All posts by Savvy Spoonie

I am an artist, writer, jeweler, and a Spoonie. Before becoming a Spoonie I was a very busy high achieving attorney and advocate bent on saving the world. Now I'm struggle to redefine my life to fit within my reduced energy level. Some days are better than others. I have fibromyalgia, trigeminal neuralgia, and chronic daily migraine.
Law, renting
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It’s just another manic Saturday?

Monkey has strep throat! Yes indeedy. She chose the 8 day period of time where we are not in Colorado, yet still insured by Colorado companies, to get ill. Yay! So, we end up at the relatively efficient emergency room waiting for most of our Saturday afternoon. I had them check me out too, and let me tell you! Getting two people with two seperate names and two seperate insurances registered is a pain in the A*$!!

But we were seen and medicated, so we are on the mend.

On the house side… Our landlord is dealing in bad faith with us and I want to smash him like bug!!
Many of you may have heard about the carpets. For those who haven’t, here is a summation. When we moved in the carpets reeked of cigarette smoke and animal urine. We called the landlords, who arrived in person to talk about it three days later. They stated clearly and unequivocally that they were always intending to replace the carpets, and the guy, John assured me that rather than make us pay to remove them, he and his son in law would remove them personally that week.

Nearly a month later, we have cigarette smelling, animal pee carpets.

Even worse, he stopped by the other day and asked me if we were paying to remove the carpets!! I find out from Lee that he had asked him the same thing several days before, and got a strident NO!! So why is he asking me? Why? Luckily, all I said was “we can talk later.” And he said, “yeah, we can work something out.”

Now I am furious, he is dealing in bad faith. I am going to research like mad to discover all I can about NJ law and renting, so I can smash him like bug. This is crap.

So he is coming Monday with the guy from Lowes to handle the Family room carpets, and I am going to hand him a letter informing him that he is acting in bad faith, not honoring his previous agreement with us, failing to repair the premises in the required reasonable time, and that I will be hiring someone to remove them, and will deduct the cost from the rent. Then I will see what he does, but I would feel very comfortable fighting his two-faced butt in court right now, so I really don’t think he will say anything.

Argh!! Send me strength! Send me calm! And if you are a law school friend, send me statutes and cases that will support or harm my position!!

Your Denver Girl, rolling up her sleeves and getting ready to fling some cow patties.

Uncategorized

Job hunting?

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Well….. I submitted my resume to Vonage yesterday….

Because apparently they don’t have enough of us working there!! No really, its a combination “bring in money, combat insanity” move on my part. I am feeling unsettled, in part because we are unsettled, but mostly because I am used to working. I have always worked. Me not working has always been a little manic.

For example, this was my “day off” today:
8 am – woke up, made coffee, showered, dressed Monkey, dressed myself, drove Lee to work.
9 am – searched entire house for lease agreement so I could sign Monkey up for school.
10 am – got directions to the school
11 am — enrolled Monkey in school, drove home for lunch
noon — ate a lovely lunch of cheese, chicken, peaches and plums with Monkey while we watched the Berenstain Bears.
1 pm – Took Monkey to the knitting store for a crochet needle (closed my wallet to the balls and balls of lovely, lovely yarn), the metaphysical store (watched the clerk cry into the phone and try really hard not to let me see it), and then the Cold Stone Creamery for watermelon ice cream.
2:30 – put Monkey down for a nap, crocheted a headband (my first incorporating beads) while watching Law and Order.
3:30 – Crocheted a necklace. (This one also incorporating beads, and also while watching Law and Order).
4:10 – Came upstairs to read email and post on my blog. (Hello!!)

Later I will clean a little, wake Monkey up, go get Lee, and cook dinner.

This is me relaxing, which is why I am much more relaxed when I get to go to work, pay someone else to clean, buy my headbands and necklaces, and spend my home time playing with small child.

So yes, I have applied to Vonage, and if I am too afraid that working there might make me cross over to the dark side, the metaphysical store is hiring, and I am sure I could launch back into the world of spiritual advising, drum circles, and exorcisms with little or no problem.

Still missing my Denver crew…. M

Monkey, New Jersey
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Shelf paper and temper tantrums….

Regardless of how “easy to apply” shelf paper may claim to be, I have yet to come across any that actually is easy to apply. If it doesn’t stick to itself, it doesn’t stick to the object to which it is applied. We are re-papering our kitchen cabinets, as the person before us felt that white plastic and packing tape were appropriate tools for shelf covering. The shelves themselves are a dark and forbidding particle board. Ick. Not that the re-papered shelves look much better than particle board, but at least you can see when they are dirty!!

Today was a hard day, continued resistance from the Monkey front occurred all afternoon. I tried to get her to take a nap, mainly because she wouldn’t entertain herself long enough to let me finish any work, and that did not go over well. It began with the normal resistance; “I’m not tired”, “Can I just rest?”, “If I can’t sleep can I play?” and then became a full fledged attack! “I am going back to Colorado without you!!”, “I hate it here!!”, “I don’t want to live here with you!” etc. I maintained robot mom status, calmly informed her she wasn’t leaving the state without us, and then told her her choices were nap, or grounded in her room until it was time to get her father. An hour later she was asleep. (Thankfully)

Still, a hard day. with many tears on her part and a dull headache on mine. So when she woke up we went and got Pizza Hut to try and restore good humor. Luckily it worked. She and I were happily singing away in the car and giggling all the way to get Lee.

Well, it is getting more real. This whole “Crap! I live here now!!” feeling. I keep expecting to get on the plane home, but each day, there is less of that, and more of a sense of permanency. Not a sense of home, but a sense of permanency.

Oh! Last night we were getting Monkey to bed when she started yelling ” a firefly mama! A firefly!” AND THERE THEY WERE!! All these little bugs with light up bottoms flying around my front yard. Neither she nor I had ever seen one before, so we got to share that experience together. Which was very, very special. After it got really dark, I got her out of bed to look for more, but alas, they were finished with thier light show for the night. I will have to try and catch some on film.

Missing you all…

Your Denver girl, signing out on the east coast.