Dream Journal 4/10/19 | A McDonald’s Brawl

I was waiting in a very long line at McDonald’s, which was wrapped all the way around the inside, and into the bathrooms in the back.

Dream Journal 10/19/16

I was sitting at my kitchen table, drinking coffee while Liam ate his breakfast, when I heard the sound of voices in the building’s hallway.

Dream Journal 8/30/16

I was looking at a large apartment to rent with my friends Adara and Callie, who I hadn’t seen since high school. We decided to move out to California together to go back to school, though I’m not sure what for.

Dream Journal 7/15/16 | Blood and Mold

[Dream #1]

I was in a large warehouse style store, and I was trying to pull something off of a shelf, and a ton of random stuff fell down on top of me. A bunch of people rushed over to pull me out of the pile, and when I came out, my face was covered in blood, and one of the workers started screaming that my eye was missing. I started to panic, but discovered that my eye wasn’t missing, it was actually cracked open, like it was made of glass.

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Advice Needed For Dealing With Landlords

** EDIT: For anyone wondering, yes, we did sign a lease. We rent through a realty company, but do have an actual landlord, who we have never met. Our lease is only a half a page long, and is basically a “Dear John” letter, with next to no specifics on who fixes what, other than that the tenant is in charge of “basic” repairs and upkeep. I’m pretty sure that pulling up a toilet, which has been caulked to the floor, and replacing a wax ring, is not basic, right?

Hello, friends. I need some advice. I’ve always rented, and currently live in a not-so-fancy, not really up-to-date apartment. We have had a lot of issues, as many of you have read, but we’ve been dealing with a lot of issues that were preexisting, from before we moved in, that I have been researching. I don’t know how long we are going to be in this place, at least another half a year, but since I have a very mobile toddler now, I want it to be safe.

Recently, I’ve been growing more concerned about our toilet. So, the linoleum in our bathroom was quite discolored when we moved in, and there is a VERY large yellow and gray stain all around our toilet. I didn’t think much about it, mostly because I was naive, and obviously they knew about it before we moved in, and I assumed whatever caused it had been fixed, and the floor was just permanently discolored now. Recently, I’ve been doing some research, because I don’t know if it is my imagination or not, but the stain seems to be growing, and I discovered that it probably means that there is a faulty wax ring, creating leaks under the floor. The floor around the toilet also does not appear to be 100% sound, and was also like that when we moved in, but doesn’t appear to have gotten worse. I can see that the toilet is poorly caulked to the floor, and has been caulked for a while, which probably means they haven’t fixed anything with it in a long time, right?

I know that I need to contact them to fix it, because it is absolutely their responsibility to make sure that our plumbing is all working properly, and is not a hazard. Does anyone know if there is anything that can be done about the floor discoloration? The stain is MASSIVE, and hideous. We don’t have any windows in our bathroom, so we can’t get any direct sunlight on the spot, which I read helps, and I’m assuming that nothing can be done until the moisture under the floor is taken care of anyway. Would they have to tear up the floor? How long does it take to repair a wax ring? What if there is a mold problem, would I have to pay an inspector to find out? How should I go about asking them to get this all done? They’ve always been so flaky when it comes to fixing things around the apartment (we’ve been here a year and a half and I still have a hole in my kitchen ceiling waiting to be covered…). Has anyone ever dealt with anything like this before?

Thanks for reading, friends. Any advice is welcome!

Jan

Trolls, Stress Cleaning, and Milk Showers… Oh My!

Hello, friends! I know my blog has been quite bare as of late, but I promise that I will be back soon! After exactly 4 weeks of nonstop sleep regression and separation anxiety, resulting in what seemed like endless rocking in our very uncomfortable rocking chair, we are now on day three of kiddo getting himself to sleep without needing to be rocked, and sleeping through the night! I have slept more in the last three days than I have in over a month… at least, that’s how it feels.

I don’t have anything specific to talk about, and I can’t focus enough to do today’s prompt, so I thought I would just tell you a little bit about the crazy day that I’ve had.

My day started off with being fortunate enough to be able to sleep in until 7:30, the latest I have been able to sleep in since Liam got sick. Kyle decided to wake up with us, and he offered to make breakfast for the first time in… well, ever. So we had a yummy family breakfast of French toast, which was nice. I then spent the rest of the morning trying to convince Kyle to help me clean around the house, and that went absolutely nowhere, so on top of doing a huge load of dishes, I finally got around to taking all of Liam’s 12 month clothes out of his dresser, which haven’t fit him in months, and putting all of his 24 month clothes in with his 18 month stuff. I also cleaned his room, and organized his shelves, with his “help“, of course. It is absolutely insane to think that my sweet, little 14.5 month old boy is already wearing 24 month clothes. WHAT. HOW?!

I also spent much of today trying to get my son to keep his clothes on, as he has been stripping himself completely naked every chance he gets lately. I’m not joking. While I was doing the dishes, and Kyle wasn’t watching him, Liam walked up behind me, got naked, and proceeded to hug my legs from behind. I looked down and all I saw was a cute, naked baby! I didn’t get to finish the dishes, because Liam was being a clingy butt, but  he was ready for his nap, which he went down for without a fight. Once he woke up, I decided to walk to the playground with him after his lunch so he could burn off some oh his crazy, toddler energy. We were completely alone in the park, which made me feel really tired for some reason. It started getting chilly, so after nearly an hour pushing him on the swing (his absolute favorite, he will not let me take him out until he is absolutely ready), and several (almost) mouthfuls of rocks, grass, dirt, and twigs, we walked back home, stopping at Casey’s for a cheese stick snack for Liam, and a huge slice of veggie pizza for me.

After we got home, Liam played for a bit on his own, and I engaged in a war of words with several trolls on a parenting article about attachment parenting, and the CIO method, and other things. I really hate when I post a logical, thought out comment, and people just attack the fuck out of it, and pull wild assumptions out of their ass about me. So fucking annoying. So unnecessary.

Then, it was time for dinner! I put Liam in his seat so he could eat, went to the bathroom for no more than two minutes, and returned to find that he had given himself a shower with his milk. He doesn’t use a sippy cup anymore, he uses a regular cup with a lid and straw. Lately, he has been doing this thing where he takes his straw out, tips his cup upside down, and watches the liquid pour out. Today, he decided to do it on his head. Fun. I then wiped up the floor, his chair, and the table, all while he tugged at my hair, and gave him an early, emergency bath. I decided to stress cleaned my bathroom while he splashed around happily, so it worked out for both of us. My bathroom is now spotless!

Oh, why have I been stress cleaning you ask? Well, let me tell you. My mom messaged me a few days ago, and decided to inform me that, without speaking to me about it first, she went ahead and booked a plane ticket, car, and hotel to come and visit us for an entire week at the end of May. All non-refundable, of course.

So, I’ve been losing my mind.

My mom and I are not close. At all. Never have been. In fact, she is the reason I moved halfway across the country. After not seeing her for a few years, I decided to surprise her for her birthday, and flew back home to see her. I was supposed to spend three days at her house, and one day at my dad’s…. well, that isn’t what happened. My mother is immature, passive aggressive, and just… I honestly don’t know. After one day of dealing with her, I couldn’t take it anymore. I spent the night at her house, but ended up spending the rest of the time at my dad’s. She didn’t seem to care.

That was four years ago. Now, I have a child, her first grandchild, and I can certainly understand why she would want to come and see him, but I am furious that she did not even run it by me first. She has been talking about coming out here for a whole year, but always cancels or flakes at the last minute, and spends her vacation time doing something else. Whatever. Not only did she spring this on me out of nowhere, but she ignored me telling her several times in the past that a week is way too long. WAY. TOO. LONG. For one, we live in the middle of nowhere. There is NOTHING to do here. At all. Nothing. Second, I am broke. Broke as shit, and I do not want her spending a fortune on me. Third, Liam doesn’t know her. He has never met her. He still doesn’t even want to be around the people he DOES know, but she doesn’t get that, and seems to think that she will get to spend all of her time playing with him joyfully. Nope. Not going to happen. Besides, he goes to bed at 7:00… what the hell are we supposed to do after?

So not only ALL of that, but she also tried to guilt me into uprooting my family, and spending an entire week with her in some lodge. Are you joking? No. Absolutely not. She got so offended when I tried to tell her that, not only can we absolutely not afford that, but Kyle is still looking for a job, and we have NO idea what will even be happening then.

Speaking of Kyle and work… still no luck on the job front. He had a Skype interview with AT&T, which went really well, but they ended up not choosing him for another interview. That was the only job, out of dozens, that even gave him a call back, so we are starting to stress. A lot. We have enough in savings to cover bills for this month, and for May, but nothing else. He finally has been getting house at his other job, but they have been cutting hours so badly for everyone, and it is so unpredictable. I have a lot of baby stuff that I can sell, but that takes time. I’m keeping my hopes up, but we’ve been here before, and it took months and months…

So there you go! That’s what’s been going on with me lately. Since kiddo fell asleep right away, I’m off to stress clean my living room.

Thanks for reading!

Jan

Dream Journal 1/29/16

Present day.

I was at a large, indoor arena, located inside a massive university. I was there with a group of people from my high school, who were now my age, to watch some kind of competition going on between MIT and Stanford, some kind of championship game for an unknown sport. The arena was located in the center of the university, and it was surrounded by windows, which were multiple stories tall. There were also several types of staircases, going in a bunch of different directions.

The lowest level of the building was where the bathrooms were located. I went down to the women’s room with a few other girls from the group, but the room was packed with people. The large, wrap-around wall of the bathroom was a large window, which looked out into the arena, and people were staring in. None of the stalls had doors, and there were no sinks. Where the sinks should have been, there were small toilets built into the counters, which you needed to jump up onto in order to use. One of the girls from the group jumped up and proceeded to use one of the sink toilets. She urged me to use the one next to her, as I had to pee badly, but the bathroom was littered with garbage and filth, and I opted to hold it.

I decided to leave, and ascended one of the large, spiral staircases outside of the bathroom hallway. At the top of the staircase was a large, open area, where a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament was happening. There was a tall, obese man yelling and waving his arms around, apparently because he was losing, and a skinny kid across from him, looking terrified. I stood there watching for a few minutes, when suddenly, a group of little kids walked into the room, probably first or second graders, and stood in a straight line. Everyone in the room stood up and lined up as well. The group of children began singing a Christmas song that I had never heard, and I tried to stand as still as everyone else. My heels were over the edge of the floor, and I was teetering, dangerously close to falling several floors down. A woman who was standing next to me started laughing and said that I had big feet, and I turned red.

When the kids finished singing, I went back down the stairs and met up with the girl from the bathroom. We walked back into to the arena together, which was now empty, aside for two guys running laps inumanly fast. One of the men was wearing a Speedo, the other in a black, wrestling leotard. we watched them run for a while, when the children before marched into the arena. They began marching in a line around the arena, singing the same song from before. People started flooding back into the arena.

And then I woke up.