browser life

Forgot to mention that the "Wheel of Fortune" shows that were taped in my hometown in March are airing now! The shows I got to be in the audience for will be on the air May 18th and 19th. Check them out!

STILL don't know if Dan's getting laid off this week or not. The union tried to negotiate with the agency on Friday, but the agency was "not prepared" to make a decision on the union's offer, which is really aggravating since the deadline for this decision was Friday at 5pm. One person near retirement may or may not be taking a buyout; this is important since if this does happen, Dan's job will be spared, at least until the next layoff, which will probably be this summer. Another person may be switching to a different department, but it is unclear whether the agency will allow any subject to layoff to be spared if this happens. The union is considering whether they can legally have those who haven't been paying their dues to be laid off in the place of those who are all paid up. There were also more last-minute negotiations yesterday; the union president is supposed to discuss the outcome on tonight's night shift. So Dan will call me if he learns anything.

Also don't know whether Dan will get that job in South Dakota. The guy that was supposed to call last week didn't, so Dan called him. Turns out that company just placed an ad for that position in the newspaper, and the guy who's doing the hiring is going to be away on business for a week. So the suspense continues there too.

And I have no idea whether there's gonna be an end to the nerve pain in my teeth that were filled in March. I waited a month to see if it would go away, but it has instead gotten worse. I went to an endodontist today, but unfortunately, we were unable to determine which tooth was the culprit because three of them hurt (they're right next to each other). I suspect it's the one in the middle, but the pain travels every time I trigger it, so even I am not sure. I was hoping to get this taken care of because the pain is getting worse every day, and if Dan gets laid off on Friday, he may not have dental insurance after that. So I guess I wait until I am sure which tooth is the problem, or maybe just put up with it???

Am making very slow progress in getting the house de-cluttered. Actually, right now, I have more of a mess than when I started, so it's very discouraging. So far, I have managed to clean out the bathroom cabinets, the bedroom closet, the coat closet and the pantry; have taken down most of the photos; have packed away most of the DVDs, videos and music CDs; and am in the middle of packing away about a third of the kitchen stuff so that I can re-distribute the remainder to make the cabinets look more organized. The garage is already filling up fast with packed boxes; I imagine at some point, we will have to rent a storage unit. I must admit the walls that have had the photos removed look much more spacious, which is one of the goals of this massive project. The house actually is fairly large, but it looks tiny because we have so much stuff in it. So the plan is to de-clutter each room and cabinet that comes with the house first, then clean what's left. We also need to get some touch-up work done on the chips in the sinks and the discoloration on the hardwood floor (fading from sunshine), get the two stove burners that don't work fixed, get the carpet steam cleaned and maybe paint the inside. I keep going back and forth about painting because while it would get rid of various scratches and nail holes, it would also be a tremendous pain in the ass to move all the furniture that is up against the walls, particularly the behemoth command center. Dan is currently working on the yard and has put down fresh cedar bedding, pulled weeds and thatched. At some point, he'll have to fertilize the front yard, do some edging and weather-proof the cedar fence.

And yes, believe it or not, I have been throwing some things away, although probably not nearly as much as I should. It is quite difficult for me to do this as I always seem to be able to think of at least five things an item could be used for. And there must be a garage sale at some point; we need to get rid of two recliners, a loveseat, a television, some books and stuffed animals.

It is truly weird, doing all this stuff without knowing what's gonna happen with Dan's job. And having no idea whether the house will even sell. I've looked up the other houses for sale in my neighborhood and have been disappointed to discover that there are at least a dozen for sale of the exact same model I have with an asking price of at least $15,000 cheaper than I was planning on asking. And I imagine some of them are in better shape than mine because they were planning on selling and kept up with their homes' appearance. Our house contains the features and colors Dan and I like, which is not necessarily what is trendy or has great re-sale value. I did not go with neutral colors, which I think are ugly, or with popular shades of cranberry or forest green, which make me cringe. Our entire house is done in black, white and blue. Most of the wood in the house is oak. We opted for an extra room instead of those energy-wasting vaulted ceilings. I did not put in crown moldings or borders or sponge-paint the walls, instead leaving them plain white so the focus would be on all the photographs, many of them pix I took myself. Maybe we'll luck out and find someone who likes slate blue carpeting, low-maintenance xeriscaping (needs very little water), ceiling fans, double sinks in the master bath and a bonus room for an office.

On top of everything else, I'm trying to get the computer back up to speed again. I've got all the software installed, which is cool, and I've managed to bookmark friends' blogs again, but I'm still running into some problems. One is that I still can't keep an internet connection for more than 20 minutes. I think I will contact Earthlink to see if the problem is on their end since I now know it's not my hard drive or my modem. Until I can maintain a reliable connection, I cannot do any software updates, access all my backup material or download any tunes. Also, even though I copied all my files before I got the computer repaired, I still lost some info due to the hard drive being messed up. My backup files for Quicken won't load, so I may have permanently lost four years' worth of financial info. If so, I'll probably only re-create my information for this year as even that will take hours (cross your fingers my checkbook register is reliable!). I also discovered today that I am missing Quark documents I created such as a checklist for what we want in a new house and a fact sheet for our current house. What a pain in the ass.

Here it is, the beginning of May, and I still haven't gotten word from my long-term disability insurance company as to whether or not they have approved my claim. I'm a bit hesitant to call them as I fear they're gonna tell me they have denied me and that the denial letter is on its way. But then again, if they still haven't decided, they owe me payment under reservation of rights for the month of April. I am sick of this second-guessing and wondering and hoping game. Seems like every major aspect of my life falls in that category right now.

At least the computer hasn't crashed since we brought it home. And "Wheel of Fortune" is airing my hometown episodes. And de-cluttering has enabled me to find items I thought were lost.

But, dammit, I want some answers.