Thoughts on Current Events in Hickersonia

Well, I have the peculiar fortune of having the coming weekend entirely to myself for only the second time in five years. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I must admit that I'm a little disappointed that I don't really have any money to spend (always makes passing the time easier if one has money) or someone with whom to hang out.

Of course, it isn't that I don't have money – in fact, I feel more free financially than I have in three or four years. The issue at hand here is that we have a lot of things going on and have decided to spend our money in ways that make me feel like we don't have any.

The biggest problem I'm wrapping my head around is my scheduled FMLA leave in June... 3 days off work without pay is going to wreak havoc on the budget if I don't save up the difference in overtime hours between now and then, which doesn't seem hard to do (I do work a lot of overtime anymore...) but still keeps money tied up that otherwise wouldn't be.

Of course, the FMLA leave is essential. My father has a surgery scheduled that may shed light on his cancer condition, and while I may be able to get away with only two days off, I would be surprised.

The other big thing going on is our plan to move, yet again. It isn't that our apartment is the worst place to live – I would even recommended it to people so long as a few criteria are met. The first one would have to be that the person looking at it would have to be the sort of person that doesn't care about a yard. Funny, how we have a decent sized grassy area around our complex but I don't feel that anyone can go out there because of the dog shit randomly left around and about. Yes, dog shit. Everywhere. No one cleans up after their dogs, and many of the owners don't even bother to leash them.

Next big factor for anyone wishing to live here: Live small. 800 square feet is simply not sufficient for all of our stuff. Sure, we've made the place into a cozy, if crowded, home for us, but we just never found a way to downsize to where we really fit. Clearly, size matters.

Finally, the one that has been bothering us the most in recent weeks: Smoking. Lets just say this, if you don't smoke, you probably don't want to live here. It has gotten to the point where we are occasionally smelling cigarette smoke inside the apartment even with the windows shut, and forget about opening them... From what I can tell, every neighbor on our side of the building smokes like a factory and, being we're on the top floor and heat rises, well... we get it all.

Aside from the major drawbacks here, like I said, the apartment really isn't so bad. The management does maintain things reasonably well. Not an example of perfection, but decent, and they are responsive to issues as they arise, something we could not say about our previous complex. Fact is, we simply have a much better opportunity and feel the need to take it.

Not far from our pre-bankruptcy house there is a little house on a quiet, dead end street where a whole bunch of elderly folks have made their last stand. This little house is empty and the owner seems to want to rent it to us. The house isn't huge, but it has a room that would make an ideal classroom for our son, plus a basement and garage. Fact is, even if the house is only 1,200 finished square feet, the classroom space and additional storage room alone will de-clutter our home tremendously, and lately it seems as if the constant state of disarray is the only thing that really depresses me from day to day.

So we come back to the fact that I'm home alone this weekend with little available money. If I get bored enough, my wife may return home to the clutter re-organized... *evil laugh* Netflix and Fallout 3 for three solid days sounds like enough to keep me busy, though, what do you think?