Tag Archives: Miscellaneous

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The Mass Protest In Little Big City

Where I live, I am in the same city as Westover Air Base. In fact, I could basically just walk about 20 minutes and be standing right at one of the gates to get inside. This might mean nothing to you, except that in recent days it was named a possible housing zone for the illegal immigrant children that they don’t know what to do with that have come from Central America. It’s in a city that people have probably not even heard of outside of Massachusetts. Hell, some places inside Massachusetts doesn’t even know it exists. Though, in a funny note as a resident: Rizzoli and Isles has mentioned it a few times in a few different episodes, including one where they incorrectly stated there was no Popeye’s in Chicopee. There is one, in fact, right on the main drag. Do your research, television writers.

Now that I have successfully gotten off point, we went out to get groceries yesterday there was a protest of not too many people. Probably no more than 40, but I didn’t care enough to count them. They were protesting said plan to bring those children (I won’t refer to them as immigrants or illegals. It doesn’t seem fair to call a child something they do not understand.) to said Air Base. I joked to my husband: “Look, that is the entirety of the Western Mass Tea Party”. We had a laugh, and drove by not really concerning ourselves to them. If you get a 100 people, you’re a protest. If you get less people than I had attend my wedding, it’s just a gathering. no matter how many “Don’t Tread on Me” flags or antique style American flags that existed in the days of slavery you have waving in the storm’s wind. (Side note, I swear the lightning kept striking in the area where they were standing. Sign from God?)

Were they even residents of Chicopee? Why should it matter to them? If they were, then let them be. It is our right as American’s to protest! I don’t care that they were there, they weren’t in my way to the grocery store. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed them if it weren’t for the yellow flags they were waving. “Support our Troops, not Illegals” signs were being waved. I can get behind that. Our troops have fought to ensure our freedoms and safety, they should get better care than they currently get. We could save money by forcing people who don’t feel like working out into the workforce to raise revenue to better treat the troops. That’s a great idea that we’ll never see happen, though the increase in minimum wage makes it less beneficial to just not give a shit, because now they make more than the people living off the system. (Another point altogether).

At first, I had some concerns. I agreed with people saying that we’re stressed enough supporting said people who don’t feel like working now we’re going to have to put resources towards children from other countries too. As a parent of a child in the local school system, I know some of the classes already have 20+ children in them. I don’t want my child to suffer in school because of more of an overflow of children. That was calmed when I found out they would be educated on base. The money part didn’t bother me as much as it should have; we’re already paying for people that don’t need the help, why not take the money from them and put it towards children who are actually in need? I’m a mom, I can’t handle the thought of a child being neglected or mistreated. That sickens me, 100%.

Should we house them? I’m not sure. It’s not my call to make. They have people who know all the facts, but like everything else they never tell us everything. Everyone just tells us enough to sway us in whatever position they want us to go. I don’t fall for that line, and I’m not going to feign outrage unnecessarily because that just makes me look like an ass. An uninformed, uneducated ass. And I’m only guilty of one of those, as are most Americans. I have the mass amount of student loan debt to prove I was properly educated, the uninformed is the politicians and media’s fault.

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The New Projects in the Works

I have been keeping busy, with projects galore. It is a full-time job juggling 2 kids, trying to accomplish my work, and keeping up with other household chores. This has become increasingly difficult as my work load has doubled since this blog has started and my little angel has become a demon ahead of his terrible twos. I’m hoping that, aside from his speech, that since he was ahead of everything else that the terrible twos has come early to end early and I can be swiftly done with this. However, as any parent knows, that is wishful thinking and I just have to figure out the best approach to juggling everything while maintaining some sort of family time and sleep schedule. Luckily soon I can go on my yearly 2 or 3 day vacation, and still work. The joys of freelancing? Also, he learned how to open our fridge, and I have to spend 80% of my time working running yelling “no you can’t have that juice box because you keep purposely squeezing it out”. Unfortunately, ultimately giving into his want for the juice box did not help the temper tantrums and I need to mop all of my floors.

My first comic was published yesterday, there is a link on the side to it. With the original program I was using (Comicado), the artwork ended up pretty nicely done but since it was the free version I was unable to upload the finished products because of the file type it was saved as. I was unable to figure out if buying the full version, at $30. Then I heard that Manga Studio was the best program for this, only I really wanted to hit my new deadline for launching the comic and found out on Amazon I could purchase this for the same price as Comicado with the definite answer of file compatibility. So against my better judgement, I launched anyways, and hopefully the next one I will be better at the program to get the best product out as possible. Until then, it’ll be a learning curve for all of us.

Also, this Friday I will be turning in 7 articles to a new entertainment start-up website that has decided I was decent enough to put on staff as a contracted but independent writer. After a conference call with my new boss and a few of the other writers, I feel very confident in the direction the product is headed. When I have more details, I will be sure to share them with my followers on Facebook and Twitter. I hope this is a sign that things are heading in the right direction for me. Next up, maybe I can start marketing my 3 ebooks to start upping the sales there. Moving on up in the world!

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All About Random Stuff

My head is swirling with all the stuff all over the news and otherwise. And what better place to air that swirling than right here with my readers. Don’t worry, next week we will be able to get started on the grand reveal of the house. I’m really just waiting for my resident photographer to not be working crazy overtime to get nice shots for you guys. Until then, you’re stuck with my rant of randomness for the day.

1) Can women have it all?: This has been a debate that has been going on for a while in the news. I ignored it at first as a ridiculous ploy to rile up the masses of my fellow gender. Can women have it all? Absolutely not, at some point something has to give. Even now as I’m currently trying to write this, following my dreams of writing, I am half watching my son to make sure that he is safe but half uninvolved because I can only multitask so much. The question isn’t whether women can have it all; the real question is “can anyone have it all?”. Which again I answer with: “absolutely not”. We can have pieces of it all, but you can’t fully be invested in everything. Does that make you a terrible person? No, it makes you just like the rest of us humans that are struggling to juggle family, home, and career aspirations. That does not mean you should have to choose between any of the above, it just means that you’re splitting yourself into pieces and not having it fully all to yourself. That is why I stand by my “no one can have it all: no man, woman, or child” stance.

2) It’s all in God’s plan: (I will probably let a few obscenities slip through with the next 2 rants. It’s passion, not anger. Okay, maybe a little anger.) Whenever there’s a tragedy, people always say “don’t worry, it’s God’s plan”. I’m sorry, but if it’s God’s plan to take an innocent life away, than I want nothing to do with that God. This is why I send my child to CCD without actually attending church myself. I understand that some people take it as comforting, but do not try this line on me because it will likely anger me into a rant of how “religion only exists for the people who need something to cling onto and I’m not someone who needs lies to cling to” which will just make me into an even more unlikable human being. The real truth is something bad shit happens to good people. I’ve dealt with my fair share of bad shit, and you know what? There are 2 types of people in the world: the type that uses tragedy as a teachable lesson to help them grow into strong people or the ones who dwell on it and try to make sense of the nonsensical. There is no answers to tragedies. We don’t know why that kid decided to shoot down that school. We don’t know why our kid got cancer and the neighbor next door that’s a terrible person lives to be 110. Unfortunately when it’s your time, it’s your time. Like they say: “a person walks out of the hospital being cured of cancer and gets hit by a car and dies.” Bad things are inevitable. That just means you need to cherish all the good things in your life even more, because gratitude for all the good will make up for the bad.

3) Need versus Choice: I keep struggling with my ideals on what “need” is, in terms of people who need assistance and help. Not just from the financial aspect of the government, but also in general. People might disagree and I know I have stated this before but I really need to reiterate this point. A person in need is deserves all the help they can get. A person in need is someone who just has the world crapping on them no matter what. They spend all day looking for a job to no avail. They sweep backrooms of bakeries under the table for a few dollars to get something in. They are trying all the career training and temp searches they possibly can to get something, anything to provide for their family and themselves and have no luck in life. That is a person in need. A person who just doesn’t feel like doing anything and wants to sit back and let the government pay them is not someone in need. That is someone who chooses a lifestyle of poverty. A person in need deserves my sympathy and empathy. A person in choice neither deserves nor will get any pity at all because while I believe some people just have shit luck (I am one of those people), you can try your hardest to fight against that luck. And sometimes you do get lucky. Even if you’re flipping burgers at Burger King to provide insurance and income into your family, there’s no shame in doing whatever it takes to provide for your family.

4) Our America: I have always love the “Our America with Lisa Ling” series on OWN. The episode on foster kids that I finally watched last night tugged at me like nothing else has in a while. You should find it On Demand or whatever and watch it. It immediately made me want to hug all those other kids, which is amazing since I’m not really a “kid person” let alone a “people person”. (Yes, I’m aware I have 2 children, but it’s much different when they’re your own.) Though true to myself, it made me want to hit the abusive stepfather that let the stepchildren see has he abused their mother repeatedly. The poignant line of the night came from the mother, who had lost her kids because the stepfather basically kidnapped one of the kids and she pulled a gun out on him trying to protect herself and her family: “I learned from those classes that even though he only abused me, he was putting another kind of abuse on my kids by making them watch. They learn from that. I learned to be careful who I associate with when my kids see me. Because they learn from that.”

1050 words later, and I have completed my rants. Thank you for reading and feel free to share your thoughts.

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Welcome to Homeownership

An entire week was spent prepping the house so we could get to moving in and enjoying the fruits of our labor. The before shots were taken, as to document this process and when it is complete, ideally next week, I will start a series about the transformation. And it was certainly transformed, not without many difficulties. But here we are, now in our new home and loving every second of it. We were able to go and do the easy stuff, the shopping for things like decor items and appliances. That was the easy part.

The first day of deliveries came, and soon I was watching my olive-green refrigerator from the 1960’s being hauled off. Then it was time for the stove, to which they said “sorry, it’s plugged in. I cannot help you. Where you do want your new stove?” When he saw my obvious displeasure being hidden by my friendly spirit, he assured me the install guys would haul it away and I wouldn’t be stuck with a stove sitting in the middle of a room. I pointed to my dining room that was still full of boxes, sighing that nothing was going to be easy was it. If I only knew…

The next morning, the installers called at 6:30am to tell me that I should be expecting them soon. At 7am on the dot, they arrived and lasted in my house for about 5 seconds to inform me that my gas shut off for the stove was illegal and not to code. I flashed back to the inspector that looked over that same area and said nothing. Seriously? I thought to myself, and luckily my husband walked in to hear the same exact words as I did. We found a plumber, and called him up and he appeared at my house a few hours later. Not only did he confirm what the Best Buy contractors had told me, but also let me know that the gas hook up for my 1960’s gas dryer was also illegally not to code. I narrowed my eyes and grew angry with the situation. He emailed me a quote for about $1200 to fix everything and install my stove and haul it away. I sighed, but I knew I had to suck it up and get it done. But what about that inspection I forked $450 over for?

Isn’t that why you pay for an inspection? It was mechanical and structural, so shouldn’t someone have seen it? I know he saw it because he pointed out where the gas shut offs were. What now? Could I get my money back for the inspection? Would his insurance cover this and I could recoup at least some of that $1200? We are trying to look into all these options. We emailed our realtor, but no response. This time of year, she’s probably on vacation anyways. Hopefully soon we’ll find out something, anything about this. If not, at least a rule about whether they should have warned us about it. Until then, “Welcome to Homeownership: where the most expensive things will always go wrong, with other expensive things”.

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The First Days of Homeownership

We’ve made it. We lasted the journey and came out happier than we went in. We signed our lives over on a dauntingly large pile of papers while our awesome realtor and the stern looking attorney watched on. Finally, we had the keys and we were ready to get started. We immediately headed to our house, to get our “to-do” list in order.
I didn’t even come close to finishing the packing, trying to do it by myself while juggling children and every day mother things just didn’t allow it. So I knew deep down that this move was not happening in one shot. Still I held out hope that maybe a miracle would happen. We bought our paint, our new door knobs, and various other supplies we needed to start our home updating. And we walked  in and we’re ready to get started.
Now you’re probably thinking “why paint and rip things up”. The house has not been updated since the 1960’s. When you see the pictures, you’ll understand. Even the appliances were old olive-green stove and fridge. The house smelled of old lady and dust from no one living there for what seemed like years. The walls had layers of dirt that was not coming off no matter how much I scrubbed. The wall paper was half off the wall, and as old as the house, as were the carpets. Then, there are those asbestos tiles that need to come up since there are loose and chipped tiles.
After the first day. Everything seemed to go wrong. The deadbolt wouldn’t fit in the hole in the door. There is still a hole in my door today, 3 days later. Hopefully tomorrow a friend of the family will come out and check it out. It probably wouldn’t be so hard if the metal plating wasn’t there.
The next problem was the wall paper. I know you’re thinking “wall paper is a bitch to get off, you should know better”. I did know better. We came equipped with this highly recommended wall paper remover and we were all in. What we didn’t expect was that the wall paper would start shredding off during the scoring process you’re supposed to do prior to spraying on the wall paper remover. My husband yelled excitedly how easily the wall paper was coming down. Until a groan of discouragement occurred, and I ran to see that the wall paper was tearing off quite easily. So easily, it was taking off the drywall underneath. 1960’s house: 2, LaRochelle’s: 0. Back to Home Depot and buy something to fix this. That was just our Friday.
On Saturday, I continue my long day of painting. Fortunately, my mother-in-law came over and breezed through the painting. Finally, only 2 rooms and a front door remained. It looked like we were finally getting a win. Until the bathroom. Underneath the wall paper was this tissue paper like layer that was unseen until the painting was pulling it off the wall. The house was back in the lead. Luckily, the wall paper remover did save our day. Unluckily, the light fixture fell down and severed the electrical wire and killed the power to our house. The house beat us again. After repairing the wire, we cut our losses. Tomorrow is another day.
Sunday, we finally begged for help. Armed with my nephew and brother-in-law, we went in determined to get a lot done. Finally, the rooms were all painted. Now, the floor removal was to begin. And then it happened, the big win was ours: underneath the living room carpet was a very awesome looking hardwood floor. We won, house. We won.
Buying a house is half the battle. We bought the house knowing that it needed a lot of updating. We liked the idea of completely transforming a house. There’s still (a lot) of work that needs to be done, especially outside.  Our major goal is to make the inside livable to move in this holiday weekend, and worry about the outside later. To accomplish this, all the flooring needs to be pulled and a new floor put in to replace our asbestos tiles. Let’s see how the progress comes along on Wednesday’s post. What was the most difficult part of the process for you?

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The Big Day is Here

After this often trying journey, the papers are signed and the keys are mine. My first order of business is going to be to get in there and just take it all in. This is ours, a place that we have worked hard for. There’s nothing more rewarding than being able to walk in and say “this is something we earned and worked our butts off for”. I say it all the time, there’s nothing like the feeling of accomplishing your goals that you worked a long time towards. Sure, it would’ve been easier to settle but this feels damn good.

It might not be the largest home but it’s our first and it’s ours, though the 0.35 acre yard is pretty awesome. It might be furnished with mostly second hand stuff, but we bought it. It’s a freeing independence to know that we’re succeeding enough to have our own home, something that is ours and we can do whatever we want to it without worrying about someone telling us we can’t paint with that color. A nice starter home where our boys can have their own rooms (for now) and can run free.

This is one of the most exciting, albeit one of the most stressful, things we have ever done. But to get the greatest rewards in life, you need to work and earn them. I can’t wait to turn this house into a home for our family. More to come, next stage will be following my journey to decorating our home.

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Why I Don’t Take Selfies (and other annoyances)

I need to get out of my stress and get away from the move or deadlines. Then I decided that today I would go someplace else. Pop culture and trends that annoy me would be a perfect place to start. I can’t stand most of these things I should be doing, as society wants me to. Let’s explore these annoyances together. And remember, I’m not anti-any of you, just the things you do.
1) The Selfie: I have never taken a selfie for the purpose of posting it across social media. I will not succumb to “duckface”. I know I’m decently attractive, I do not need to have a hundred or more people validate me and tell me they think I’m pretty. I don’t need the attention or the self-esteem boost. What I do need is to stop seeing it. And don’t say “but hot celebrities do it”. I don’t recall Chris Hemsworth doing one, and you’re nowhere near as hot as he is. (Side note: that’s a selfie I wouldn’t mind.) So let’s end this one.
2) Ugg Boots: Seriously, this trend hasn’t died yet? They are called “Ugg” because it’s short for “ugly”. These should never be worn again, especially not by anyone older than those dorm living college students that think wearing them with their sweatpants and pajamas tucked into them. And definitely not with skirts. You’re obviously not a hobo if you can afford them, stop trying to look like one. Though I must’ve missed why it is cool to look like a homeless person. For the record, I have seen homeless people that look better dressed than some of those Ugg people.
3) Leggings and you: Pregnant women are exempt from this one. I love wearing leggings. They’re comfy for working out. They’re comfy for work… if you work from home. They aren’t even that bad if you wear them with a nice tunic shirt that covers up on a quick shopping trip. What isn’t awesome is when I see people that wear them to job interviews or to school functions or even work parties where you are supposed to be wearing “business casual”. They are just a step up from pajamas, another article of clothing that wasn’t meant to be worn in public. And they look worse with Uggs. And on men.
4) The “Moobie” shirts: A “moobie” is a “man boobie” for those not in the know. The “moobie” shirts are those skin tight shirts that males wear because they think they are buff or sexy or whatever they are silly enough to think a shirt like that would convey. News flash: it makes you look like you have bigger boobs than me, and I’m no a-cup. Also, you look fat and not buff. Save the tight shirts for the ladies. And for that point, save the super skinny jeans to us too. The things those super slim jeans accentuate are the same things I don’t want to see.
What are some trends that really bother you? Feel free to share them.

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Drowning in a Sea of Boxes and Post-its

Buying a house is one thing; buying everything you need to move in and packing it all is another. Since we started the process, we bought things here and there so we didn’t have this huge expense at once. Before we even picked a house, we had most of the basics we would actually need. This weekend we spent putting more of a dent in that list. That was the fun part. Looking at all the stuff you now have to pack? Groan city.
My neighbors sold their house and moved shortly before we heard whether we got the house. She had to drive back to the city to pick up her kids from school and was kind enough to supply us with boxes, bubble wrap and other packing supplies. At first, I thought she had given us too much for what little stuff I thought we had. I was so very wrong. After using about 6 or 7 of those boxes and all of the packing stuff, I reconsidered the state of this situation. I’ve learn my lesson: if you think you have enough boxes, get triple the amount more.
I was impressed with myself with my accomplishment of packing one whole room in 2 hrs. Then I realized how much more I had left to do. I say “I” instead of “we” not because my husband is a useless waste of space, but because I have decided to take this on myself. My husband calls me the “Tetris Queen” because somehow I always get everything to fit. Mostly I’ve decided to do this myself because I am an OCD anal control freak that needs to do this myself or I will make whomever doesn’t do it my way very miserable. (Remember, admitting your flaws is healthy for you and your relationship.) I tell my husband it’s because he does so much at work that I couldn’t possibly make him come home and help with it. No, he doesn’t believe me. Yes, he does know this means “I love you too much to want to hurt you”. He stays out of my way, and tries (mostly unsuccessfully) to keep our toddler out of the way.
I tried to do it while he’s at work, but I found I spent 100% of my time trying to retrieve the box that the toddler declared as his toy, and 0% trying to pack. And “box” was not a typo. One box and 1 hour of effort was all the evidence I needed to prove that this was not going to work out. I considered enlisting the troupe of grandparents that would love to watch him but like usual, my sense of family duty won. If I can manage a child while vomiting and completely exhausted with fever, certainly I can handle packing with my overly active toddler. Millions of parents do this all the time, so dammit I can to. I was raised that way, and I’m made of steel. Stainless steel.
Friday is the big day. I have set myself up to fail by listening to my husband and waiting until now to do this. But I am nothing if not amazing at meeting deadlines. I live for this sort of pressure. I will have everything packed at ready to go for Friday, especially considering I’m probably going to be too excited to sleep Thursday night. I’m ready for this.

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One Week

My husband and I look at each other every day since getting word of the house, we smile and say “homeowner”. We are beyond excited.  We’ve moved onto a new stage of this journey: logistics. How should this room look? How should we set up this place? What about my office area? When should we do this project? Do we rent a truck or borrow one?
This weekend the packing and cleaning starts. Everything is becoming more real now. My weekend and week will be about boxes and shopping. There’s a lot to do in a week, and I hope I can get most of it done. There’s no real rush to be done in a week, because we still have abestos tiles to pull up and paint to dry and air out fumes. Plus, the internet won’t be in for another week so I can’t really work there until then.
I just want the keys, I want to sign the paperwork and lay down on our lawn or our floor and just take a moment to take all of this in. It’s ours. I want to stand at our windows and look around. I want to take a run in the new area and get user to my surroundings. My anxiety has turned into complete excitement. I can’t wait to see it when we’re done and officially moved in.
There is nothing more adult feeling than knowing you own a house. In January when I turned 30, I didn’t think that I would be where we are now. I felt like a failure in following my dreams of writing. I thought we would never get a home. Now, my writing career seems to be doing well for someone really starting to break into the field. And now next week we get the keys to our home. Turning 30 turned out to be the best thing to have happened to me. This upcoming adventure will be on my top 5 “best things to happen to me” list.

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Homeowners

The title speaks for itself. After all that stress and anxiety, we were given the exciting news that we were going to be homeowners. We survived. We did it. (More on the interesting way we found out.) We set up schedules for our utilities, so now we just have to get everything set to move in and get on with the fun/misery that comes with home ownership.
After blogging on Monday, I continued on a hot streak by getting more work done. My husband called, but I missed it. Apparently our underwriter sent us an email from the loan site and he couldn’t log on since I had the passwords. I quickly looked through, dismissed it as boring appraisal forms and decided to print it out and read later.
Later came and I printed out all 33 pages. I sleepily looked through it until at the end I noticed another letter head. Confused, I read that it was an approval letter for our mortgage. I found it odd that no one called us. Maybe it was a mistake. So I called my husband back to let him know the possible good news. He agreed to call the mortgage broker to make sure that everything really was set.
It turns out the email service was faster than our mortgage broker because she had called him shortly after to inform him that after all our worrying, everything worked out. The realtor called soon after to share with us the next steps. Next we had to transfer names onto the electric company, because that way we avoid connection fees. We had to get our gas set up, and they provided us with a “new home buyers” program where they did the leg work and helped us set up cable and ADT, as well as sending us coupons for Home Depot. They officially win as “best company”.
Our realtor also suggested we get in there to get measurements so we could get furniture and appliances delivered asap so they were in when we needed, as well as discussed the day before closing walk through, then the actual closing. This is really happening.
Everything paid off in the end. We get our dreams that we worked hard for. We survived with our marriage intact, are sanity still there, and huge smiles on our faces. Next Friday, the keys will be ours and the “fun” begins. Now, the next chapter is the packing.