Needless to say I left a not so nice message on the answering machine at the leasing office, because they were of course closed when I got home. Not only problems with the sink, but our dryer...oh it's a peach. It takes 3 hours to dry a load of towels. 3 HOURS! Jeans forget it. Not to mention the time our water heater broke and another time where a repair guy drilled a hole into our gas line!

Not only do we have issues with the physical things in our apartment, we have such wonderful neighbors. (Insert sarcasm here!) We have one neighbor who constantly bangs on his wall and his barking dag drives us nuts. Another has a child that seems to have an illness, she cannot leave their apartment without screaming at the top of her lungs while running to the staircase. They also let her knock on our door and run away, which in turn aggravates our dog. The people below us smoke cigarettes and have these little yappie dogs, so if we aren't having our noses invaded by the nasty smell its our ears drums being assaulted. The newest one however is the BEST. I don't know if they don't know they have neighbors below or if they don't care, but at all hours of the night you can hear them walking (no jumping) around the apartment, slamming doors, dropping what sounds like 25 pound dumb-bells and various other noises. It's enough to drive a person MAD!

Needless to say the time has come for us to move on and up and purchase a house. The hunt has begun. We have already seen three prospects in our price range with decent living conditions. I mean a GREAT step up from the missing cabinets and flooding. The process will be long, but I am sure that with enough faith and searching that we WILL find the home of our dreams!

What is an adult?

Merrium - Webster defines this word as "fully developed and mature" "Grown-Up." Ok well this doesn't really help define it now does it. Mature: a (1) : having completed natural growth and development : ripe (2) : having undergone maturation b : having attained a final or desired state. Hmmm still not getting there. Yes by definition a person at the age of 16 years old, because they have fully developed physically would be considered an adult, but maturity wise they aren't. When is a person fully mature? How do we define this in actual terms?

In our society most people go through stages of life. Childhood - where we live at home with our parents, progress through responsibilities such as chores and homework and learn the difference between right and wrong. Adolescence - We have learned all the necessary tools to get a drivers license and be able to keep a temporary job, but our responsibilities are still limited and we are under the control of parents. Early adulthood - Responsibilities become more abundant. We are required to keep a job to pay for our own needs and most of the time have kept a steady relationship and have moved out of our parents home, and most have gone or are in college. Adulthood - We have graduated college, gotten married (most of the time), purchased a home, and prepared or started to have a family and have careers. Now granted this is not the case for some people, but most go through this specific coming of age process.

What has brought this topic up. Well I have gone through this specific process and have come to the adulthood portion. Darin and I are looking into buying our first house. We went out yesterday to look at some properties and were greatly pleased to find much more out there in our price range than before and the likely-hood that this year might be "the year" we do it. Yes its a big step and a lot of money but I think we are ready to do so. But here's the question. Are we considered adults now that we have decided to take this step? Or were we adults before? Sometimes the line seems blurred. I see "adults" on a daily basis that act like children. They cut in line in front of you and pretend like they didn't see you. Don't return phone calls because they don't feel like it. Tell you that you are not being mature for stating a fact. They misinterpret things and don't want to speak to you because of something they thought you said. I am sorry, but all of these examples can be seen on a daily basis in a 6th grade elementary school classroom. Add in social networks like Facebook and Twitter and they get even worse. Playing point the finger on someone's page, adding in their two cents. I am sorry, but if you don't want somebody to air their dirty laundry, then don't ask them on a public forum to do so....it only sparks the curiosity that is en-grained into us mere humanoids. Don't delete someone because you are mad, just to re-add them a day later. (Yes these are "adults" and over the age of 30 that do these things) It has taken me many years to get here, and granted it's still a learning process and I can't always do it, but if you have something that you need to say to someone just SAY IT, and if it is said on a public forum, don't get mad if all 200+ of your friends see it. Your fault!

Another thing that bothers me is these "adults" act like because you are younger than them that you couldn't possibly have the insight into things of substance like politics or business. They are always shocked when we say something of pertinence. I personally almost never talk about politics because it only causes friction and anger when you don't see eye to eye. I do pay attention though and listen so that I am aware of what is going on. Next time your stuck in the situation of listening to a political debate in a room full of adults, just sit back and listen.....back to 6th grade we go. Sure the words are better, and the sentences make sense, but they attack each other and point the finger. It's really amusing if you can get past the tension. Why is it that just because we have less years built in that we can't possibly know a thing or two about life? I mean, we have made it this far haven't we? I have a friend that is much younger than me, but acts so mature that sometime I forget her age. Then I will mention something about a TV show or movie from the 80's and when she say she hasn't seen it, I am brought back to reality.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that being an adult shouldn't be brought up to age, money, what kind of job you have or you living situation. It really has to do with your maturity level. I am not saying that acting child-like doesn't have its place in an adult life (hell I still go to Disneyland and play board games and color, I like to stay young at heart) but when the time comes to really act like one, to be mature and be the one that people look up to, all I ask is that you try.