I can’t get to aflux from home. I don’t know if it’s a DNS error or what but it sucks balls.

We’ve been busy, busy, busy working on the house. Ben’s been painting the garage and I’ve been trying to get the last of the unpacking done and the back yard cleaned up more. There’s pictures of all of it if you click on one of the flickr photos up there.

Other than that, things have been pretty much normal and everyday grind type of stuff.

Weekdays: Get up, work, gym, homework, dinner, sleep, rinse, repeat.
Weekends: Get up, work on house, eat, work on house, eat again, work on house some more, pass out exhausted on the couch, watch TV, sleep, rinse, repeat.

I kinda feel bad about not blogging as much though so I’ve decided to start video taping more and posting them here and there and all across the web for you awesome people to enjoy. Here is a little gem that happened Monday after school.

Happy Wednesday! FOUR DAY WEEKEND AHEAD! YAY!!

My little brother turned 20 years old yesterday so I decided to do an interview while we were at Olive Garden eating dinner.

For the record I hardly EVER swear in front of my mom. Seriously.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAMERON!

This is a shot I took last week but wanted to use it for my Macro Monday shot today. This is the guts of a light bulb from the master bathroom that fell and shattered when Ben was changing them out. I loved how it looked so I snapped some shots of it before throwing it away.

I wanted to make my twitter and delicious lists prettier and of course I couldn’t stop there! You should click them and follow me so that we can be friends! I’m a good friend. I have lots of clothes you can borrow and I’m always willing to trade my lunch with you.

I have an awesome post half written up that I’ll get posted tomorrow all about Ben getting an email alert when I’m going to start being premenstral and, seriously, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIVE PMSBUDDY.COM!? I’m not sure who loves it more although I’m pretty sure that Ben can come up with some good reasons that it’s him.

Till tomorrow, blog friends!

Five years ago tomorrow Ben showed up at my house in Bakersfield at 3AM and told me “Move now or we are going to fall apart.”

I moved, we still almost fell apart, and then I got on some good medicine and now, five years later, I’m closer to sane than ever. We still have good days and we still have some bad ones. I’m still a bit crazy and he’s still the rock of stability I cling to when I feel my outer wall start to crumble a bit. He’s SUCH AN AMAZING father to a tween that doesn’t make it easy a lot of the time.

I read blogs from that time and I think, “Who the hell IS that girl!?” I had no clue where I was going or where I needed to be. Now, we’re married, we just bought our first home together, I am in the place I was searching for endlessly back then, HERE is where I was always meant to be.

Also, he’s as hot as ever and he still makes me laugh (at MYSELF) every single day.

Happy Kinda Anniversary, Ben. (k)

PS - That’s a picture of us in Pismo about five years ago taken by the awesome Miss Lisa.

So, I’ve been really BAD about getting photos up but it PAINS me to have to take a bunch of pictures of BOXES in the NEW HOUSE because that’s not what I want it’s “first impression” to be.

I know I need to just get over it. Meh. We are nearing the finish line with the unpaking though so hopefully there will be some soon.

INSTEAD! VIDEO*! YAY!

We wanted Hans to get to go outside to smell around but neither one of us was comortable with just letting him out loose and free so we picked up a small dog halter at PetSmart. We decided to put it on a bit before letting him go out to get used to the halter and OMG it was the best 30 minutes of comedy EVER. When we put the thing on him he immediately started walking like he was drunk and would THROW himself onto the ground and grind around to try and get it off. He’d highstep his walking and rub himself against walls then just suddenly SLAM his body into the ground. It was serioulsy awesome.

That’s also the new video camera I bought FOREVER AGO from Macy’s and arrived the DAY BEFORE we moved. When I saved the video I should have used the max settings. Ah well, live and learn. I’ll probably be doing a write up of it on my review site soon.

*No animals were harmed in the making of this video, however, the humans are a bit sore from laughing so hard.

We are officially in the NEW HOUSE. I will continue to capitalize till the NEW HOUSE feel wears off because that’s how I say it in real life. “We went to the NEW HOUSE last night to unlock the gate so the guy could get into the back yard of the NEW HOUSE to work on the NEW HOT TUB.” People look at me a little odd when I say it but no more than usual so I’m used to it.

There was more NEW HOUSE drama yesterday when after work, I swung by the old house to pick up the cats and all the alcohol. I’m not sure why the most important things made it to the NEW HOUSE last.

Ben and the movers had been there and gone so the house was dead quiet and pretty empty. Both the cats aren’t really people lovers so I wasn’t surprised that they’d gone outside when their territory was invaded by several Samoans who were taking all their stuff away.

Hans was in the back yard and when I opened the door he was a little wary, but as soon as he saw it was me he came running and was all, “MAI HOOMAN!! I HAZ HAPPY AND REEKWIRE KEESES AND HUGZ!!” But I couldn’t find KC anywhere. I hung around for an hour and a half packing my car up and calling and calling and Hans kept looking at me like “MY GAWD I’M RIGHT HERE” but no KC anywhere. She’s usually the one that never leaves the yard, or the HOUSE for that matter, so I was a bit concerned. I ended up leaving Hans for that trip thinking that if she came back, he’d be there too so she’d hang around.

I told Ben I was worried so after dinner we drove back over in the truck to pack up a load of the smaller stuff and again we called and called and no KC. I packed up Hans to take back to the NEW HOUSE and as we drove away Ben assured me that KC was probably just hiding out somewhere still pissed off at the ENORMOUS men that had been in her house all afternoon and that she’d turn bacK up. I was pretty sick with worry. I honestly don’t know how the fat ass could have gotten over a fence… she has a hard time hauling all the weight onto our BED. Plus, she has no front claws so I had this horrible vision of some bastard male cat tearing her up. I left the back door open and her food and water dish out so she could get to it and decided to come back before work in the morning to look for her again.

So we get Hans to the NEW HOUSE and he’s not please AT ALL. He hides behind the toilet for the first hour then follows me around letting me know he’s pissed for the rest of the time till we got into bed around 11:00PM. I took a shower and passed the hell out since we’d been up till 1:30 AM that morning doing last minute packing and disassembling furniture for the movers.

For two whole hours I slept and it felt SO GOOD…

And then at 1:00AM Hans started meowing. And meowing. And meowing. And meowing.

Hans doesn’t like to use litter boxes. He goes outside like a dog to do his business but there’s no way I’m turning him loose in a new neighborhood when he’s not even used to the house yet. He’ll use the litter box if it’s NECESSARY, but otherwise he’ll hold it till somebody lets him out.

Ben: Do you think he forgot where the litter box is?
Me: *mumble*
Ben: I’m going to take him downstairs and show him again.
Me: *mumble*

OMG QUIET! *fall asleep*

Five minutes later…

Ben: I think he’ll be better now.
Me: Did he go?
Ben: He pooped and peed.
Me: Awesome.

OMG QUIET! *fall alseep*

Five minutes later Hans started meowing. And meowing. And meowing. And meowing.

At 2:00AM I put a pillow over my head to try and sleep.

At 3:00AM I put ANOTHER pillow over my head to try and sleep.

At 4:00AM he caught on and SAT ON MY HEAD and clawed at my arm.

At 4:30AM my alarm clock went off so I could leave early to check for KC and the old house.

So I got 4 hours of sleep Wednesday and 2 hours last night. And I want to strangle Hans with his own tail.

At 4:45AM Ben and I both got up… and Hans stopped meowing. He got so quiet, in fact, that Ben was worried he had gotten outside. I don’t think he did. I was REALLY careful when I was leaving to make sure that he wasn’t anywhere near the door. I think he’s just SO EXHAUSTED FROM KEEPING US UP ALL NIGHT that he climbed into a pile of boxes somewhere to fall asleep.

I got to the old house at 5:30AM, held my breath and opened the door… and there is KC. Her reaction was completely different than Hans’. It was more like, “WTF HOOMAN!? I HAZ BEEN UP ALL NITE! U R GROUNDED!” I was so overcome with relief that I walked over to pick her up and give her love and she turned her back to me and pranced away like “WHATEVER, I HAZ NO LOVE 2 GIVE.”

So now I’m at work and EXHAUSTED and frustrated and I both cats are pretty high up on my shit list. I think that part of Hans freaking the fuck out last night was that KC was missing. I mean, part of it was being that he couldn’t go out but he usually stays in all night and doesn’t go out till I get up in the morning. But it’s a new strange place and his buddy was missing and I think that had KC been there, he wouldn’t have been quite as freaked out. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself now. If he pulls that shit again tonight I’m gonna lock him in the bathroom with the litter box and food. If I don’t get some sleep tonight there’s a good chance I’LL start pacing the room meowing…

Other than all that, the house is AWESOME. I unpacked a lot of the kitchen last night and every time I walk through a room I love it more and more and more. This just feels so RIGHT. This place, this time, it’s so right for us. We are going to be really happy here.

*deep breath*

I deactivated Intense Debate. It hurt my heart a little to do it because all the folks there have been REALLY AWESOME with my constant desire to FIX THIS! AND NOW THAT! But aflux’s load times with ID deactivated is MUCH better. Much.

Also, it was causing about 111 validation errors and apparently that’s like, really, really important to some anonymous people on the internet. *nods*

Unfortunately, the process to import all those comments back into the WordPress database via the control panel is causing a memory error and until I can call my host to have that fixed, they have all disappeared. If I get time I’ll do it today but I just wanted to let you all know I haven’t deleted you! Just kinda hidden you in the back of a closet till I can find the time to organize you all neatly again.

I also got rid if IZEA’s ad over there *points right*. It was a “test ad” that they used to create some data points. I will miss it though because it was bringing in some decent money but, meh. It was causing validation errors also, and again, VERY IMPORTANT to be XHTML compliant if the original theme developer puts a link there!

And yeah, I need to add some kind of styling to the tweets and delicious feeds but they’ve taken a pretty big back seat to all the damn house drama. I’ve neglected pretty much every online project and community over the last few weeks (excluding Twitter of course, I’m busy, not DEAD).

By the way, did I mention?!

WE ARE HOMEOWNERS! We got keys yesterday and found a reason to get over to the house last night and took some clothes and food over with us. There is SO MUCH I want to write about the process of buying our first home. SO. FUCKING. MUCH. But today I need to just concentrate on getting work done, then getting home to pack the last of the stuff up before the movers come tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday, all!

I had a really cool first post from the new Wordpress iPhone app all typed out and then the save button disappeared and the app ate it.

Now all you get is this sad little post instead.

Tonight we spent an hour and a half signing the final paperwork for the house which means NO MORE HOOPS!! YAY! The papers should arrive at the title company Monday morning then Countrywide can fund and we’ll get keys either Monday or Tuesday. I was REALLY hoping that we would get to move this weekend and have next week to unpack while Cassidy is at her Nana and Papa’s but I guess we’ll make it work.

OMG WE JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE.

Thank you all for the kind words and encouragement in the comments of the last post. I REALLY needed to remember that there was actually reason for all this misery because I was being a whiny brat.

Now I’m going to go drink a glass of wine. Or nine.