BulgingButtons

Not bad for a fat girl


by 4 Comments

Chaos in My Corner of the World

The Replacement Bulb

The Replacement Bulb

Did you know that halogen lightbulbs for pools installed in 1996 are difficult to come by? They are. There is one of them available in the United States right now, and it is currently in Dallas, Texas. I, however,  am not currently in Dallas, Texas. It doesn’t matter though. I need that bulb. The bulb alone costs about $35.00, and then there’s the shipping cost. Of course if I want it in a hurry, it will cost more.

I have lived in this house for a little over two years and have never had a functioning pool light. Apparently I’ve been living on the edge, because this is a hazard, according to the inspection that was done on the house. It wasn’t a hazard back when my inspector looked at it, but now it is, and it’s up to me to remedy this situation so that my buyer doesn’t stub his toes in the dark when he goes night swimming. Having this responsibility makes me feel important, like I have a civic duty to keep my fellow human being safe from this apparently very real threat.

Why is it that when I’m the seller I have to bend over backward to change and fix everything, but when I’m the buyer I’m lucky if the air conditioning even works? The kicker is the house I’m selling is priced considerably less than the one I’m buying! Still, I’m really excited to say that I’m buying my next house. I found it last Friday, looked at it again on Sunday, and wrote an offer last night. This morning it was accepted. HOORAY! There are lots of good things about it, and a few things that are less great, but right now we’re not going there. Right now we’re trying to get out of THIS house. That means fixing a few things and packing a lot of things (well, everything actually) and doing lots of chores, like calling the utilities and setting up a forwarding address. What a pain.

I’m trying to remain calm and take things one step at a time. It’s tough, though, when all progress seems to grind to a halt over a single lightbulb (that I went to four stores to locate, then called two other places before, hopefully, finding it in Dallas). Hopefully the bulb issue will be resolved shortly, so that we can figure out why the new bathroom faucet is leaking. One step at a time. One step at a time.


by 11 Comments

Racing Toward Milestones

156330068-kids-running-with-ballons-gettyimagesNext week I will have been blogging for exactly one year. Holy cow! When I started writing BulgingButtons it was really for me, but I HOPED that someone, anyone really, would read it and chime in with a comment or two. Well, the good news is that you DO read it, and chime in often. I love reading your feedback and seeing where our experiences overlap, and where they differ.

It’s amazing to me that people from all over the globe (and I mean that quite literally) have stopped by and added their two cents to the conversation here at BulgingButtons. Sometimes we disagree, but more often we have similar experiences, and most of us are glad to know that we aren’t alone.

Soon there will be 1,000 people following this blog. That completely blows my mind. Yes, I know that not all 1,000 read every pearl of wisdom that finds its way into the blog, but that’s ok. There are still an awfully lot of you who do read and respond, and that just makes me happy beyond belief.

Have I reached my goals with the blog? Well, yes and no. Do I have a forum for sharing my ideas and a reason to write on a regular basis? Absolutely. Have I achieved my personal goals (aka the 47 for 47 challenge)? Hell no. Did I expect to? Not really, but if you don’t have any goals at all it’s harder to achieve anything. At least it is for me.

So far I’ve achieved almost a year of blogging and almost 1,000 followers. That blows me away, and I’m pretty tickled about both of those milestones.

Now the real life milestone. My house is supposed to close next Monday, so then I’ll officially be homeless. I do have a place to stay, thank goodness, and I’ve found a house I like. Tomorrow we’ll submit an offer and see what happens. Wish me luck. This is an incredibly stressful process, as many of you can attest to, and just not that much fun. It will all work out in the end though, it always does. Still, any positive energy you can send my way would be much appreciated.

And to those of you that have been around for a while, thank you so much for your encouragement. For those who have just found me, WELCOME! I hope you find this a safe, reasonably sane, and occasionally fun place to spend your time on the web.

Now which do you think we’ll hit first, one year or 1,000 followers? The race is on!


by 4 Comments

Why I Detest Grocery Shopping

Ok, I lied. I don’t detest the actual shopping part of grocery shopping, at least not most of the time. Pushing the cart around the store and filling it up with tantalizing goodies isn’t really all that awful, if that is, in fact what you’re doing. Most of the time, however, that is not what I’m doing.

Usually I’m carrying on a rather lengthly and somewhat intense inner conversation while I grocery shop. It usually starts within about 30 seconds of hitting the store. The first internal hurdle is which cart to take, and whether wiping it down with one of those stinky wet wipes is worth the potential savings in germs. I’m lazy. I take my chances.

Next I roll over to the produce aisle where I have this stupid little exchange with myself EVERY SINGLE TIME. I tell myself I should be eating more fruits and veggies. I agree with myself, and start to choose delicious fresh fruit and vegetables. grocery-cartNo big deal, right? Until I remember that there are shrivelly grapes in the fridge and I just threw away 3 greasy black bananas. I HATE throwing away food, but not as much as I hate food poisoning, so anything even remotely suspect goes straight into the trash.

Unfortunately most of the stuff that ends up in the trash is way beyond suspect. For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, stuff just kind of sits around at our house. We start something, but never seem to finish it. You can find old cereal, ancient tea bags, mummified frozen raviolis, and other strange and terrifying wonders at my house. It’s not that my home is a breeding ground for experiments, it isn’t. It’s just that some things lose their appeal faster than others. Oreos, for example, rarely occupy cupboard space for more than 2 to 3 days max. Often their stay is considerably shorter. But I haven’t been buying Oreos. I’ve been buying fruit and beans and low fat yogurt and sandwich thins. For some reason those items seem to linger.

The trip to the grocery store just underscores the futility of my efforts. I try to buy things that are good for me, but I don’t really enjoy them, so far too often I end up eating out and throwing them away. There’s a great deal of guilt involved with the whole exercise. I waste food, I waste money, and I don’t eat what I know I ought to. Yet, I do it again and again, because you have to buy food, right?

I need to take a step back, plan out meals again (yes, I do have this skill, and I also have months worth of e-meals if I don’t feel like doing it myself), and shop accordingly. But man, that’s a lot of work! And like I said, I’m lazy.

Enough ranting for one night. Time to suck it up and start that grocery list. Tomorrow I go in, and I want to be prepared.