God bless Dyson

Change is in the air. I never in a million years would have thought I'd be blogging from an iPad2, but I am. A bit of advice: if you go around eBay bidding to drive up prices, but NOT to win, only bid a buck or so. I am now the owner of an iPad2 because I bid $10 over the previous one, and wound up driving the price up $5, only to watch my bid win. Upside, I got it for $200 under retail. Downside, sort of, I already pre-ordered the Kindle Fire. Guess I'll be doing a side-by-side comparison to see what stays.

Switching to sports...what the hell happened to my Raiders?? I know poor Campbell is out, but the back up guy did fine a couple weeks back. What made him toss 3 picks??? I know Palmer threw them because he's rusty and new to the team. Waging on Palmer so quickly was dumb. I know Coach Jackson is no longer under the vice grip of Davis -RIP- but damn, you might want to put some thought into such major moves. Glad I'm into college football. Helps that my favorites are both top 10s and both are having great seasons. Go Ducks & Roll Tide!!

On to the title of today's entry. I bought the high end animal model by Dyson. It costs a pretty penny plus an arm and a leg. It's worth all that and more. While the steering isn't as quickly adjustable as advertised, everything else is as good or better than shown/claimed. I have the 2 cats plus the dog dropping hair year round. Vacuuming used to take forever, the old one even overheated if I didn't take a break between rooms. That was odd when you consider how small the cottage is (720 sq ft). The Dyson changed it all. I get the whole place in one round, and it's done in no time :).

Times are Changin'

Neighbor situation - unchanged.  Cottage, no actual work done, yet. Work, a sad place right now. 

With work, things keep getting worse. It started with Daddy passing, then the layoff situation and who was leaving surprised a lot of staff. The unexpected passing of my former boss' son, at age 19, really impacted the staff on both sides of the building. My favorite memory with him involved babysitting him & his immediate older brother. They asked to have a spitball fight. I said yes, IF they agreed to clean it all up afterwards. I was worried, but they meticulously cleaned up after, to where I never told their parents, whew! 

The loss of Daddy is still fresh enough that his former clients come up and give their condolences.  Usually I'm fine with it, but when one asked how my mom was doing, it hit me the wrong way. I've missed her every day for 20 years, but accepted her loss long ago. Apparently losing Daddy makes a lot of old things feel fresh again. Bloody luck I have :)

As a result of this series of events, a lot of us are taking a hard look at our lives and trying to figure out if we're living the best we can, and if not, what changes we can make to ensure we are. 

Much ado about lots of things

Neighbor situation unchanged, no surprise there.

Moving situation has progressed.  We got the futon that was my bed in the apartment moved into the cottage study, and it now functions as the couch/guest bed it was meant to be :)  Dragging the futon mattress was an interesting experience.  People from at least 3 apartments at the complex saw me drag it from the 2nd floor down to the car and then the pretty funny 5 minute struggle getting it into the car. Glad I was there to provide folks with comic relief.  Getting the mattress into the cottage was much easier, drag 10 feet turn left and plop it on the frame.  That whole process was my workout session for the day and definitely counts!

I was rewarded afterwards - bff Lisa made blackberry cobbler from the berries we picked at the park the day before, that was delicious!! 

I am happy to note the 2 cats and dog are progressing rapidly.  All 3 were visible yesterday, generally in different rooms, but hey that's still progress.  Garth - big cat - has ventured into the back yard while I'm out with Yuki - medium dog - and as long as I'm out at the same time, I'm ok with that.  Jr - little kitty - likes to sit on the end of the runner at the back door and watch us.  I bet she'll go out at some point, just takes her longer to warm up to change. 

On a different topic, plans are forming on dealing with cottage repairs.  Lots to do, and lots of time so one task at a time and things will get done.  First up will be shifting a shelf in the laundry room from one wall to the other so the stacker washer/dryer can go against the south facing wall and stop hogging the little free space the laundry room has. Next will be instaling a shelf in the bathroom to add some much needed storage space.  I still need to find some decent towel racks, more shelves and a new medicine cabinet for the bathroom (did I mention there's lots to do)...

Better Times

While the post I just made was about the hard times I've had over the last couple of days, there are some good things happening. I have an appointment at Hillyer's to test drive a Fusion Hybrid tomorrow morning. Plus the office x-mas party is tomorrow afternoon.

I have a plan for getting most of my stuff from the apartment to the cottage.  That will be a very distracting project since there's so much to go through and filter between toss & keep.

I also set up initial vet appointments for the kitties. While that won't be fun, it will be nice to get them checked & what not.

Oh, and I still need to formulate a plan regarding the neighbors and my garage.

Hard Times

I've been doing pretty well at keeping myself distracted over the last month or so.  Unfortunately the last couple of days have been harder to get through. Part of the reason was that yesterday would have been my mother's 64th birthday and it's been 21 years since we celebrated her last one. It's not the same gut wrenching grief as it was in the early years after she passed, but with my Dad having passed only a month ago, I just had a hard time staying happy. It was one of the days I wished time travel existed, even if I could only see things one more time.

That said, the dog had me distracted most of the time I've been home over the last few days. I swear it's her mission to drive the cats and me crazy!  She either follows me or them constantly. Her intrigue in the cats was semi cute at first. Then it was annoying because they fled under my bed to get away from her. Today has been a little better, both have dared to leave my room.  One hung out in the living room window and I saw the other eat and drink water. Both are on my bed with me now, as the dog paces around us vying for attention (I gave her a bunch of treats/rewards just a couple minutes ago, geez).

So having pets can help when dealing with the downers in life. Guess that was my lesson for the day.

So much for City Council Rep

So, in a continuation of the neighbor situation I describesd yesterday, I also emailed Dan Clem, my city council representative, to inquire about rules, updating or changing rules, and any other information available.  The response he sent was "Amanda - unfortunately I do not know of a solution.  Sorry - Dan Clem", great.

So he had a recent political scandal, and I believe is no longer employed by the state.  Further, he has announced he will not be running for his council position again. I  wonder if he doesn't care to help because he won't be running again, because he could care less about constituents, or just because he really has no clue that city code, which controls the problem I'm having, is under his purview.  It sucks when the representatives fail to represent.  Now let me be clear, it's not like I expected the guy to solve my problem overnight, or even solve it per se.  It's more like I expected to be treated the wat I've seen others treated by other city council reps and have at least a meeting to feel out the issue and see if he really could or could not help.

Guess I'll do what one of my attorney friends suggested.  I will draft a revised version of the code that applies, and see if I can get it onto the coucncil agenda.  It's not like I can't stand my neighbor, I just want to use my garage.  I totally can see having access temporarily blcked (say 30 days max).  But to be allowed to continually deprive someone access to their own property because it is reached via communal property (the one lane shared driveway) is ridiculous. 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I'll keep you informed!

First Time

So this is my first time blogging.  Going to be an interesting experience. My day started with a call from the city code compliance officer who inspected my neighbor's place.  I had called the city folks to ask if there were rules on the use of communal driveways.  The driveway leading to my garage is blocked by a massive trailer the neighbors plopped in between the houses.  Unfortunately, it turns out that if it's communal property, the city could care less and you have to seek a civil resolution (i.e. sue).

Backing up a little, I came into possession of the cottage approximately a month ago when my father passed away.  This has been one of the hardest months of my life, and sure hasn't been helped by the random hazards I keep encountering.  The fridge and dryer were already broken when I surveyed the cottage, so I bought a new washer, dryer and fridge, only to discover the microwave, stove/oven and water heater are also on the fritz.  I didn't realize appliances died when original owners passed, oy vey.  Little things keep popping up and draining what money I have, but that's life, or at least my life.

So the second phone call today was made by me to my insurance company.  I called them last week to change which bank account they used to auto-pay my car and renter's insurance.  I was assured the changes were effective immediately.  Then I got the e-mail today from the old bank saying the insurance payment had cleared, and I'm overdrawn.  I called my insurance company and, half an hour later, they decided to reimburse the old bank, wait five days and call me back for information on the new bank, again. 

At least I wrote my last rent check and gave notice to my landlord, the one thing that went right so far.  Next up, introducing the cats my former roommate had to the dog I inherited from my dad.  Hope the dog leaves the cats alone!  I'll let you know :)