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’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.

We put Candy to sleep on Tuesday at 4pm. After a bad weekend and a lot of tears Karen came to the decision that Candy would be better off being put to sleep so that she could not suffer anymore. I received a phone call this morning letting us know that her ashes were available to be picked up from the Vets office and when Karen comes home from work for lunch I’ll let her know.

The other day she found an urn online that she truly adores and thankfully I’ve been snapping a lot of pictures lately so Candy’s best shot (which was hard to get, considering her fear of cameras) is now going to be airbrushed onto the urn. The photo can be found after the break.

Minus the death of Candy, things around the house seem to be going OK. Karen was more upset with the decision than the aftermath, but it’s the acceptance of Candy’s death that has made things so calm. Her sister is down here looking for a new house and while both her and her children were sick for a couple of days, everyone seems to be coming around so things haven’t been quite so hectic.

On Tuesday around 12:30 the Comcast guy showed up and setup the new boxes in the office and living room and we now have our new phone number, which I know I have to email to a few people. Sean’s very happy with the HD Box in the office and the living room TV still will barely go past the standard channels that we’ve been watching for years, but it’s good to know that we have them. In regards to the phone - thankfully the bill collectors for Karen haven’t found the new number yet but we’re also restricted from all lists (as of right now) so it’s not really much to be concerned about. However, the change was made the same day we put Candy down so since no one knew the phone number everything in regards to both Candy and Princess (urine test results for on-going kidney infection) have been sent to my cell phone. Princess is about 10 years old so even she’s getting up there in years but now Karen understands how peaceful putting an animal down can be, when it does come time for Princess.

Candy exceeded her life expectancy, for an animal to survive for 16 years is nothing short of amazing and the vet tech that we had there on Tuesday put Karen’s mind at ease in what would be the biggest choice she’d ever have to make in her life. The vet even told her that Candy was lucky to have her because with all of the medical problems Candy has had in the last three years - it’s nothing short of amazing that she survived as long as she did. Who would have thought that with a lot of love and support for a dog with no spleen, shallow breathing, frequent skin infections and an enlarged heart - she could live as long as she did.

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It’s been one of those weeks where everything is just confusing. As of Wednesday, Karen decided that she was going to put Candy down, only because she believed that Candy just wasn’t going to bounce back from what we now know as seizures. On Friday, however, Candy kind of sprung back to life and was then, what seemed to be, back to her old self. Her sister showed up on Friday evening with her kids, all of them are sick right now but she’s determined to buy a house down here and sick or not she needed to be here this week, not only for the house hunting but for Karen as well, Candy’s health is beginning to take it’s toll on everyone.

Last night Candy collapsed and made that horrible noise again. We still don’t know what it is but if you can imagine something that’s a cross between a dog crying, screaming and barking then you can kind of understand what the noise actually was. She shook for a few minutes and then popped up like “What happened?” because she’s completely zoned out during the time it typically happens. Last night she did return to her regular chipper self after she vegged out in the bedroom for a little while. She did eat quite a bit which was the most she’d had in a few days. Hopefully there isn’t another episode today, I don’t know what would happen.

Is it selfish of me to hope that if Candy is going to just go to sleep one night and not wake up that it happens during the week and not on the weekend? The closest emergency vet after 6pm (and on weekends) is over an hour north and by then who knows what could happen to her. During the week there are two vets offices down here where she could be taken care of. But that’s only if whatever is going to …take her life… happens between 8am-6pm on Monday through Friday. I know it seems wrong to think like this but I also know that Candy is literally considered to be Karen’s child. Having to sit in a car with her limp body for over an hour because there’s no one down here to help would not be something I think she could handle.

I honestly don’t know anymore. Things right now are more confusing then they should be, it’s just going to be a crappy week. And at the same time I hope to god I don’t get sick from her sister and her sister’s kids because she’s got bronchitis (which is borderline pneumonia at this point) and one son has a very high fever, the other is coughing up all kinds of goodies. I honestly believe there’s a hospital visit in the works today.