4 posts tagged “home”

Okay...I'm gonna do it. I am going to post at least once every day in December. That's 31 days. Thirty-one holiday season days. Am I crazy?!

Well...yeah. I probably am. But that's beside the point. The point is, I really enjoyed making the attempt at posting every day in November (from the 4th, anyway), but since I didn't manage to do it successfully for even 20 days, I just HAVE to try again. And I have to succeed. This is life or death, people.

Did I mention this is also the month of exaggeration? :-D

Right. Anyway, the suggested theme from NaBloPoMo is THANKS. (In all caps, too.) I think rather than post specifically about stuff I'm thankful for every single day, I'm gonna try to use the word "thanks" (not "thank" or "thankful" or any other variation, but "thanks") at least once in each post. Maybe I'll even get creative...or sneaky...or totally unimaginative, boring and predictable. You'll never know unless you stick around and read every day.

Well, last night I finally got to move back into my house. After the fire in my neighborhood two and a half weeks ago, we had to evacuate, and even though our house was only slightly damaged, it took that long to get repairs done, get the place de-smoke-smell-ified, and back in shape to be lived in again. I think Saturday they did some kind of sealant in the attic, or something? The house still isn't totally back to normal, though, because there are two rooms without carpet, and whatever chemical/process they used to get the smoke out put a whole different (weird) smell in its place. But I can't even tell you how great it was to sleep in my own bed last night. I mean, I was totally, completely, unbelievably blessed to have a place to stay during the time I was displaced, and it was perfect because the family was great, they lived close to my work, and they let me do my own thing and even gave me a key so I wouldn't have to coordinate with their being home in order to get inside. And Joe, of course, took excellent care of me, too. AND...my housemate (who is the homeowner) arranged all the repairs and stuff so wonderfully, and was even able to get a company to come in and take ALL of our clothes and bedding to be professionally cleaned to remove any smoke smell.

The only bummer, then, was realizing that "clothes and bedding" really meant "everything in your entire freaking room" -- so, when I walked into my room yesterday after a wonderful, relaxing weekend in LA with Joe's family, I was greeted by like 12 HUUUUUGE boxes. I mean, I couldn't really even walk INTO my room. The door wouldn't even open all the way. The boxes had taken over every corner of the place...and my first thought was, "How in the heck do I possibly have this much STUFF?" So, I just started digging into the boxes. Most of them were mini-wardrobes, meaning they had a rod across the top so that they could hang my clean clothes up. Once I got all that stuff taken out, boxes flattened, and clothes hung up or folded (all my pants, shorts, and even bathing suits were hung on hangers, too, so I had to take that all apart and put them in my dresser), my room looked a little bit more like a bedroom. But let me sum this up by saying that I spent about five straight hours last night unpacking and organizing stuff, and I'm still nowhere near having my room back in shape. But I am extremely thankful for all the hard work that has been done to get our house restored, and I was glad to finally see one of my two housemates again, and I'll be glad to see the other today, too!

So, thanks to my housemate Sarah, her amazing insurance/fire relief/restoration people, Connie (the lady who let me stay with her), Joe, and everyone else who made these last two and a half weeks more than comfortable for me as I floated around homelessly for awhile...I am seriously blessed!

Anyway, gotta sign off for now. I'll leave you with a haiku.

I can't believe there are only 35 days left of 2008.

Know what else I can't believe? ...I can't believe my house got evacuated...AGAIN. This time, it's a flash flood warning. I guess the fires not only wiped out 200 houses, but they also ruined the soil or something so that the rain doesn't have anything to soak into? Or something? Joe and I were at my house last night checking out the repairs and getting a couple things (one of which was supposed to be the mail...but I forgot), and this guy came walking down the street and asked us if we'd heard about the evacuation notice. I said, "You mean two weeks ago?" And he said, "Nope. Tonight. Flood warning." So...yeah. I wasn't planning on staying there last night anyway, but now I may come home at the end of this weekend to a floating house. In a post I made a couple weeks back (possibly a private or friends-only one), I said something about, "When it rains, it pours..." And I morphed it into, "When a fire threatens your home and your safety, everything else starts to feel threatened too." Well, now I'm thinking it's more like, "When a fire threatens your home and safety...watch out for the rain." Heh. Anyway, I'm not really too worried about my house flooding, because I live up a pretty steep hill...but like I said in an even earlier post, I'm not immune.

Oh, and let's talk about my room right now. Apparently when I was told that all my clothes and bedding would be taken out of my room to be professionally cleaned because of all the smoke smell, I misunderstood. I thought they would just take my clothes. And my bedding. Instead, they pretty much packed up everything I own, took it away to some place where they work their cleaning magic, and brought it all back in massive boxes and stuck them in the middle of my room. It's like I'm moving all over again. Only I don't have a clue where to find anything. And I'm really not excited about spending endless hours putting it all BACK where it used to go. But I AM thankful for clean stuff, and I guess it's good that they were so thorough, especially with my allergies and asthma. I'm just saying...it would've been nice to know they were gonna do that, because I might have taken a few things out of the house that I didn't want messed with. Oh well...such is life.

Moving on to other unrelated topics...my parents are heading up my direction today to spend Thanksgiving with my extended family at my grandparents'. Joe and I will be heading down in the opposite direction to spend it with his parents. I'm excited. And I'm sure I'll post about how the dinner went later this weekend, because I think I'm gonna meet Joe's grandma for the first time (who is apparently quite a character), and there'll be a bunch of other people (non-family) at the dinner tomorrow night who Joe and/or his parents are excited for me to meet.

And for another incredibly smooth segue...I am an ice cube right now. I feel like my office is a freezer. I'm wearing two sweaters (AND an undershirt), socks, jeans, shoes, and I have ANOTHER sweater over my legs. And I'm really cold. It could be because I'm also sick. And maybe a little bit because it's rainy and freezing outside.

I feel like this post is really scattered and kind of complainy. Which is not good (the latter, anyway) for the day before Thanksgiving. I guess sometimes I forget how easy it is to write about things that are lame or frustrating...or how I come across like I'm mad or cynical even though I'm really quite happy. I AM really quite happy, in fact. And I'm really looking forward to this weekend, and I'm glad to have a clean house, a repaired wall, clean stuff and even a fresh start on reorganizing my room. I'm thankful for the rain, and for family, and for Joe, and for Joe's family. I'm glad I get to work in a nice office (even if it IS really, really cold in here) with a bunch of great people. And I'm glad I only have a cold, rather than, like...cancer or something.

K...that's all for now. Happy Turkey Day Eve!

First order of business is to give the LAST (hopefully) fire update EVER: it's 100% contained! Yay! As far as our house, they're coming in this week to do a bunch of cleaning and restoration, and we're hoping to be living there again sometime next week. Double yay! Side note...is it weird that I'm a little bummed that I probably won't get to see the burn hole/damage on our wall before it gets fixed up? Sounds like it's going to get a temporary fix today until they can fully restore the wall, so unless they don't do it until after 6 or so, I'm gonna walk in to an already-being-restored house, and I'll never have gotten to see it in its original post-fire state. Maybe Sarah has some pictures, though. *Sigh* Okay...I'm officially CLOSING this discussion forever. NEVER gonna talk about the Tea Fire again. Never. Ha. Yeah right. But hopefully there will be nothing new or crazy to report regarding the fire, and anything related to it will be either funny, encouraging, thoughtful or otherwise not devastating, worrisome or boring. That's the plan.

Second: Ho...lee...cow. I have not had a single second to breathe today! I started this post when I first got to work (since I was early) and now it's 4:15 and I'm forcing myself to take a five minute break. But I totally don't remember what the "Second" was going to be, waaaaay back when I started writing. So...okay then. How about another haiku...or two?

Work takes much focus
Sometimes, I possess little
Please don't tell my boss

I love Christmas-time
Especially gift shopping!
What's on your wish list?

My bedroom is an absolute disaster. I'm not even exaggerating. I don't know how it happens, either. I mean I only spend like half an hour in my room AWAKE every day, if that. Yet somehow, no matter how often I clean it right back up again, it keeps turning into a scene from my mom's worst nightmare (that is to say, my mom always dreaded I would grow up and never learn how to keep a clean room).

Part of the problem may be that, when I notice how messy it's gotten, rather than stop and DO something about it, I think, Geez, this is awful! I should probably clean it up... OR I could use it to inspire me to do some journaling, get my fingers a little keyboard exercise. Yes...yes, I think that might be part of the problem. But only part.

Anyway, in addition to discovering nablopomo.com the other day, I also came across a website called mapmyrun.com. It's incredible. Okay, maybe incredible is a little extreme, but listen. It's really cool! You can search for routes that other people have mapped out, or you can create your own. It will track the distance of the whole route, and add mile markers, water stops, and any number of other markers and notes you want to put in there. It even tells you the elevation during your route, and what the total incline is from the lowest point in the route to the highest. AND once you've saved a route, you can then input your time, age, weight, etc., to see how many calories you burned and other great stuff like that. Basically I think it's incredible. But I already said that.

So this weekend I'm going home (that is to say, the home where I grew up, where the rest of my immediate family still resides, and where my mom's 50th birthday party will be held on Saturday). And I've already mapped out a three-mile run in my neighborhood and hoping/planning to tackle it on Saturday morning. It will be my first time running more than 2 1/2 miles at one time (outside, that is; I've done it millions of times on the elliptical machine), and my first time running on purpose in the desert since PE class in high school. Maybe even middle school. But it's November, so I'm hoping it won't be too hot. And I'm certain it won't be too cold. And I don't think I'll get lost...but I wouldn't put it past me.

Wow...I just thought about the prospective readers here, now that I'm finally getting a little publicity on this blog through NaBloPoMo (and maybe BlogHer.com), and you all must think I'm ridiculous. Especially since I forgot to preface my post with my usual disclaimer, which is this: I am the queen of the tangent. The tangent is my best friend and my worst enemy. I have conceded to the fact that I will never escape the tangent. And I have embraced this fact.

And speaking of haikus, I have a new friend on my nablopomo page who is taking the challenge and writing a haiku every day. This brought to mind the fact that I haven't written a haiku since the one I composed for Dr. Cathey, my UCO director at APU, for his birthday a couple years ago. And that fact is simply tragic. Thus, I will conclude tonight's post with a brand new, Tabitha original haiku. I make no promises about its creative quality or relevance to anything within this post (or without it). Thank you.