Lizet's Place

So...let me guess...it's time for an update from me.

Thanksgiving was decent. Went to the Sotelo's like 2 years ago/ This time there was 8 of us. Last time there was closer to 14 or 15. Christmas was also okay. Christmas Eve, we went back to the Sotelo's and Christmas Day we went to John and Colleen. Lora spent a ton of money on me. I would feel bad about it, but she told me, when we were out Christmas shopping, that she promised my mom to help me as much as possible since my mom was moving across the country. Oh that's great to know considering about a month after my mom moved, she wouldn't return any of my calls or text messages and that was why I had to move in with my sister! Now she's all about buying my clothes I need to update my wardrobe and making sure Kim and I aren't without food because my EBT was canceled at the end of the year (but that's another story I'll get into in a bit). But whatever. Like I said, I would feel bad about her spending a lot of money on me, but I don't.

I'm 99% set up as Kim's caregiver with IHSS. Thursday I go for an orientation and to set up my w-2 info. I was hoping that Kim would qualify for at least 50 hours a month, but they only have her 48 hrs and 2 mins. I'm kind of salty at how low the hours are, but at least I don't have to pay rent to anyone so I can keep up with my personal bills and start paying my mom back for money she's given me over the last 2 or 3 years. Anyway...the pay is minimum wage and I'll get paid every 2 weeks plus the backpay from when I started caring for Kim on October 16.

My EBT was canceled at the end of the year because I was honest and said that I'm in school and working, but not getting paid by the county because they're taking their sweet time. So what does that mean for me? I'm stuck with no way to get food because Kim lives on a fixed income - she barely has enough for rent and utilities and $45 left over. Groceries run about $50 every 2 weeks. So the EBT people said if I'm in school, I need to be working 20 hours and getting minimum wage. I appealed that. They cut me off without a way to get food, and yes, I'm surrounded by kind people who have taken me grocery shopping, but the county dropped the ball on this. Like...oh, you're in school so you must have a way to pay for that, so that means you have money for food. IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT! Now I'm waiting for when I'll get to have my actual appeal date and then more waiting for them to determine if when they'll give me money for groceries. I just want something to cover me until I start getting paid from IHSS.

Finished the semester on December 15. Two B's and a D. Unfortunately I have to make up the class I got a D in because it's my lower level math and I need that to go on to the next level...and eventually transfer for my Bachelor's degree. Spring semester at LBCC starts on Feb 5 and I'll be taking 4 classes - 2 online and 2 in person on Mondays and Wednesdays.

I'm back into choir at church. I'm teaching Sunday school for the 8-10-year-olds twice a year (2-three month sections) and teach children's church once a month. I'm all for being more involved...to a certain extent.

Now it's time for lunch. I'm trying to get Kim on a steady eating habit but she sometimes takes this literally...like she ate breakfast at 10:20 am, so she can't eat lunch before 2:20 pm because that's 4 hours. It's frustrating, but she's eating regularly, and that's better than before.

If at all possible, AVOID properties managed by Realty Executive Select.

Rather than paying around $100-$150 to have carpets cleaned, they opted to have NEW carpet installed because the "damage was beyond normal wear and tear" to which I call bullshit!

So they're charging us for the installation for the new carpet (nearly $1000) and hauling away of bulk trash (around $230, which we knew was going to happen).

I'm going to contact one of the lawyers I used to work with when I volunteered at the Legal Aid in the Compton Courthouse to see if they can give me any advice on this.

We have 21 days to pay this or they'll give us (really my mom) a negative credit report on the credit record.

That's 28 years of living there for you. The owner was/is nice, but the property manager is a bitch.

Here we are...down to the wire.

The property manager called to let us know what we have to do as far as us moving out. March 18th is our absolute last day. The keys will be picked up at 3 pm.
* carpet professionally cleaned
* any holes in the walls (from hanging pictures or whatever) filled in
* nothing left in the garage
* walls/windows/blinds cleaned

basically everything cleaned. I'm looking around for deals on carpet cleaning services. I checked on Amazon local deals and found 3, the husband of a friend I went to school with does cleaning and my mom is waiting to hear from my sister about who she went with for her carpet cleaning. So far, the most expensive for 3 rooms and a hallway is around $100. My mom said she didn't want to pay that much, it's one of the offers.

My sister's ex-husband's nephew is a realtor and he said that the manager can't penalize us for normal wear and tear on the carpet, but if it's super dirty, then to have it professionally cleaned to ensure that we get as much of our deposit back. To be honest, I don't know that we will anyway? I was looking over the original rental agreement from 1986 and the legalese it was written in gave me a freakin' headache - I couldn't determine what my mom's deposit amount was.

Utilities are going to be cut on March 13 or 16 (probably the 13th). hopefully my cousin, who is a professional mover, will be able to help us pack the apartment and move stuff to storage, my sister's place and "my" place on the 13, 14 or 15.

I also need to find someone to haul away my bed (mattress/box spring), the fridge and microwave. I don't need to take them with me or keep them in storage for when i get my own place

How much longer until Hawaii?

4 years!?

*grumbles*

I want to be there NOW!

I feel like I'm so behind in everything.

I'm trying to keep my schedule I had while staying with my sister, but being at the mercy of whenever my parents decide to get the uhaul truck to move furniture back really sucks!

Also, it really sucks that 2 days last week I was stuck home until after 12 pm waiting for the heater repair guy. Thursday he came right at 11 am, worked for an hour and said he'd try to return Friday (if he got the parts he needed) or he'd be back Monday. I tell this to my dad and he tells me, "okay stick around Friday and see if he comes." OMFG! I stayed until after 12 waiting, then I was like screw this! I have work to do! so I left.

I go back to volunteering at the courthouse on Wednesday so I don't know when my parents plan on moving the bulk furniture. If anything, they should get one of those vans and get our damn beds so we don't have to sleep on the floor anymore! It's been 11 days since they've returned and we're still sleeping on the floor! I was expecting to be pretty much moved back in by now!

On the plus, my cat got to come on Friday night. That's been nice. I like that she sleeps in my room now. wonder if that will continue once the furniture is moved back in...

There's a bunch of other stuff going on, but I'm getting worked up just thinking about it to type it up.

New H50 tonight and tomorrow night. I'm so excited!

I wish I could see how the apartment looks now. I want to have some idea of how plain my room is going to be until I can properly decorate.

I still don't know what the general "theme" of my room is going to be. I mean when I was packing up everything for the move, I toyed with the idea of having a tropical/Hawaii Five-0 theme (thanks in part to the "Hawaii Five-0 Survival Bag" that bluedelft gave me in July), but I don't have nearly enough "tropical' decorations. I guess that means I'll have to raid some party stores and possibly order some prints from Art.com (a search of Hawaii alone gives me over 1,000 options!)

M & J have been at some church related conference since the day after Christmas and come back today. Yesterday was the family dinner night so I went with my sister (free food so I wouldn't have to cook or order fast food). Holy crap was it an unorganized dinner! They had it semi-catered in that they ordered the dinner from Panda Express and everything else was provided by some of the parents of the youth. Well, my sister was told she was supposed to get the food but she couldn't get a hold of the person who ordered it. She tried calling him 3 times! Then she found out from someone else that the man who ordered it went to get it because it was "too far away" and he didn't want her to "get lost or be late to the dinner". Dinner was supposed to start at 5 but it didn't start until nearly 6 because they were waiting for the guy to come with the food! Then at 7 there was a church service kind of thing. That went until 10. It was supposed to be over at 9 because there was going to be a talent show at 10, but the talent show didn't start until 10:30. J asked my sister (and by extension me) to stay because she was in a drama skit. We had to sit through 3 or 4 acts before my niece's group was up...then we stayed for one more group before leaving at midnight! There went my plan of watching a movie before going to sleep! But I did get Taco Bell and watched the last 10 minutes of Benny Hill before trying to get warm enough to go to sleep.

Today...I don't know what I'm going to do. It's freezing (it's 55 degrees but that's still too cold for me!) and there's a bit I want to do (after holiday shopping) but I don't want to spend hours on the bus dealing with cold and possibly having to stand because there's so many people out using the bus. Also, I don't know if I want Taco Bell or Panda Express for lunch...or if I'll even be able to stop and get lunch (if I get dropped off, there will be no stopping for lunch, sadly).

Small group in church today! 7 counting myself! Last Sunday there was over 50 but that was because the Spanish speaking members came out early. The Pastor had surgery on the 22nd to remove his colon! The surgery went fine but I don't know if he's home or has been moved to an aftercare facility. But with him out, that means his wife is out and so is Lora.

Also, internet is being a bitch. I'm going to write. I got back chapter 19 of But Why Daddy? from my beta, so now I can fret about chapter 20.

has it really been 3-4 days since I last posted? According to the calender here, it has been. sorry?

Still having internet problems, however the bill was just paid so I'm hoping sometime this week or the beginning of next week the speed picks back up. If it doesn't, then maybe there's some other problem and I just don't know how to search it out.

After being able to drive myself around for the last 27 days or so, the car is officially dead. After the unsuccessful jump-starting on Thursday, my sister and the mechanic both said its more the likely the alternator that's gone bad or whatever and is preventing the car battery from staying charged. I told my dad all of this and that I was in contact with the mechanic, and he said for me to leave the car where it is (which is in the parking lot at the church) and he'd deal with it when they got back in January. Lovely.

Looks like I'm back to riding the bus. *sighs*

I have been toying with the idea of renting a car for December 21-24, but I know that's a waste of money. I'll just have to rely on the bus to get the grocery shopping for the church Christmas dinner done and then ask my sister to take me to storage so that I can get the crock pots and dutch ovens for what I'm going to cook. And on the 23rd, I'll be at the church pretty much the whole day like usual. Church service, lunch, decorate for dinner, cook my parts of the dinner, and put all the food out. By then people will be arriving.

As of Saturday, we still haven't gotten any of our forwarded mail! I put in the request on November 19 and there's been no mail from November 23rd-December 8th! There will be major major hell to pay if any of the mail was returned to sender. Because according to the postal clerks I spoke with, it would take 14 (business) days to process the temporary change of address and the mail would be delivered after that. Well, 14 (business) days I guess would be today, but honestly, I don't know. Two clerks previously told me 7-10 (business) days and I'd have mail, then suddenly it was 14 (business) days. I don't even know if my sister is at the house or knows if the mail has come yet before I head to the post office to complain to someone about not having mail (I'd also like to tell my dad something other than "No, the mail hasn't been delivered yet.") eta Just texted with my sister. She said that the post office sent a post card confirming that our address has been temporarily changed to her address. But no other mail. So does this mean tomorrow we'll start getting mail? I fucking hope so! This is just ridiculous!

HAWAII FIVE-0 NIGHT!!!!!! yay!!!!!!

That's how I'm feeling right now!

I think the weather's making the (cable) internet mess up so my web pages aren't loading. It started yesterday and at first I thought it was just yahoo mail, then it moved on to LJ, now it's any site I go to!

UGH!

Also, all I seem to have to post about are complaints and really, no one wants to continually read about that.

But I will say the US Postal System is on my shit list right now. Their website and 2 other postal workers told me it would take 7-10 days to process and send my forwarded mail. I went to the new post office yesterday (which would have been like 7 business days because the holiday always screws stuff up) and the worker there who I spoke with told me it takes 14 days to process and send forwarded mail! At least my dad didn't give me grief about that. When it's out of my hands, its out of my hands. So we didn't get mail delivered all last week and probably won't get mail until sometime next week - if we're lucky! The lady I spoke with did get my cell phone number and said someone would call me if they happen to find any of my mail that hadn't been delivered. No one still had an answer about the package that was supposedly delivered/dropped off on November 24th. I'll give it until the end of next week to be delivered to me, then I'm going to ask Amazon for my money back or to have the 2 books re-sent - I've already updated my shipping address on the site so there shouldn't be any other delivery problems.

Tonight's the CIF final football game that my Alma Mater is in. Downey High School vs La Serna High. They're expecting so many people that the location for the game changed 3 times! It's now going to be at Cal State Fullerton. That football stadium can hold about 34,000 people! I'm so excited! I hope the weather cooperates! I will have my umbrella, but would really NOT like to get wet.

it seems our letter carrier can see into the apartment and noticed it was vacant so held the mail. I went to 2 post offices before I could get my mail, then I was told I'd have to have the mail forwarded since no one was living at that address. Just great! It looks like with 1 card, the mail for an entire family can be forwarded. I think my sister might have to do her own since her last name is different. Also, while the move is temporary, we don't know when we'll be able to move back in! It could be December 15 or January 1, so what date do I put?!

oh and I dialed the home number, the one we've had for over 20 years, and there's a recording saying the number's been changed to my dad's cell number! So I call that to hear what greeting is given and there's a recording saying his number has been disconnected! what the ever-loving fuck! Who the hell goes on vacation and has their home number forwarded to their cell phone, then manages to get their cell phone number disconnected?! I don't know if we'll be able to get the same number back once we move back in either.

Now I feel like I'm floundering because I have no one I can contact until Monday when my parents get to my brother's place!

My parents could have handled this temporary move so much better. This is ridiculous.

After I finished at work, I went to do laundry, then went to the apartment where my sister was loading up her car with stuff to take to storage. Went to storage, went to walmart for boxes then went back to apartment.

Jasmine and I boxed up 6 boxes worth of stuff, watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on my laptop, had dinner and went back to my sister's.

This morning, I went back to the apartment, loaded the car with the boxes I packed, went to storage, then back to the apartment for the 2 TVs, then to storage.

Would have gone back to the apartment, but needed to type up a paper for today's meeting at church and I needed gas.

Left the gas station with the intention of going to church when I remembered that my board meeting notebook was in storage. went back to storage for the notebook then came to church.

When I got to church, I locked my only set of (car) keys in the car! Luckily I left the window down enough that I could stick a long ruler through it and unlock the door.

Got my work done (for the most part), now the board meeting is going to start and after will be choir and maybe I'll have time to stop for lunch before going back to the apartment for the rest of the packing.

*sighs* Monday this will all be over!