I guess I'm lucky to have them.

I hate my teeth.

Oh, they're perfectly good,  nice and straight only slightly discolored (thanks soda and coffee). As long as I stay away from certain shades of lip gloss you wouldn't even notice.

What I hate are my gaps. It's like my whole mouth is full of teeth that are a size or two too small so I have all these gaps in my top teeth. I begged my parents for braces when I was younger but my mom had the same gaps growing up and her wisdom teeth coming in had pushed everything together. She assured me that would happen for me too, so why spend the money?

Well, I'm 34 and my "wissies" are still nice and snug, buried in my gums.

I should have paid closer attention to some of the family pictures we have. I have the same smile as my Great-great grandpa Arlie. His never closed up. My first-cousin has the same teeth. But she got braces and they looked great! I remember being so jealous at the time. But, with the confidence of youth she failed to wear her retainer and now you'd never know she once had perfect teeth. It makes me so mad! I wouldn't have squandered the money and time of braces!

I've been thinking about getting braces now, but being poor and in debt, it seems foolish to tack on more debt for something so superficial? I guess I could do what my grandma did in the 50's and just have them all ripped out and go for dentures. Yeah, maybe not.

I really, really hate my teeth.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Kurt challenged me with "Teeth." and I challenged stacie with "That first sip.

iPhone Obsessions

A list of things that are currently zapping all the electricity from my iPhone.

• Flick Homerun - I'm completely consumed by flicking a tiny baseball across my little screen.
• Draw Something - I know you know what I'm talking about. My username: tobielee12 if you want to laugh at my lack of skillz.
• Where's My Water - you need to check this out. It''s all about getting water to an alligator living in a sewer. Kind of a puzzle, brain teaser thing.
• Sims Free Play - almost as good as the PC version. Well as good as you can expect for a hand-held device.

As you can tell, I kind of like to play games. With the gloomy weather keeping me from getting started on my gardening at least I've got something to do!

Let it go.

I had a confrontation with a family member this week. It was heated, absurd, and a longtime coming. I'd been backing down and letting things go as "not important enough" to make a big deal over. Then something was brought up that I had thought we'd worked out months ago and I knew that it had never been worked out to begin with. And I got pissed.

I don't really do angry. At least not directed at anyone but myself. I'm a pro at being mad at myself. Like I could make millions if it were a professional sport. But back to the point, I got mad at this person, furious in about 2 seconds. Heart pounding, body shaking, tidal waves of rage mixed with overwhelming sadness that our relationship would probably never recover from.

Here it is four days later and the anger is long gone. In it's place is a sad peace. Peace because I know I didn't do anything wrong. OK, there may still be a tiny bit of frustrated hurt because she threw down the "I'm a mother" card as if that trumped any argument I might make.

For now, I'm moving on. It's been hard to not pick up the phone and attempt a reconciliation, I'm not good at letting animosity fester if I can do anything about it. The fact is, if the other person refuses to believe me when I am speaking truthfully there's not much else that can be done. I'm getting to be OK with that.

Big, BIG weekend plans.

Or not.

I mean, my weekend just happens to be jam-packed, but none of the plans I've made will require me to actually leave the house.

You see, I am  a messy person. I've never been concerned with things like dust bunnies under the bed of dishes piled up in the sink. It goes WAY back. Friends would come over for sleepovers and we'd end up cleaning my room.

I was pretty good for the two years I shared a dorm room but all bets were off after that. Even now, I have three whole bedrooms to stash my stuff but things get piled all over the place until I feel like I'm on the verge of being featured on Hoarders.

So yes, this weekend will be "The Weekend of Cleaning!"

I vow to wash every dirty dish, fold or hang up every article of clean laundry that is currently residing in a pile on the guestroom bed. Not even the garage will be safe from the swirling tornado of cleaning that will be me!

Somewhere amidst all that cleaning I also have to find the time to write a grant proposal (my first client, yay!) and come up with a lesson plan and example for a company I am doing work for. Both are due Monday.

Who needs sleep?

Happy Good Friday everyone! Take a moment to thank God for sending his son to be crucified for our sins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syExGszydHc&feature=related

Gift or guillotine?

Big, BIG things are a-brew over here and I'm not sure if I can handle it or if I even want to try.

I think my parents want me to buy my house from them, the house I'm currently living in. They'd sell it to me for what they owe on the loan, taking a loss, just to get it out of their hands. It helps that as a first-time home buyer I can get a super low interest rate.

When they bought the house for me four years ago, this was my dream scenario. At the time, my credit history was so bad I wasn't eligible for a loan that would afford me a liveable home in a safe neighborhood so the obvious alternative was letting them do all the heavy lifting for me.  Like most decisions in my life it started out because I was bored and feared getting older with nothing to show for it.

I clearly remember approaching my dad around Christmas 2007 with the idea of capitalizing on the plunging real estate market and buying me a house. Little did I know that my one mention of house hunting would have us looking and making an offer in a few short weeks. Maybe a month? We would only look at bank-owned houses so when we finally found one it took forever to jump through all the hoops and get the keys.

In my head I thought we would be in it together, yes they would be fronting the money but they'd done the same thing for my brother years before and my parents have always been unfailingly fair in that respect. It started out pretty well. I went hog-wild with painting. Deep teal for the living room, bright blue in the kitchen, black and grey in the master bedroom. I am not a girl who is afraid of a little color. Aside from telling me I could absolutely NOT have chickens and nagging me about mowing the lawn, it has been a pretty awesome arrangement. Except I was never an owner, just the renter.

But.

Yes, there's always a "but" isn't there?

Here's the deal: do I want to be tied to this house in Lodi for the foreseeable future? Is the chance to start building equity on such a large scale, essentially for free, too big to pass up? I have a terrible financial track record, no savings to speak of and only just started a retirement plan a few weeks ago (after having the same job for the last 9 years). If something terrible were to happen I'd have no money to fix it.

What do I do?

Seriously.

What?

All shook up. But in a good way.

Changes are afoot! As you can probably tell by the new blog URL and title. I feel like a whole new person lately.

The meds must have finally kicked in. Ba-dum-dum! Don't forget to tip the bartender.

But seriously, stay tuned for more developments as they.

Who am I?

I have no idea right now.

Can I tell you how I've spent the last 36 hours or so?

Sunday night my best friend called and we had over an hour-long conversation. I don't remember most of what we talked about. But I do remember her asking me, several times, "what is wrong with you?" or saying "you're acting weird." That in itself isn't so unusual. I am weird. I can be my weirdest with my best friend. The strange part was that I too was feeling off, but had no idea why.

The next day, Monday, I got home from work and after an hour-long nap on the couch I had the sudden urge to go to Costco. I spent about $30 on an random assortment of fresh foodstuffs and then took another nap before deciding to skip the first BSF meeting of the new year to eat salad and watch TV. This is highly unusual in that I LOVE BSF. I love my group and the friends of mine that also attend. Plus we'd just had a three-week break for Christmas. I should have been there.

Then we have last night.

WHAT.

THE.

F*#K?

I got home form work. Antsy. Itching to go. To the indian casino over an hour away. In my head I would drive up there, eat at the buffet (I really wanted a buffet-type salad), win a couple hundred bucks and come home.

In reality it took me forever to get up there thanks to Sacramento commuter traffic I couldn't find the buffet at first and blew half my stash in about 10 minutes. I finally found the buffet, to the right of where I entered the building, so I ate dinner: a wilted lettuce salad, turkey dinner, and a few bites of assorted desserts before leaving to play the penny slots as I headed out the door.

The drive home was a lot quicker and I was in bed around 9:30.

Even this morning I can hardly believe what happened. I mean, I can be pretty impulsive but this was a definite first. I'm a little worried. I'm too poor for this to become a thing. I hope. Thanks to last night's escapade I have about $20 a week for the rest of the month.

Seriously?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?