Today, in my continuing battle to fend off stress and depression, I put on my work clothes and work gloves, and cleaned off my back deck.
It took about two hours, and at the end of it I had two full/overflowing trash bags -- one full of recyclables and the other full of trash/dirt/stuff that desperately needed to be thrown away.
Now all that remains on the deck is the garden hose/sprayer and a few ceramic and plastic pots that I want to save and use. The rest of the deck is bare and has been hosed down/hosed off. I saved some of the planters and the tomato cages in case Daisy's parents want them for their own garden, as they might find them useful (if they don't want them, I'll trash/recycle them too) and I had to save the grill (even though it's about useless and is rusting through) because I have nowhere else to put it and it's too big for the dumpster can -- at least this week -- with everything else in it. I'll probably offer it for free at the garage sale, and then if nobody takes it I'll disassemble it and trash it.
Next week is the garage and storage room. I'd do that tomorrow, but I don't have any more room in the trash/recycling cans for the stuff I'll throw out, and Monday is garbage/recycling day. Again, the goal is to not only get everything cleaned off/cleaned out/thrown out that I don't need, but to also get everything ready for the city-wide garage sale a month from this weekend as well. The garage and storage room is also a big job -- it'll take several hours as there's a lot of stuff in there that, simply put, needs to go away, and both places are probably crawling with spiders just waking up for the spring.
I came back in from the deck and stripped down to wash my dirtied work clothes/gloves, as well as the fleece blanket I recovered from five years' worth of sitting on the back porch (it's perfectly fine, though the way it was sitting made the sun bleach it out in a tie-dye like pattern), and took a shower before applying for a few more jobs at one of the colleges in Omaha. When I logged onto their site, I found that they must take their time in reviewing all of their applications (or there are just a ton of them), as only one of the positions I applied for was currently under review as of right now. Oh well. A few more applications can't hurt. I applied for one of the positions that had been open six months ago, but had closed and reopened again, and applied for another in advising.
I then messaged Daisy, made something to eat, and cleaned out the freezer -- finding some stuff in there I forgot I even had. I used three bags of frozen fruit (cherries and raspberries) to make a blender full of smoothies to drink over the course of the next few days. I loaded up the dishwasher again, but won't run it until I get some vinegar to splash in there (seriously, try it -- your dishes will be cleaner than ever before).
The plans for the rest of my night are to go to Walmart in a bit for some boxes and some groceries (such as the aforementioned vinegar), and then come home and go to bed. While I know what I'm teaching next week, I haven't yet made my formal lesson plans and I haven't edited through my 210 students' draft projects yet. Yesterday wasn't a great day, and today I've been working around the house on different things almost since I woke up, so I'm rather tired. I don't even want to go to Walmart tonight, but there are things I can no longer wait on -- I need stamps, I need cigarettes, the cats need another bag of their food, and I'm on my last roll of toilet paper. I'm also dreadfully low on actual food for myself in the house. I considered ordering a pizza -- as I do have the money for it, yes -- but decided against it as I wasn't in the mood. I haven't had pizza since the weekend before our last big snowstorm that closed down the university for a few days, but I have to be in the mood for it and it has to sound appealing to me before I'll get it.
I've been making a mental list for stuff I'll need to do/get when my tax refunds come in before I send the rest of the money to Daisy for living expenses/apartment and wedding stuff. I need to pay down my credit cards, for example, and pay whatever bills I have -- including paying for the Publisher's Clearing House stuff I got for the parents. I also have a few items on Amazon -- important ones, not frivolous purchases -- that I need to get, such as some cables/adapters, possibly an inexpensive shop-vac, and an external HD to backup my files (which I've needed for years, badly, and I've been putting off getting). The rest goes to her for whatever she needs/we need, and she may end up socking some of it away so that we can open a joint checking account with it, as that's one of our first priorities once we're married -- it'll make any cash/check wedding gifts really easy to deposit and keep track of in one place, plus (obviously) it'll become our primary bank account. My bank account in West Virginia is going to be practically empty once my job at the university ends and I get my last paycheck near the end of May, as that's what I use to pay all my bills with and I'll have to pay all of them off shortly before and/or shortly after I move, closing accounts with the electric/water/cable companies and the like.
I actually may not have to close my cable (read: internet) account, just transfer addresses on it -- Cox is in Omaha, too, and they have the same plans/rate structure as they have here. I know this because Daisy's parents have the same plan/internet speed I do, and pay the same I do every month for it -- we looked it up. So it may be fairly easy to just call them and say "Hey, I'm moving, here's the new address, turn it off here on date X and on there on date Y," and just hook up the modem and router when I get there. Even if they do some shady, somewhat underhanded business practices sometimes, they've always had wonderful customer service. I told Daisy this and told her to hold off on anything involving the cable, because if I can do that I'll just do that and make it easier.
I filled out the apartment info sheet/application tonight in its entirety and now have it ready to go; all I have to do is print it, print a copy of my pay stub, give them a photocopy of my license, and fax it all on Tuesday.
"Is there anything utilities-wise included in the rent?" I asked Daisy. "For example, most apartments include water and trash in the rent, some include gas or cable/internet as well."
Don't laugh; the last actual apartment I lived in included water/trash and gas in the rent; some big, expensive places -- even here -- include free internet as well. In my last apartment, I only had to pay a $40 or so a month electric bill and a $30 a month internet bill in addition to the rent -- which was, sadly, half of what this place's rent will be. You bet your ass I want to know if anything's included for the amount we'll be paying to live there.
"Trash is," she said. "Or water. I can't remember. I think it's trash."
"Most cities/areas bundle that together," I said. "I've never lived anywhere that didn't."
My water/trash bill here in Newton is $80 a month, if not more. They added an extra $20+ charge to our bills every month about three months ago to help pay for the new water treatment plant. This month, my water bill was $82. Bills in Kansas are outrageous for everything. I mentioned before how my electric bills here in the frozen tundra of winter are usually over $200 a month -- that wasn't a joke. This month it was $150. The most I ever paid for electric anywhere else I lived was about $70 a month -- and that was in the hottest of hot summers when the window-unit air conditioner had to be running near constantly. I try not to run the central air here any more than I have to in the summer, because it does the same thing to my electric bill that the furnace does. Luckily, I won't have to deal with that anymore.
According to what the apartment manager lady told Daisy, the average utility bills for that apartment are much less than what I've been paying here -- but remember, it's also for an apartment and not a house. This is good, because we'll have enough financial finagling to do anyhow regardless of where we're working, whenever and wherever I can get a new job up there.
Anyway.
None of the stressful family issues have been resolved; I don't exactly expect them to be resolved anytime soon, either. There's nothing I can really do about any of them, so in the meantime I have to put my focus on, and spend time on, the immediate things that are going on in my life and around me, and take care of issues one thing at a time. Life goes on. Even train wrecks get cleaned up eventually, right?
Tomorrow I shall sleep in and get up whenever I wake up to work on all of my student stuff, pay at least one of the PCH order bills, if not both, and be a hermit the rest of the day. I'm really glad my weekend is only halfway over. The feeling of knowing that I can sleep as long as I need to sleep in tomorrow -- hopefully to decompress and alleviate some of the stress around me -- is somewhat comforting, at least.
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