Slow Snow Days

Right now I am planning out all of the little things that I need to get done before the snow gets too bad. Although during the last storm this past weekend, my house didn't lose power, and I was out plowing in Leesburg with Matt through the later part of the storm which laid down two and a half foot of snow. It has been only a couple days after that storm, which caused most of leesburg to lose power, as well as both of my neighbors haven't had power since friday night, and it is now Tues.
The fitzgeralds who live behind me are going to go stay in a hotel. They had to go out to home depot last night to purchase a generator which only would power two of their heaters, which would make it so that their pipes in their house wouldnt freeze. I looked out the window and saw their whole family going out and getting in their cars to go to the hotel about an hour ago. I felt sorry for them, but at least they are all going to go out and take a shower. They haven't had the best of luck since they have lived here with certain things like that.
My other neighbors are really nice people, and my mom said that Polly, the lady called, and she just needed someone to bitch to, because they are so stressed out since their power has been out for the same amount of time. Unfortunately there is only so much that you can do to help your neighbors out in this situation.
So my sched at work has been cut back. I am only working three days a week now instead of four, and of course I get to work shitty days, such as Monday, Friday, and Sat... I dont understand what is going on. I am irritated about it, becuase I quit my other job at beekeepers so that I could put in more hours at Advance, and then we lost our store manager... Now we finally get a new one after months of waiting, and he's nice and everything, but.... I don't know, I guess I don't feel as appreciated as I did before when I was working there. I guess my importance in the workplace makes me want to work harder to prove my place. I need to motivate myself to be really cheerful and stuff like I had been for a while. I have had quite a lot of compliments from customers and from management at Advance, But I dont know why I haven't been as happy and satisfied lately working there. I have been looking for other jobs, and it seems like that since I told tower that I used him for a refrence things haven't been going so well. He tries to encourage me to work hard now and then it will pay off later, but when I already had been let down from dropping my other job when he told me to, and then that NOT paying off like I had thought that it would, even after all of my patience with everything, I am just not happy anymore, and yes, I would LOVE to find another job, even though I love everyone that I work with at Advance, I just don't really like working there all that much to want to work there a WHOLE heck of a lot... I am almost glad that my hours got cut, now i am able to think about doing things that I have been wanting to do for a while. I've been wanting to lease a horse and get some riding in.... and haven't been able to even like go see any horses becuase i have been so busy with work. Now i have found something That i thnk will really work out well for me and it is close by my house. it is a lease of a Warmblood horse, and it is very affordable for me. So maybe I will have the time that i need to be able to enjoy myself..... and that would also help me get some excersize, which it seems like i desperately need.
Not much else has really been going on. I am not looking forward to Valentines day, becuase I know that my boyfriend matt will forget about me again.

I have been looking at homes, mainly online. Matt and I have gone to look at two with a realator now, and one we just drove out to see for ourselves. We haven't found anything perfect yet. The one was 99K and it was WAY WAY too small!! Matt pointed out that there wouldnt even be a way for him to pull any one of his vehicles into the so called garrage. It had an overhang that was no more than 11 feet high and the overhang was held up by a metel pole. The inside of the home wasn't in that bad of condidion, considering that it was about 60 years old, if I am remembering correctly. The property needed a lot of fixing up, but the realator did say that we could get that house for a steal most likely. Once we were inside of the home, we knew that it wouldn't work for us. Matt is 6 foot and almost 4 inches tall, and his poor head was hitting the ceiling in most places in the house. The ceiling in the upper level was high, because there was a tiny loft. The hallway was the tightest squeeze you could imagine to get through, I guess either of us would be gaining any weight, and now I somehow understand how really fat people do get trapped in their homes. Just kidding. So we were off to the next house, which had a WONDERFUL location. I truely loved this home, but it wasn't in the best condition either. It was a Circa home, which I've always dreamed of living in. Located in Summit Point, on Hawthorne Rd. It was the last house all the way at the end of the street, and it was right next to hundreds of acres of open fields with a lil driveway cutting through it and on the edge of the property line were a row of apple trees. From the outside this entire thing looked too good to be true. We got into the house, and the rooms were GREAT BIG. I love older homes for this reason. My favotite things about the home were the double staircases and the "sleeping porch" they call it. It was off of one of the bed rooms, you walk through the bathroom which was off of the bedroom, and there was the little sleeping porch. Matt said that I can have those things put into a new home if we decide to go that route. The wall paper in all of the rooms of that house was peeling off. I didnt think that much of that set back, but there was only one tiny fireplace in the one living room/libary. Which that little thing definiately wouldnt have been enough heat or even leave a dent on the huge old house. It was gas heated, and gas is just too expencive. We would have to invest in some other heat source. The big fireplace in the kitchen was blocked off with cement. Which that was a major set back. I guess in the older homes it is hard to find them with the working fireplaces. I am not sure what the deal is about that, but I guess I could do some reasearch and find out? Maybe my grandfather would know. The other major set back was that matt said he went through the house and tried to flick on some of the lights here and there and he said that most of them didnt even work. Which hinted to him that there must be some really significant wireing and electrical problem, which I could also learn more about if I were to talk to someone who knows more than I do. I really loved the location of the home, and its lay out. The four bedrooms were just amazing. The back yard was fenced so that we could have big dogs. There were those draw backs though, which we had to say for now at least that its going to be a NO for that house. I am really hopeing to be able to find a home that offers the same things that I like, minus some of the things that we didn't so much like. And I am just going to believe that with a little patience and a lot of research and looking around, the perfect home will be found for us.
This whole process has made me kinda consider making some kind of investment business out of homes like this. Just think if we were able to do all that work ourselves, and we knew what to do. Then we could fix the problems that we didnt really like about the home and then turn it around and sell it for a LOT MORE than what we paid for it. I am not sure how all that works, but again, with some research I might really be able to make something like that work.
I also understand that Matt and I prob. wont be buying the house which we will live in forever. Hopefull if we buy at the right time, and then sell at the right time, we would have made enough money out of the home to be able to pu towards something better. I am not really looking for my dream home at this point. I am mainly looking for the bargin houses, that with a lot of time and work and some small investment money that we put into it that we could turn around then end up with a really cute home to live in, as well as hopefully make a little when we go to sell it.
Sounds to me like the home owners dream. But I do know a lot of people in my family, as well as friends of mine who were able to do this. I know that the market isnt that good right now for selling, but it sure is for buying. So with that in mind, and the fact that Matt and I aren't married and we don't have kids yet, we are able to live in conditions that wouldn't work if we did. We can also afford to be flexible and move and choose different areas, instead of just trying to stay in a certain school zone or something.

Winter 2008

It isn't even to the end of December yet and we have already had one snow before this that didn't accumulate to much. It is now two weeks later and we are having blizzardous weather. I didnt' have to go to work today because when I woke up there was already 6 inches of snow on the ground. It is falling heavy and fast. There is now about a foot maybe more on the ground and it is still hammering down. It is about one o clock in the afternoon.
I was excited at first, but now I am just getting kinda bored being stuck at the house. I am getting a lot done, although I wish that I could be spending time with Matt. He is out plowing in the skid loader, and I am unable to go with him.... It would be quite the uncomfortable ride, as well as he is very busy, and I'd probably be more bored with him, but at least I wouldn't be missing him. He came in last night at about 11 o clock and he got about three hours of sleep, before waking up at two in the morning to go out and plow. I heard him start his truck up and it must have taken him a while to get the snow off his truck, because it seemed to take forever before he began to pull out of the driveway. I slept in till around 8 this morning almost. I have prepared some rice a roni and some alredo noodles ahead of time incase the power goes out soon, which is expected to happen. I am also charging up the camera and cell phone.
It is so hard just sitting at the house and waiting for the chance to see Matt. The last time that I called him he picked up and hung up. I know that he is really busy, and I felt bad calling, but I guess I was just trying to find a way to bribe him into coming to my house when he is done plowing. I know that easier thing for him to do would be to go to his house because it is right in leesburg, when he is finished plowing for madigan... And he has to wake up and go to work for the county in the morning at 8 o clock. So it would be really out of his way to come out here to be with me. I wish that it were simple, but it's not on snowy days like today.
I wish that my car were able to move, and that the roads were cleared. Haha, but then I guess that I'd be at work today then. I just wish that I had a way to get to Matt's house somehow, but that's just another one of those things that isn't really possile right now either. I brushed the snow off mine and my mom's car. They are already covered again probably. I went out a few minutes ago to the car to see if I could find the rest of Katie's holiday present, but no such luck with that, I did however find a dollar bill laying by the passenger seat. I am pondering over whose doller it might be, and as to how mad they would be if they knew that I found it and were keeping it. O well, it is only a doller.
Sport doesn't seem too happy about the snow, he has just been sitting on the back of his chair in the living room, hastily looking out in a mopey way. Poor guy can't walk around that good in the snow, so he can't really have that much fun outside in these conditions. He probably also wishes that Matt were here spending some time with us. He loves Matt too. I think that sport and I feel the same way right now.
Mom and I have just been cleaning and cleaning away and trying to get things done before the snow gets too too bad. But I think that I am about to run out of things to do. Thank goodness Matt just called me. He is getting off with madigan now. He worked ten hourd with them. Now he is going to his house to get some sleep, he said that he might wake up and come out to my house after he gets a couple hours of rest... but I don't imagine that happening. I'm going to be lonely for the next day or two.

Love is forever

My mother inherited my grandmothers jewlrey and I was entitled to have some of whatever she had. Granny had the bare minimun when it came to jewlry. Not even a diamond ring existed in her jewlry box. It was a shock, as well as an eye opener for me. I do have my heart set on one day recieving a diamond from the man that I love, as the symbol of our committment and our lasting love for eachother. I just never imagined my grandmother accepting less for herself. Their marriage lasted 53 years, and a diamond ring didn't keep it together. It was based on something that was completely natural and true. The love didn't need a symbol to be seen by both partners, nor by anyone else. I admire that of the both my grandmother and grandfather. I hope that I will have the same strength in my relationship with my husband one day.

It has been missed

Life has been stumbling into fast forward and everyone is trying to make it slow down. I can't believe all my friends and family members who are growing up and getting married. Everyone is settleing down, and lots are moving away and going to other places. My brother is one of those people who suddenly swerved into the fast lane. It has been since January since I've seen him last, and with the unexpected death of our grandmother we flew him in that night. I can't even put words behind the way that it felt that morning when I walked in the door and knew that he was sleeping in his bedroom right across the hall way from mine. It was like going back in time, and that moment seemed to replenish all the lost feelings that had been covered up by a space between us of 3400 miles. I never forget about my brother, even when I don't see him for long periods of time. I just miss him. I can't snap my fingers and see him, or laugh with him. I can't sit around and talk about old times. There aren't any old times anymore it seems, there's only new. So in order to cope with this distance that is between us, I unintentionally refuse to allow that new to join in with the old.
When I describe the passing of my grandmother, I say that it was unexpected. That is another thing that no one will ever be able to fully comprehend. We all were certain that she was going to live another 10 years at the least. The whole time that I sat through my uncle's wedding and my cousins wedding the weekend after, I was thinking to myself about how beautiful my grandmother was, and how one day she would be part of my wedding. I was thinking about what she might think of the person that I'd like to marry, and if she would accept him. If she would believe in our love and support us. I hated to think like that, but it just made me want to become closer to her to be able to show her how much in love I am with Matt and that we look up to her and my grandfathers marriage of 53 years.

Sour Blindness

I arose to another typical morning. A beautiful day that I actually had off work. Matt took off as well because he was going to catch up on some sleep. We went to DMV first off, not really something most people look forward to, but we both had things that we needed to take care of. We were just finishing up there, when I recieved a text message from my mom, asking me to please call, that it was an emergency.
Of all the emergencies that crossed my mind in those couple minutes before I actually pressed the send button, none had even come close to the news. I thought, maybe it could be Sport, my lil chihauhua, or maybe my dad had had some sort of accident, or my brother who was in california just yesterday might be ill. When I called, and actually heard the voice of my Mother. She was trying to cover up her estacticness with some sort of calm, which was easily uncovered. There was something very wrong.
The night before my grandmother passed away it was my cousins wedding. Her grandson. And the weekend before that she got to watch her youngest son of 43 walk down the isle and get married for the first time. She was in perfect health, we all thought, and was looking almost more beautiful than ever.
Her car was parked right up next to the walk way to the screened porch where her and my grandfather, who has also passed, spent a lot of time together. I remember hanging out there on the porch when I was a young child. She taught me how to play rummie and chinease checkers, things that you'll never forget that you're grandmother spent time teaching you. It was raining that night when she came home, and the first sign of distress was that you could tell she was in some sort of rush or panic. Her windshield wiper blades were half way up on her winshield. The yellow rose from the reception was in the back seat of her car, along with her umbrealla which was tossed down right before the screen porch door. She usually never locked her door, but she did that night.
An entire day must have gone by and when no one could reach her, or she didnt show up for church, family had no reason to, but out of spite arose some minor worries over my grandmother. Her youngest son, Charlie, and his newly wed wife Sally went to check on her, and when no one came to answer the door, he immediately ran to the bedroom window and started shouting inward. There was still no response, although he could see her laying there in bed propped up with the covers pulled up tight and her mouth wide open like she were in a deep sleep. He finally had no choice but to break through the window and with that, found his mother dead in her bed.
Sally called 911 and the entire family rushed to the house. The investagators and medical examiners did their job, and seemed to easily rule out any foul play, dispite the good health that my grandmother was in.
I never expected anything like this any time soon, and I regret my unpreparedness, and almost unappreation that I had for my relationship with my grandmother. Things were getting better, and I hadn't had a poor thought of her in a long while. I felt like I was becomming closer with my grandmother, in some large part because my cousin Ashleigh and I have become very close with each other. I could see that even though my grandmother might not have always approved of either one of us, she accepted and respected that we had such a strong family bond with eachother, and it allowed us to feel more comfortable around her. My regrets are that I couldnt have stood up for myself earlier on, and realized that everyone is going to look at you in their own way. It was hard through for me and as well for Ashleigh to see our own grandmother to think unhighly of us. I constantly felt like I had done something completely wrong in my life, either by not going to college, or not finishing college, or not cutting up my food properly, or not sitting up straight enough, or not smileing wide enough even when I didnt want to. Maybe I wasn't pretty enough, or maybe she thought that I didnt know how pretty I actually was. Reguardless of what ever the problem was, she seemed to focus and to point out, even non intentionally, or not even verbally. She was a very hard person to read, and sometimes hard to get along with, But no matter what kind of person she was, I know that she loved me, and I loved her. I know that it felt so so so good to hug her, she would always hug me SOOOo hard, even when I was younger. Sometimes it felt like my head was going to pop off cause she hugged me so tight. I am not sure if it was because maybe I had hugged her too hard a time or two before, and didnt know it, and she was just making her point across that she wanted to make me feel how it felt to be hugged to the extreme? She had a weird way of communicating with you and maybe that was just her way of holding her toung most of the time. I think that she might had been happier if she had spoken out more. I remember her pimmento cheese sandwhiches, and how I was so confussed when watching her make them, wondering how in the hell something so weird was going to apparently be good tasteing. The chappadoo hand lotion which the recipe was passed down from generations from my great great great uncle or something who was a pharmasist and developed his own dry skin relief remedy. She made the best pickled watermellon rine that I'd ever had, although I don't know of anyone else that has ever made such a thing. It was probably the only food that my brother and I would fight over and NEVER stop when we were younger. The memories are unbelieveable, and so is this feeling of wearyness.
I just dont understand how someone in such good health could pass so quickly with out even a hint of distress. I'd like to be at peace with the idea that it was "natural" and that she was peaceful, but I just wish that I knew what she was feeling and thinking that night that I saw her at the reception.
I remember talking with her and actually shareing my passions with her. And to my suprise she was supportive and enchanted at the fact that I was so passionate about something. She was encourageing, and I feel like I broke through and saw a new person inside of her. I used to think that her and mother were exactly the same, and that I'd never be able to live up to my own mothers expectations. It's a hard thing to deal with, always trying to be good enough for your own mother. But after Saturday night, I had hope, for my mother and my relationship to be able to grow, and for us to be able to share passions and express ourselves with out me always wondering if I am good enough.

Expression

I Just started this blog. I was inspired this morning by a woman that I work for. She told me that her mother was murdered 7 years ago and the man that did it was sentenced to death. I hate to be the person to pass judgement on someone else, but in cold blood like that, to murder an elderly sweet woman that meant to much to so many is beyond the bounds of forgiveness, and I do not blame those who and knew and loved and lost someone in that brutality to feel no mercy when it comes to uncovering the darkness, and in an uncommen way feeling uplifted at the punishment that will be brought down on others who performed the acts of violence and gross crimes.
7 years had passed and this man still can have no remorse for those committed elements of selfishness. To be honest I had never heard a more greedful story. Through out my life it has made an impression on me that money and greed are connected to most of the sadness in peoples lives. The man who murdered Nancy Hilliards mother is a clear depiction of the image that is cast on those sorry people who lower themselves and are overpowered by materials and greed. Nancy's mother was murdered for the 2 carret diamond ring that she wore as a symbol for the trusting bond she had for 35 years with her husband, and as a gift for being "the best mother, wife and friend". It is sickening to me to think that someone could overlook all of those things because they are so weak. He stole that ring from her finger, but he stole much more out of the lives of everyone who knew Nancy's mother.
It is amazing to me that this morning Nancy told me that she was going to have to go away for a couple weeks. I had never heard anything about this murder before, and assumed that nothing this horrible had ever encounterd a person as nice and sweet loving as Nancy. She is strong, and that is what inspired me to start this blog. Because I want to highlight the strengths that go un-noticed in my life, and in peoples lives around me. I don't just want to tell my stories, but I want to connect my stories with other people.