More Tidying Up

See the "hoopty car" the "hoopty cat" on the "hoopty road". >^;^<

While couch surfing at my old roommate's house we got her hair colored, visited and enjoyed each other's company, did some shopping, and worked out several survival scenarios for me. I finally got the car loaded up with everything I absolutely needed to run my online business and conduct personal business. The car was divided into six zones. The trunk was one zone and contained the jewelry making tools and supplies, camping/survival equipment, shipping supplies, and miscellaneous stuff crammed into the available space. The backseat was three zones that housed paperwork, Ebay items to sell and listed, and the electronics. That would be the laptop, printer, lighting, postal scale, extra camera, and such. The backseat also contained a box of stuff for my friend in Missouri that I'd stored for her for years, plus five full boxes of dolls and props and items to sell. I'd say I managed to cram my poor little Ford Escort with at least $4000 worth of saleable items. As I drove I was making $60 per day on the Ebay site.

In the passenger seat I had three more boxes crammed in, plus a litter pan, scoop, and a huge animal cage that was broken down so that Spike could sit up high in the pan looking at the traffic and scenery whizzing by. I have some great pictures to upload, however I just bought a new laptop and no software for the camera so that will be a separate project sometime today.

I got on the road around 5:00 pm Sunday night. I made it past Wheeling as I headed west on 70, then I stopped for the night at the 350 mile point. I roughly estimated that there was another 650 to make on Monday. It was more important to get on the road and stop for a rest by 11:00 pm. I stayed at a Red Roof Inn which is pet friendly. Being somewhat organized I brought in the litter pan, Spike and his food and water dishes, my pillow and bag, and the map and directions. I even carry a water heater to make my coffee in the morning. I cleaned up, popped a Benadryl, and sacked out. In the morning I was able to hop out of bed refreshed and rested by 8:00 am. By 9:00 Spike and I were on the road. The car did great and by 9:00 pm I was at the house. I was sweating out the condition of the car the entire trip.

It was great seeing Marie, Brock, and two of the grandkids. These were the quiet ones, thank goodness. I got a load of the younger grandkids a few days later and that was a shock to the system! I'm glad they are staying with their mother, while the two older boys are staying with Brock in the trailer. All last week I worked on my projects and supervised the boys while grandma and daddy were at work. I never heard a word about the potential contract jobs in Philly so the plan now is to take some temp or Walmart work here and earn the $208 a week allowed while still collecting unemployment. Between that and Ebay I should be able to make over $4000 a month with expenses now of just $400. That should certainly help me buy a van by the end of October. It would be nice if the accident case would settle, but I will no longer rely on that.

It is a beautiful Saturday morning. I think we are all going shopping for a cheap computer desk for me to set up a permanent workplace. I expect we will find something for about $20-30. That and a fold-up chair should work fine. So there is nothing much else to share. I have loads of paperwork to finish sorting and handling, and am ready to push major items onto the Ebay store on Sunday. I did find a Universalist Unitarian Fellowship in the area and will try to get to a service on Sunday morning. That may be a good way to network for jobs, vans, and free zucchini and squash. Plus I enjoy doing good works. I see now that homelessness and social justice appear to be my personal missions.

Still Tidying Up

Wow! I got out on Wednesday night after selling the sleep number bed for $375 cash to a very nice young man. We laid on the bed together to get the air out of the inner chambers and just chatted about moms and sons, pouncing on good deals on Craigslist, and working with computers. I was sweating it out a little that the bizarre and crazy roommate would come home and there would be a scene. But she never showed up.

It was a hot, humid, enervating day. I moved out in stages. The first stage you couldn't tell anything was gone and the car was crammed full of my craft organizer drawers, bags or crafts, and other miscellaneous items. The second trip consisted of the two sets of white plastic drawers, perfect for my van one day, plus nearly all of the Ebay items, jewelry business supplies, and every single thing that is important to me. The kitchen still looked like nothing was touched, the AC, TV, and bed were still set up, and the bathroom things were in place. Someone would have had to search my bedroom to glean my plans. But the kitchen cupboard that I used was M-T! Is that stealthy or what? LOL

After Dan came and got the bed, and after we loaded it into his teeny, tiny car, I cleaned the basement, bathroom, and kitchen. Then in order of importance I loaded the car. I didn't get any serious bites for the TV or AC, so I ran them over to my old roommate's house to give to her. She has the cats for me--a real friend! Then I made one last run back to the house for last minute stuff. I actually forgot my bathroom scale and a USB cord for my printer. Dang it! But I was out of there and felt so happy and free for the first time in months. I sang and giggled all the way back to Little Bird's house to spend the night. I told the crazy roommate in a text message the next morning that I was driving the cats to Missouri--all true except for the exact details of when.

As it turned out I couldn't make the trip happen on Thursday as hoped. It was incredibly hot and I was feeling poorly from the stress, the heat, and the lack of good nutrition, and just couldn't get moving. I actually ate nothing on Wednesday which didn't help. It felt like I was getting a cold or sinus infection so I loaded up on fruit and started to recover Friday night. I did a few more loads Friday and was still moving things into storage on Saturday morning. I spent four hours at my son's apartment just going through paperwork and finding his tax information. I threw away four huge garbage bags of paperwork and consolidated everything. My son and I went over his list of paperwork things to do and prepped for his court date Tuesday for a traffic ticket. Then I loaded up the car with more things to give Little Bird and headed over to her house to spend the night.

We went out to dinner last night and watched several episodes of The Rifleman. She gets such a kick out of the phallicly charged opening scene where Chuck Connors is rapidly firing his specially engineered rifle. It is the money shot that makes all grandmas' hearts beat faster. We often wonder if they knew what it looked like when the series was filmed. That little smirk on Chuck Connors face tells me that he knew exactly what he was doing. Heh heh.

So now it is Sunday and I'm still not on the road to Missouri. And I didn't win anything on PowerBall for July 7, 2007. Shoot! It is 8:45 am and Little Bird won't be up for hours. I'll dress and unload the car, and then work on my son's taxes with a nice cup of coffee. Around noon I'll go to his apartment and load my basket of clothes, box of toiletries, and whatever. I'll stuff food into the nooks and crannies of my trunk. Then it's back to Little Bird's house to color her hair and try to load my boxes into the back seat. Anything that won't fit is getting wrapped and addressed to mail to Marie's in Missouri. Little Bird will hold those boxes until I get to Missouri and know for a fact that I do NOT have a job. If I have a job there is no reason to mail anything out there. Then when the car is loaded and I've eaten a veggie burger for lunch, Spike the big fat kitty will be put into the car and off we'll go. It is a 983 mile trip, the beginning of it on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a long, boring ride. And oh joy, it is the end of a major vacation week and the start of a major heatwave. It isn't getting any better this week. Oh, I have to remember to do some errands today on the way to and back from Dawg's apartment. Close safe deposit box at the bank, return item to Walmart and buy some necessities, see if the Mailboxes Etc place is open today or not, and check the PO box. And leave some envelopes for Dawg to mail my mail to me. Whee!

This is why I'm not on the road yet. LOL

Tidying Up

I think my roommate is starting to get the picture that there is something wrong with this picture. I went to bed early last night because I'm going to be super busy moving out today while she is at work. I woke up to find that the crappy shelves in the dining room have been cleared off and one of the three crappy shelves got moved to the basement. It is too late, of course. Earth Mother is moving on.

Yesterday morning my lithe old bod was wrapped in a very sheer, gauzy little robe that left next to nothing to the imagination. It was about 7:00 am and I was at the computer downstairs in the dining room. I heard footsteps coming down the stairs and assumed it was her, but the masculine voice that said "good morning" scared the crap out of me. I was debating how best to permanently disable him when the owner of the voice staggered into the kitchen to help himself to my private stash of Heineken from the fridge. I took that brief moment to log everything off and dash upstairs where I locked myself in my room and quickly dressed. It is easier to disable an attacker when one is fully clothed. I didn't want to accidentally knock myself out with a stray boob or something.

It turns out that she brought him home around 2:30 am after a drunken debacle at the local tavern where she plays pool and moons over the abusive ex-husband-to-be. She dates the owner there when not picking up strangers. She was still drunk when she had to get up for work yesterday and was still hung over when she got home last night. She makes it so easy for me to leave without a trace. I was going to offer to help her with the August rent, but that offer is off the table now. Her bad decisions have put me at personal risk. There have been two strange men in the house in the past week alone, not to mention the fact that her abusive husband accosted me in a public place. She is still mooning over him and has been at his house at least three nights a week since we moved in together. All it will take is another drunken, maudlin decision to bring him here for a boinking and then what am I supposed to do? She can take the abuse, I don't have to!

Unbelievable! I stopped at my old roommate's house yesterday, where she at least is trying to fix things in her life and has never put me or anyone else into any kind of danger. We had an interesting chat about this situation. Anyway, will add more later. It is nearly 7:00 am and I want to get showered and dressed, clean out my car for loading stuff, and clean the kitchen and basement. I want to get this done before the dingbat gets up and staggers off to work on the 4th of July. I'm not sure how much time I will have to get out today. I plan to leave the bed and obvious signs of my existence on the kitchen counter until the very last moment. If she doesn't search my drawers and closet then she won't realize I'm gone right away. She might get on the road for her tryst at the New Jersey shore without looking too deeply, giving me more time to get out of here. I'm hoping someone will come by and exchange some cash for the bed before 2:00 pm today, so I don't have to move it. I'm not taking any other furniture. I'll leave it for her to sell for cash. Just some nice but heavy wooden shelves and some organizer do-dads. If I don't have stuff I don't need furniture or organizers to display it on!

Countdown

The timetable isn't exact, but I'm doing it. I guess I still have more stuff than I realized. I decided to let people come and pick up the sleep number bed, the tv, and the air conditioner on Wednesday. The roommate will be at the shore that day, and I will be moving stuff out that I do want to keep. I need Wednesday to concentrate on clearing and cleaning my part of the house. I'm basically a responsible person and I want to clean up after the cats where the litter pan was in the basement. Then I will spend Thursday clearing my son's apartment in case I'm not coming back soon, and load the car with just what I want to take. Friday I'll check the radiator and the oil, stop at the bank for cash, and then for a fill up. Then I'll get the cats last and hit the road to Missouri. I expect to arrive Saturday, sometime. It depends on if I drive straight through or stop for the night. I'd plan to sleep in the car except it will be filled with cats, cages, litter pan, cooler, and luggage. The trunk will be filled with Ebay items, jewelry supplies, and packaging material. Wish I had a van!

Tomorrow I plan to get the mail forwarding service and the storage room. Today I kept putting more stuff on Ebay then had nearly 20 packages to mail. It should be the same tomorrow, so it is worth it to delay for a bit. Still no exact news on the job.

I'm fine with it all. I still need to help my son with some of his paperwork. I could do that Thursday. So now I'm resting at his apartment and having a bite to eat. In a few minutes I'll bring in more stuff I brought from the house. Stupid stuff like a brand new ironing board, a broken TV I want to fix (I know I should put it into the dumpster!) and other detritus. Why can't I stop dealing with stuff?

>^;^<

Really Downsizing Now

I don't think I can come up with any more barriers to escaping to a life on the road, at least for awhile. I've been putting more items on Ebay, and they are selling as fast as I can list them. Just some collectible items that I acquired while in the acquisition phase of life, with the great plan of reselling the items on Ebay--voila! That is what I'm doing. I'll keep listing those things today and try to get some charm bracelets listed. I backed off that for awhile to do the downsizing of the collection, trying to get the Ebay business down to a just few boxes and the jewelry making supplies.

The crazy roommate is at work and I'm slowly loading the car while she's not looking. As I mentioned before it perturbs her when boxes go out the door and her psychiatrist says she "must not be disturbed", ahem, "any further." I had been joking when referring to her as the crazy roommate, but I have been finding suicide/attention seeking notes and other things laying around. It's more like the fake suicide notes she doodles when she thinks nobody is watching. For an example of what I'm trying to escape, check out the pictures of the common rooms in the house:









OK, maybe my house looked like that once or twice but come on! After seven months shouldn't something be unpacked? Anything? I live in one small room and it is neat and orderly, even when I'm working on a jewelry or craft project. Is it me, am I expecting too much for $800 a month? Sheesh!

The tiny little spice bottle things in the right corner of the kitchen above, that is the only thing of mine you can see in the kitchen! My sprouts are in my room! LOL

OK, I'm getting out of here. Today is a quiet day of Ebaying my clutter away, and tomorrow is a day of packing and stashing into a storage room. Thursday I'm bugging out with my cats.

Deposition Aftermath

It is such a relief to be done with the depositions and the infernal list of documents to produce. You have no idea--as I have said previously, don't ever get injured! Anyway, I'm processing things in my mind now that this milestone is passed. You would be proud how I handled the Brandon problem last night. I spoke with him briefly, and offered to drive up to Harrisburg to retrieve him and his belongings from the evil place that keeps putting him on the street. What I learned is that "they" like him now so he wants to stay the weekend, then come mooch off me later. And he wanted to know that if he does everything I "tell him" to do, can he go back and visit his cousins? I told him, "Son, you don't have to 'visit' them because you aren't leaving." LOL

I like Tara's comment about living in a van so people won't want to stay too long. Loved it! But I don't have the van yet. So I'm going to mooch off my peep's in Missouri and get a van there. I bailed Brain out of jail and he owes me a couple of thousand dollars, which I'll take in trade while fixing up a van. Getting serious now, I'm selling the sleep number bed, the air conditioner, TV, and some furniture this weekend. I'm clearing the house I share with my crazy roommate, and I'm trying to leave by Thursday this week, after the 4th of July. This should be fun. And If I get a start date for the job I'll come back at that time.

So it's time to clean my old self up and get busy taking pictures of sale items. Then I can post them to craigslist. While that is bubbling I'll clean the car out. It is full of books I want to list on Ebay. That will make room for loading up the stuff I'm not using this weekend, to store at my son's apartment. When you are moving out on a crazy roommate you have to do it with stealth. I won't leave her totally in the lurch moneywise, but when she sees a box leave the house she is always perturbed. It's guilt on her part. She knows she didn't fulfill her end of the roommate contract.

Have you ever had to move out with stealth? Post a comment and tell me about it. Sometimes you just have to melt away into the darkness.

Consolidating

I don't like having to censor myself on my own blog today. But the rapid changes are coming to a head as of Thursday this week--today is Tuesday--so I should keep my actual plans to myself until Friday. I share a computer with a roommate in a situation that is bizarre, though she seems oblivious to my blog. I try to "leave no trace".

You really don't know someone until you live with them. I can get along with anyone and I do, but there are things I will not put up with. We have been here for seven months and she has not unpacked anything. That wouldn't be so bad except that *everything* is piled up *everywhere*. And she pays her share of the rent and expenses later and later each month because she is blowing money. And she's on Match.com dating everybody she can, all at once, and is planning to bring strangers here constantly.

I kind of think the fact that the house looks like a warehouse will fend off serial visitors for a bit, at least long enough for me to consolidate. To top it all off her abusive ex-husband-to-be threatened me with a pool cue in a local pub with no warning, because he feels like he is entitled to abuse her and then her friends by default. I was so angry I could have beaten him to a bloody pulp with that stick--but I will deal with him after I'm done with my own thing. Never do anything that messes up your own stable situation. That is the best rule in life.

The cats are going to a friend's house Wednesday night, until I can get on the road next week. Each day I take a little bit to my son's apartment, but plan to get a small storage room Wednesday. I'm taking stuff to his house tonight, stuff that won't be noticed, then in the morning I'll get the storage room. The stuff is still important for my online business, else I'd ditch it. If I can pull it off tomorrow I can take three loads to storage and be done. I have bits of furniture that I plan to keep for my van, mostly plastic drawers. These are mainly bulky, else I would be able to move everything in one trip. Getting the van first is not panning out, so I'm going with the car for now. It is going into the shop next week for a new radiator, oil pump, and timing chain. That is to help ensure that it will make it to Missouri. The only stuff going with me to Missouri will be my laptop, printer, jewelry business items, Ebay items, clothing, sprouting items, and cats. The sleep number bed might get sold before then. I'm going to miss that the most. But van dwelling and even ultra-lightweight backpacking has no room for luxury items like a sleep number bed. Alas...

OK, this is going to get saved to draft and published after I'm out of here! It's been over three weeks since I was submitted for the potential contract jobs. I will have to presume at this point that I'm not going to get them. It's time for Earth Mother to move on.

Managing Change

Changes are coming rapidly and I'm not posting too many details until I know for sure which way the wind is blowing. Either I'm taking a local job, or I'm taking a job in Atlanta, or I'm going to put my meager belongings in storage and just car camp until things finish out in my legal case. In either case, there is a lot of change coming. I have to tread lightly and be diligent about how I go about things. Once I'm in the place I need to be, past all this current uncertainty, I will post a lot. I think that describing the way I'm managing change is beneficial for anyone reading my blog. I follow some real simple rules in my life, like "never pee in your own sandbox". I'm not going to upset my applecart by instigating any drama. About a week ago there was a big drama that my roommate's abusive ex-husband-to-be tried to draw me into, but EYE didn't bite. So I'm slowly consolidating my material position and planning the best route through the morass of uncertainty and limbo. Rest assured, I will be moving on.

Deposition Day

Most of this week was spent anguishing over the myriad potential outcomes of Lissa & Sam's deposition regarding my accident case. That occurred yesterday. In the morning I wasn't accomplishing much so I wrapped the three Ebay items that sold and dropped them off at the Post Office. Then I got some money off the PayPal debit card and went to my favorite trivia spot to play. I stayed quite awhile, chatted with friends, but was really distracted which showed in my game. I broke down and ate the broccoli bites, which is about all I had all day. I'm going to stay in today and get ready to move some stuff back to my son's house. I'm waiting to hear about the potential contract job, then waiting for the outcome of my son's deposition next Friday. At that point I will either be moving in with him again and taking over the apartment if I get the job, or I will pack up and move to Missouri for a while. In either case, I'm not going to stay in my current roommate situation because frankly it's a mess.

Lissa did call late last night and I got a pretty good picture of how the deposition went, and I think it was good. Though I have not heard from my attorney as yet. I'm sure he is busy after flying out to Atlanta and back yesterday. But it would be really nice to have a word with him. Waiting, waiting, today is all about waiting. I'll break down and talk to Lisa shortly, before I talk to the attorney probably. After I do my morning chores.

It is hard to do the morning chores in this house. I've gone from the frying pan into the fire. First living with Little Bird and her ten foot high piles of junk to living with Crazy Girl and her collection of boxes that are on and around every available surface. When she asked me to move in with her and help with expenses I told her specifically that keeping the common living areas neat was a must. And that if she didn't unpack and stash the crap soon I would have to move out. Also, if she continued to have dealings with her abusive husband I'd have to move out. That was the agreement. You see, I get paid regularly and I'm responsible. I won't live under the threat of eviction or abuse. So I'm out of here, it is just a matter of when. I also warned her that I will not tell her or have any type of confrontation. I will just go.

Today I will finish up the tomato salad, walnuts, the two apples, one banana, and a bunch of carrots and radishes. That will be a fine meal for the day. When I take the paperwork over to my son's apartment I'll stop and get some fruit and a few veggies for the next few days, oh, and some lottery tickets. LOL