Life isn't Pretty at all

The living room and front room windows are crammed full of plants. Over the next few days I will have to find places for them as well as the seven that are still outside. 

I can't use the guest apartment for any of them this year. Too bad, they thrive in that space each winter.

Speaking of the guest apartment. I took measurements of the kitchen area yesterday. Marked outlets, pipes and gas line locations. I got to go and look in Lowe's at the new cabinets, countertops, sink, faucet, backsplashes, flooring and fridge. Hubby took the Ex to show her yesterday and get her ideas. Her approval.

It will be a big job. Wondering if any of the choices will actually be mine. I was told that it's my home and that I could choose. 

So far, we're doing the apartment bathroom. I was told I had the choices. Well, I got to choose the sink. Only because I ordered two online that would fit. One actually did. Hubby and His Ex chose the toilet, tile colors, medicine cabinet and light.

I would like to decide what remodeling is done while I can still make out what it looks like. 

It seems that Hubby's Ex will be here permanently. She has settled in completely. It's her home now. She rarely works, I'm not sure what she does all day. I don't care. Now, she is choosing new furniture. The apartment, garage and storage unit are full of her furniture and possessions now. It is my understanding that we are buying the new furniture for her.

I'd rather have some of our (nice) older furniture cleaned and use it for the apartment. Then, we could get new for us. Now, I guess we live with old furniture and she gets new.

There's a lot of disappointment right now. When I say anything, I'm told that I'm being selfish and have jealousy issues. Makes me wonder....

So, as I'm making remodel plans that most likely will not occur, I'm also doing things for me. I'm weeding through my items, getting rid of personal items I no longer have any use for. I'm keeping track of the few things that are just mine. 

What I have are a few antiques, family photos, a laptop, iPad, camera, linens, kitchen things, Christmas decor, knickknacks, a few dozen books, some dvd's and cd's, record player and albums, plants. My dog. Clothing and some craft items. Patio furniture, a couple of lamps. An an etrike, my daughter's bicycle. Toolbox. Some artwork. A couple of lamps. Not much. 

My furniture is gone except for a few antiques. There is no room for any of it here. Moving it from the apartment to the garage, then getting rid of it when the garage was also taken over was horrible. My 1890 gas stove leaving hurt a lot! I used and needed it. The few pieces I have left are being ruined by the weather on the patio. 

It felt as if my wants are being ignored, that what I want doesn't matter. It feels that way more each day.

I wonder if the marriage will last through this. My options are few at this point. This week I will see the marriage counselor for the fifth time. We still have not seen her together. He finally went recently to see her for the first time. I'm told it is my problem.

I adore Hubby's Ex. She is a wonderful lady, and we get along great. But she is His friend, His Ex, not my friend and that's been made obvious. Perhaps I'm jealous that we are supporting her, that she and Hubby go places together frequently. That they spend a lot of time together every day. That I feel unwelcome in what is supposed to be my home. Or only feel welcome in a part of my home. I no longer use the patios because they adjoin the guest apartment. I don't feel comfortable doing so. I clean them after she leaves.

I wonder if I will be living here in this house much longer, or if I will be apartment hunting shortly. I just do not know.

If I move, do I want to stay in Okc? I need a warm climate. Sidewalks and a neighborhood I can walk in would be nice. Nearby stores would be great.

For now, I keep taking online classes, working on organizing things so I can easily find them. Working on cooking and cleaning without sight. Hunting for hobbies that I can perhaps use to support myself, if need be. Studying Braille is vital as is practicing with the white cane. Those things will give me freedom to live a decent life.

My future is uncertain. I no longer feel secure in my home or in my marriage.

Shopping and Customer Service

Finally went grocery shopping. It's becoming more and more frustrating. Packaging and frequent location of stock changes is making it hard to locate items. Add in rude cashiers, poor stocking practices, and products not well maintained and I dread walking into the grocery store. I don't believe I'll return to the major chain store I use again. Never mind that I spend at least $500 every trip, and have shopped there for over three years. The quality of the workers there has gone so far down that it is absurd. It's not worth it. 

I'm to the point where I will find a small grocery store and pay more money in order to have a pleasant shopping experience. For everything else, I will shop at amazon or other small department stores.

Here is a rule of thumb. The better the economy, the worse the low wage employees. Ignore the news. A good economy means that good, hardworking people have decent paying jobs. It also means that low paying positions are held by anyone the employer can get. 

With a bad economy, you get to pick and choose people with great attitudes, intelligence and a terrific work ethic. With a good economy, the great employees move on to good jobs.

No offense to people who are starting out or those that choose the low paying jobs. I'm not including them in this equation.

I was an employer for years and dealt with those issues daily. At times I filled extra shifts due to not having decent people even applying.

There's a saying I was taught long ago, and I am paraphrasing here. "You can hire anyone to fill a job, but you can't make them into a good employee that deals well with customers and coworkers. What you want is to hire kind, friendly, well mannered people and to train them to be great workers."

It's so true. I will look for stores which have great employees who work hard and take pride in themselves and in their jobs. Those businesses will get my money from now on.

Enough for now.....

Changes

Late at night and I somehow cannot get sleepy enough to go and hug my pillow. Today, I kept busy. Apparently not busy enough to be worn out.

The house is cleaned. I'm weeding through more items. There is another stack of books to rehome, they will join three stacks already in the garage. A couple of trash bags hold even more items.

I finally shredded all of Mom's personal papers. It was hard. I had promised her that I would destroy them unread. That part was easy. The hard part was letting go of another part of her. Now, there are bags full of shredded things waiting for the next trash day.

The front room is being reorganized to accommodate several huge potted plants coming indoors for the winter. The living room has a few brought in so far.

I'm trying to memorize the changes as I make them. One thing I forgot the other night now has my legs covered front and back with huge bruises. Not being able to see at all in low light is a pain in the butt. Falling over furniture is a great incentive to pay attention.

Went to Texas Longhorn Steakhouse last night to celebrate a relative's 80th birthday. They did not have a large print menu, and my magnifying glasses and iPad apps could not magnify their regular menu due to the print and the restaurant lighting. I ended up having the menu read to me. It was embarrassing. Feeling like crap due to not being able to read on my own.

Not seeing drives me nuts. Over the past couple of weeks I went from reading huge print with 3x reading glasses to needing 6x ones. I read from less than eight inches from my face. With that, I'm still only good for a few minutes.

Sight lessens almost daily. I'm adjusting to changes rapidly, and more come at a speedy pace. I get that it's all happening so much faster than I had expected. How bad is it going get? The specialist said I may keep light and dark, shapes and shadows, some colors. No idea how quickly it will progress. She just doesn't know.

Enough for now.....

Back to life as we know it....

Today is the first day after vacation. We had an amazing time during the nine days off. Mainly, we were together. That is the very best part.

We began with a trip to San Francisco. Flying out on Friday afternoon, we arrived by early afternoon. We stayed in a luxurious hotel with all of the bells and whistles. We were on the wrong side and did not have the view of the bay, other than that, it was perfect.

We ate a couple of fast food breakfasts while we were there. Other than that, we dined, and dined very well. Thanks to a relative there in the city, we found a lot of fabulous little restaurants and our meals were 4 star. Oola's and Dottie's were my favorites. At Oola's the creme brûlée was topped with orange, ginger and honey according to my taste buds. At Dottie's the fruit bowl was huge and filled with the freshest strawberries, blueberries, watermelon and cantaloupe. Amazing meals.

We rented a fusion and traveled all over the city. We did all of the touristy things, riding the trolley, going down Lombard Street, checking out the painted ladies, etc. We took over 1200 photos, and I've seen a few so far on the big tv. Looking forward to seeing the rest. I want to know how well they match up with my perception of the colors and shapes.

I did some shopping in Haight Ashbury, found a lovely sheath dress in a  vintage store. A few stores down the street I found a Hobe choker, all turquoise and amethyst. A few touristy souvenirs for a vacation shadow box filled out my shopping excursion. 

It's a city I could easily live in. With bike lanes and sidewalks everywhere, I would have so much more independence than I do now. OKC is beautiful, but without sidewalks, it is too dangerous to try to walk around when you are blind, or nearly so.

Today I cleaned house all morning, and spent a good portion of the afternoon with a tiny little girl. I love when she comes to visit. We giggle and play and eat a lot of 'nilla wafers and bananas. She loved the aquarium DVD that I put in, and she danced to Josh Groban songs. Her mamma was on one of the cruise ships delayed by Karen, that tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico.

 I feel for the little one. She had only been away from her mamma for an occasional overnight. Now, she hasn't seen her for over a week. She stayed with a great grandma and now is with another grandma. I could tell it's been really hard on her. Instead of the usual 30 seconds of fussing when her mamma brings her to me, she screamed in fear at being left by yet another person. It took her a good ten minutes to finally calm down. She doesn't talk yet, so she cannot say she wants her mamma. Over two years old and makes sounds, but no words. 

Tomorrow, life will return to normal. Projects in progress, paperwork to locate for my insurance company. There are gardens to water and dog poop to pick up. I'm thinking of baking a loaf or two of French bread (yes, from scratch) and making some pasta sauce and rotini for dinner.

Enough for now......

Travel, etc.

Hard to deal with bright lights indoors. Bad since we no longer keep the lights as bright as we did a year or more ago. Even worse is trying to make things out when I'm outdoors. Sunlight reflecting off of cars is a true monster. It fills every bit of my sight and nothing else can be seen. Kept the dark shades and a huge hat on the entire time that we were outside.

Today we wandered around San Francisco. Did a lot of walking and just fell in love with the city. The buildings with many paint colors were easiest to make out. Took a lot of photos with the iPhone. When I get home and load them onto the laptop I will be able to see them on the big tv. 

We went to a park across from mission high school, travelled up to twin peaks. Saw a lot of people without clothes. The temperatures were perfect for going without anything on. Spent a lot of time in the SOMA
Neighborhood. We ate some terrific Mexican Food. Went over the Bay Bridge, looped around and returned to the city via the Golden Gate Bridge.

I got to see my stepson's dance studio on Howard Street. Neat, neat place. Their living quarters have a huge clothes closet that I literally drooled over. They've been there a couple of years now, and I can easily tell the hard work and dedication that he and his fiancé have put into the place.

We're back at our hotel, listening to Arkansas play the Aggies. Our room is lovely. Beautiful furniture, every luxury, a bed that is to die for. I will be buying a down comforter like the one here when we return home. Possibly similar bathrobes as well. Not just for us, but for the guest apartment as well.

I bought a piece of art this afternoon. It's of Bela Lugosi, done in acrylics on wood. Not sure why, but it appeals to me in a weird way. Anyway, it will look strange anywhere I end up hanging it, and that almost convinced me to not purchase it. Still, I really like it and now it's mine. I will make a place for it.

So, the guest apartment remodel has begun. The bathroom has a new toilet. Two new bathroom sinks have been ordered, they should arrive within a day or two of our return home. We will keep the one which works best in that space and return the other. Next is lighting, mirrors, storage and redoing the shower. Once that is finished I will pick out everything for the new kitchen. The entire layout will change. I would love to replace the sliding glass doors with French doors.

Enough for now......