stupid mortgage company.

have you ever noticed that when something good happens, it seems that something else falls apart completely?

the bank declined the offer on our house. they were not up front with us about exactly what is going on. poor hubby is freaking out. he's over at our realtor's office now trying to figure out what is going on. our house appraised higher than what we were originally "approved" for for a short sale of our house. we had dropped the price drastically on the understanding of what we had been approved. then come to find out, after receiving an offer, they want us to raise the price $15,000. how is raising the price on our house going to increase interest and traffic through it? we are stressing out....how are we going to deal with this financially?

physically i am doing terrible. vertigo is horrible. i haven't passed out again but i am having a hard time moving around. today was the first time i have left the house in awhile, and it was hard. we took little buddy to the doctor for his year check up and shots. poor kid.

we do have another showing for this evening. i need to go pick up the house and do some dishes so it looks nice. good thing is that our realtor explained to these people the situation with the price and they are still interested in looking. hopefully they will like the house. keep your fingers crossed...we could use all the luck we can get!

good mooooorning, good moooooooorning!

so 2009 is here. i just started a new year in my life: i turned 23 a few days ago, and the world moved into a new year as well. i hope that this next year will be full of more ups than downs.

i had another rough night last night. no nightmares (thank goodness) but i think our mattress needs to go the way of the dodo bird. my body aches, and my joints ache, and my neck hurts, and my back hurts, and i blame it completely on that piece of crap. oh well, at least i have a mattress, right? i could be sleeping on the floor covered in burlap sacks.

i took down all of our christmas decorations yesterday. it's crazy how much bigger the house feels, and kind of empty, too. but cleaner, which is nice. i also did a speed clean of the house, because i thought my grandma was going to come see it but she didn't. too bad....but at least the house is sorta clean now. today i have laundry and dishes to do. (gross!)

well off i go to clean the house. i hope everyone had a fantastic new year's!

preparing for the day of st. nick

today is december 23. can you believe that means that christmas is the day after tomorrow??? i sure can't. crazy! (not me, although i'm crazy too, i mean, it's crazy how fast time goes.)

i feel like i have so much to do before christmas, but i guess i don't really. today i need to do the dishes and finish the laundry. (ugh. i HATE laundry.) and i also need to make cookies for santa, because it is santa's first year visiting our house and we need to impress him. the shopping is done...yay...and i vacuumed and swept last night. i probably could have cleaned the whole house top to bottom. i had a sudden rush of energy (i.e. manic phase, i'm pretty sure) and started to clean. hubby had to ask me to sit down and just be.

the good thing is that the house is pretty much picked up other than the dishes and laundry. well...except for one thing. one stupid thing. :)

hubby sometimes brings dishes home from work. they have a kitchen in the break room, and if he doesn't have time on his lunch to wash the dishes he uses he brings them home in his lunchbox. we have a little collection here now that has not been returned. i have asked him a number of times to return them but he forgets. so yesterday, i was tired of them sitting on my counter, and put them on the table. i attached a note that said, "please take me home! i miss my family in the [insert name of building here]. please be a nice person and return me."

he laughed at me, rolled his eyes, etc. so i go to bed thinking these dishes are finally going to be out of my house. we'd also discussed (ahem, i told) him that when he brings dishes home he needs to immediately return them. or better yet, don't bring them home.

so what did i find this morning? the dishes. with another note. this one says, "we got lost! we don't have a map or GPS!" and a little frowny face underneath. sigh. that man does love to tease me. cute, except that he has the next two days off, so i won't get rid of them until friday at the earliest....

well. the baby is down for a nap (yay!) and seeing as i have to work this afternoon, i better get crackin' and get the house finished and the cookies baked.

yesterday i learned a valuable lesson

some days i am amazed at what an idiot i am.

yesterday was one of those days.

i don't know how many times i have put bleach in my bathtub to soak while i cleaned the rest of the bathroom, then scrubbed the tub. but yesterday i did it, then started scrubbing my toilet, and disaster struck.

a disaster that could have been MUCH worse than it was.

i was using a new kind of toilet bowl cleaner, and apparently the fumes from it and the fumes from the bleach don't jive. some deadly kind of awful chemical reaction occurred. within two minutes, my throat was burning and i couldn't breathe. the baby was in the crib, had just woken up. so i ran in the nursery (which is just down the hall) grabbed the baby and ran downstairs. i put him on the floor in our living room, held my breath, and ran upstairs to open all the windows and turn on fans, then drain the bleach water from the tub and flush the toilet to get rid of the cleaner. then i ran back downstairs to open all the windows there as well.

the house started to air out, but i had a terrible headache and was feeling pretty lightheaded. luckily, the baby seemed perfectly fine. i think because i was able to get him downstairs before the fumes really reached his room--it's a good thing i reacted so quickly! after i got dizzy, the baby and i went outside to sit on the front porch until my husband could get home from work.

hubby checked out the bathroom. the majority of the fumes had dissipated, but the smell of bleach was still very strong. he set up a big box fan, and we left the house for a couple of hours. upon coming back, it was much better. the bathroom still smells like bleach, but it isn't nearly as bad as it was yesterday.

when i realized what had happened, i was terrified. i (in my ignorance and stupidity) didn't think that the fumes mixing would cause a problem. i have cleaned my bathroom this way for years and years. i knew mixing chemicals was a no-no, but i'd never thought about the fumes. i will NEVER do that again. we are very lucky that we're both okay. i'm sure i lost a bunch of brain cells, which sucks, since i don't have a whole ton left to my name. i'm just so grateful little buddy wasn't hurt.

so learn from my idiocy. when cleaning bathrooms, use one chemical at a time. and my advice? never use bleach to clean a tub. use something else.

i won't be using bleach in my bathroom again, that's for sure.

fighting back!

it is time for me to stop wallowing and start making more of an effort to be happy again. last night was the worst night so far in this bout of depression. and i woke up in the same mood.

well, i'm not going to let it last any longer. at least i'm going to do my best. my house is a disaster, and because of the depression i have had no desire and no energy to do anything with it. then i've had anxiety and been even more upset because it's a disaster. it's a deadly cycle, i tell you!

so after i'm done with this post, i'm getting up off my rear end and i am going to clean. i am going to scrub my bathrooms. do laundry. wash my dishes. pick up the junk sitting out all over the place. vacuum. and then this afternoon i'm going to work in my yard and get it ready for the winter. and i am going to force myself to do it, no matter how tired or depressed i am. my strategy is this: if i force myself to expend energy, and get involved in a huge project, and don't stop until i'm finished, i will feel better.

my second strategy is this:

i am going to concentrate on the good, and the bad things will be taken from me. i painted this when i was in high school--and going through a similar bout of depression. i remember thinking i had to get rid of it. so i put my desires into art, and it helped immensely. as i depicted the light, the good, taking pieces of my unhappiness away, i felt so much better. the depression and the darkness was still there, chasing after me, trying to grab me. but i was running as hard and as fast as i could in the other direction.

so now, i am running. some times that running is really me dragging myself on my stomach. and sometimes it's inching forward very slowly. but as long as i'm moving i'm making progress.

so here's to scrubbing my house and escaping the darkness i've housed in my head for far too long.

singing the blues

do you ever feel like what you do doesn't really matter?

i feel that way a lot. and i know in my head it's not true, but for me "knowing" something is totally separate from "feeling" something.

like when i clean up the house, and it's a mess within twenty minutes. or when i do something at work and no one really cares. or when i spend time blogging and i don't get any comments. (hint hint) :)

i think my depression today has a lot to do with lack of sleep. it has been...oh...who knows how long...since i've had a good night's sleep. and poor little buddy has been pretty cranky for the last few days because he is teething. he cut his third tooth this week and his fourth is about to emerge at any moment. i'm also stressed out--but i'm not really sure why, exactly. financial struggles. but that's nothing new. lots to do at work. but that's not really new, either. the house that is a disaster. ha, that's also nothing new.

so why so melancholy today?

i'm not sure. maybe there's something negative in the air.

so how do i change it? what cheers you up when you're having a bad day? especially when you don't know why?

getting things accomplished (harhar)

i made cookies today. i'm pretty darn proud of myself. cookies and i did the dishes! all before work! i know, you're thinking, "well geez, that's not that hard, you don't have be at work until 2:30 pm, cornnut." but seriously, most days it gets to be 1:30 or so and i'm getting ready for work and i have no. idea. where the day has gone. and then look around my very messy house and wonder what it was i did all day.

oh yeah. i watched judge alex/christina's court/judge judy/divorce court. and played with the baby. and layed in bed wishing i could sleep. and emailed my hubby while he was at work. and blogged. and read other people's blogs.

but then some days i actually do stuff and i get a lot done. like today, i changed two loads of laundry, did the dishes, made cookies, picked up the downstairs, took out the garbage, got myself and my son dressed and ready to go, printed off some coupons, figured out the menu for the next few weeks, made a list to go grocery shopping, decided where we're going to pick out our pumpkins, and felt pretty darn good about myself for doing so much.

i guess today is a manic day. just kidding. okay not really.