This move has been hard. I am not going into any details but it has been a real motherfucker. So many stresses so much not going right, so much bullshit. I hope the worst is behind me.

I have all but given up on my insurance company Amica ever paying out properly for my car. It got damaged in transit and they paid to have it spot painted. So now the car is 4 different colors since they couldn't match anything at the shop. I have argued and complained but to no avail. I feel if they can't match the color they need to paint the whole car all the same color. They disagree and think a spotted car which is noticeably 4 different colors is perfectly acceptable. I'm not too happy with them.

On a brighter note, I bought a new car because I'm far too snobby to drive around in a car which is 4 different colors. I got a cute little 3 series BMW which gets 28mpg and is fun to drive. I do like the new car, it is the highlight of the last few weeks.

My son was homesick so I flew his friend out from Phoenix for 2 weeks and took them all over doing fun stuff. The friend flew home today. I had asked him to text me when he landed safe and sound, but being a 15 year old boy he did not so now I have to worry about him. I'm sure he is fine but the mom in me worries.

My son is getting his drivers permit tomorrow supposedly. Can you believe it?

Well, I'm exhausted good night.

I went out for a walk last night "Frog appreciating" I call it. I walk down the street at night with a flash light and look at frogs and toads and encourage them out of the road.

After finding a couple little toads and moving them out of the road I came upon a very strange frog. It was teal with orange spots, about 12 inches long and had a tail and huge cat like eyes. I was kind of shocked by it for a moment since I was not expecting one of those around here and certainly not out in the road. It was a Tokay Gecko. They are VERY mean, I remember them from working in a pet store when I was younger. They are like pit bulls, when they bite they don't let go. You actually have to submerge them in water to "encourage" them to let go of you without killing or harming them.

I grabbed it carefully and hauled it home and now have a new pet in my new home. It is not a native to this continent or even something which will live in this area so it must have gotten loose someplace. It has been warm here so I guess it was doing ok. It would die when it gets cold. I think it will be better in the tank I had to buy at Wal-Mart last night at 2 in the AM.

Of all the strange things to find in the middle of the street at midnight.

Well I made it and it was hell. I like Texas and don't like Louisiana and have no opinion about anyplace else I drove through. Also, my car got demolished on the way (thanks terrible roads in Louisiana) but my insurance is fixing it.

Well my car, my embroidery machine and my guns are all loaded into my trailer now. I spent all day yesterday with my son building sides for the bed of the truck. We tried to buy some ready made ones but they are not standard and since my truck is from the Pacific northwest and my trailer is from Ontario Canada nothing local seems to work. I spent $55 on a $7 light to have it overnighted because one of the back lights on my trailer got knocked off mysteriously....... and then ended up spending about 4 hours planing 2x4's down to be 1 5/8's x 3 1/2's and then screwing sides in and then spent all day today trying to find these cool stake side locks
which make the bed nice and firm. I finally found a guy who even knew what the hell I was talking about but had to special order them. They will be in in the morning. I then hit up the military surplus store for a cool tarp which ended up being less cool than I had hoped but will do the job.

I let the registration lapse on my car because it expired last month and they only give plate credits and refunds if you sell the car, moving it out of state and paying for a year of registration in another state is apparently not good enough reason to get a refund but not registering in your new state of residence within 30 days is a crime with a $600 fine, so I just stopped driving the car, I'll be damned if I pay registration twice in 35 days, I think I pay enough tax thank you very much. But of course that leaves my main mode of transportation as my truck. This truck looks normal enough in a photograph,

until you are actually standing next to it and realize that the front hood is higher than my shoulders and a 6' tall man can lay down on the back seat without bending himself . The bed alone is 12 feet long, this thing takes up a full 2 or more parking spaces and people are total assholes when you have an oversized vehicle. I have had several stand offs with people in parking lots. I will be someplace and someone else wants to be where I am right now and they think they can squeeze past me, or think that if they pull right in my way (HELLO!!! WIDE RIGHT TURNS PEOPLE!!) I will somehow be out of their way faster. Which of course is a colossal FAIL. So I then just sit there and wait for them to decide they made a poor decision. Sadly a few of them have also thought just sitting right in my way, waiting for me is a good idea. I have had to resort to doing hand-car colossal crash and fireball puppet shows for them to try to demonstrate what will happen to them if they choose to not get the fuck out of my way while expecting me to make a tight right turn, especially when I wanted to go left, and they are blocking my turn in their selfish desire to be in the same space I am presently taking up at the same time as I am in it.

I tripped over my shoe and ripped my toe nail off while carrying my embroidery machine to the car and since the thing costs over $10K and is very delicate, I couldn't drop it or set it down I had to keep going. I was putting it in the front passenger seat of the car to seat belt it in for the trip. I couldn't put it down to attend to my toe until it was done, the way my son and I had to get it in I had to roll out the drivers side backwards, walking my feet across the headliner of the car, with my toe bleeding and throbbing the whole time. I ripped the whole thing off back to the quick. I am a little worried I might loose it for good. It really REALLY hurts! Once I rolled out of the car I jumped around cussing for a few minutes until it felt better. Interesting how therapeutic jumping around and cussing is.

After that got it all loaded got to test out how the truck feels with the trailer on it and then loaded the little trailer with my tenants stuff and helped him move to his new apartment. Then while putting the mail box back (we had moved it just to have one less thing to worry about maneuvering the trailer) I ended up getting 8 huge splinters in my hand when the other person helping move it lost grip and dropped it, it is made from old railroad ties and DAMN those things hurt. I also gouged my hand on a tape dispenser and got a piece of hot pepper flake in my eye while opening the dehydrator to check the beef jerky I'm making for the trip (I'm clearing out my freezer). Then while I was rolling the spare tire for the trailer aside it ended up rolling over the toe with the missing nail, I think that hurt worse than when I first ripped it off. So overall today has been REALLY painful and involved a LOT of jumping around and cussing. My son and I decided the flying fail boat must have capsized directly over us and drowned us in FAIL!! I hope the trip goes better than the packing.

And it seems I am bringing a third cat now because I was asked to haul a cat for a friend. It is going to be a zoo for sure!! Wish me luck!


........And Midnyte will be silent for a while. See you all on the other side.

Insanely busy doesn't even begin to describe my life. It seems like it is one thing after another. I am moving several thousand miles and getting my house ready to move out and getting everything set up has really taken a toll on me. I was so well moved in. I didn't have a lot of trouble with the big stuff but all the little crap is breaking my brain, do I need that little bag of PS/2 to USB adaptors? How about Oddworld II for the Gameboy? When was the last time I saw/had a gameboy? Is it worth something? Should I try to sell it someplace? I have this battle about everything. Since I'm running out of time I have taken on kind of a slash and burn attitude and I have to say it feels kind of good, like a little trash-gasm every time I free myself of something useless, but still I feel kind of bad throwing away that box of wineglass charms my friend gave me 5 years ago that I never used (sorry Eve), but I did (sorry, they were cute but useless).

I just bought a huge diesel truck and trailer to move my stuff with, it is nearly new with only 30K miles on it and it broke down while driving it home. WTF?? It is a DIESEL TRUCK, they are supposed to go a million miles!! I thought I was being slick, I didn't want to do a U-HAUL because they are horrendously uncomfortable and only have seating for 2 people, I have 3 people and 4 dogs and 2 cats I need to move with and the animals need and deserve A/C and a quiet comfortable ride as much as us humans do. The truck has a nice back area and a nice quiet ride, (for a diesel). I didn't want movers because I don't trust them to take care of my things the way I do. I'm a little OCD like that, I hate having service people of any sort messing with my stuff. It's just a thing I have. I tolerated the maid for a while, but when she quit, I never hired a new one.

I bought a big matching trailer a month ago and have been slowly loading and packing it. Since we are building a new house my things will be in storage for a while so I can keep them stored in the trailer. I am a bit pissed that the truck broke down, it took 8 hours on the side of the road calling and screaming at people eventually in the SoCal Desert without food or water or a bathroom before they sent a tow truck big enough to tow it. They showed up a few times with a Ford F350 with a T Sling on the back and the one driver actually thought he was going to try it. After a lot of laughter and getting the camera phone ready to take a "tow truck wheelie" photo he decided it was maybe a bad idea. Geeeee, ya think? So the high pressure fuel pump died on it apparently. It is now fixed but now we need to fly back out there to pick the stupid thing up. You would think a 2 year old vehicle with only 30K on it would not have these problems, I guess economic downturn left it sitting a while and sitting is really bad for vehicles.

No sooner was this truck drama taken care of than my little car threw a code, the Check Engine light came on and it started making a noise I had not heard before. I took it to the shop and they came back with almost $4000 worth of repairs. Of course everything waits until I am financially stretched thin! I paid cash for the truck and trailer and was going to sell it when I get to my destination. Right now, the money is tied up. Bought a lot of Visa stock so more money tied up. Closed up shop and not working at all so nothing coming in. WTF??? $4000 for repairs (to the smog system) is a lot to pull out of my ass at this moment. I'm thinking of selling the car. Oddly enough, the shop cleared the code and the car drives great, you would never guess it needed $4k of repairs. Of course most of that is the cost of the actual part, the smog pump on that car costs WAY more than an item like this should ever cost.

Oh well, I guess whatever happens happens. I have faith in my resourcefulness that no matter what happens I will be ok. I have a good support of people and things have a habit of working out for me in the end.

I will see you guys again from a different place. Wish me luck on my crazy trucking road trip.

Long time no update. I have had a lot going on and not had a lot of time to be on the site as of late, I guess it is a good thing there are a lot of SG's.

Why are so many people on this site being so bitchy all of a sudden? I'm not even bothering with my groups right now because so many of them seems to have someone in them who is being uncalled for rude or shitty to someone else and I don't even feel like bothering with them. Must be the season.

I hate the holidays.

My son tripped and fell tonight and smashed his face in on the back of a chair. His bridge and septum are broken and his teeth are chipped. Poor kid He was pretty unhappy but held it together. He is suffering now and there is little I can do but give him his pill and be sympathetic. This is the second time this year he has really messed himself up. I'm glad I have insurance.

So I know my parents and others didn't think much of my going to beauty school, or when I decided to go to "real college" for interior design (after a few semesters of business administration, art painting and sculpting and pre law classes) . But I have to say these educational programs have had some rather interesting applications in my real life.

Beauty school spent a lot of time covering diseases and how to notice things like AIDS sores, skin cancer and other skin infections, which was great and has helped me and others in the past. The other thing we spent a lot of time covering was color mixing. It made a lot of my interior design classes super easy since they also spend an extraordinary amount of time working on colors. And then we also spent time with finishes and upholstery.

Someone vandalized my car and I decided not to file an insurance claim, since my rates will only go up and the individual or group who thought it would be cool to put a corrosive on my paint would win extra.

Interestingly enough I found myself putting my education to work doing body and paint work on my car!

I spent all day yesterday sanding and smoothing the corroded areas and taping everything off. I went to the auto paint supply house and was able to eye match the paint pretty exactly, which is good, because after years in the sun here the factory color isn't really close to the same so the color code does not work.

I have 3 coats of color on the trunk now and it looks really good. I just finished rubbing it down with rubbing compound and will be applying the clear coat later today after it has baked dry in the hot sun.

I was feeling very motivated and decided to fill in a little ding from when my neighbors kid ran her bike into it while I was at it too. I think it is pretty good. It feels and looks straight with the rest of the car and does not seem to bend the light reflection in that area, though I guess i need to wait to put on the clear coat before I can be fully sure.

Anyway, I now can add paint matching and body work to my list of skills. It's kind of fun.