Speaking of not planning things, I ended up in the hospital last Tuesday night after work with a blocked bile duct from a gallstone. The hospital near me is good, but you can tell they struggle with having a good overarching manager who can track the number of patients, tests, etc that pass through their doors. It took 2 days to get me a bed, and that was the day I was actually discharged since the stone had passed and I could eat again.

So ironically I was actually in the hospital the day of my original closing, but it worked out that it had been moved.  Tomorrow I'm supposed to close and there are still these small bits & pieces which no one told me about despite repeated inquiries over the past month, and now suddenly it's my fault *sigh*. 

I just want this over. I'm tired of putting my life on hold outside of work, packing, and trying to keep this purchase on track. This has been far harder than expected, and much of the difficulty has been two things:

1) Lack of communication. I told everyone up front "First purchase, guide me" but my real estate agent has been the only truly helpful one.

2) Lack of face to face meetings. There are SO MANY things that could have been signed in one go, or questions to iron out that would have gone so much faster and smoothed the process.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to electronic documents. But when your lawyer sends out non-OCR/non-signable documents, then it complicates the process since I don't have Adobe Pro and my parents are lost even if it's practically done for them. I just have to keep reminding myself to hold on, I'm almost there.

I certainly didn't plan it this way, but it turns out I have the whole weekend to myself because it's going to be incredibly nasty with a nor'easter. Yesterday I got my flu & Covid shot, so I've been very unmotivated and tired today, but that could just be burn out.

News on closing? Meh, still completely iffy, but we're supposedly getting closer. It sounds like I may be in business in mid-October, so I really should be packing, but see above for unmotivated and tired. Maybe if I get a late burst of energy, which is usually the way my body works now. Up early around 7, crash around 2-3pm for an hour nap, then second wind takes me to 10pm when I get off work. 

My brain is officially mush during non-working hours, since I've been "on" for the past two months coordinating all of this, and it just wants to be done. Back to more notes, set dates to do certain things, and hope I get a firm timeline soon. 

Life certainly has a sense of humor. I was waiting until this past weekend to set up utilities on my closing date, got that all settled, everything's covered, everyone is notified, and then my lawyer gets an email.

The house that the seller was in some sort of weird bidding war for came back on inspection with a leaking roof and some other issues, so now she has to start again. 

So despite being super productive and starting to get last minute things lines up now I have to call these places back, explain the situation and ask for either a floating date, or to cancel the request and I'd resubmit when I (think) I know again. I swear, no good deed goes unpunished. 

 I've been trying to do it all. Full time work, packing, follow up on the follow up of the follow up for the condo contract before closing, trying to exercise, and managing the daily tasks like eating, food shopping, baking, etc. And that's not counting parental time since they have gotten used to seeing me every weekend. I've given them the heads up that there will be a point I can't commit to a day with them since I'll have to really focus on packing some time in the next couple of weeks and I think that time's here.

Last weekend I ended up with a horrible hot flash and 5 hour crash out, today it was briefer, but I'm really hitting my limit here. Unfortunately it's not like I'm losing weight, but I'll cross that bridge when I get settled in the new place; for now I'm just trying not to gain more.

Time to get ready for bed, and at least I know tomorrow I have nowhere to go, so I'll enjoy the rain from inside, and hopefully recover some before starting a new workweek. 

My back is finally as healed as it will get 5 weeks later which is indicative of the size of the abscess. I'm not going to bother getting the cyst out now, since it also will need time to heal and moving would probably break the stitches, but that's on my list of things to do when I get into the new house.

The seller came back with $1,500 so the attic fan will definitely be covered and I'll have to start YouTubing how to add caulk & sealant to a bathroom, what the newer products are, etc. I do intend to do it with my dad's help, but he hasn't done it in decades so it's worth it to me to know the newer techniques. 

I'm running on low again for energy, and I'm going to have to do something about that as much as possible, but for now I'm working normal shift tomorrow, and making small packing plans. I haven't contacted movers/locksmith yet but I still have over a month to book, and historically mid-fall is not prime moving time. 

For now, I'll just settle for getting a full night's sleep. The rest will come later. 

 It's hard to believe I will be closing one month from now. How insane is that?! I submitted a list for repairs/credits including the basic problem of attic fan is broken for her to offer $500. Really? You can't buy a new fan and hire an electrician to go up in the attic to reinstall one for less than $1,000 probably. 

Tomorrow I'll call my lawyer and we'll work out his response to her lawyer, but I'm angling for $1,000 minimum, $1,500 preferably, but we'll see. I don't want this dragged out for nickel & dime purposes, so if push comes to shove I'll eat cost on cracked tiles & do caulk & sealant myself. The attic fan is the big issue and that was in the seller's disclosure, inspection report, and has been known as an issue for a while. The $1,000 to make that whole would be enough.

Going through processes like this drive home yet again just how much I loathe negotiating. A natural next step for some people in my profession is to switch to vendor contracts since we use the databases all of the time, but I would literally quit for my mental health. I can handle limited or personal negotiations, but the stress I feel through my body is undeniable. If that was my job, I would burn out so fast it would be ridiculous. So I'll go on as I have, not making the most or advancing my position, but also sparing my body the inevitable tension when I'm thrust into the spotlight in pretty much any way, shape, or form.

With age does come some wisdom, and I can see now how what I was taught growing up, to push through no matter what, is a terrible fucking idea if it comes at the expense of your health, mental or physical. So yeah, I've resolved never to be in that position again if I can help it, and I'm old enough that I may not be pushed to do so, fingers crossed. 

Aaaand, it's still a constant back & forth, but things are progressing sort of okay. The seller found a house, so I have a firm closing date of Sep. 30th (yay!!!!). In the meantime I had a trip scheduled to go to PA and see my cousins on my mom's side for three days the end of last week, so I thought I was prepared. Inspection reports were sent out to all parties, I notified my realtor and attorney I would be out of town, and left, only to spend half of the time (outside of the time with my cousins where I refused to check my phone) either calling, texting, or emailing as things continued.

For now I have almost everything outstanding from then done, but tomorrow or Thursday I have to sit down and really examine all of the pieces to figure out if I'm leaving anything out. If I don't forget in between juggling the mental energy for all of this with the mental energy expended at my job finding new, creative ways to dig out information.

I've begun packing in the meantime though, and have gone through all of my books. I'm down to 7 small moving boxes of books, which is pretty good for me considering I have books from childhood to now. DVDs are next, winter clothes, if I get egg crates I'll pack the less used kitchen items...it's going to happen. I will just pace myself since I don't have to move Sep. 30th, I can do one big move in October with a company then take the fragile items, cleaning supplies, etc myself since it's only 15 minutes away.

It's another 15 minutes to the sand from there, 10 minutes longer than now for me, but considering the price differential it was necessary. To demonstrate: smaller 2 bed/2 bath single level condo (with a basement) near me now? About $580-610,000. Where I'm going? 3 bed/2.5 bath, 2 level is about $440-480,000. Basic savings right off the bat? About $150,000. It's worth 10 extra minutes to the beach!

More major hurdles down, yay! The inspection came back clean with just a couple cracks in tiles, caulking, and that broken attic fan which I knew about from the sellers disclosure. I loved this place when I saw it partly because it was old-fashioned, with most of the original finishes still there, but all of it was well taken care of and the utilities were new or almost new. I also finally met the seller who lives with her mother there and they're moving into one of the many retirement communities down the Shore. Both seem like lovely people, she's a nurse, and her mother is still 100% with it mentally, and you could tell they cared about (and for) the place.

 I did something I probably shouldn't have, since I did like them and I could tell they were very nervous about ending up rushed to move or couldn't get a new property in time. Because I'm a sucker, I let them know my real timeline, that my lease is up Dec. 31st, but I want December to move, so Nov. 30th is my hard deadline. That gives them five months from when they put the condo on the market to find somewhere which should absolutely be doable, but I know from watching my family and parents age that the older you are, the longer something takes, and the more nervous the person gets when they feel out of control of the situation.

I suppose I'll find out if I regret that depending on if they have to push the closing date back, but I'm hoping that by acting in good faith myself, it comes back to me as well. Of course there have been many (many, many) times things like that have come back to bite me in the ass, so with a little luck this may not be one of them. 

Oh yes, and the other happening is that an old cyst which had been inactive for decades decided to abscess, so I had to go for an I&D at CityMD last Monday. It's still weeping a bit and I can't properly bandage it because of where it is, but I've been managing.

Luckily they also prescribed me antibiotics so that should help prevent infection too, and it there's no visible sign of infection currently. I managed to get a last minute cancellation at my mom's dermatologist on Wednesday morning though, so I'll see what the professionals have to say. I'm anticipating they'll want to take the cyst out, but that's more surgery than a quick office visit will provide, so that will be pushed forward.

One of the suckier things about cirrhosis is that bleeding increases and immune response decreases, so it can cause weird shit like this to happen. But I'm aware of it, and addressed this quickly enough (and even left during work) that it didn't go systemic. If I live like I'm 30 years older than my actual age, I find that's just about where I land. Oh well, this too shall pass. 

Things are progressing apace (I think) since there are so many goddamn steps in this process, but I'm just trying not to stress too much, and work with all parties involved.

I also realize that my parents are hitting that older state and it's showing. My dad forgets things rather frequently so it's obvious that he's getting dementia (it runs on his side of the family), and his sister giving herself vascular dementia is making my mom crazy since taking care of both of them falls on her. She hates change, and like most older people their capacity to adapt diminishes, but this is emotional change which she hates even more. I'm hoping having an extra bedroom in my place will give her a break for a few days here and there.

So it's on me to be the calm in the storm, research and figure shit out, and hope and pray I did everything necessary and correctly. The stress is brewing in me too, but one thing I got very good at when I was living at my parents among their frequent fights is a sort of dissociation. Like a meditation technique, but more like a small box in my mind. I write down what I need to remember to do later, then lock that thing in the box until I need to revisit it. Weird, I know, but it works fairly well.

We all work out coping skills, healthy or unhealthy. Most of all, this too shall pass, and when it does I will finally own a place! 

They took the offer for the condo, woo hoo!!!! Of course this means chaos is my next two months. 

Thank god this week was quiet at work since I was simultaneously trying to get my loan application correct, the contract into attorney review, and an inspection lined up. Normally this would be simple, right? My realtor knows what she's doing, but my loan officer keeps not correcting what he needs to like THE ORIGINAL EXPIRATION DATE WHICH WAS YESTERDAY, which should now read Sep. 30th, 2026. 

It also doesn't help that you can't go in person, walk into the loan officer's office with an appointment, sit down, hammer out details, then finalize it together. Electronic things are good when everything's done correctly, but if changes need to be agreed on and viewed by more than one party, it pays to be in the same room.

So next week I'll do it all over again (boo!) and see if they get it right this time around. At some point I may just ask to meet in person and see how that goes if I get fed up enough. 

First offer? Yanked by me. The realtor was so incompetent AND her agency was representing the seller so it would have been a dual agent situation which meant even breaking as a buyer I couldn't get away from these people. They screwed up a basic contract because more than one person had to sign electronically and they kept sending copies that keyed to the wrong person. After 5 days of torture, I finally said "no, we're done." We still hadn't received and signed any contract because they couldn't get their shit straight.

Since the beginning, and I do mean the very first open house we went to see, it was in a complex that I really liked, with a pool and small but not too small amount of condos. In retrospect I should have bought that one, but oh well. There aren't many things that I believe in making a decision on how it feels, but looking for a place to live, and choosing a shelter pet, are two of those things.

I like this place. It has front & back windows, but is still only 2 floors instead of those monstrous 3 level townhomes they keep building everywhere. I've carried groceries up a full flight of stairs (and from the back parking lot) for over 3 years now. I have no desire to climb from the garage to the kitchen with 30 lbs of groceries. The bedrooms are all on the second floor, but as I've seen in most other places, that's the non-retirement community way to build. At this is one fairly straight flight, so a chair lift or extra bannister could be an option if my parent(s) move in at any point.

And best of all, the price is more reasonable. There are some updates I may do eventually, but nothing pressing, and it's really in move-in condition. Again, is it ideal? No, ideal has come and gone, but I have a very positive feeling about this place, and I know I can work the financials on this property much better than the other complex I love where it's a hard stretch price-wise. I'm moving to a more blue-collar town, but I have blue-collar type of money from my white-collar job where we're lowest on the bank's totem pole. 

That's always been me though. I hate drawing attention, I hate promoting myself, and I hate management as a career, so I stay in the background, get compensated decently, particularly for my profession, but my salary reflects that. It's hopefully enough for now, albeit with the help of my parents.

I made my first offer on a condo this weekend. I doubt I'll get it, since I went in $50,000 below asking price and the market around here is hot as all get-out, but it's a valiant effort and an introduction to the process at least, since I've never done it, and my parents last house-hunted in 1984 (their current retirement home was built from a model on demand). 

 If I do get it, however, I would be absolutely ecstatic, even if it's not 100% perfect (bent garage door, no tub, only showers, overly finished basement, etc), but it has to be affordable for me. Yes, I live in a community with a lot of rich people. No, I'm not rich, sadly.

 So even if I don't get it, it's not the end of the world. I've spoken to the property manager and if my search drags on, they will work with me when I would need to get out of the lease. And if something comes up with my requirements/location, and I hopefully could get something even more reasonable price-wise, I'm ready to pull that trigger. 

So the answer apparently is no answer as to why I'm not losing weight, so I have to start tracking what I eat better, I guess. I don't know, I'm already down to 1/2 of what I used to eat to get this size. Oh well.

Next week I'm heading into the office for our bi-annual meetup and in this case, a colleague's retirement dinner. I'm going to miss her; just like Gary was my mentor at LIB, she was mine at SIB. Of course I'm happy for her, and knew it was coming, but I do miss (most of) my coworkers when they leave. I'm still leery of having a random hot flash/exhaustion, particularly since it's summer so I'll already be trending hot, but all I can do is bring water, protein bar, cooling towel, handheld fan, and try to get rest the beginning of next week, even at the expense of my exercise for a day or two.

I do envy people who never have health issues, but I know I have to save my spoons, and sometimes it's still not enough. Fingers crossed. 

On Wednesday I'm going for a check up with my primary care doctor, and I am glad. I've been trying to limit my diet and increase exercising in addition to managing hot flashes, poor sleep, and general stress of life. I had my bloodwork done and it's stable/normal, but as an indicator of how I've changed my diet, my cholesterol went from 211 in January to 160 now. That's crazy pants difference for 6 months, but basically I eat oatmeal, yogurt, granola, and whatever I made that week for dinner (although now I'm limiting that so it's more like 2 meals & 2 snacks in a day).

I really wish there was a Pre-Menopause, Peri-Menopause, Menopause handbook (or one for each stage), since with all of this healthy crap, I've gained 5 pounds. WTF?! I don't know what else to blame this on because every other metric seems to be flashing go except my waist diameter. I really hope my doctor has some helpful hints 'cause I'm pretty much not sure where to go next. 

 It's been busy. I would say good busy, but the summer interns are here, and my sleep is still massively screwed up, where I have to get up to have a hot flash at like 3 am, then try to still get up early enough to get out and exercise or get errands and appointments done before I log on to work.

What I do have in my favor is that at least for now I'm holding my own. The next NYC date is Jul 22nd for my colleague's retirement dinner, but I've already let them know I'm doing WFH in the morning, then leaving to be on the 1pm train into the city. For all of the extra hours I put in, I've paid my time and more for that half day, so I don't have to feel guilty about it.

This may be the first rainy weekend since Memorial Day, but Sunday's nice, so I should have Saturday to rest, then meet up with the parents on Sunday. In the meantime I've had a cousins' catch-up with most of my extended Italian family that's around my age, which was really nice. I was never super close to them since we moved half an hour away when I was 5, but we've always gotten along well.

Sometimes I wish there was more family in my life, but I also know it was very intended on my part not to have kids and the connections that come through that experience, but overall, never regretted it, and I don't think I ever will. I'm lucky like that :D. 

The warmer weather is here and shore festivals are in full swing. On any given weekend there are at least 5 things happening in various towns which is much nicer than staying warm and inside during the winter, and is great for getting the flavor of each town.

One of the many reasons I want to stay around here when/if I do buy something. There's a new one on the market but no basement so boooo...

Obviously, I'm still waiting on a place that meets most of my needs and my parents' future needs if it comes to that. Oh well, back to the waiting game.

I'm not a believer in any sky wizards, astrology, or other means of non-logically explaining the way the world is, despite having been raised Catholic through confirmation. When I sat down for my interview with the Monsignor (we all had to do a personal interview to get approved for confirmation), I asked him to explain how Catholicism's theories clash with evolutionist theories and what his views are on this topic, and others like this that challenge the core of the faith.

We had a good chat, and he approved me so that worked out well, but at the time it was genuine curiosity that led me to ask that question. Post-confirmation I tried high school Bible study, and went on one retreat, but I resented that any opinion other than the unofficially approved one led me to feel alienated. Nope, no God there. After that it was Christmas/Easter mass, then not going at all.

AA was partly difficult because it was Bible study group all over again, but with the Big Book and Bill worship alongside God. Or Higher Power. Or whatever. They meant God, come on, I'm not dumb nor naive about religion. As you can imagine my general disillusionment with the program and that same feeling that I wasn't giving the "right answers" led to me dipping on that program too, although I've tried it about 3-4 times seriously.

The question to all of this, perhaps, is why was I never fulfilled by religion despite giving it my best effort. Outside of the general cognitive dissonance which I do not enjoy or need more of in my life, there's was just no return on investment, and it was actually a net negative. Others described feeling happy, belonging, finally understood, accepted, etc when my experience just left me...empty. My job drained most of my mental energy, and running around to various meetings, church, etc just exhausted me further since I don't have much physical stamina.

For whatever reason, religion never filled a hole for me. I'm not sure if it was the constant connotation of guilt that reverberates through the Catholic church, or Protestant for AA, or the fact that I never found like-minded people who didn't take the religion as unquestionably right, but it just isolated me further from life since I shut down when uncomfortable. I'm happy for those who find it to be a reassuring presence in their life. I just don't think I'll ever experience it first-hand.

I am happy to report that I got more for my birthday this year than a towel! Mostly because I shopped for a lot of it myself when we went to an art walk two weekends ago, but considering last year this year is gearing up to be so. much. better!

Some of the reasons why:

1) I don't have pancreatitis anymore

2) I don't have pneumonia anymore

3) I can breathe without supplemental oxygen

et al. Last year I was newly out of the hospital, and living with my parents instead of my apartment because I couldn't climb stairs, and I survived it somehow. Every time I think this is it, I manage to fight my way back. The difference with age is that I fight in concert with my body, not against my body, since it certainly takes longer with every time and ever year, but the ultimate goal is to make it out alive. So far so good!

And another weekend passed with mostly just the basics taken care of, but yesterday we did Mother's Day and the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial of NJ which was serious but interesting. I was up semi-early today considering trying to go out somewhere like a flea market, decided against it since I don't really need anything right now, then commenced the cleaning. I managed to get most of it done before the exertion hot flash hit, napped a bit from the post-flash crash, then it was cooking & baking for the week and out in the pouring rain to dump the garbage/recycling.

I'm hoping that getting all of this done now will give me next weekend, when we'll be meeting up with Mom & Dad's friend, my sister will be in, and we're going to do my birthday dinner Sunday so I'll pretty much have no time then.

I've also officially declared to the person who's going to be my real estate agent that I know where I want to be, what model of the condo and the reason for it, and my budget, pre-approval, and expected timeline so we can all be on the same page when something fitting my description does appear. I hope it will be soon, but real estate is an unpredictable market; luckily I have experiences in waiting out situations.