The past couple of days have been absolutely gorgeous. Since Wednesday we’ve averaged around 75° and for me that has to be the best weather in the world.  I typically like things to be chilly, I’m someone who likes to bundle up so going over 85° is very uncomfortable for me - as it is for many people.  Around here when it’s in the 70’s, everyone is outside.  I’ve spent the last few days working on my base tan while I do some gardening.  I’m just itching to redo the garden with fresh flowers and a nice new border so I can separate the icky sod from the dirt hole that we call a garden (at the moment).  I did some planting last year but I made the mistake of placing seeds into sandy soil so it really didn’t work out too well.  When things finally did start to grow in, it was chopped down by the landscapers.  They can easily avoid the grass (which they’re being paid to cut by the way) but they can easily run down someone’s flowers without a care in the world.  Either way it will be corrected and sectioned off within the next couple of weeks and I can’t wait for it.

While I didn’t hear back from a company I interviewed with this past month, I have been accepted as a new out-sourcer for a web design company located in New Jersey.  I’ve already completed a project or two and they look really promising.  It’s my hope to be able to bring in enough money so I can stay on top of my bills.  I haven’t been slacking off on work but I haven’t been able to get much on my own either.  I need to bring in $1800 a month in order to cover my bills and I’ve been pretty short for the past couple of months, Sean has graciously been picking up the slack for me.  I hope to be able to get back to the point where I’m working solid 8 hour days again.  It sucks having a small project here and there to complete, is it so wrong that I’d kill for a 9-5?  I’ve applied at every single business in the area, both retail and desk jobs and I haven’t gotten a call back on any of them.  It’s a shock to me considering every business is hiring for summer positions.  I’ll even take something part-time as long as it doesn’t require having to lift anything more than 50 pounds.  While my health has been improving with my on-going weight loss, a bad back is a bad back no matter what weight you are.  I’ve removed over 50 pounds from my frame and I’m still unable to lift anything over 30 pounds without feeling a painful twinge in my back.  This is the reason I only bring minimal weight-training in with my daily routines.

I’m fine running, walking, spinning, and swimming.  I typically have 5 pound weights on my arms or legs when I’m jogging (for that extra push) and I try as hard as I can to stretch myself whenever I get the chance (typically after a work out) just so I can regain some strength in my back but it’s just not there.  A few have told me that a visit to the doctor to find out if I have a slipped disk or not would do the trick but when you have no medical insurance, and are unable to afford it - there’s really nothing that can be done.  This is another reason why I’ve been so persistant on getting the job with the company I interviewed for.  They offer up a pretty amazing benefits package and I’d kill to get myself into a doctors office.

Sean has been poking around the Internet in hopes to find out some more information about Medicare.  I just don’t think I’d like to have to depend on the Government to get by.  I know I pay my taxes so that everyone else can get a free ride but at the same time I think PRIDE has a lot to do with it.  Yes, I’d love to be covered by Medicare and Food Stamps - I put out a lot of money every month on healthy foods to maintain my diet - BUT, I’m perfectly capable of getting a job - I’m just unable to be accepted for one (for some god forsaken reason).  It’s the same story, every single time.  “You interviewed very well, we’ve just taken a different route”.  Now, in terms of Web Design work, that means “We found someone with a degree”.  When it comes to Retail that means “We found someone who’ll work for less than minimum wage and not bitch about it - ie: immigrant”.  I don’t mean Mexican, there’s an over-abundance of Russians in the area and they all work 3-4 jobs for a few months while they’re here for college and head back to Russia to take their few thousand dollars and be able to go through the rest of their year until they repeat the process down here.

It’s extremely frustrating to watch my bank account dwindle and my application pile reach the ceiling with “rejected” stamps on them. I keep meticulous records of just about every aspect of my life so if I apply somewhere I tend to keep a copy of the application and mark it down on a list so I know where I applied and their reason for rejection.  The reasons of “taking a different route” is the running theme.

I know that I need to go back to school and I desperately need a car of my own (Sean’s is about to kick the bucket and we’ve been sharing it due to my lack of a car).  It’s impossible for me to complete this process if I can’t find a job.  I’ve purchased a book on grant writing “The Everything Grant Writing Book” and I’m going to take some personal time to setup a work area (on any clean surface in the house) so I can start writing up a formal grant application to submit to different companies.  I’m going for anything that will help me, a federal grant, a state grant or even a corporate grant.  It’s going to be put towards my business.  Not only will it enroll me in school to further-advance me in my trade but it will also be used to push advertising and maybe purchase a new computer so I’m able to work more efficiently.  I love the iMac Sean gave me for Christmas, don’t get me wrong, but I also need silence when I’m trying to concentrate and that’s something I can’t get when I’m working in the same office as Sean (we share one).  Having a laptop is a god-send for me, and while I’m just looking to pick up a cheap $800 model that is Intel based (so I can install Mac OS X on it), it’s still $800 that I don’t have.

It’s a whole serious of financial issues right now and I really wish I could figure out what to do.

I finally got around to updating to Wordpress 2.5.  I was hesistant at first because I’m using it on a few of my other domains and I really don’t like it very much at all.  But since there are a lot of security fixes with it, I figured it was worth putting in the effort so I logged into my control panel and went through with the automatic upgrade.  While I was initially against using Fantastico on my servers, I’m kind of happy that it’s there now.  It takes a lot of stress off me for having to do manual upgrades for clients.  I can point them into the direction of their control panel and the rest is history.

I went out tonight to just have some alone time.  I wondered into Dollar Tree and landed some great deals on some items I use regularly.  I picked up a few boxes of tissues (2 for $1) and I loaded up on some carpet fresh too.  I also am in a decorating mood so I bought to small mirrors to hang up above the bed, I’m going to throw a picture up in between them and that will add some visual interest to the room.  The walls are so bland right now, it’s just a blue-grey wall color that’s got quite a few holes because the room I’m in used to be Sean’s office.  So when he took the shelves out of there he kind of just left the holes.  One of these days I’m going to get in there and fill in the holes, throw some paint over the spackle and then hang a few things up.  The rest is history really.  It’ll give me something to do, that always counts for something - right?

I’m still doing pretty well on my diet, I’m not losing that much weight anymore but I think I’ve hit the point where it’s getting harder to lose weight.  I did cheat one night but I don’t think a small slice of cake would really stop me from losing weight over the course of the next few weeks considering I burned off those calories that night at the gym.  I didn’t hit a brick wall - per say - but I have hit a wall and I need to figure out how to change things up a bit.

I’ve been looking into Gillian McKeith Detox Vegetarian Diet, where for 8 weeks you only eat vegetables and then slowly reintroduce good proteins such as chicken and fish.  I can’t do the fish aspect of things, I have a horrible allergy to it.  But I think the detox would work out pretty well.  I’ll pick up her book eventually, right now I really can’t afford it.  But, I already have a good balance of fruits, vegetables and whole grains as well as fiber in my diet, but her “detox diet” is nothing but all natural organic living.  It’s an idea that I threw Sean’s way but I think he’d only jump on board when it comes time to introduce grilled chicken salad into the mix.  I also don’t have the best of storage in the kitchen to house all of these veggies so I may hold off on it until after Sean and I have our own place.

For now I’ll stick to what I’m doing, I’ll just work out a bit more and introduce a 5th “meal” to my day to jump start my metabolism a little.  I typically have breakfast, a piece of fruit before lunch, a small lunch, another piece of fruit and then dinner.  Maybe if I introduce another slice of fruit into the day (probably as a dessert) I should be able to jump things up a bit more.

Worth a shot, right?

I’m unsure as to how it happened but I’ve managed to throw my back out.  For the past couple of weeks it’s been increasingly sore.  Yesterday it felt worse than usual and after laying down for a little while my back completely locked up and won’t unlock no matter what I do.  It’s still bothering the hell out of me today, but that’s more mental than pain.  Yes, I’m in a hell of a lot of pain but I also have a lot of things to accomplish that I don’t see myself getting around to anytime soon.

I have to clean the bedroom, it’s been a week since it was last dusted and when you’ve got black furniture - dust is very noticeable.  I need to do my laundry but that can wait until tomorrow, Sunday is typically Karen’s laundry day.  The kitchen is a wreck, I’d like to do something about that but even standing takes a lot out of me right now.  I’ve got myself propped up in the living room at the moment, I can’t stay in bed - it’s too soft and offering no kind of support right now.

I’m itching to get into the office but with absolutely no chance of lumbar support with my office chair - there’s no way in hell I could sit there long enough to accomplish what I need to do.

This really sucks.

I’m still going pretty strong with my diet. It’s hard to stick to something so structured when everything else in your life is in complete chaos, but when it comes down to it - the diet is the only stability I have at the moment.

I did slack off for a week, but I’m working just as hard on it now as I ever have in the past. I’ve been watching this show “You are what you eat!” it’s on BBC and I’ve found it to be very interesting. After searching around the Internet I was unable to find the detox diet that Gillian (the dietitian) puts these people on. I will wind up getting her book in the future, I know that much. But in 8 months using her plan you can lose up to 3 stone (42-pounds) and that 42 will put me on the path I’d like to go on, as well as give me the detox I need. I think that’s why my diet has been so slow, I never detoxed, I just cut back. I enjoy a diet of fruits and vegetables and I think her plan would give me exactly the right amount of things that I need to get it done the right way.

I got my license taken care of this past Monday so I can now legally drive in Delaware. My big thing is finding a car now, I found one in Jersey that I’d like to go pick up but unfortunately I don’t have the $9,000 at the moment. I have amped up the job search as well as my freelancing, I even shot a letter over to friends, clients and family with new “deals” for design. A lot of people I know have websites, and if I can repush the $30 deal, I should have no problem raising some money over time. I just don’t know how much time I have until the car is gone but I’m still going to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

It’s another one of those days where everything that could possibly go wrong…can.

I woke up this morning with the intent of just going to Wal-mart and picking up everything I need for Bella and myself and then just coming home and relaxing for a while until Lost comes on tonight.

About two hours ago Karen called with the test results for Princess, they believe she has Cushings disease but will need to admit her on Monday to run some more tests and figure things out. If she does have it then there’s a 50/50 chance that she’ll live or need to be put down, it depends on how far along she is with the disease. So that was upsetting blow number two today. The first one was the call from the vet stating that Candy’s ashes were ready and we can pick them up when we’re ready to.

A few moments ago while I was contemplating life and hoping to hear something from any job that doesn’t require being a cashier part-time, the phone rang out of no where and it was Karen’s sister who needed Sean to head down to the store and give her a jump because her car died a few moments after she got a phone call from her boyfriend stating that his mother had passed away this morning.

There are only two months out of the year that effect me the most in life. February has always been a bad one for me but the final “bad moment” up until putting Candy down was having my last moments with Joe alive without any outside influence. We’re coming up to the two-year mark of his death and I’m already in a daze about that, so now adding to the fact that there’s a 50/50 chance that Princess will be put down around the same time…my nerves are shot….beyond shot.

I fully understand that the world has it’s way of balancing itself out but why does everything need to happen at once? While Bella is my baby I’ve grown very close to Princess. She’s the ultimate lap dog and I love her as much as anyone could. Candy I adored but since she was so much older than Princess and Bella she really just didn’t want to be bothered so I never had any “bonding” moments with her that were memorable, the only time I’ve ever held her was when we were going to the vet for one of her random bad days that would come out of no where. Princess and I have fallen asleep together lord knows how many times on the couch and I’ve given her more personal-time than I have Candy, and her death upset me but Princess would be like losing my own pet, even though she’s more “everyone’s” dog than Candy was.

Why does everything happen at once? I just don’t get it.