We Are Moving: pt.2

So we signed the lease on Monday and Friday we are going to get our house keys. It's pretty exciting, but like I'm telling Fiance, it's stressful.

• We don't have a ton of help. For a while I thought it was just going to be me and him. Now it's me, Fiance, Fiance's brother, Fiance's (1 or 2) friends, and my brother.
• We are renting a U-Haul type deal. I don't think it's an authentic U-Haul, but it's the same thing. It costs $30 for the day and .99 a mile. Not a bad deal, but this truck is reserved for Saturday. It's Wednesday now.
• Along with the previous, I need to be getting things packed like nobody's business. I not only need to pack, but I need to sort and downsize. Fiance is helping me pack, and he's being supportive, but it's still SUPER stressful. 
• Aside from all that, I'm not even sure if we can use our keys on Friday to move some smaller stuff in. Because when the landlord called me, he said we could move in before the 1st, but we would have to add a prorated fee of $23/day. Our rent is already $650 (not bad for the 2 of us). Add $23/day for a week, and we're over $800! Like, we love this place, but it's not worth the first month of $800...
• It's weird packing up all my stuff. Like, don't get me wrong, I want to live with my fiance, and this place is soooo beautiful and homey. But it's still a strange feeling. I feel like our independent lives are being married on Saturday. Two people's houses and lives being merged into one house. It sounds a bit cheesy, but it is a strange feeling to me. 
• Oh! I almost forgot! I don't even know if I get my deposit back from my apartment! Yeah. Because in the contract it says I must give 30 days notice. Well, 15 days is (about) what I gave. I know that is ME breaking the contract, but still. I don't know. I've lived in this place and made it beautiful. I've made it better than what it was when I moved in. And I know there's nothing wrong/broken/dirty/whatever that anyone would need to fix/clean/modify and use my deposit. And the manager guy, who I know personally as well as professionally, hasn't called me back yet to let me know. You see, the landlady lives far away, and it's her call when it comes to stuff like this. Mr. Manager is who the rent goes to/through, who I call if there's an issue with the place, etc. SO he needs her voice in this matter and he hasn't told me. Even though it's been 3 days now since I've called him. 
• And if I would have to stay the 30 days to get my deposit back, I can't afford to shell out $400 on top of anything else I need to pay. Plus it'd only be like 15 more days, and what am I supposed to do? Pay 1/2 of my rent? That doesn't even make sense. In essence, I'd be getting only 1/2 my deposit back because I'd pay $200 for 1/2 my rent and get $400 back by the end of the month. Stupid.
• Also, it looks like I'm going to be paying for utilities in our new place together, so I need to worry about moving my utilities over to the new place AND switching my old place's utilities back to whomever needs to worry about that now. 

GAHHHH!

But on top of all that, I am really happy and excited to live together with Fiance. My cats are going to have a ball running through the new house. My fish will have their own room and be together... Right next to a bathroom with a tub - great for water changes! Fiance and I will have a room together and have a ton of space to stretch out upstairs. A huge kitchen, a nice deck, a big back yard (shared with the neighbors). A washer and dryer already there for us. It's all around the perfect place for us, minus a dishwasher. But that's something we can live with. :)

Do I go or do I stay?

As excited as I am to move, my mom, grandma and I had been planning to go to Missouri to visit cousins and there's some big craft show. I want to go, but I want to stay and help move my stuff.

Fiancé is having our friends help so it's not that I don't trust people to be handling my stuff, but it's disconcerting to know I won't be there with everyone. Even if I'm jut delegating.

The more I think about it, the more I want to stay and move. It's so exciting and we'd be in our new place with each other the first night. I mean I assume he'd stay there at least Sunday of not Saturday as well. I mean I be giving him access to my apartment so he can move my big furniture including my/our bed.

I think I'm going to talk to my mom about it tonight when she gets home. We will see what comes of that conversation.

We Are Moving!

Fiancé and I went right away to look at places so we could move in together and save money for our wedding. Well, we found a place that we absolutely loved and had to wait for decisions to be made. Well as you can read from the title, we got the place and we are able to move in on the 1st!!! We are both SO excited!!!!

He Proposed!!!!

That's right! Boyfriend is now Fiance!!! I'm so excited!

How He Did It
On August 18th, 2012, we went to Starved Rock, a big nature preserve with trails to hike on and cliffs and (usually, when we're not in drought) waterfalls. I felt like something was up, just because I've got a pretty keen intuition, when we stood on an outlook over the water for quite some time. We ended up leaving the outlook, and then the park, so I thought nothing of it.
Well, we got in the car and on our drive back to my place, he said he had something really important he needed to talk to me about. So I was kind of nervous because I had no idea what he could need to talk to me about that would be so serious...
Anyway, we got back to my place and went inside. I had to use the bathroom, so when I came out, he was in the living room standing. I went up to him, gave him a hug, and asked what he needed to talk about with me that was so important. He pulled away a bit, with his arms around me, and said, "I have an important question to ask you." I gave him a surprised look and said, "Oh, ya do?!" and he said, "Yes. It may be the most important question of your life." He then proceeded to get down on one knee, to which I said, "Oh my God," and asked me to marry him.
I couldn't even speak, I just shook my head "YES" and cried.

The Ring
This part kind of makes me sad in a not-so-sad way. The ring he purchased was a size 7. It was WAY too big for my finger, so I went into Zales (where I knew he got it) and asked to have my finger sized. I wear a 5 and 3/4 - because I can't have a normal 1/2 or whole size. So I got to wear it for a whole hour before it got sent off to be resized. Hopefully I get it back by the 29th which would be almost 2 weeks. I miss my ring!

But here's some pictures:

YAY!!!!!!!!!

Freaking Injuries >:(

Exactly 8 days ago, my best friend and I went on our typical 30 minutes C25K jog/walk. We were on Week 5: Day 2. This day, you warm up 5 minutes, jog 8 minutes, walk 3 minutes, jog 8 minutes, walk 3 minutes, cool down 5 minutes.

We were out, having a grand old time, taking a new path, and suddenly, about 7 minutes into our 1st jog, my ankle gives out. Now, I know my ankle is weak because when I was younger, I sprained it a lot. And I know that sometimes it will just give out, but there's never been an injury associated with it. Until now.

I sat on the ground for maybe 30 seconds in a bit of pain, but I got up and finished running. We walked the 3 minutes and I wanted to run the 8 minutes again, so I did. I honestly didn't have much pain at all, but running takes my mind off things that are bothering me...

We get back to her house, and my knee had been scraped up BAD so I was nursing that wound while forgetting about my ankle. I get back to my house, sore and bleeding, and I sleep with my legs elevated (as per usual after a run).

When I wake up, I notice my ankle is hurting. I look down and see it's swollen. FANTASTIC.

So I call this a twisted ankle, because there is no bruising, just a bunch of swelling. I know I made a bad decision - an uneducated decision, even ignorant - to keep running and then to run again. But it's Day 8 of pain and no exercise and honestly, I'm over it!

I actually want to run and do something other than sit places with my leg up and my ankle wrapped. But hey, what can ya do besides wait and heal, right?!

A Poem A Day

When I was taking creative writing in college, my teacher had us do a project where we wrote a poem a day for the first month. Then, if we wanted to, we would write a poem a day until the end of the semester and get extra credit points. Now, I'm not in college, but I was thinking about that today. It's been a really long time since I wrote a poem or song or anything really creative, so I was thinking about trying it out. I know it's the middle of the month, so Good job there, girl!, but I thought it'd be an easy way to get back into it.

Now this is my personal blog, so I don't think I'd want to crowd it with poems that people may or may not want to see, so I'm going to create another blog. I will link it once I have the blog made. I hope whoever reads my silly poems will enjoy them! :)

Kodak EasyShare V1003

I can't even tell you how long I've had this camera. But I know it's been at least 5 years, because I had it for sure my senior year in high school. It makes me feel so old when I actually count back the years... But it's 10 megapixels, so it's plenty fine. I honestly can't tell much of a difference between this camera and my iPhone, which supposedly has 8 megapixels.

Anyway, this camera hadn't been working. It had lost it's charge, and the battery wouldn't recharge, so I thought all was lost and, if you remember, I even started looking at some less expensive cameras. Then, whatever it was in my mind clicked - Why not just buy a new battery to see how that works?

I processed it like, Even though the battery was almost $20 alone, $20 is more easily replaced than say, $200+. And, I could return the battery and get my money back if nothing comes about with the new battery in place.

I searched for a while at my local Walgreens, Wal*Mart, and was going to go to Radio Shack later in the week. But the amazon.com listing for the battery I needed said there were only 5 left in stock. So I figured, I can just suck it up, pay the shipping, and get the battery for sure instead of maybe finding one at Radio Shack.

A few weeks passed and I finally got my package. I opened the battery, threw it in the camera and plugged in the charger, hoping for the best. Well, it worked! I now have a camera back that I hadn't used in a few years, all thanks to my hording it and keeping it all these years.

I do want to say, 10 megapixels on this camera looked a little grainy and it had me worried, but I looked at the pics on my computer and all is fine. The pictures came out beautiful! I just wanted a point-and-shoot anyway, and the quality is not diminished.

I'm very excited to go to Chicago and meet up with some family and take my refurbished camera with me!

Here are some pics I took while at work to test the clarity. Enjoy!

Nail Treatment: Day 8

I don't have any pictures. But, I would like to say that I had to repaint sometime this last week. The base coat treatment doesn't last very long on its own without chipping. That being said, when I went to remove a nail's polish, I could see a difference in my natural nails. And I feel like they're a lot stronger as well. So this nail treatment is working and is really worth the $5-$7 is costs. It doesn't take a lot to cover your nail, it's a base coat so you can paint on top of it, and with a top coat I'm sure everything would last for at least a week.

RECAP
Good: After 5 days you can see a difference in your natural nails, my nails are harder and stronger as well.
Bad: The base coat alone chips pretty easily. It's still a little chunky to apply and you have to apply fast because it dries fast as well.

Batch #6

I have a 29g tank of live bearing fish. For a fish to be live bearing, it means it gets pregnant and gives birth (essentially) like a human. Live babies come out doing their thing.

I thought that maybe, just maybe, my male molly was sterile and once the females were done giving birth from their previous donors* I would not have to worry about any more baby fish. I know I have a male platy, but he's so young I didn't think he could actually impregnate anyone yet.

*Live bearing females can hold a male's sperm for up to 4 months.

I was wrong.

Today I walked into my apartment, fed my cats and my fish and was watching the fish for a moment and all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see something small dart into a plant. "Oh no" crossed my mind. I looked closer and sure enough, a light orange fish, about 2 cm long, was staring at me. 

I saw it again after I woke up, so I know it wasn't a dream. As far as I can tell, I have one baby. As much as I hate the thought of innocent baby fishies getting eaten by their new tank mates/mom, I hope there's only one. But I've been wrong before so we'll see. 

I was planning to get 3 catfish to put in my tank, but in case of more babies I'm just going to get one extra for Katniss. She's lonely since Rue went missing.