Speedbumps and recovery

So I got some interesting news last week. Well, you see, Larry and I have been together a LOOONG time, we know this. We've been living together for about 4 years now, and we do know the fact that we live with our parents (in some form) is a bit odd at our age, or at least to others it seems to be. Last year around Christmas time I had been begging Larry to get us out of the house so we could move out on our own, with us it's a bit more difficult than just packing up and walking away, Larry co-signed on the house we live in with his dad (it was to help his dad because he couldn't get the home loan on his own) and Larry's been paying a generous amount to help him out, but I knew we were old enough to handle living on our own. After a  lot of talking we realized, since his dad is unemployed at the moment, it wouldn't really be nice to just walk away. So, as a compromise, we decided next year around the holidays (meaning this year) we'd talk to his dad and give him about 6 months notice to figure out a plan with the house, but to take Larry's name off of it and take it on his own at the very least, we planned on being out by April of 2012. This was unfortunate news to me, but I'm usually able to find the best out of situations handed to me so I figured that would give me a year to get my spending under control, make a budget and stick to it, and as my big plus I was going to plan a vacation for us to take in September to Six Flags and Sea World because I had never been to those and it might've been our last year we could go without having too much stress on saving up. I can't tell you how excited I became with this plan, I put the savings into my budget, I was finding stuff on the Internet to look forward to seeing, I was checking out hotels, driving routes, the whole thing. I was over joyed to be able to cross off a couple more vacation spots off my list of to-go-tos!

Then last week hit, and I found out Larry's dad being unemployed and no one else being able to chip in money for bills was hitting hard and it'd look like we'd be losing the house any month now. This was devastating, as much as I had been looking forward to moving out a couple months ago, I was not so excited to give up my vacation plans (not to mention I'm saving up my own money for those classes this summer so I don't have to add even more to my ever growing student loans and moving out now was going to put a big stop to that, which could throw off my whole year). Another down side for me is that I'm probably the biggest control freak ever, I'm pretty sure ANY Katherine Heigl role was written after me, I plan, prepare, and make lists of anything and everything I want to do. It's a joke among a friend of mine that I am a complete Monica (from Friends) when it comes to cleaning and organizing. I don't like going into the unknown, I can do it, I just really don't like to and feel very uncomfortable in the situation. Larry, on the other hand, is such a go-with-the-flow type, he just waits for things to come to him and he finds a way out of it, he's gotten lucky that way, and sometimes we do end up butting heads over things because of our different ways of taking on situations like this, but I just couldn't go into this without knowing what I was getting into first. It really hit hard that I had no control over this, looking at the options it wasn't pretty. I had no way to plan, we'd gotten to talking about dealing with a foreclosure and the reality of how that felt like failure was more than a punch to my gut. It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster to me, I had just trusted this to be taken care of, and now we were losing. But this being my greatest year, not allowing things to bring me down, and not allowing myself to throw pity parties, I figured I'm not just going to let myself wallow, I'm not going to feel beaten down, and I most certainly will find a way for us to get past this. So as of right now we haven't completely decided how we'll work it out, but we do know we are going to try and stick it out until May, that'll give me enough time to save up for school, it'll give us time to look at apartments, and buy all our necessities for our new place, and everyone has time to get out and find out where they will go next. Larry still has to talk to his dad, and possibly the bank, about what they can do with the least amount of damage and get all those details worked out, as well.

As much as this pushed our plans around, I'm actually really excited to go apartment hunting, I'm excited for our cats to be able to run around all day long instead of being locked in a small room while we're at work, I'm sadly excited for the bills (I've always associated bills with responsibility, and I'm one of those people who gets a high off of knowing things are paid and I was able to do it on my own). Plus I know of ALL the things that could've happened to throw us off, there could be worse! So keep fingers crossed we can get this all sorted out (and hopefully with tax refunds we can still do our trip in September) and I'll keep this posted on what happens :)

Releasing our inner nerd!

Okay, so confession time, I (along with Larry) am a nerd! I'm sure Larry would agree he reached nerd-status a bit before me, but it's now my time to make it official. Why you may ask, 4 words: Legend of the Seeker!

This show is simply amazing! So let me start by saying, Larry picked this show out on one of our trips to FYE (our most awesome movie supply store) and mentioned that he had heard of it while he was in Arizona. He was introduced to a lot of things down there, most of them have been something I've been completely on board with, but I saw the cover to this show with absolutely no enthusiasm. I asked what it was about and he said something about some guy named as the Seeker who has "quests" to save the world. YAWN! I could not be less excited for something. So we went home that night and watched the first episode, not being too eager to begin with I went into it so narrow minded I found it to be cheesy, lame, and a complete laugh. I told him right then and there that there was no way I would finish this series, EVER! I won't say how, to save him from any embarrassment or anger or anything, but Larry ended up talking me into watching a few more episodes and if I didn't like it then I wouldn't be forced to watch it anymore. After episode 2 I was hooked! It's a total fantasy world, but I still loved watching it every single night with Larry.

The story to the show is basically Richard Cypher (Craig Horner) is a common man, but one day he learns of his "true destiny" from Zed (played EXQUISETLY by Bruce Spence), who is known in the beginning as "the old man who talks to his roosters," and Kahlan (Bridget Regan), the "Confessor." He finds out he was born the true Seeker, sent here to defeat Darken Rahl (Craig Parker) against a world of tyranny. It is based on "The Sword of Truth" novels by Terry Goodkind-which is an eleven book series. I haven't read the books, but I did get the first 3 for Larry for Christmas so hopefully he can tell me how close they are to the show. The show started in 2008, and, unfortunately, only made it to two seasons, though there are plent out there trying to save the seeker to bring it back on the air, I wish I could do something to bring it back myself. Each season is the next book in the series, so I'd love to see it played out. It's a world full of wizards (Zed turns out to be the wizard), Confessors (with one touch you would be their slave), Mord Siths (they have magic agiel to help "train" others into being their slaves), Banelings (those brought back from the dead to serve the keeper), and so much more. This world is amazing, they don't necessarily believe in a God or Devil, in Heaven or Hell. In their world they have a Creator, a Keeper and an underworld, where EVERYONE goes, whether good or bad...oh wow, I'm even more nerdy than I thought.

So for those looking for anything new, or happen to be D&D freaks, you might actually enjoy this as well. I really can't believe I fell for it myself, we just finished the second season, and I really hope they find a way to continue it for a third, it really is a pretty cool series! If you do want to learn more, click on the Legend of the Seeker link from the beginning (it's just to the IMDB page)

2011-Are you ready?

Oh my gosh I can't believe it's a whole new year! Can I start by saying just how excited I am? First off this will be our first full year Larry and I will be together. By together I mean I won't have to just look forward to his weekend visits, he is done (for now) with military training and so this whole year he shall be mine, all mine! This will also be my first year with full goals in mind. I've always had things I'd have liked to get done throughout the year, but never really got to them, but this year will be amazing! I've entered into it thinking this will definitely be the greatest year for us, no questions asked, we will actively make it a good year for us.

I've started thinking I really should be taking my actions and choices into my own hands, before I've left it up to...well let's call it fate or destiny, not anymore. If I want something, I will be the one to work for it, if I want to get somewhere, I will be the one to get me there! No excuses, no pity parties, nothing! I'm very excited ha ha.

So far the year has started off amazing, We rang in the new year at my mom's. Played Hands and Feet (one of my favorite card games I'm discovering, even if I did lose pretty bad), drank some, ate pizza, and just really had fun. On the 1st we had a completely lazy day, I lied in bed, napped, watched movies, watched shows, surfed the Internet, etc. Larry played poker and computer games. It was fantastic! Today was my cleaning day, Christmas was taken down, living room was rearranged, then it will be grocery shopping, and then we get to really get settled into the new year (I've already written my first check wrong, don't you love the new beginnings?)

So back to my goals, I feel if I have them in writing then I might actually be able to accomplish them, or keep them in mind! All for 2011 (and if they happen to go into 2012, so be it!):

• Take our trip to Six Flags and Disneyland in September! I'm really looking forward to this because I've never been to Six Flags and it's been so long I can hardly remember Disneyland. Plus this will be a big vacation with just Larry and me. I've got the whole thing scheduled into my budget for the year so it should be easy to accomplish, it's just about scheduling it and really putting all the plans for it into action.
• Really keep to my budget! This, hopefully, will be our last full year under Larry's Dad's roof, so I need to get my spending in check. I know once we have an apartment with rent, utilities, and furniture I won't be able to just spend money like I'll have more again someday. We get to really grow up this year and although I've always been budget friendly, I've always found ways around it to make it keep working, even if I had to pinch pennies for a few months (yes I said months!), I'm hoping to avoid that at all costs this year.
• Start and finish my medical coding and billing classes! I'm really looking forward to being in a job more related to the field I'm studying, I love working with the people I work with, but 6 years at a credit union isn't going to help me with Psychology (no jokes about members being nutty here!) My main goal is to finish the classes, and if I happen to find a job this year in it, then even better, if not, then hopefully I'm good enough at my current place I don't lose that one this year ;)
• Learn a new language! I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, and I can only pick up on some words when those who are fluent in it (or it is their natural language) speak it around me now. Spanish no longer interests me, I'd love to become fluent enough in a language to visit a country that speaks it and test it out, but that could get expensive and VERY time consuming. So for now I'd like to learn Italian, enough to become fluent, and maybe one day (in the VERY long run) I can visit and see how good I really am. This one will probably be a bigger challenge to me because I can lost interest very easily if it doesn't apply to my every day life.
• Stop putting off things to tomorrow that I can easily do today! This one will probably be my hardest one. I'm always thinking I can do that this weekend, I can do that tomorrow, I can do it later today, but unless I'm physically unable to do it at the moment I think of it, I need to start doing things right then and there.
• Get into shape! I won't say I need to lose weight (I wouldn't hate that though) but I really need to get into better shape. I hate running, I hate waking up early to exercise, I'd rather sleep than do anything strenuous, I'm just not a work out and keep to it person. This year, however, I'm going to stay motivated! I would like to be able to hike without stopping too much, go on a bike ride without feeling like my lungs will collapse (yup, even bikes do it for me) and maybe, just maybe, one day, run without feeling like death has it's grip around my whole body! Larry is a runner, at least he was before his back had problems, so he's always made fun of me for not being able to run (I'm talking I can't even do 1/4 mile without wheezing), so hopefully he can help train me!
• As a side goal, I'd like to become a bit more organized, I'm sure EVERYONE who knows me would say this is not something I need to work on, and if anything I need to be LESS organized, but I am still sloppy in my eyes and I'd like to fix that.

Now to get started...wish me luck :) and to anyone out there with resolutions, goals, what have you, good luck to you!