Dear baby girl parents,

Please, for the love of god, quit putting those awful headbands on your babies.  It’s not cute, it’s actually kinda tacky.  Especially those huge one where you can’t see the babies head, I mean, what are you thinking when you take that thing in to a phorotgrapher and you get your baby’s photos back and all you can really see of the kid is a big headband?  Don’t you want pictures of your actually baby?

Let’s check some of these out…

You have the flat out tacky.

Why yes, let’s put a row of daisies across my kids forehead, it’ll be sooo cute.  No, you’re wrong, it’s not cute.  It looks cheap.  Just stop.

Oh, even better.  Rather than a row of flowers, let’s put a flower as big as the kids head.  Oh and we’ll throw in a huge fake plastic sparkly thing in the middle to jazz it up a bit. 

Wrong, again.  Just. Stop.

Then, let’s add all kinds of shit to it so that we can barely recognize the kid.   A big tutu, because every girl wants to be a ballerina, right?  This weird mesh top, and again a huge ugly flower on her head.  Perfect. BARF.  I really can't even comment on this trend.  It just scares me.  I feel sorry for these girls...

Look at the expression on this kids face.  I mean come on.  She doesn’t even like the thing on her head!

Oh I ran out of flowers, we’ll do a feather thing instead.  Nooooooooooo…

Now don’t get me wrong, some of these CAN BE cute, not so tacky, and actually appear to be well made and not just some craft store stuff glued together.  But these have more of an elegant only for photos kind of feel to them.. You wouldn’t see the kid wearing it anywhere else other than this photo.  For example, this one isn’t too bad.

It looks well made, and there is a color theme going on and it all ties nicely together.

So new and old baby girl moms..please stop.

One of those days...

I’m having one of those days, when all I can think about is the things I want and don’t have.  When really I should be grateful for the things I do have, like a safe, free, place to live, a borrowed and again free car, food, clothes, new clothes, a JOB!, a computer, books, a wonderful husband, an education, health, life…

Instead, I think of all the things I want…new car, house, babies, to live in the same town with my husband. 

I hate it when I feel like this.  I keep telling myself to just suck it up and be grateful.  I have so much and what I don’t have, I can’t get because I put myself in this situation.  So I should really just shut up, stop being a jerk, and get over it.

But it’s still just one of those days…

Just wanted to say...

I hate Iowa and Nebraska.  No offense to those who like those two states.  But, I can’t stand them.  Not after my last visit.  And everyone says people from the South are slow and stupid…have you ever been to Nebraska and Iowa?  We aren’t really all that slow here in Mississippi, just a little more laid back.

Well…until you run your car through the local malt shop…then we get pissed.

This guy i think was originally from Nebraska...or at least he drives like it.

To buy or to rent...

So as I’ve posted before, I am moving to Vicksburg, MS and am looking for a place to live.  I had it all sort of worked out where I would live with a friend in Clinton, MS and commute with her husband.  Save on rent, commute time, and money.  However, that took a strange turn and it may or may not work out.  I’m giving it time to see what happens with that situation and then maybe we’ll reevaluate in about a month if all seems well.

I spent a few weeks looking for a place to rent and the options are slim, and expensive.  I could live in a shack, that might blow over in a strong wind and I might get robbed every day, for somewhere in the price range of 650-750$.  OR I could live in a crappy old house or a one bedroom/one bath apartment, for 850-1,500$ a month.  And in this economy, I just don’t see either happening.

I’ve settled, for now (see previous post), on living with my parents in Natchez, MS.  A good one and a half hour commute, one way…door to door.  But with the commute, planning, grading, and my own grad classes, I see this sucking.  A lot.  However, it will save us a lot of money and will allow us to pay off our credit cards much sooner than if I were to rent or buy something.

Now to the buying part.

We are already realizing, remember that previous post, how much this arrangement is going to suck.  So, just for fun, not knowing what my credit looks like or if I can even get a loan for a house, I decided to start looking on zillow.com again.  Just because it’s fun and I like to dream.

We had found this house before, when we first started thinking about buying.

It’s in a great neighborhood, not on a main street, and did I mention it is in a great neighborhood.  After seeing this house, twice, I decided that if and when we buy in Vicksburg, it will have to be in or around this neighborhood.  I mean, people were out walking their dogs, strolling their kids, riding their bikes, and there was even a community Frisbee game on a grassy area in the middle of the neighborhood.  Just made me want to move in and never move again.

The house itself needs a lot of work.  The owner wants 118,000$ for it, but everyone we have talked to says he won’t get it.  It’s a 3/2.  So we could have an office/guestroom and a future kids room, no problem. It’s definitely not move in ready.  It doesn’t even have a washer and dryer hookup.  All of that however could be fixed with the proper loan.  But, it’s an as is sale, meaning, you can’t really get a loan on it. Peeling paint, codes etc.  Sigh.

The nice real estate lady told us about this other house.

It’s 112,000$ and totally move in ready.  It is only a 2/1, but it has a few more square feet than the other house (I haven’t even seen this one in person, but I fell in love with it on zillow).  It’s near the other house, just right up the street really, making it 2-3 blocks closer to the school.  Not that it makes that much of a difference.  But for some reason, I’m in love with this house.  Must. Go. See. It. In. Person.

This is the house that I was thinking about renting for 850$. 

It’s a 2/1 and the lady actually has it on the market to sell for 87,000$  The neighborhood was, meh.  Or what the people in the bizz like to call, transitional.  Meaning it could go either way, up or down.  And in my opinion, that neighborhood was on it’s way doooooown. And according to zillow’s estimate on the mortgage payment, it would be under 400$ a month.  Total ripoff.  I’m sure the hell not going to pay 850$ AND utilities AND mow the grass, when it’s selling for 87,000$.  Fuck that.  It’s falling apart anyway.

So now down to the dirty.

Before we even thought about buying, my credit was really good.  Then our credit cards people’s got mad at us because we were not using our credit cards as much as they would have liked us to.  We were paying them off and using them very sparingly.  So these lovely credit card people decided to cut three of our credit cards off.  Lowering our debt to available credit ratio, putting my credit back in the toilet.  Thanks Assholes!

However, after paying off some more credit cards, I’ve realized that my credit limit on one credit card has been raised from 500 to 2750.  Which gives me much more credit than debt.  So me thinks my credit score may have gone up with that.  So I’ve got to find out exactly what my credit score is and if it’s high enough, see if I can get a loan for a house.

Our idea is that we would take our permanent situation from FL to MS.  Since that is where we won’t to move.  So Ed would rent a room from a co-worker and we could possibly buy a house.  That way we are only rally paying one large amount out and it will be more of an investment than throwing it away to some rich Indian real estate lady and her doctor husband. 

We shall see about all this.  We shall seeeeee…. Stay tuned for updates on my housing woes.

******************************************************************************
Update:

Well that was a bust...let's see what I can figure out now...

Go the Fuck Away

Most of you have heard of the book Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbacj, hilariously narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.  Well, I need to write a sequel called Go the Fuck Away.

Moving back in with your parents at the age of 28 (GASP!) is not easy.  Especially when your political and religious views don’t exactly match.  Let’s just say, could be polar opposite.  At the same time, your food preferences are completely different as well.  Not to mention, every day, one of your parents walks back to where you are and  just stands. In your door way. And looks at you.  I’m trying to decide if this is the look of, “I can’t believe you took out all that loan money to go to that expensive liberal arts college AND THEN got a masters degree and during that time spent four years abroad, and still you come back to live in my house…even AFTER you are married” or, if it’s just a curiousness, like, an animal in a zoo.  Eventually, said parent will say, “what are you doing?”  Well clearly I am ignoring you staying out of your way.  I’m obviously on my computer or my phone or reading a book or watching tv.

This is when I want to say…just go the fuck away.

But alas, they are doing me a favor, letting me live here and save money until we pay off our credit cards and the husband can get a job and move here.  So I can’t exactly be a jackass.  So I try to say something non-descript or general, like, "playing on the computer" or "nothing" or "watching tv."  Every other day, I get spunky and say, “minding my own business,” which just pisses said parent off and leaves me in a bad spot and walking on eggshells.  Not a fun way to live.

Needless to say, the house hunt has continued.  Both to buy and to rent, more on that later.

As most of you know by now, Ed’s dad, Mr. Burton (Rich) has passed away.

I’ve been avoiding writing this post and just about everything else I need to do, mostly because I’ve been lazy, also because this is hard. 

Aftter many calls from Karen (Ed’s mom) and Charles (Ed’s brother) and maybe even some from Grammy (Ed’s grandmother) asking us to please come earlier than Ed’s already bought plane ticket, I finally convinced him that we needed to go.  My parents and I had just driven down to Florida on Thursday, June 23^rd, from Mississippi to pack up some of my things for the impending separation that Ed and I are about to endure.  Sunday, while we were vistiting Karen’s cousin, his wife, and their kid, who had come down to FL for vacation, we got another call from Karen and then again from Charles, saying things had gotten worse and we needed to come immediately.  Karen told us repeatedly that Rich was just hanging on until Ed got there.

All night Sunday night we were trying to find the most reasonably priced tickets we could in order to get us there in the shortest amount of time possible.  We finally found a flight that would get us there Monday night at midnight, leaving in the late morning.  We would have to fly from Fort Myers, FL to Charlotte, NC to Milwaukee, WI and then finally to Omaha, NE where we would then have to drive what we found out would be three hours because of the Missouri River flooding and road construction.

When we got to the airport, we were trying to board the plane, I was going first, and when the nice guy at the counter scanned my ticket he said, “huh…wait a sec.”  I kind of got worried when after the second and third tries he still couldn’t get my ticket to work.  Ed volunteered that his ticket was the same and would probably do the same, and it did.

He then stopped boarding the plane and brought us over to a kiosk where he rerouted us.  I was about to say something when he said, “don’t complain, you’re going to like this.”  And we did…he rerouted us straight from Fort Myers to Wisconsin then to Omaha, shaving a big 8 hours off our trip, getting us to Rich sooner.  We had an awesome flight, with exit row seating and were able to get to Iowa by early afternoon.

Charles met us at the airport and drove us to Sioux City.  We met road construction and awful drivers the whole way, making the normal one hour trip take three hours.  Every so often, Karen would call in somewhat of a panic, asking where we were, saying we needed to hurry.  Charles of course was already doing 90+ mph when he could.

The next part is the hardest part for me.  We arrived is Sioux City and we immediately jumped out of the car and went inside, not worrying about our luggage or anything else.  When we walked upstairs to the living room, we saw the hospice bed that had been set up last time we were there and in it was the ghost of a man I once knew.  He looked nothing like himself.  Just a month before when we had been in Iowa, he was running up the stairs telling us he was not ready to die and that he was going to fight.  Unfortunately, the cancer had a different plan.  I already started to miss his, “Hey Kid!,” “Whatcha doin kiddos?,” and “hey darlin’”’s.

Ed had 22 hours with had dad before he passed.  He sat there and held his hand and talked to him.  It was one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever seen.  I kept thinking to myself, that my poor “bottom” (Ed’s nickname) had lost his mother to cancer and had now lost his father. It breaks my heart, as well as Ed’s, knowing that his parents will not be there to see our children and at the same time, we are so thankful that Karen will be there to share in those moments with us.  Grammy, who helped raise Ed and Charles when their mother died, will also be there to help our children know the great man that was their grandfather.