So it’s Autumn and I guess that officially means Summer is over.

Ninety-percent of me wants to jump and shout but there’s that other ten that’s always sad that the carefree days and lazy nights are gone.

But with Autumn comes crisp evenings (yes, we’ve actually had these in Charleston the past few days! See the grin from ear to ear?), football, Halloween, sweatshirts, fuzzy socks, and things like this (that’s not a paid endorsement – that’s me telling you to go buy the Leaves stuff now!).

Some days I look at the date and am still amazed at how quickly the days pass.  It is already the end of September.   That means Halloween is right around the corner and pretty soon it’ll be Thanksgiving then Christmas.

I’m excited for Halloween this year.  Since I moved out of my parents house, I’ve always lived in apartments, where the demographic didn’t involve small people who would be knocking on my door for candy.  This year though, we are in a house, in a NEIGHBORHOOD!  With a driveway and a porch and an entire yard that I can do up for the trick-or-treating event.  Last year, I went to my parents, and we cajoled the little beggars up the yard to where my brother would jump out of a coffin and scare the daylights out of them.  It was always in good fun as the older ones would come back grinning and exhilarated.  We refrained from scaring the younger ones because that would just be in bad taste.  But it’s a fun night, when the streets are filled with laughter and mysterious faces of people who you see everyday but are hidden behind the mask of whatever creature they have cloaked themselves with that evening.

We have slowly been trying to get back into the swing of a life that doesn’t involve visitors and it’s kind of working.  I had a tendency to shun daily tasks this summer because hanging out with our friends and family and showing them the sights was more important (and infinitely more fun) than going through my closets or weeding my garden.  But now that the weekends stretch ahead of us, I can accomplish things, like weeding that garden because lord,  that thing was sorely, soreley neglected.  We were THAT house for awhile. All we needed was some discarded broken toys and a car on cinderblocks and you could slap a big ol’ WT on our front door.

And you’re probably thinking, wow, that’s awfully boring of you to look forward to weeding your garden on a weekend.  And it is, because that’s one of the tasks I hate.  But at the same time, the sense of accomplishment I get when I can stand in the street (that’s how I roll) and gaze upon my lovely garden and manicured lawn IS something to look forward to.  And I don’t feel as guilty when we finally do go out and do something because I’m shirking responsibility for fun.

Overall, I’m just a freak who gets a weird satisfication from crossing things off our to-do list.

Our floors are STILL not fixed.  I guess this is just the pain of dealing with homeowner’s insurance companies.  We are going on two months of an exposed conrete slab right in the middle of the main room because nobody could completely get their shit together and just cut one damn check within a week of the guys coming out for estimates.  Nooo!  We had to wait for the adjuster’s estimate to come in and he had to wait for the contractor’s estimate and then we had to wait for the contractor to get his actual estimate to the insurnace company since the adjuster left out some things the contractor had included resulting in us getting a check for half of what it was going to cost to fix it.  And now we’ve just been waiting and waiting and waiting for the second check.  And I’m going a little crazy because there is a huge chunk of floor missing in my house and damn it, the place is supposed to NOT look like a construction site.

Seriously, god forbid we ever remodel!

Aside from that, the contractor has had our supplies ordered for over month.  Sammy desperately needs to be groomed and have his nails clipped but I’ve been putting that off so I can just send him off to the groomer the day that they’re replacing everything (otherwise, I have to pay for another day for him to be in daycare – whatever, yes, my dog goes to daycare if need be!).  And I would like to have a Halloween party but don’t want to if the place still looks like crap.

And then the couch broke.  The other original couch that had not broken yet.  And that was one more thing to add to MY list, despite trying to push it off on the Baron, who just never did it, after me asking him numerous times if he could do that ONE THING, PLEASE, I’M TIRED OF CALLING ALL THESE PEOPLE!  So now I have to be at home for someone to come out and say, “Yep, it’s broken, we’ll send you a new one, be at home for that too”.

Then there’s the trash pickup, or lack thereof.  Come to find out, we apparently have to pay a trash bill.  The old owner tended to pay his in full because he was always traveling and I guess it’s come due.  I would have never known had the neighbor not informed me.  I just assumed that trash was part of the property taxes you pay.  Guess I was clearly wrong.

I think overall, the point I’m getting at, is that I’m tired of shit breaking or messing up because then I have to go about fixing it.  And fixing things these days are getting harder and harder.  I cannot stand having to make constant phone calls because someone who supposed to provide me with a service or information does not bother to call me back or keep me updated.  I can’t stand have to make numerous phone calls because someone on another end messed something up.  It just feels like a constant circle that just never stops and sometimes, I really feel like I need to be a lot meaner than I am.  Because this catching flies with honey thing just isn’t working.

But I guess, in the overall scheme of things, it could be worse.

Steve and I are getting along well and actually trying to make a point to go out somewhere, anywhere, on weekends so we don’t sit around like sloths and then wonder where the days off went as Sunday night approaches.  Sammy is grooving – now that the weather is cooler, he prefers to just plop down on his little booty in the backyard and hang out, sniffing the breeze and watching the birds and squirrels zoom by.  He has become rather affectionate the past few weeks, particularly with me, and I don’t know if that’s him just warming up to us more or craving attention.  Steve has dubbed him the “cockblocker” because when I crawl in bed at night, he scoots right up underneath my left arm, directly between Steve and I.  It’s amusing but awful at the same time.

Work is still there.  We’re going to have a rough season because there are tons of projects that need to be completed before year-end.  We just went through a live Disaster Recovery test during Tropical Storm Hanna (what better time to test, right?) and are doing some extensive upgrades.  So we’re always, always busy.  And they’re working on automating the nightly process that I’ve been running three nights a week for almost two years which is dual-edge sword.  On one side, I loose extensive overtime that I’ve come to live off of.  On the other, I get my Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights free to go wherever and do whatever instead of being tied to some place with a constant Internet connection, usually home.

And family is hanging in there.  My little brother, Tyler, who is in middle school, made the high school B (freshman) team and we’re all really proud of him for that.  We’ve been going to the games on Thursdays and I’ll tell you, they are much more entertaining than watching the rec football he was playing last year.  Hopefully, he will stick with it all the way to varsity because those Friday night high school games are some serious business here.  Regardless, we’re really proud of him for doing this!  (Love you kiddo!)

Sad news is that our cat, Scamper, who we’ve had since I was like twelve, isn’t doing to well.  She is very old and blind and the vet said she is renal failure.  I guess her system is just shutting down and they’re giving her weeks, if that.  It’s a sad, sad thing for me because she has been around since I was a kid and I’ve never lost a pet before.  And truthfully, I don’t remember life without her being underfoot or just coming out to see us when we visit my mom.  We had a dog, Baby, that we had got a bit before Scamper but she went when I was still in Pennsylvania and my parents were here – so by the time I got down to visit, it wasn’t as fresh of a memory.  But with Scamper, she’ll be there and the next day be gone.

My parents are going back and forth on what to do.  She’s going in for treatments for the vet and when she comes back, she is her normal self, albeit a bit slower.  And mom doesn’t know what’s best – does she put her down despite her seeming normal and fairly happy?  Or does she wait until it gets worse and worse and take the possibility of her having a heart attack or stroke and going in pain or alone, while they’re out, or both?  It is a very tough decision and when it’s finally made, it’s going to be rough on all of us.

But enough of that depressing stuff.  Life goes on, right?  As soon as one thing is done or finished or decided, another steps up.  I long for downtime and for quiet but I think, as an adult, you truly never get it because there are always things to be done, phone calls to be made, bills to be paid, etc.

I want to go back and slap my teenage self for all she took for granted and for wanting to grow up now, right now.

It was so much easier when people did stuff for me!