Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Found the cat's sanity. Now where's mine?

Ginger is now flea free. It was very lonely last night sleeping without her, but she got the run of the rest of the apartment while I holed up in my room. I kept waking up every hour to go check on her and let her know she didn't do anything wrong. This morning, I let her come up on the bed with me so I could take the flea comb to her, and she was free of the little buggers!

However, the house is not fully sterilized yet. I overestimated the ability of my water heater and my own motivation. After getting through my room, my bathroom, the dining room, and the kitchen, I was exhausted. So I got up this morning and did the living room and started on Jere's room, once again running into the hot water problem. Luckily, all the rooms that aren't finished have closable doors. I know fleas can get out, but my cat can't get in. Besides, anything that touches her will drop dead.

Right now I'm annoyed because I've got a bit of a lady bug problem. I went to the new girl in the apartment office and told her yesterday that there were upward of 100 of them crawling around. She made a note and said she'd do a work order and maintenance would be out today. I waited all day. No maintenance. Surprise surprise. I probably sucked up 75 of them during the day, and just got another 40 with the vacuum attachment off of my ceiling. Yeah, they like the nice, soft, pink light from my lamp.

At what point does it become a good idea to break your lease? Is it when you complain about the fact that you get more bugs in your apartment than you ever had in your entire house when you lived out on a farm? Is it when your favorite girl in the front office quits (always a sign something's gone wrong)? How about when your neighbors creep you out, or they start coming around for apartment inspections that are supposed to be announced but never are? Twice now I've been in my bathrobe and the apartment wasn't picked up when one of the office girls, the maintenance guy, and the exterminator have gone tromping through here. Luxury apartments my ass. I'm moving back to the ghetto, where there are no bugs.

Actually, I will be moving in the spring. Back to Jere's old apartment complex, closer to his mom and with bigger, better bedrooms. The closets are smaller, but they can fit more. And I'm looking forward to a walk in pantry and being around the corner from Michael's and Panera Bread and Target. OH TARGET!!!!!! And the mall. I'm going to miss being so close to Andrea and our cute little downtown, but it's not even half an hour away.

Today I made a spa appointment. For those who don't know, Jere will be home for his R&R in less than three weeks. I have to thank my ex-husband for one thing (um, specifying because I have to, my second husband). When I married Jere, I came in with military wife experience. Because of that, I know that the next three weeks are going to drag along and make me crazy. Part of me needs to keep busy, but another part of me needs to hand out the most frustrating tasks to other people. That means I'm going to pay someone else to do the mani/pedi and the unpleasant waxing of things, and I'll get a massage and facial to boot. The cleaning and obsessive worrying? I'll keep those tasks for myself.

I'm sure you all will hear more about preparing for R&R in the next few weeks. I have so many goals that need to be accomplished. The biggest is dropping the last three pounds to get to my R&R goal weight. We'll see if I have the motivation and patience to do that. Going to Utah next week will help as long as I keep busy. I'm going to go raise my blood sugar with some chocolate cake now. I can feel it dipping too low.

Today's lesson: You have to learn that there are limits to what you can do. None of that "the sky's the limit" bull. The sooner you let someone else pick up a stressful task or stop when you've hit your breaking point, the sooner you can enjoy your sanity.

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