first off.. bleh.

my pump died in my fish tank. my cucumbers died. my bamboo shrimp died. the other day, my guppie died. now one of my tetras died (but in all fairness, im not sure if it was because of something wrong with the tank or because my dempsy just ate it for fun and food). bleh. i dont know what im going to do about any of the above.

ive been meaning to write the past few days, but havent had a chance.

saturday night we went out with ppl jim worked with. i had too much to drink and was introduced to jagermeister and red bull. wow. ill leave it at that. lol on sunday we stayed in and replanted my cucumbers so that they could have more room to grow. we also went out and tried a new chinese place. it was kinda bad and i think it made me sick. ive been feeling more than a little bleck lately. on monday, i forgot to water we also mapled and got some take out from t&m. at some point we watched “dan in real life.” a friggen awesome movie. today i did work for school, jim had a meeting, and we went out with my mom to costco, target, and buffalo wild wings.

on monday we also did a hell of a lot of work. we cleaned up the house (i finally mopped!) and we called a guy about the ac. we tried turning it on sunday night and it wouldnt come on. it just made a nasty loud humming sound and blew warm air. it was on pure luck that we were able to get someone the next day.. a lot of the places we called said a 4+ day wait. (umm. yeah. i dont think so). one ad said “same day service” but jim thought it looked cheap and didnt want to go with them. when he finally called them, they were very professional and (the first we called to do so) asked what we were experiencing. the guy they sent out was friggen GREAT.

ok, backstory. last year our ac was acting up. wasnt blowing that cold and was blowing all of the time. some came to the door one afternoon and i let him in the backyard to fix it.. yeah.. well. i thought my mom had finally scheduled someone to come out and had forgotten to tell me. turned out the guy was just at the wrong house. paid him a lot of money. he left. two day later the ac goes COMPLETELY out. yeah. i had jimmy get us a night at a hotel in eloy because it was just too friggen hot to sleep. i was in the pool every two hours to cool down and was just exhausted from no sleep. (yes, we took poochies with us so they could sleep cool too for a night). my mom did have to call the insurance ppl and they sent someone out. they replaced the motor for the nominal charge of the insurance price and everything was pretty ok after that until sunday when we tried to turn the ac on.

now back to this weekend. fri-sun me and my mom had been snippy at each other, mainly about whos responsibility it is to do what. because of all of this, me and jim opted to call in ac repair from some one out of the phonebook instead of me arguing more with her and waiting th week+ that the insurance would take to find and call someone out.

well, the guy we called out said that the ppl the insurance ppl had out last summer had put in a crappy motor. he said it was so crappy that his own company stopped carrying it awhile ago because its total crap. the problem with it? they’re notoriously known for going out after a year (2 if you’re *extremely* lucky). in other words our insurance was going with a company that was ripping them (and us) off and using super-cheap parts. since it was under a year the old motor was still under waranty and we could call insurance company, argue, wait a week, have them send the ppl out from last year, get another crappy motor replacement, or just have the guy who was here then replace it for like $350. yeah. we chose the latter. so.. yeah.. jimmy got a great back-rub for being such a great provider on monday and will probably get a few more before the week is out. my parents offered to split it and pay jimmy back half(+), but he has declined. (we did get dinner on my mom tonight, so thats a plus lol)

on monday we also called some window repair ppl. it seems as thought a little doggy might have fallen on the back of the couch and into the window (or perhaps they just jumped on it) and there is now a crack going right across it. we’re not really sure when it happened. murphy really likes that window and he stares out of it all of the time (so does rusty, to a lesser extent). jimmy is worried that someone might push against it and have it break and come shattering down and hurt them. so hopefully be the weekend someone will come out and change it out. someone was suppose to come out yesterday or today to measure it. they said they would have to order the glass and should have it in in about 3day or so.

we’ve also been talking about what to do with the front and side yard. it just so happened that we had a huge magnet (we got it from the place where we rent our storage unit from; they had a stack of them and i took one) that had local contact numbers for fire, emergency, and poison control and such. well, along the side of it it has about 4-6 advertisements from local businesses. one of them is a temp agency and it states 4hours for $55 or 8hours for $110. theyll provide ppl to do anything from packing, cleaning, moving, to landscaping and yard work. we want to take out a few trees and a few stumps and cut back some bushes. we also wanna look into putting down some type of edging between the landscaping rocks and the sidewalk.

our neighbor just completely redid her front lawn (put in grass in a kidney-shaped area with this wonderful edging around it, new red landscaping rocks, begonias, and a few citrus trees) with the help of another neighbor. the “another neighbor” is new to the neighborhood. they’re an older retired couple and as nice as peach pie. we went out one day to find that our alley had been cleaned up and our bushes along the side of the house (along side the outside edge of our wall (we dont have fences out here, we have walls) and often forgotten about) had been pruned. we had no idea what happened. then we met the neighbor-man and he said that he hopped that we didnt mind and that he had done. i guess he is newly retired and has been trying to keep busy. well.. he’s just infectious i guess.. the other neighbor lady redid her front yard with his help and now we’re thinking of redoing ours.. especially so if we can get work done for $110/day. i would love to put some citrus trees in, but we have some decorative olive trees in now and they’re just a pain in the ass with the mess that they make.

jimmy said he would be willing to pay for it, but he’d want to get a lot of things taken out and really get his money’s worth lol my mom said it would also be something she would like to do.. however all four of us have trips planned to go back to pa (my mother in father in early may and me and jim in mid to late may).. so it would probably have to wait until we come back and after we get our tax money. it should be really nice though. i cant wait.

ive still been really amazingly happy and high on life lately. today after my shower i just burried my face in a towel and smiled at how fresh it smelled and how great it felt against my skin.

ive really been thinking lately that i want to get published. im working on a creative writing class and im doing really well in it. my teacher has been raving about two short stories in particular. i would like to work on them more, develop them into novels, and submit them to some literary agents. is it too late to change my new years resolution? : finish a novel. get an agent.