Sometimes I just sit for a moment and think about all the things going on in my life and just have to smile. I write so often in this journal to bitch or complain about the issues around me, so I thought once I should post about how content I can be with my life.

I took my wedding band off to put on lotion, and started checking my email, now my hand feels wrong. I've gotten quite used to it finally. Even though Seth is away, I'm just happy that things are getting back to normal, even though sometimes I still can't believe I'm married.

The weasel is lounging in his hammock, adorably. And all the kitties are napping or quietly pacing. It's a nice sunset.

I think it's time to have a beer, and do the dishes. Later on I'll do some packing and watch Daisy of Love.

Today was a nice day, other than landlord issues which I don't even want to talk about because it'll annoy me all over again. I went to the mall and went shopping. I ended up finding a really comfy black sports bra to wear under tank tops, a tie-dyed flowy shirt, and acid washed neon pink denim shorts. They are ridiculous but comfy and easy to wear with a black tank or something. Also ended up getting new undies, and 2 tank tops on sale for cheap.

I could not for the life of me find plain denim shorts that weren't past the knee. I found a few I liked at Torrid, but sadly not in my size. I ended up ordering them on the website. I've been cleaning out more clothes that too small.

I watched a lot of "girly" television and a movie. Back to work tomorrow and I plan on trying to hit the gym to work on the weight machines again.

I really need to start packing, I might do that tomorrow night.

I miss Seth, he won't be back for a whole week still. At least I'm off on the day he returns.

If your not already friends with me, you may not see the filtered entries dealing with my weight and body image lately. If you'd like to be added, simply comment. I decided to lock the entries again as I'm feeling slightly vulnerable right now.

Seth headed out to California for his conference. So I'm going to be lonely for a week or so.

Today I plan on going to the new apartment and doing the laundry. I'm going to take my laptop and notes and try to get some writing done while I'm over there with no other distractions. Tonight I'm going to start going back to volunteering at the FHC. As much as I'd love to just lounge at the apartment and watch television, I'm going to push myself to get back into shadowing the counselors.

Of course an hour ago I received an email from my current landlord about showing my apartment. I'm annoyed because I'm supposed to get 24 hour notice. The place is kind of messy and the dishes need to be done. I told him to go ahead and show it, even though I don't like people being in my apartment while I'm not here. I'm so paranoid about people being around my animals, and people stealing things. I'm sure that doesn't happen often, but how easy would it be to just pocket something.

It was either that or tomorrow at 8pm, when I'd rather be relaxing.

I did however preorder the MyTouch phone from T-Mobile. I was due for an upgrade and kind of wanted a smartphone like Seth and Adam's. The MyTouch is similar to the G1 phone, but with a virtual keyboard instead of a physical option. I ordered mine in "merlot" and I'm excited to get it in August.

We signed the lease for the apartment today. I'm happy but there is a part of me that is sad to see this apartment go. I love the location since I can walk down to the river and just up the hill to have lunch. The new place isn't much further, but it's just in a different location. No views of the river from our bedroom window anymore.

The rooms are smaller, but more of them at least. And there is a dishwasher, washer/dryer, and new microwave. We have a patio to put potted plants, even though the view is the backyard of other houses. There are some downsides, like the hardwood floors aren't all the way smooth, there are a lot of cracks and uneven spots. A think a few small rugs would handle that problem fine.

I think I just don't like change really. And we had to jump through some hoops to get this place. I think once we're moved and settled I'll love the new place more. I think the two women that live on the top floor are together, which I think is pretty cool.

So we're planning on signing the lease for the 4 bedroom apartment we've been looking at. There are some down sides, including a pet "fee". But there are some upsides including a patio, dishwasher, more counter space, etc.

The problem is that to secure that apartment, they want us to sign tomorrow. Even though Seth is going to a conference in CA and won't be back till later in the month. They said if we couldn't pay till later in the month, we could have the second floor so they could rent out the first quicker. We really liked the first floor.

So we're having to pay for 2 apartments in July. Luckily we had wedding money so we have extra to use. Now the issue is that Adam mailed us his part of the deposit, and my Mom sent some extra money to help us out. But they were sent on Thursday, and 4th of July holiday took out a business day of mailing time.

Our rent check for our current place is in the mail. The apartment we're signing for wants all the money in cash, or cashier's check. So now we have this dance of hoping to get the excess money in the mail and have it register in our account so that we don't have to withdrawal the whole amount, thus putting a risk that when the current rent goes through, the account will have enough to cover it.

A bit confusing but it's the current problem. Now the current rent check has not been deposited at all, it's not registered as pending on the website. So we might be safe. I also don't know if we'll receive the checks in the mail today though.

*sigh*

Seth and I were talking tonight and I think we might invest in a Roomba when we get our deposit back from our landlord. I got to see Nikki's Roomba in action and we've wanted one ever since.

I heard they are good for hardwood floors, which are 70% of the new apartment we're signing a lease for. There is one online that has a bigger debris bin for pet owners. I've found good reviews online. It is 400 bucks, which is pretty high. But it might keep the pet hair to minimum and help Adam since we're moving in with him and he's mildly allergic to cats.

Managed to get the day off of work today, though I might have to work a double shift on Sunday. We'll see how that goes, but I think I could manage it.

Woke up and called the garage, they are expecting the car and think they can get it worked on today. It wasn't raining for once so I was able to go out and pop the hood. Looks like the serpentine belt is off. Hopefully there is no real damage to the car since I had to drive it about 2 miles from the gym to home.

In an hour or so I'm going to get a tow from AAA to take the car into the garage. Seth is going with it since he needs a ride into campus because it's a stupid holiday which means no buses running. We're hoping they can fix the car by close today and he can pick it up and drive it home so I can make it into work tomorrow.

*sigh*

So yesterday my car was making a noise, which I took note of, but had no time to get it checked out. This morning I checked the coolant, and added more because it was low.

Drove Seth to campus, then drove to and from work. Car was doing fine. Then I went to leave the gym and drop off donation bread before going home. While waiting to turn into traffic I notice the power steering no longer works right. Brakes and gas seemed to work, I made it home. It was hard as hell to turn the wheel and get the car to make corners.

So now I'm screwed. I have to take the car to garage. Who knows what's wrong with it now. I'm trying to figure out if I should push it to drive it to the garage, or get it towed. Then I'll need a ride to work.

And who knows if they can fix it before the end of friday.

Plus we have the stress of having to pay for 2 apartments at once since the new landlord wants us to pay 50 dollars extra a month as a pet "fee" instead of a deposit which we would get back. I'm going to try and talk to them about this, since I feel they are taking advantage of our situation. We're already signing the lease 2 weeks ahead of time because they want to rent out the floor now.

I'm getting so stressed out over this moving issue. The apartment we were looking at rejected us due to the fact that we didn't make three times the rent in our combined income. How ridiculous is that? Especially since we were only shy by 100 bucks. They said we were "way off" from that amount. I have a feeling there is more to that rejection.

We're looking at a new place. We saw two units at this one building, and I fell in love with the first floor. But when we mentioned our animals, she took us to another, crappy older building. She obviously saw my distaste for the old house. We talked to the couple that owns the building, and she accepted the animals if we pay 600 dollars extra in "pet deposit". Which would amount to 50 bucks extra a month.

But she wants us to rent the 2nd floor unit, because it has less carpeting. The problem is the second floor unit is only accessible by outdoor wooden stairs. Which I'm guessing become a skating rink of disaster the minute snow or ice hits, which is most of the year here in New England.

So now I'm waiting on a phone call and hoping to talk them into allowing us to rent the first floor instead of the second. That may mean having to pay for 2 apartments for July, which sucks. All of our wedding money is going to disappear into a new apartment. *sigh*

The legal name change is under way. Temporary license in hand, and now I'm working on getting the information of my grad school changed and a new email addy for school related stuff. Monday I'm going to get my social security card changed and then begin really working on getting everything changed over.

Today has been a relaxing sort of day and I've gotten a bit of work done. I slept in and went to the Farmer's Market in town. There wasn't really anything for me there, but I will go back again for syrup. I got one quiz done, and wrote a bit on my journal for my asexuality paper. I didn't really do much work for my paper, I seem to work better when the house is silent. So I'll start working on it Monday morning.

I made an awesome smoothie with my new immersion blender. Blueberries, strawberries, honey and soy milk. Right now I'm making gnocchi for the first time for dinner.

I gained about 7 lbs over my vacation from all the cheese fries and milkshakes. I've been eating a lot more healthy since I've been home. Yesterday I did 400 calories on the elliptical. I plan on stopping by the gym again tomorrow.

I've really enjoyed just being lazy and watching Arrested Development reruns with the hubby. I had fun on the vacation, but I'm happy to have normal life again.

Now that my vacation is over and all the wedding stuff is behind me except for errands to change my last name, I need to start working on school stuff again. I'm starting to get slightly worried about getting my 3 papers done in time since I only have till the middle of August. This morning I started reading on my Counseling Theories work again, I'll finish the chapter tomorrow and do the quiz to get back on track.

I highlighted and read some articles for my asexuality paper while I was traveling. And wrote the beginning notes of my personal journal which I need to translate to digital form. I plan on starting to write up the actual paper this coming week. Then I can start on my paper on biological brain differences next.

I am however not looking forward to writing my paper for Cognition and Learning. My topic is cognitive issues with high-risk sexual decision making. But I haven't really found a lot of information on the topic. So I'm going to save this paper for last.

I need to get on the ball if I'm going to complete this semester's work.

*sigh*

Tomorrow I have the day off luckily. So I'm going to be doing errands mostly. Our friend Adam is in town, but he's going to UNH orientation so I'm going to go get things done before hanging out again.

On my agenda will be:

Getting a copy of our marriage certificate
Changing my driver's license
Going to the doctor
Doing laundry
Calling about insurance issues

I got a bill for 400 dollars for all the blood work I got done recently that I assumed was covered by my insurance. So I've got to make some calls to see what the problem is. Otherwise I need to deposit checks and work on getting my last name changed legally.

On a funnier note, Seth and I were joking about my name change and thought up the combined name Lemonadelman as a new last name for me. Its funnier if you say it fast like lemonade-elman. As awesome as that sounds, the humor would wear off after having to repeat my last name all the time.

Saw the most disgusting bloody mary today while we were having brunch with the friends that we came to Milwaukee to visit for their wedding. Then had a nice time wandering the overpriced shops in the Historic District. But we did happen to find the cool Asian imports store which I could have spend hours inside. I managed to pry myself away with only purchasing a little jade tulip necklace and a bracelet made of mahjong tiles. I've always wanted one. Seth got some cool steampunk style tank sunglasses.

The wedding went well enough, they managed to play 3 songs that I despise. But I'm kind of hard person to please when it comes to music. The new shoes I bought to wear since it was a semi formal dress code ended up shredding the back of my ankles and by the time we walked the 8 blocks or so to get to the reception site, my shoes were bloodstained. It was quite painful and the walk back to the hotel was worse.

I'm ready to go home though. We're grabbing a cab to the airport in the morning then catching a 2pm flight back to Boston. I can't wait to see my kitties!

Tonight we might be going to a thing called "bacon night", with some friends, which is odd for two vegetarians. I guess they give out bacon with beers or something odd. We went to the cafe that its at with athena_altera on friday so at least I know we could pick up diner and they do serve veggie items.


All in all our visit has been nice, we gotten to hang out with a lot of good people and have some interesting food. But I'm ready to leave the land of sausage and cheese that is the midwest and return to NH and buy some healthy groceries.

Strangely enough when we arrive in NH our friend Adam will be around waiting for us. He's going to visit for his orientation to UNH.

I've got to start doing the paperwork to change my last name, yay! I love paperwork and filling out forms because I'm weird.