The last few months have been crazy busy, but now its over.
First off, M and I were contemplating extending out lease at the duplex, maybe staying until August. So, one day when I stayed home from work, one of my chores was to go turn in the lease extension papers. Before I get a chance to do that, M comes home from work during lunch and tells me don't do it and if I already did it call the landlord and ask to not extend it (my procrastination paid off that day). It turns out the call center I work for had lost its contract with bighugesatellitetv company (because the company wants everything done in their call centers instead of being outsourced to 3rd-party call centers. Guess where "their" call centers are located?? Freaking south america!!! Yeah... anyways) and everyone who worked there (about 200-something people) would be laid off on May 15th. Which, coincidentally, was the same day our lease was up. So, instead of extending out contract until August, it was now my duty to beg the landlord to allow us one more day so we wouldn't have to move out before our last day of work. After some calling back and forth, they did allow us to stay until Sunday, 16th.
Now we have to look for jobs, and then housing, which is stressful. Weeks pass by, we're both applying at lots of jobs in different cities, because at this point we just want to be employed and location is not a huge concern. I don't hear back from any of the places I applied. M hears back from one place, one month after he applied, he got a form email saying, no sorry, job not yours. So, with less than a month until we are unemployed and homeless, M decides that he is going to go back to school and get a 2nd bach. degree, this time in computer information systems, which means we are moving back to S-ville (which is totally fine with me, its closer to both our families and some of our friends). Everyone is bugging me about what I'm going to do (they think I should be a teacher... I'm still debating this).
So, with a plan of sorts in place we spend every "weekend" driving to s-ville. To get M's school stuff settled (because of his disability, his tuition is waived. I find out that although a teaching cert would fall under financial aid, they will not fund a 2nd bach), and to try to find a house. We find a house with less than 2 weeks before we are unemployed/homeless. We decide to share a house with our friend Y.
The "weekend" before we have to be out, my parents come up with a trailer and help us move the majority of our stuff to s-ville. We then have to drive back to CS, work 2 days, then spend Sunday moving the rest of our crap. Now, I can be overly optimistic at times (that is actually the source of my procrastination, I think it isn't going to take me as long as it actually will) and I proclaim that I think I can fit the rest of our stuff in the back of the truck. Now, I did almost make it, but as M says "it wouldn't ride".... whatever that means. So we ended up having to rent a U-haul. Not really a big deal.
The packing was going as planned, we probably could have gotten out of there by about noon or 1:00. But we had a slight hitch. We lost the cat. I had her in her crate, but she was meowing and had been in there for almost 4 hours, so M suggests that I let her into the backyard in case she had to do her business. I'm cleaning the kitchen, so I figure why not. A little while later M asks, where's Susie? I think I saw her in the bedroom last, but after a quick look-around we can't find her. I start panicking, we look everywhere, closets, cupboards, backyard, frontyard. We find her behind the fridge, as I had it pulled out for cleaning. My heart rate goes down to a normal level and here's where I make the mistake. I DON'T PUT HER BACK IN HER CRATE. I figure, well, she didn't actually go anywhere, she'll be fine. An hour later, repeat of previous performance, except we can't find her anywhere. I walk up and down the block calling "kitty, kitty, susie". We look everywhere in the house (even the dishwasher and freezer, because, really, we were getting desperate). In between we are still loading up the u-haul, because we keep thinking she'll turn up. Finally its 3:00, everything has been packed and ready to go for more than an hour. I've tried calling the animal control, they haven't received any cats today. I try calling the animal shelter, they aren't opened on Sundays. I call my landlord and leave a message with her. I call my neighbor, who is currently out of town, and leave a message with her. I am bawling now. Even M looks like he could cry, but he's trying to be strong for me, telling me to think positive thoughts. We end up leaving because there is nothing more that we can do at this point.
Sunday sucked. Monday didn't start off much better. The animal shelter didn't open until 10:00. My landlord did call me back and say that she put some tuna out and would have the maintenance men keep a lookout. She was very sympathetic as she had lost her cat a few weeks prior and couldn't find him for 4 days. We have both the internet and tv people out hooking up stuff that morning. It was almost noon (tv guy was still there) and I got a phone call from my landlord. They had found Miss Susie. They said they saw her run in the sliding glass door and into the corner of the cabinet (not an actual cabinet, but the space between). They had to pull a board loose to get to her. I was ecstatic, to say the least, and as soon as the tv guy left, we immediately drove to get her, a 6 hour round trip. So, Monday ended on a great note.
Since then its been unpacking, organizing and cleaning.
Yesterday was me and M's 2nd anniversary. We went to eat and I got flowers. Being unemployed and all, we decided to not spend a whole lot of money,
