Change is in the air...

So after 2-3 completely miserable weeks, I sense that things are starting to turn around.

My neighbors are home from their vacation. This sounds like such a small thing, but they are the only people who know that I am here alone, and it is so comforting that they're back and watching out for me. Mrs. George (not her real name) came over soon after they got home with Cosmos in hand and we drank and chatted for nearly 2 hours. It's been a real weight off my shoulders.

The second bit o' news is that I've decided to get a roommate. It's nearly a perfect situation; she's a 19 year old college student who is managing our neighborhood pool. She just wanted a place to stay a couple of nights a week (maybe 3-4) to save her a 3-4 hour daily commute from her parents' place. She's going to be nice and low maintenance, take care of my cats when I visit DH in England (no kennel needed - yea!), and just having someone else in the house is going to give me that little additional bit of peace of mind. I'm quite happy with the situation.

Eliza is getting better, I'm starting to get a little braver, and I'm sleeping more (still not great) so my mental state isn't as fragile. I've got a loose date when I am going to fly and see DH (mini-mental countdown started) and once he gets the house situation sorted out and our stuff moved in, I think I'll really feel better about things.

All that being said, I'm still keeping that big breaker bar beside my bed. And checking the basement for spiderwebs every couple of days.

Losing it...

This is my 500th post, and I wish it was more upbeat.

I think that I am slowly but surely losing it. I had hoped to get a lot of rest this weekend, but it seems like the Gods are conspiring against this. Saturday night I managed to fall asleep around 1am. Shortly thereafter, a car alarm went off across the street. I woke up thinking that it was the house alarm going off again, and grabbed the giant torque wrench/breaker bar thing next to the bed and went out into the hallway. Once I realized it wasn't the house alarm, I looked out my window and saw the car alarm going off. Regardless, I wasn't able to calm down for some time.

Sunday night, again going to bed with the best intentions, I was awoken by Eliza's strange behavior. She had been acting weird most of the afternoon, but around 1am she was crying loudly, running into the litter box, and I saw a little bloody-looking pool of liquid. She had been having diarhhea that afternoon, but this had clearly taken a turn for the worse, so off to the emergency vet 25 minutes away to have her looked at. I got home around 4am. She's fine, but needless to say, didn't get a lot of sleep last night either.

I think that I am going to end up like one of those Hollywood celebrities who checks into the hospital for "exhaustion."

Multi-media weekend

Last night, after imbibing some wine (Sav Blanc from NZ always a winner) I watched Stranger than Fiction from the Comcast On Demand menu. It was actually a really cute and clever movie with Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson (love her!), Dustin Hoffman and Maggie Gyllenhall.

Well, I should say I watched 98% of it. For some reason the cable crashed right at the very end of the movie, and I had to wait until the cable came back this morning to see the complete ending. It was very frustrating.

Before ordering that up, I watched the new episodes of The Venture Bros and Metalocalypse on the Adult Swim website. It's not quite as good as watching it on TV, but I'm also never able to stay awake to watch them Sunday nights either. Both were strong episodes, although I thought that Metalocalypse was particularly good.

Finally, today I drove out to the Eastern Shore for a family reunion. It was a nice enough drive; I have a really fun triangle sunburn on my chest from where my V-neck shirt exposed my skin. I've been listening to my Dethklok CD fairly regularly lately, so I decided to peruse our CD collection for some more CDs to enjoy on the ride. I listened to a fairly wide variety of music: Metallica's Black Album, No Doubt's Return to Saturn, Alanis Morrissette's Jagged Little Pill (sang myself hoarse!), and Def Leppard's Hysteria. I had U2's Joshua Tree, but I didn't feel in the mood for it. If I had had Achtung Baby, I probably would have sang myself hoarse a second time (I love that album). I had been looking for Motley Crue or Nirvana, but I couldn't find them before I left.

Tonight I'm looking forward to a little more wine and the BBC's version of Robin Hood.

Taking care of myself

So it's no great secret that two weeks into my separation from DH (physical, not emotional or marital) and I'm not really doing so hot. The burglar alarm going off last Sunday really did a number on my psyche, and I don't think that I've slept more than 20 hours all week.

Gradually I've been looking for ways to ease the fear. I'm leaving lights on all over the house, which has helped a little. I had considered sleeping pills, but DH suggested the much more enjoyable solution of a little wine before bed. I didn't have any drinkable wine in the house, so tonight I decided to take some steps towards taking better care of myself.

After chatting with DH on the phone, I called and ordered some Indian take out. Before picking up my order, I stopped at a local beer/wine store and grabbed a bottle of red and a bottle of white. Montgomery County selection absolutely sucks ass; I found one bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and a bottle of California Pinot Noir. I'm about halfway through the Sav Blanc and I think that I'm going to sleep just fine tonight.

I hope, anyway.

Remind me why I'm not in England right now

I don't seem to be having an awful lot of luck lately - at least with respect to dealing with living by myself. Yesterday's false alarm may have permanently scarred my psyche, preventing me from sleeping through the night without being terrified of it going off and worse, confusing me with the "boy who cried wolf" scenario.

Next I woke up this morning to the news that a major water main had broken in MontCo and we were being asked to conserve and boil water. The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, whom I get my water from, has offered this helpful map for residents wondering whether they are included in the "boil water" orders:




I live in the little red area north of the gridlines. In fact, I think there are a whole lot of people affected by the "boil water" order who couldn't find themselves on this map. I can't zoom in on my street or anything. Stupidest map ever!

Finally we had more storms roll through today. This isn't a big deal, we've been pretty lucky with respect to trees and whatnot. But today, of course, I forgot to close my upstairs windows (I turned the air off last night in anticipation of the cooler weather this week). Wet carpets everywhere.

This plan of waiting until October to join DH isn't looking too great in the light of day. What was I thinking?

False alarm freak-out

I know that having the burglar alarm is a good thing, but jeebus did my blood pressure go through the roof this morning.

This morning around 10:30am, I was in my bedroom working on my bank account, when the house alarm went off. I didn't recognize what it was for like 30 seconds, and when I did it didn't really register that something might be wrong. I ran downstairs to shut off the alarm, and saw Henry walking away from his chair. No big deal, I thought, maybe one of the cats got into the basement.

But then I looked at the basement door, and it was locked and I hadn't opened it for like three days.

The phone rang (I knew it to be the alarm company) so I ran back upstairs, chasing Henry in front of me, to answer. The alarm company said that the basement motion detector had set off the alarm, and since I knew that the basement door was locked and both cats were in the bedroom, I had no idea what was going on. Being alone, I asked that they go ahead and send out the police. I locked my bedroom door, and waited for the police to show up, basically with my heart racing and crying a little.

DH happened to be on the computer in England about this time, so I quickly dashed off a message to him. I was convinced that I could hear sounds in the basement now, so I called 911 (the police called to check it out, and they said that if I heard anything I should call 911 right away). Anyway, to make a long story short, the police got here, I waited outside while they checked out the basement, and they came out a short while later telling me that there was no evidence that anything had happened to set off the alarm.

Then what the heck set it off? I called the security company to ask for help in case there was something wrong with the motion detector. The girl on the other end suggested that I check it out for spider webs and ants; apparently they set off basement detectors all the time. Sure enough, there was a spiderweb over the cover and a little thing (maybe a spider's meal?) hanging right in front of the detector. I cleared it all off, and the girl recommended that I get some kind of bug repellent in the area to keep it from happening again.

All I can say is that I'm really glad that this didn't happen at 3am in the morning. And my heart has finally calmed down from all the excitement.

On living alone...

Tonight is really the first night since DH left last Thursday that I don't have anything else to concentrate on besides myself. Since he left I've been preoccupied with getting our household goods packed and ready for shipping - no small feat. The movers came and left yesterday, and the remainder of the afternoon and evening was spent working from home and working on the house - getting the disarray caused by the initial shipment into some semblance of order.

I really hadn't taken the time to adjust to the fact of being on my own. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it requires one to establish a new routine, make sure that I prioritize taking care of myself as much as I prioritized taking care of DH, make sure that all the little jobs that DH usually covered (scooping kitty poop, taking out the trash, doing the dishes, killing spiders) were not neglected.

I'm getting there. I made myself a nice dinner tonight, ensured that I had something marinating for tomorrow night, did some weeding in the garden, let the kitties run around outside for a while. All good, healthy things.

It's a shame it's summertime and TV sucks butt, though. Oh well, there still lots of housework that needs to be done.

Really hon? Really?

This is for you, Jeffro.

You can see more pics DH took walking and driving around Harrogate at his little web album.

Aren't they cute

This just in from DH near his workplace near Harrogate, England. Watch for the little guy running away at the speed of light near the beginning of the video.

Here I go again on my own

So DH is gone now. I dropped him off at Dulles tonight, waited in line with him while he checked in (over an hour!), said goodbye at the security line, and drove home by way of White's Ferry. All in all, it was pretty emotional, but I toughed it out. And the drive home really helped - that route takes me through some really nice farm and countryside, and it was a nice, relaxing trip.

There's no shortage of tasks ahead of me. Pack-up is Tuesday morning; I have to have everything sorted out that I want to ship to England and ready to move before then. Sincerely daunting task, considering that we spent the last three days prepping DH's suitcases and were still throwing random stuff into them at the last minute.

I've got the kitties and I'm sure that we'll all get by okay. I do look forward to having a countdown both for my first trip to England to visit Ray as well as my final move date. Uncertainty is not my friend.

This is it...

So this is it. My last <24 hours with DH. His flight (United to Heathrow, then Leeds) leaves tomorrow at 630. We have to be at the airport around 4 I think (I'd better check that). Then he's gone, and my first chance to see him won't likely be until the end of July - 7-8 weeks from now.

On top of that, pack-up is Tuesday, so between DH leaving and then I have to get all the stuff that we're shipping sorted and organized somehow.

I think I am going to have a very busy, stressful weekend.

Please send more wine!

Twice in six months...

I can't believe it. I go years, years, without visiting an emergency room, and now I've been twice in six months.

DH and I were working in the backyard, trimming some trees that were hanging over the back fence. Suddenly I stepped on a unsecured bit of landscape edging and it swung up and hit me in the left eye - right smack in the middle of my left eyebrow. Blood was everywhere, my glasses (which likely saved my eye) were flung off somewhere, and for the first moment, I was convinced that my lens had shattered and buried itself in my eye. DH freaked out when he saw me drop to the ground clutching my eye - apparently he thought that I was going to be holding my eyeball in my hand or something.

Anyway, to make a long story short, since it was a pretty big gash so close to my eye, off to the emergency room we went. Two and a half hours later - no stitches, no corneal abrasion. Still, better safe than sorry. It was a pretty ugly cut, right in the middle of my eyebrow. My glasses... well they are intact, but they are bent out of shape crazy. Another trip to the eye doctor for me.

I just know that it is going to scar, and then no eyebrow hair will grow, and I'll have a little bald spot right in the middle of my eyebrown. Awful.

DH is feeling really confident after this episode, leaving me alone in four days.