An update on the Search

So I went and looked at more apartments on Thursday and Friday.  And, barring something going terribly wrong in the application process, I've finally found a place.

For a one bedroom, it's actually got quite a bit of space.  710 square feet, as opposed to the 1200 that I've had here,  in a 4 bedroom, 1.5 bath house with attached garage.  All the modern conveniences.  Well maintained.  And community standards that automatically disqualify anyone with certain types of criminal activity in their background (sex offenders of any sort, physical violence convictions, property damage convictions, or any sort of felony conviction at all.)  The rent is reasonable.  There isn't an outrageously high pet deposit (only $150 per animal, plus $10 a month extra on the rent.)   Gas kitchen, but gas and water are both included in the rent, so the only utility bill that I'll Have to keep maintained is Electric - my cell phone isn't technically a utility bill, and while I "can" live without Cable, my internet connection is kind of a "must have" for me - so I guess I should count the cable bill as the second utility that I'll have to deal with beyond the rent.  On duty police patrol on a regular basis at night.  2 pools, on site laundry facilities that are open 24/7, and not that far from work or boyfriend's place.  (His place will be in much easier walking distance, work will be out of walking distance, but I think I can live with that.)

The fly in the ointment, of course, is that I don't know yet whether I've been approved - and won't know until at least Tuesday.  Which means that Wednesday, I could be back to looking, and down to the wire of taking a place in one of the ghetto-tastic junk heaps that I've been desperately attempting to avoid.

Sadly, my rent will consume all of one paycheck per month, and the cable, cell, and electric will consume the majority of the other paycheck, which isn't going to leave me much in the way of disposable funds once the bills are paid each month.  On the bright side (if you want to call it that) since the majority of my paychecks will now verifiably be going to pay for housing (half, really) I'll most likely qualify to start getting some of the taxes that I pay in back in the form of food stamps.  It galls me to think that something of such a nature can be looked at as a Positive outcome at this point.  But hell, since the government isn't going to cut me any slack on my taxes so that I don't Need the help, at least those tax dollars that *I pay in will be coming Back to Me, rather than going to some welfare junkie whore with a dozen kids spawned by as many different men because she'd rather spread her legs than make any attempt to find a job.

When push comes to shove, I won't be losing that much space really.  3 out of the 4 bedrooms here in the house haven't been used As bedrooms in a long time, so there's only 1 set of bedroom furniture to think about moving.  There isn't a lot of living room furniture, my dining set isn't huge, and I don't use all the cabinet space I have in the kitchen so that won't be an issue.  There are 3 walk in closets - 2 in the bedroom, 1 as a "coat closet" in the hallway off the living room - so there's actually going to be plenty of space for storage as long as I organize it as I'm moving things in.  There's a lot of stuff in the workshop which is probably simply going to go in the trash - old, open bottles of specialty oils and such, which I've been needing to get rid of for a while now.  The made stock is already in storage containers that stack easily, and will all readily fit into the walk in coat closet, with plenty of space remaining for my camping gear.  Since the bedroom has 2 closets, both of them really large, it'll be easy enough to put my in season clothes in one half of the first, my out of season clothes in the other half, and my SCA costuming and miscellaneous "stuff" in the other closet, and still be able to find everything without a hassle. 

Because the place is about 500 square feet less than this house (man, I never realized just how Small these bedrooms really Are in this place!) it won't be nearly as spread out - but that also means it won't be as much of a temptation to allow the place to get cluttered up, like it is here.

I'll be starting over with a clean slate.  That will be good for me on several levels.  New environs will give me a boost in motivation to keep things more in order.  Having to deal with rent that's due by a certain day of the month will put me back on track as far as being a bit more financially responsible and accountable to myself.  Everything will work, and if something breaks, there will be maintenance people to come fix it in a timely manner.  And being out of this beat up, run down old house will give my friends new motivation to actually come hang out every once in a while, rather than me having to go hang out at their places. 

I think I'll start planning now for a housewarming party for the first part of August.  I'll be moved in, I'll have things put away.  There will be a paycheck come in a couple of days after I get back from my planned trip to Waco, but I won't have to worry about Rent again until Sept 1st.  (Because of when I'm moving in, I have to pay August rent as part of the move in.)

Life is looking up.  Just keep your fingers crossed, knock on wood, light a candle, say a prayer, send good thoughts - whatever it is you prefer to do - that everything goes Ok in the application process and when I hear from them on Tuesday it will be to tell me "you're all set to get moved in on Friday."

The Search Continues

For the past couple of months, I've known that I was going to have to move.  There turned out to be nothing I could do to keep the house from going up for sale at the state tax auction, and therefore I started looking at alternatives prior to the auction taking place.

Unfortunately, the search is still ongoing, and time is running out in which I have to find a place, get packed, and get moved out of the old homestead.  The new owners are already whining at me on a far to regular basis about why I haven't gotten moved Already, and are bugging me on an every 4 day basis about whether I have successfully located a new abode.  I'm getting tired of hearing from them.  I've long since been tired of the search.

Granted I could probably be making "more of an effort" but let's face it, when you have to rely on your friends (and work around their schedules) to do anything, it kind of limits the number of opportunities you have in which to go looking.  I don't live in a city where mass transit is an option.  Public transportation in Oklahoma City is a joke at best.  Cabs are expensive.  And with the summer temperatures routinely well above 95F, walking more than a mile to go look at apartments is simply not a valid option unless I'm hoping that a hospital stay for heat stroke will buy me some time and sympathy from the vultures who bought my family home.  That last one isn't an option that I'm willing to make any favorable bets on, so let's just call walking "not an option" shall we?

The new owners are getting more insistent that I GTFO of this house, so they can get to work on fixing/flipping it.  They aren't even willing to consider the option of doing some of the necessary work (like replacing the water heater, fixing the kitchen plumbing issues, or re-roofing) while I'm here - or better yet, fixing the problems and signing a lease with me so that I continue to live here, but not as the erstwhile owner.  Oh no.  They would rather harass me about moving more quickly, and hold off on doing any of the needed work. 

While they originally agreed with me (verbally, not in writing) that I had until August 1st to find a place and get moved, the closer to the middle of July we get, the more insistent they become that I be out prior to that tentative August 1st deadline.

Finding a new place isn't easy under the best of circumstances.  When you're under the gun to do so in a limited amount of time, it becomes just that much more stressful, and that much more of a pain in the rump.  Every rental place, whether it be an apartment complex or rental house, wants a $25 to $35 "application fee" just to consider you.  Unless they're downright ghetto-tastic, they expect you to have a lengthy (and easily verifable) rental history that is less than 10 years old, and a perfect or near perfect credit score.  Or if you don't have a near perfect credit score, 5 years of employment (at the same place) and a co-signer who is willing to be held legally responsible for the lease should something happen and you be unable to stay the duration.

I hate to break it to the various slumlords out there, but anyone who has that good of a credit score isn't looking to rent - they're buying, and not from you.  

At 46, I have way less than perfect credit.  And so does everyone I know, in the current economy.  Co-signers?  That's a joke, right?  My parents are either dead or in a nursing home (which disqualifies daddy from co-signing anything, even if he still had sufficient brain to not be considered legally incompetent.)  My only living sibling is an alcoholic drug user who has tried to kill me.  My friends are having enough trouble just keeping a roof over their Own heads to worry about whether I'm going to find a roof to keep over My head or will be living on the street in short order.

My choices are rapidly being reduced to 2: move into a ghettofabulous apartment that's falling apart, with drug dealers and prostitutes for neighbors and no choice but to keep a hand gun within finger's reach for when they attempt to break in (assuming they don't simply wait for me to go to work to do so, of course) or leave everything I still own behind for the new owners to dispose of, and start living on the street. 

Moving in with the boyfriend is not an option.  He has room mates, the room mates are expecting a child, and they might all soon be having to move if the bank manages to finish foreclosure proceedings.  Finding a room mate has not been particularly successful either.  There were several room mate disasters prior to the house going up for auction, which is one of the reasons that it ended up sold that way to begin with.  None to certain that I want to risk the room mate route again, though at this point I don't see that I'll have a whole lot of choice in the matter - the economy simply isn't good enough for someone to keep the rent and bills paid on their own unless they happen to be a CEO.

I'm going later today to look at yet another apartment complex in this general area.  I was told about it a couple of days ago by one of the women I work with, as another possible alternative, as it is a complex she and her hubby have been looking at as a possibility.  It's an all bills paid place, which in some ways would make things a lot easier.  No utilities other than my cell to worry about, and possibly my cable/internet.  Hopefully they will be reasonable about what sort of rental history they expect out of someone who has lived in family owned properties for most of the past 12 or 15 years.  Wish me luck, because at this point, I need it.  And I'm getting more than a bit discouraged by the whole thing.

Reclaiming myself - from myself

Taking a look at my life, I've realized that I would make a really good case study in clinical depression.  I have spent every year since my early teens with at least a portion of my time depressed to some degree.  Some years I've spent more time in such a state than I have in a "normal" (IE non-depressed) frame of mind.  Sometimes there is an isolatable trigger event which brings it on, other times it is completely random and nothing appears to be linked as a causal factor.  I've learned over the years to work around it, and to (mostly) hide it from easy observation by the general public.  There are points when I've been much more successful at hiding it than others.

I have no reason, at the moment, to be depressed.  My life is pretty much back on track.  The past is the past and there's nothing to be done to correct various mistakes, so there's also very obviously little reason to dwell on them or cry over them.  The decisions that needed to be made have been made, and now it's simply a matter of living with the consequences of those decisions and getting on with the act of living.  Everyone's life has the occasional hitch in their git-along, so my life is not exceptional in that regard, to dwell on the various current problems or lack thereof.

Why, then, would I have feelings of random despair, hopelessness, dejection, and basic "meh" towards life?  It makes no sense, but that is the crux of clinical depression after all.  Random, baseless, feelings of ick on the emotional level when things should be looking more up than down.

The rational, cogent brain reminds me frequently at times like this that I have the capacity to bring myself out of such slumps.  The other portions of the brain then proceed to whine a bit, crawl into a hole, and flip the bird at that rational, cogent portion.

Depression on this level is a complex and evolving organism which tends to take on a life of it's own.  There's never any way to really know what's going to set off the loop.  Random thoughts can trigger it even when everything looks positively peachy otherwise.  It is, however, a rather nasty downward spiral which is ever widening and which tends to feed upon itself.  It affects not only a person's emotional responses to what's going on in their life, but their physical well being.  And left long enough, nothing short of serious medication and intensive therapy will pull a person out of the down leaning trend.

In a way, this blog is it's own form of personal therapy.  It gives me an opportunity to vent my various frustrations with life in a manner which no one else is Obligated to deal with.  It imposes on no one but myself to ever go and read, or re-read, the various ups and downs and personal opinions which I write about.  It has no critical voice on the other side of the conversation, telling me to suck it up, or that it's not as bad as it looks - or not as Good as it looks, sometimes - to either worsen or brighten my mood based on the other person's understanding of  my drivel.   In many ways, it's a much cheaper (and less judgmental) route than going to see a professional, and it precludes me having to explain to a psychiatrist why I'm vehemently opposed to 99% of the medications currently on the market intended to treat my various emotional and mental problems.

No doubt I'll continue to blog, both drivel and opinion, for a long time to come.  After all, there's still a lot of crap for me to work my way through in some form or fashion, and this one seems to be working.