Hurry! Post before the elusive internet creature flees!

[air_n_darkness]

So, I’ve officially been in my new place for one week. I have all my kitties with me now, and other than a couple of protest pissings and some growling grumbles from my old man Pepper, they are doing well with it. I can tell they are a bit put out by the shrinkage in territory, and I can’t wait ‘til I get things sorted around so that I can add a second litter box. I think the biggest issue I’m having with them in this small a space is that no matter what, when I come home from work? I’m going to smell the boxes, because they’ve been using the boxes all day. Sure, once I scoop them, it’s fine. But right now, they are re-establishing hierarchy- which means they have a tendency not to cover their business.

I’m still rather in love with the place, even though some realities are setting in. Money is going to be super crazy tight. Tighter than I thought, I fear. If I can get through the next couple months, I should be good; it’s just these next couple of months which will be rough. I’m having a few issues with the heater- which until it turned off cold again wasn’t really an issue. I’ve reported it, but I have to schedule a time for the maintenance guy to come out. I’m going to have him look at the stove too. The ignition switches are touchy. Sometimes they light, sometimes not. I’ve also gotten permission to replace the lock set on the door. I can’t lock the deadbolt from the inside because there is a key broken of perfectly flush with the lock. I didn’t’ notice it until I tried to lock the door the first night, and couldn’t figure out the problem ‘til I got down on my knees and looked at it with a flashlight. I’m going to buy a new lockset, replace it, deduct it from the next month’s rent, and then mail her a copy of the key(s) and the receipt.

I still have no internet. The wireless network will not broadcast past the main house. Hopefully, this will be fixed this week. She is ordering a signal booster and having it installed. From what I’ve gathered talking to her and the other tenants, the person who previously rented the guesthouse (also the first person to rent the guesthouse) decided to just have his own internet run rather than report the issue. Fine and dandy, but I can’t afford that. Thank goodness for places with free wifi and my laptop, else I’d really feel out of touch.

I’m going to have to talk to the downstairs folks. They have a puppy (who is adorable) and they decided at some point after Thursday to use garden stones to block the gap under the gate between the backyard and the carport, I’m guessing to keep her in the front yard. Which is understandable, except that this is my easiest access to the trash cans, which are under the carport, and they put the stones on the backside, meaning I have to move them just to open the gate. I discovered this when it was pouring rain on Saturday and I needed to run some boxes up there to keep them from becoming a soggy mess on my patio. Yeah, moving muddy rocks in the cold rain? Not much fun. I have an extra wire shelf which should span the gap, so I’m going to place it on the inside. That way, I can still open the gate, and just step over the shelf.

It boggles me a bit that they want to keep her out of the backyard, when they leave the blasted driveway gate in the front open to the road all day- and let her out there unsupervised for lengthy periods. But eh, people are stupid, what can I do?

So there are some issues, yeah. But the pluses so outweigh them. I have my own space, real space. As removed as it is from the main house, and as quiet as the area is, I can almost forget I’m in an “apartment.” One of the houses next door has a lovely pond and waterfall in the backyard which is not only relaxing, but does amazing things for the vibe of the area. I have seen bunnies, squirrels, and several bird varieties in the backyard. Overall the other tenants are easy to get along with, and the landlady easy to work with. I feel safe and at ease here. I sleep well. It’s home.

But goodness, there are space issues. I roughly tripled my living space from what I had at Trudy’s, yeah, but it’s still just a studio efficiency; there is only so much space available to me. If I’m going to really make this work, I have got to get completely out of my storage unit. I managed to at least downsize my 10x10 to a 5x10 before I had to pay a full $112 payment. Still, that smaller unit is going to run me $85 a month, and I just don’t have that available. It isn’t that I have a lot of big things; on the contrary, I got rid of almost all my furniture. But I have a lot of stuff. Too much really. I had forgotten just how much random crap I had ‘til I started packing/going through storage.

Currently, I am living in a maze of boxes. Most of these boxes are filled with books. If I can get them opened and dealt with, I can actually get what furniture I have set up in an optimum arrangement. However, I lost one of my four bookcases in the move. I had also forgotten just how many more boxes of books were in storage. I was sitting here last night trying to figure it out, and I remembered that Lynson and I had nine packed bookcases in the library pre-split. Best case, I can fit two more in my place for a total of five. That should be workable, since I have a cabinet to put my cookbooks in. I still think I’m going to have to purge some books though.

The other boxes are art supplies and my comics. I had to get the all the comics and books out of storage in order to downsize. I’m going to be ebaying off most of them. I’ll make note of what I want to keep, storyline-wise and just order trades when I have money. When Lynson and I split, I had over a two year backlog of unread comics. They were the feed for my OCD, the comics and action figures. At some point, I have to say no more. I’ll probably be going through the figures again and doing another cull, too. Those are still in storage for now though.

All and all, I’m doing well. Hopefully, things will continue along that way. :)