So, the sliding door install guys are done and I was sitting outside talking to my friend Jen on the phone. This black BMW X5(or was it an X3- the SUV crossover one) pulls in my cul-de-sac and parks next to the woods between my house and my neighbors and sits in the car blasting the Beatles and then gets out of the car, walks into the woods and drops a CVS bag filled with Sutter Home mini wine bottles and gets back in the car and drives off while I shout, “Thanks for littering, asshole!” while trying to get the ENVIRONMENTAL plate number off the back. A trip into the woods to collect the litter revealed that while today’s drop was full of wine, there were also empty boxes in another bag leading me to believe that they’ve been here before. Then while I was picking it up a black mustang with a late-teen or twenty-something couple with a Cali plate drove by in my cul-de-sac for no apparent reason.

So, let this be a word of warning that we cul-de-sac dwellers are watching all the time. Do not let the false sense of security you get from no traffic passing cloud your judgement. Take your shady shit elsewhere. Kthxbye.

Update: I think the wine was being hidden to drink when she leaves her house on foot by a neighbor whose husband has been diagnosed with cancer. I think it’s the lady who lives behind me on another street. Sad.

So, 2008 sucked. Don’t get me wrong. I’m counting my blessings. We elected a new president. I’m alive. I’m fairly healthy. I can still pay my bills (although, I engaged in some serious cost-cutting to make it easier). And for the most part I’m happy. I was really hopeful for 2008. I mean, it was a leap year for crying out loud. We should have gotten along! But like the partygoers who overstay their welcome, I will be relieved when 2008 is gone.

The Election and The Economy

The election process is important in that it gets people to discuss issues important and unimportant in the context of where we’re going as a country. But boy was it a stressful process. The 24-hour news cycle, the LOOOONG primaries, the heated arguments, the feeling of wanting to bang your head against a wall when you tried to discuss issues instead of someone’s pastor- all contributed to my stress level. In the end, we got the best person for the job (my blog, my opinion), and I am more hopeful for the next 4 years than I have been after any presidential election since I’ve started voting. Don’t get me wrong- things aren’t going to change overnight and we have a long uphill climb to fix our country- but I am confident in the fact that our President-elect is surrounding himself with good people and even people who don’t agree with him and he is up to the task of moving America forward.

You’d have to have spent the last year under a rock to not realize the economy has gone to crap. The fear over what has been happening has really held me back from doing things I have wanted to do in case the financial apocalypse comes. I really wanted to do some travelling this year with some friends and I just couldn’t justify it financially. It sucked. Not to mention that most of my family has their futures invested in the auto industry and having to witness the industry do a freakin’ soft-shoe to get a LOAN for 1/20 of what we GAVE the financial industry in a blank check while listening to people talk about how American auto workers are supposedly living high on the hog (seriously, have you been to Kokomo?)- well, I get a little stressed and worked up just thinking about it all.

My Health

In the beginning of December, I ended up needing an emergency appendectomy. I’m happy that my appendix didn’t actually rupture and that I knew my body enough that I could pretty much diagnose myself using Wikipedia. But no one really wants to be a patient. After my surgery, it was 2 weeks of only lifting stuff under 10 pounds- which isn’t exactly a lot. It’s about the weight of one of my kitties. It kind of tripped me up in my progress towards clearing the decks and finally shedding my packrat-ism, and it made getting stuff ready for the holiday season go at a frenzied pace once my lifting restriction was itself lifted.

On top of all that, I hovered for awhile back at my highest weight ever. Now I am back down to where I was when we got married (about 15 pounds off of my highest weight and where my body likes to settle in). I am not going to focus on losing weight so much in 2009. I am trying to do things that have more of an effect on my mental health than anything. In turn, I think that will address some of the reasons I do carry extra weight. I’m sure that my mental health and the fact that I literally do not have my house in order contribute to the size of my waistline, but you know I feel like I’ve been on a diet since I was 10, and I’ve been sensitive to it since the first time someone called me fatso which was probably in, like, preschool. So, I’m going to take this year off of dieting and really just concentrate on other things and just do what I can to maintain the weight where I am now and only start worrying about my weight if it tips past my highest again.

Oh, and my dentist told me that I’m probably going to need some major dental work coming up soon.

People and Relationships

I feel like 2008 was just littered with sucky people and me failing to nurture some really good relationships. There were some people I thought I could trust that turned out to be DRAMA, and I just feel like I squandered some opportunities.

Oh, and there were way too many stories of suicide in my sphere of people. A friend of ours shot himself outside a CVS in Kokomo because the pain of MS got to be too much, and I heard too many stories of soldiers who came home and just couldn’t continue. I know 2008 sucked, but I don’t think it sucked to the point of not going on and leaving loved ones behind. Just too many sad stories.

My House

In June the heavy rains and crazy storms flooded Rob’s man lair and destroyed the carpet and some of Rob’s records. Then come to find out that even though we put a sump pump in, in order to mitigate any damages in the event of water down there, because we didn’t have sump/water backup coverage on our policy (since it was done after we bought the policy and didn’t realize we needed to notify the insurance company to add it), our damage wasn’t covered.

So, while we formulated a new plan for waterproofing the basement (which thanks to Dave Lankford is now bone dry), Rob’s stuff from downstairs didn’t really have a home and it was stashed various places upstairs amongst my clutter.

Then this winter we found out that my roof wasn’t vented well enough and we were having attic condensation issues where we store stuff. Seriously, I can do without any more home weirdness happening for awhile.

Then, there’s the general issue of my clutter. I’ve been doing really well in the last quarter of the year- and especially the last 6 weeks- but lots of other stuff got in the way. I just wasn’t able to get in the right mindframe to deal with my packrat-ism until the end of the year.

General Suckage and Conclusion

Don’t get me wrong, I made some good progress this year and some positive changes that I’m ready to carry through to 2009. But I am so ready to leave 2008 behind. For some reason this year, in many different ways, I just couldn’t get it together. I was distracted by the Olympics and the election, dragged down by clutter, and never able to get on a good schedule. I was overloaded with information and stuff and even with good information, I was just unable to ACT. My execution sucked. By the time in September we got back from Jeff and Carrie’s wedding, I had just totally slipped a gear. Most days I just kind of stumbled around numbly in a daze and the bombardment of information and the weight of my stuff just dragged me down. I wasn’t depressed necessarily, just unable to focus and function.

Sometime in early November, I woke up and realized that as bad as it was that day, it wasn’t going to get any better unless I acted. I just made myself start on some small projects around the house and gradually I started to improve. I pretty much neglected anything else in order to put all of my energy towards clearing the decks. In a way, I look at myself like a clutter addict. So, I pretended like I was in rehab. I stopped buying almost anything but essentials and I concentrated on getting stuff out of the house and purging. I was on track to leave my packrat-ism in 2008, and I was really excited. Then I had my appendectomy and had to give up my original deadline of New Year’s Day. I’m still on a good track, but I was disappointed that I’ll have to carry my clutter baggage into 2009.

2008 has overstayed its welcome and I am not sad to see it go. It will go down in my own history as a year that I’d like to forget. Some good things happened, but later in life, I’ll probably just look back at it as one of those years that was like hitting a pothole and getting a flat tire in an otherwise pretty good ride. I am moving forward, and I hope that the people around me will forgive me for my flakiness and consider it a symptom of 2008.

So, adios 2008. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

So, we had a mjor storm roll through town on Tuesday night.  Apparently, there was a tornado spotted west of town and the sirens went off while in was in class.  During our break, we all headed down to the basement of the Business School/SPEA Building until we got the all clear.  It was pretty crazy.  It left behind some debris in our driveway, mostly little twigs and whatnot.  This would not normally be an issue, but now the second Snowpocalypse (first of 2008) is coming tonight and tomorrow I’ll likely have a date with my Toro snowblower (for interested parties it’s a model 1800 Power Curve electric snowthrower which can be found in the $300-$350 price range).  But before I take care of the snow tomorrow, I had to take care of the twigs and debris today.  I started with a push broom, but that was an exercise in futility, so I decided it would be a great time to bust out my recently purchased Toro Electric Ultra Blower.  I could have spent more and gotten a gas backpack blower and been cordless, but who wants to keep a gas can and oil around?  Using my same orange extension cords that I use to throw snow, I plugged in the blower and cleared off the driveway in a matter of minutes.  It was a little tough getting used to controlling where the twigs  changed my path of attack.  It’s perfect for the little touch-ups after storms or windy fall days between landscaper visits.  And a bargain at $69.97.  Seriously, I should just buy stock in Toro since they have been making my life easier this winter.

Last week, I also purchased (on the recommendation of Real Simple Magazine) a Zyliss salad spinner.  We usually can’t eat lettuce before it rots, and it seems to rot so quick.  So, I bought a head of iceberg and some romaine hearts, brought them home, cut them into small pieces (with one of those green plastic lettuce knives) and put it in the salad spinner for a wash.  A couple pumps on the handle, then I took out the basket and dumped the excess water in the bottom of the bowl and put the stored the lettuce in the bowl in the fridge.  A week later we still have crispy fresh lettuce to eat (well, we did before we finished it at dinner tonight).  Salad, easy and ready to go and lasts longer than bag salad.  I have also read you can wash it and wrap dry paper towel around it before putting it in a Ziploc or Tupperware to keep it fresher longer too.  You can get the Zyliss at Bed Bath and Beyond or at Linens ‘n’ Things.  They also have one that has a cord that you pull (like starting a lawn mower).  It does the same thing, and the nice thing about the Zyliss (either the pump handle or the corded one) compared to other models by other brands like OXO is that the lid is flat so if you need to stack something on top of it, it’s not an issue.  And to top it all off, you can get them in fun colors like lime green, red, and orange (I got white because that’s what they had in stock at the time).

Lastly, don’t forget if you’re shopping at Linens ‘n’ Things or Bed Bath and Beyond to horde the coupons from both places.

1. Even though there’s an expiration date on the coupon, they don’t look at them.  So if you have one with an expiration date from like 5 years ago, they’ll still take it.
2. You can use one coupon per item.  So if you have 5 items in your cart and 5 (expired) 20% off coupons, you’ll get 20% off your whole order!
3. Both places honor each other’s coupons.  So, if Bed Bath and Beyond is nearest to you, but you get Linens ‘n’ Things coupons in the mail or paper- horde ‘em and use ‘em at Bed Bath and Beyond (or vice versa)!
4. They apply the coupons in order of highest priced item to lowest usually.
5. If you’re taking something back and then buy something else on that visit, and you used a coupon on the item you took back, they will apply your coupon from teh returned item to the new item.

So, go and start hording those coupons!

So, last weekend we got a new fridge. The old fridge was probably 20 years old. It looked nice in the kitchen, but the icemaker didn’t work and the crisper drawers wouldn’t open all the way and stuff in teh freezer eventually ended up freezer burned. Now we have water in the door (even though we buy water and have a water cooler) and an icemaker in the freezer. Rob was really excited to get ice. Well, he’ll have to wait until our plumber comes and installs the bathroom stuff. After two trips to Lowe’s I got the water line conected, but I don’t know where to turn it on in the crawlspace. Plus, I was a little scared it might leak since I had to cut copper and whatnot, and the Leeps do not have the best luck with water in the house.

In addition to cleaning out the fridge (so there’d be less to transfer), we got a lot of stuff organized in the house. Rob purged almost half of his 45’s, and we took a carload to Goodwill on Saturday afternoon. We were crazy productive!

Old Fridge

New Fridge

The new fridge is not counter depth like the old one, but it’s pretty cool.

We can see everything! Lots of Perrier, pudding, and yogurt in our fridge. As well as fruit and carrots in the drawers.

The freezer fits a bunch too, but our icemaker is filled with fake ice right now until we get the water turned on.

My mom and Paulo (my sister-in-law Diana’s dad) have been busting their butts doing repairs and repainting at the old house and the sign went in the yard today. It’s in a great neighborhood with the Monon Trail in the backyard, tons of square footage, 4BR/2.5BA, and a new kitchen. I’m pretty pleased with the pictures, but discovered that I will need to invest in a better wide angle lens to really show off houses in the future. Asking price is $319,900, so if you know anyone looking for a house in Broad Ripple (the Canterbury neighborhood just east of the Monon trail between Kessler and 54th St.), send them my way. Or if you know anyone wanting to get their hands on some Indianapolis real estate, make sure you let me know.