My Reasons

By the time you're done reading this entry I hope all you out there in the blogoworld will understand more WHY o WHY I call my mother-in-law the Crazy Cat Lady, if you don't already that is. Plus when I refer to her as such in future posts I will have something to link back to for all those new comers I keep getting who don't comment ;-) j/k . . . mostly :-D

Top 34,379 reasons I refer to her as the Crazy Cat Lady

1. She thinks having 29 cats (on a slow day) is no problem, humanitarian even.
2. EVERY CAT is maimed, mangled or missing some appendage and she has a sob story for each one.
3. She feeds said mangy cats table scraps, not because she monitors their diets and feeds them healthy foods, it's because she is THAT poor.
4. She thinks that living in COUNTY, and NOT within the city limits, means she has a farm.
5. She also has two dogs and 10 chickens.
6. She thinks Typhoid is lurking around every corner and will strike my 2 year old if I let anyone babysit her, including family, could be a possiblity at her house.
7. After 3 days of looking for it and thinking we were just out, I found my peanut butter in the fridge, kid says "Gramma put it in there" - of course she did.
8. She attempts to cut the grass, of THREE houses, with a weed eater cause it's "gotta get done".
9. She says she wants to keep as many of her 3 properties as possible cause it's "money in the bank" - but she refuses to ever sell or make any money off them cause she wants them to stay in the family.
10. She hand picks fleas and ticks off all her animals.
11. She has a revolving line of credit at the vet's office.
12. She once spent EVERY night of 2 months walking up and down a canal (filled with crackheads and homeless) calling a lost cat "VEEEEEELLLLLCRROOOOOOO".
13. She does a 5:00am cat roll call for breakfast, and thinks that everyone is (or should be) up by that time.
14. She then goes back in the house and takes a 1-2 hour bath.
15. She bathes several times a day, not for hygiene, but because there is a slow leak that fills the tub and she hates to waste water.
16. When not bathing, she hooks up a hose to this faucet and waters her back yard, but not in a productive way, she just floods one area.
17. She mutters to herself EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY, yes I DO know that for sure, trust me, she's loud and I can hear her through any open window.
18. She lives next door - oh wait - maybe that would be a reason why *I would be crazy.
19. She thinks people are going to scale her 10 foot tall iron gate/fence and break in if she leaves her front door unlocked for more than 5 minutes.
20. She once told me she wanted to leave a gun in MY house (with four kids) because she was afraid if she left in her house someone would break in and steal it.
21. She is convinced that people are "watching the houses" and waiting to take her prized unicorn collection or big screen TV if we all leave somewhere together.
22. She stops crackheads and homeless people collecting recycleables out of our garbages to either congratulate them or tell them to get away from her haul - don't know which - I just know I constantly see her out there at her gate talking to these folks.
23. Most times I think THEY have the look of "wow, this person really is nuts".
24. She avoids (at all costs) driving on the freeway because she thinks the speed limit is still 50pmh and every ELSE is driving crazy when they pass (and flip her off I'm sure) while she does 45.
25. She thinks bringing her rental house up to code is just "makin it FANCY" and doesn't REALLY need to be done.
26. She STILL thinks that drying her laundry on the line outside, in the middle of cat country, in the middle of the ghetto and city, in the smog and acid rain, makes them smell fresh as the day they were made.
27. She leaves laundry on the line during rain storms is just like another rinse cycle and makes em smell EVEN BETTER!
28. She once gave my 3 month old baby a crumbled up TUMS in her bottle because she thought she had gas, there were baby gas drops in the cabinet.
29. She spends HUNDREDS of dollars on bulbs every year that rot because she never plants them and then complains that she is "ALWAYS BROKE!"
30. Huh, only 30 so far? OH, she calls my new house an apartment because she thinks all townhouses are crap and you'd never convince her otherwise.
31. I once looked out the window and saw her SITTING in the ENGINE of her old-ass truck while she had this guy TURN IT ON so she could see what the problem was.
32. To hang Christmas lights, she puts a one sided ladder in the back of her truck and has her crotchety old friend Tilly spot her.
33. She cuts wood with a circular saw leaning one side up against her leg.
34. She cuts said wood, and twigs, and sticks so she can fit more in her garbage can. She does it all covert-like cause the garbage man won't take yard waste so she puts it in between other garbage.
35. She puts cat crap on the top of her garbage can to "keep people from going through her garbage and getting important information".

Yeah, I think I can stop there for now. I'll just add updates when I think of them, I'm sure it won't be long.

Just A Matter of Time

Well things went well with Lois Loan yesterday, inspite of my horrific migraine that had me pulling over 3 times on the way to home to heave. So if it was still a good day besides the fact that I lost like 3 pounds yesterday from being sick then it MUST have been good! I had to go without the MAN but we sat and got everything hammered out and she spelled out EXACTLY what I needed to do, which was good since my attention span at the end of the 1 1/2 hour meeting with a migraine was like 2 seconds. Things are looking great for us and we feel a lot more secure with her in charge of things, but I still feel a little shaky and weak from yesterday so today's lil post will be a lil pick-me-up for me! w00t!

I don't know if you've noticed, but I have a little countdown thingy on my right sidebar there. I had to adjust it to the day we should have the keys but evenso, today is the 30 day mark folks! So in honor of 30 days I'm making a list!

• I will only have to hear the 5:00am cat roll call 29 more times! (We're moving within city limits BABY! No more than 3 cats allowed!)
• Only 29 more days of moving 3 cars just to get out of my vertical driveway! (w00t! for 2 car garage!)
• Only 29 more days to worry about pop-ins from the MIL when I least expect and can handle it! (she won't drive 45 min. to see us unless she calls first, and if she does I won't answer just to teach her a lesson! :-D)
• Only 20 days left of summer vacation! (YAY BACK TO SCHOOL!)
• Only 29 more days left of worrying about returning to "Georgia" at any moment! (You can't expect much from a 30 year old cooling system held together with wire and string)
• Only 4, MAYBE 5, more times of walking into a sauna to do laundry (dryer vent doesnt work) while being chased by the washer! (woohoo new washer and dryer!)
• Only apx. 25 days of watching for the mail man and RUNNING to get the mail for two reasons, either a crack head will get it or the Crazy Cat (and dog) (oh and chicken) Lady next door (MIL) - don't know which one worries me more... (if she gets the mail she forgets to give me mine for at least a week and I only get what she can find)
• Only 29 more days of hiding any food scraps in the garbage so the CCL doesn't feed it to her dogs (I only keep it because its old, gross food like 3 week old pizza)
• Only apx 14 days of sharing our room with our 2 year old because all the other kids are home and she has no where else to go! (She's MOOOOvin on UUUUP to sharing a room with her sister - can I get a w00t w00t!)
• Only 29 more days of living with clutter EVERYWHERE and not knowing WHAT to do about it! (yeah yeah I know, but I can dream!)
• Only 29 more mornings spent cleaning applesause, bananas, and oatmeal off the old nasty carpet! (ALL TILE DOWNSTAIRS BABY! no more banana-green bean suprise between my toes)
• Only 29 more days of keeping the curtains closed and all that beautiful sunlight out (it was either dark days or watching a non-stop parade of crackheads and homeless - I stand by my choice)
• Only 29 more days of tip-toeing throughout the house and keeping after the kids to keep quiet after the baby goes to bed (this house creaks and cracks worse than an old woman!)
• Only 29 more days of listening to CCL refer to my new house as an apartment, once she sees it she better recognize (who am I kidding, it's gonna be A LONG TIME before she gets to visit!)
• Only 29 more days until I can get out and meet people! (people who don't think Typhoid is still around every corner!)
• Only 65 more days until I pay a mortgage for a house I actually LIVE in! (see yesterdays entry to make any damn sense of that statement)
• Only 28 more chances of walking out the door in the morning to step in a moist pile of youdontwannaknowwhatcameouttathatcat (I HATE CATS I HATE CATS I HATE CATS)
• 7 more days until we pay off every medical, credit or otherwise, debt we have! Debt free baby! w00t! (at least this mess with his mom will pay off with her down payment on buying our house)
• 29 more days of only having Lodi-Duck-Poo-Lake or Woodward-Muckville-Reservoir to take these poor kids swimming (YAY POOL! less than 20 feet from my front door)
• 3 more weeks until I can actually go to a mom's group meet up that I joined MONTHS ago (I'll need something to do for the week(s) that the kids are in school but I don't have the keys to our house yet!)
• Only 29 more days of seeing that count down widget and hoping if I stare at it hard enough it will say 1 more day! (COME ON COME ON COME ON - SAY 1 DAMN YOU!)
• Only 29 more days before my REAL life begins! (I know that sounds lame, but I just don't feel like I belong HERE, I don't fit in HERE, this kind of living is just not for me and YAY WE'RE GETTING THE F**K OUT!)

Ok, I think that's a long enough list . . . for now ;-) Ahhhhh, I feel better now. A little more up beat and positive! Maybe I'll go pack something! w00t!

TNT!

House Update

So I may or may not have an appointment with my loan lady (Lois Loan) at 11:00 this morning to discuss the industrial sized monkey wrench that was thrown into the workings our house buying process.

This all started last week when the MAN called and talked to the guy handling my MIL's paperwork. We originally met with him with the idea of him handling all of our business but we went with the builder's loan people due to some incentives they gave out. He told us this whole process would be EASY. That he could handle EVERYTHING for the process of selling our property to his mother. HA! He tells us that since it's family, all she has to do is assume the loan on our property and transfer her to title and us off - DONE! HA! He also says that way there is no loan process or appraisal needed - HA! So for MONTHS we have been operating under these details and just the other day he called to see what the hold up was NOW. There have been SEVERAL exasperating details that have come up within this whole process that have basically had us tearing our hair out and screaming at the skys "WHY O WHY is she so CRAZY?!"

That's when he tells us that "well I can't transfer her to your title, YOUR loan person has to do that" AND "well you can't just have her ASSUME your loan, you have to refinance and in that case she would have to qualify and we would have to get it appraised" AND HE SAYS "I really don't KNOW if she'll qualify" - !!!!! Needless to say, we're freaking out just a little. We were banking on her buying that house so we could qualify for the new house. We needed that sale for the down payment on said new house. We also can't just turn around and sell it to someone else because A) we don't have the time and B) she has TRASHED the place since she's living in it. Oh, it's just so damn stressful even to think about this whole thing.

So the MAN called Lois Loan and she says "Not to worry" and that there is some form we can fill out and say that she is leasing to buy our house. That she is putting a down payment on it and is going to buy it SOME DAMN DAY. Which all sounds super, as long as we can still qualify for OUR house with all that hanging over our heads. It also means that we have to get a renter into the property of MILs that we are currently in because that would be the ONLY money to cover the mortgage on the house she is buying from us . . . are you lost? Cause I am :-(

MIL owns properties A and C, we own property B and all properties are next to each other as they were bought when Adam was a boy. We live in A because we have hella kids and she was SUPPOSED to give it to DH when she inherited it in the FIRST PLACE. He spent months renovating it after she TRASHED it by living in filth with her 27 cats for 5 years. She lives in our house B because it's small but has a huge lot and she can just KISS IT! House C is currently vacant as she was renting it but they screwed her and now DH has been renovating THAT house for months. She was going to sell it but because she has a mortgage on IT, now it looks like she'll have to rent it again. I DON'T CARE WHAT THE HELL SHE DOES AS LONG AS I GET THE F**K OUT. She doesn't want to sell it anyway, she thinks all this property is "money in the bank" as she puts it, even though everything she touches turns to crap and is basically worthless. But again, I DONT CARE AS LONG AS I GET THE F**K OUT. Now of course this doesn't sound nearly as frustrating as it seems like I make it out to be, but TRUST ME, IT IS. You would think she would be at least SOMEWHAT greatful for all the renovations her son has done to her houses FOR FREE, but what she does is blame him for everything she can think of and if she can't think of anything she makes it up. I swear she does, I've seen her do it. Plus she talks A LOT of shit. She goes around telling people that we're "buying some crappy little townhouse that's no better than living in an apartment" and "we just think we're fancy and need some fancy house to make us feel better even though we can't really afford it" and there's more of course, we know because these people make comments to us about our "sad little apartment we're paying too much money for". Which in reality could not be farther from the truth.

BUT WHATEVER. I guess I'm a little more upset with her than I realized when starting this post. I am just so tired. So tired of her little games and her talking shit and being in my business. Yesterday, in the middle of telling me that my baby cries whenever she comes over because I DUMP HER OFF ON HER TOO MUCH, (she NEVER babysits anymore cause i don't trust her)and then when i tried to tell her that ACTUALLY she needs to be around more people because she is only EVER with me and cries whenever anyone else is around and thats not healthy (SHES 2) she finished with *insert decrepid old lady voice here "WEEEEELLLL, you can't expose her to people cause she might get TYPHOID! It's CRAZY out there these days ya know!" Then as I was picking my jaw up off the floor she slipped out the back before I could ask her what the F**K was wrong with her. One day I will have to tell all of you (3) lovely internet folk why it is that we call her the Crazy Cat Lady.

All that being said, and it was a lot to say, I should get going. I must feed 4 kids, chase and diaper one, shower and try to look presentable in this humid 80 degree RAINY weather, and call the CCL to come watch said heathens and try to remind her that YES I DID TELL YOU ABOUT THIS ALREADY DONT ACT LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW! So I will go. and I WILL conquer. and I will come back to tell you all why i KNOW she is CRAZY. So thanks for all (3 of you) supporting me through this trying time, even if it is just by reading my thoughts without commenting ;-) j/k . . . mostly . . .

OK, TNT!

Lessons Learned

Okay, here are a few things I have learned...

• I.NEED.air.conditioning.to.FUNCTION!
• They don't call it a "swamp cooler" for nothin!
• "Swamp cooler" + hot temps = Georgia in the summer time.
• I don't EVER want to visit the south during the summer time.
• I don't like sweating just walking from one end of the house to the other - I have a small house.
• No AC + 106 degree temps = 1 CRANKY mama!
• I you live in Texas or Tennessee and still want my cranky ass to visit, it will take MANY mango-tini's to get me there!
• It's really dumb to add an exercise habit to your SMART Habits Saturdays when you have no gym membership, no AC, and it's 14,000 degrees outside.
• I wish my friends lived closer, and had AC, and had no jobs so I could hang out in their air conditioned goodness all damn day.
• I.NEED.AIR.CONDITIONING.TO.FUNCTION
• I love digital (hehe - thought that was gonna be about AC didn't ya?! Stealthy...that's me)
• I don't love taking 238,937 pictures and having 15 come out - but I love it digital instead of on film!
• I love scrapbooking, but not even THAT is fun in "Georgia" (read: my house after 11:00am)
• Scrapbooking on the fly is more difficult that I thought, fun, but difficult
• I love finding cheap scrappy stuff - makes it WAY easier to justify to the MAN! (got a sweet travel case normal $39.99 for $7.48!!!!! - JoAnn's ya'll)

Hmmm what else have I learned not related to scrapbooking and hating "Georgia" . . .

• Blogging with pictures is easier/better than without.
• It ALSO helps if you have a point.
• Most times I have one of those, guess which one!
• I love comments.
• I am a comment whore.
• According to a BFF, "that's better than being just a regular whore" - I'll take it ;-)
• I miss REAL smileys, like the one on IM that does the "loser" thing with the L on the foreheard = funny :-D
• I miss having my girlfriends around, I didn't appreciate it enough while they were here.
• And even if I did, which I might have, it still sucks.
• I can not WAIT to have tile floors.
• CARPET SUCKS by the dinning room (read:by the high chair)
• I am a procrastinator.
• I already knew that, I just put off admitting it ;-) (hehe - get it? ;-) yeah that's about the level of humor around here at 7:00 and it's already "Florida" in here (read: 77 degrees w/ a humidity of 100%ish)
• Running out of time to plan the day out of the damn house...coffee is done...so is this entry...

TNT! Wish me sanity people, luck is just not with me... :-D