Saturday, May 15, 2004

Where to begin?!?!?!?

Thursday morning I received a call from the lawyer I've been using since the start of the legal process with my "sister". It seems that my "sisters" lawyer called him to let him know that my "sister" really does have a committment from the credit union and to give my lawyer the name of the the lawyer handling the closing and his number. My lawyer was going to call this lawyer. As of now, I haven't heard anything new but that could just be lawyers playing phone tag.
I had to call the new lawyer and tell him to put things on hold for right now. I am not 100% convinced that things will go smoothly but I guess having this lawyer send the letter that he did made my sisters' lawyer react and give us the information that we asked for over a month ago. Until I hear from my lawyer and find out what exactly is going on with the closing, I will not feel comfortable with the fact that my "sister" has a committment.
The other thing that I am not concerned about is, am I really going to get the amount that we asked for? We have never received any type of acknowledgement or counter offer. I can only guess that they agreed with the offer and are moving forward with that number.

On a sad note - a friend of mine who lives in NJ sent out an email late Thursday night to inform a number of her friends that one of her nephews had passed away. This guy would have been 30 years old on Friday. He leaves behind a 3 year old. I've never met him or his mother but my friend Maggie talked about her sister all the time. This was one of her favorite nephews.
For me this is hard to take in even though I didn't know them personally. He died because he was taking antidepressants and a bunch of his buddies took him out drinking for his birthday. He drank too much (now we all know that even one drink could be too much) and it became a lethal combination for him.
There are times I struggle with the urge to drink. That I find it would be so much easier just to give in and have those drinks. In 2001, I spent a month and a half drinking fairly heavy and I was just fine. The luck of the draw, I would say. In this case, This young man wasn't so lucky, he has lost his life and the lives of so many have been affected.

Let this be a reminder to all of us, that drinking in excessive quantity is never a good idea - if we are on medication or not.

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Update

On Monday at 11:30 a.m., I smoked my last cigarette. That was the last one that I had and I am not going to buy anymore. So far so good. No cravings, just added anxiety. Just what I need, more anxiety in my life. But, I have a stress ball and other things I can use to keep my hands busy during the day at work. It's a little harder when I get home but, I'm managing okay. The hardest times seem to be when I'm driving the car and in the evenings when I'm just sitting around with not much to do.
Somehow I will make it. I am determined to quit. Not only will it save me money but it is good for me too.

On the continuing saga...
The lawyer sent a letter to my sister on Monday (I received it by email on Monday) and she probably received it Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm sure she isn't a happy camper. If she knows what is good for her she will make sure she understands what the process of a partition action is. She can't play games anymore. The only way to stop the process is to get financing or agree to sell the house with me. I'm not sure she understands the seriousness of all of this since she hasn't move quicker in the past. I don't even know if she has a lawyer. Not my problem, not my issue.
I am waiting for some relative to call me and start with the 3rd degree, I so want to tell them that she has dragged this out for over a year and she has had plenty of options. Then remind them, that it is none of their business and drop the subject. Because I'm sure Judy has told many lies about me that could take me the rest of my life to clear up.

Today is my "fathers" birthday and it doesn't bother me at all. The only reason I remember it is, my daughter birthday is tomorrow. When they scheduled me to go in to have her, I was happy that they didn't make it the 13th of May.

That's about all that is happening at this time. If you hear a lot of yelling and screaming from Windham County, it is most likely my sister, not getting her own way.

Thursday, May 06, 2004

A sense of relief

I went to see the other lawyer today and have set things in motion that only Judy can stop.
The first thing that needs to happen is a Title Search. They need to make sure there are no liens against the property, mainly tax liens if she hasn't been paying the property taxes.

The lawyer will then send her a letter (and copy the attorney she has been using) concerning the partition action. 10 days after the letter goes out all the filings start and she gets served.

At any point she can stop the process by getting financing and letting us know she has this.

There will be a court appearence that I most likely will not have to go to but she will or probably her lawyer, if she still has one. If she doesn't show, decisions will be made without her being there. A committee will be appointed to handle the partition action. A date for the auction will be set (it will be a Saturday at noon). So if it gets this far and you know anyone who is looking to buy a house in the Windham area to fix up and turn around and sell, let me know.

Once the house is sold, there will be another court appearance, to handle the distribution of funds. The closing will take place 30 days later. If she hasn't moved out of the house by that time, she will be given notice that she has 2 days to move. If she hasn't moved out by that time, a moving crew will come in and move everything out to the street and it will be taken away.

I don't know if any of the papers she receives will explain the process to her or not but she is in for a big surprise. Once the process starts, it follows its own time table. She can't drag things out, they will move along without her.

Maybe being served will make her realize that I'm not going to back down. That she can't try and control the situation any longer. Finally I feel like I have control of this situation.
I'm not sure why she has been dragging this out for so long, there could be so many reasons:

thinking I would back down

thinking that I don't deserve any portion of the property since she has lived there and probably feels she had done so much for my mother, but I firmly believe that my mother would have never lost her foot if my sister was really doing what she should have been.

just being her controlling and manipulating self

for whatever reason, not wanting me to break the final tie to my family of origin

Or, she could have her own agenda

Whatever her reasons have been, they are done and over with. From this point on, they don't hold any water. Things will happen fairly quickly and she has to follow the dates set up by the court and committee. So, we will see how she responds to either the letter or being served.

As soon as I know more, I will update you.

Monday, May 03, 2004

How to change your mood in less then 2 mins

In my case, all it took was a call to my lawyer. He has heard nothing from my sisters lawyer since a week ago, this past Friday. Can anyone explain why it takes over a week to get a copy of a commitment letter from the Credit Union? There is no explaination. My lawyer was going to call the Bitch's lawyer and get back to me. As of now, I have heard nothing. This is not good news.
I called the other lawyer today and made an appointment for Thursday. I will be taking the day off since the only time he has is during the day but that is okay. I will do what it takes to get this moving along.
I would like to get the Bitch served as quickly as possible. The sooner the better. Maybe then she will take me seriously. Nothing else seems to matter.
As far as I'm concerned, she fed her lawyer a line of bullshit when she said she had a commitment letter.

So, needless to say, I am ready to kill. But, in reality, what I want to do is drink and hurt myself. Ahhh, but that is out of the question. I'm not allowed. I have to find other things to do that will help me. I can't use the quick fix - even though it would help me feel better.

So, here I am typing. Talking would probably help more but it's only fair to let everyone get home from work and relax some before I start venting in their ear.
I'll beat on the punching bag some. I may even write a letter I won't send.
All I really know is right now there is so much anger inside, I don't really know what to do with it, that won't get me in trouble.

Saturday, May 01, 2004

Monday should be interesting at work

On Monday, we are going to work, keeping our heads down and doing our work. We aren't going to do anything to upset our boss. He is going to be pissed off enough when he gets into work.

First of all, he took Friday off as a vacation day. We needed him to do that.
His boss is getting tired of his bitching and complaining. Our boss has some very strange habits and issues that we have learned to deal with. He was recently given additional responsibilities but who he reported to was also changed. He doesn't like that very much. Instead of having just 3 people reporting to him, he has 8 and he has a larger work load and is getting overwhelmed.

Anyway, we did a little steam blowing of our own on Friday to his boss because of the way he is. He took Friday off but didn't tell us. He hardly ever tells us. But if we want to take time off for anything we better ask and we always let everyone who needs to know, know. His boss wasn't too happy.

We also have to do time reporting of sorts. It's done by project with percents. We normally have to have this info to our boss by 11. He usually enters this in for us, everyone else does their own. Since he was out, I got instructions on how to enter our time and noticed that we only had some very basic catagories to put our time into. So, I went to his boss to get the proper codes and she is like "what is he doing?". We ended up putting our time where it belonged but I'm sure he isn't going to like that.

We are just going to be very quiet employees on Monday.

The Good Year Blimp

No - The Good Year Blimp hasn't been flying over Bloomfield, it's the way I've been feeling lately.
It doesn't seem to matter what I eat or how much I eat, I can't lose weight. I gain a few pounds and lose a few pounds. But, I always seem to gain more then I lose. I hate this crap. I'm tired of not being able to lose weight.

Some of this is because of my medications. The one med that makes it the hardest for me to lose weight is the one that I tried to start to tapper down a little over a month ago and had to increase the dose again.

The other thing that makes it harder is the Hypothyroidism. I've been reading up on this. I actually went to the book store today and got a couple of books. It seems that if I intake too few calories, I could actually gain some weight but I definitely won't lose. I have to watch what I eat. They recommend the Mediterranean Diet. So, I'm going to try to read up on that and see what I can do. I am going on a mandatory exercise program at work. They changed where we park starting on Monday and now instead of a shuttle to bring us to work, we will be walking. It is probably a 10 min walk each way. I am also going to have to try to get myself to add some exercise in, in addition to that.

It seems there is a number of conditions that can be attributed to Hypothyroidism and as my luck would have it, some of those same conditions can be caused by some of my medications. Of which one of the side effects can be Hypothroidism. Isn't it just wonderful?!?!?!

So, is my lack of energy and motivation from my meds or Hypothyroidism? Is my high Cholesterol from medication or Hypothyroidism or just because it's high? I'm sure the list could go on and on.
The weight is a combination of both. No one ever said life was fair but I would settle for a little fairness in my life.

Hypothyroidism is something that I have to live with for the rest of my life. That means watching what I eat, getting my thyroid levels tested and all that fun stuff. Of course, I'll probably be on a lot of my meds for a very long time.

I am going to attempt to quit smoking shortly. I have 8 packs of cigs left and I'm going to give it a shot. I've been trying to cut back these past few weeks. Oh yeah, smoking and caffine can affect the hypothyroidism also. I'm not sure now is a good time to quit but is it ever a good time to quit????


To date, I still don't have a copy of the commitment letter in hand from my sisters' lawyer. I left my lawyer a message Friday morning and he hasn't returned my call. There could be multiple reasons for this. I will call him again on Monday morning. If we don't have any information and he can't get any, I will call the other lawyer back and set up an appointment and meet with him.
I can't believe my sister would still try to play games after her lawyer told her to get moving on this stuff or find a new lawyer. Oh well, I guess she's going to play games with her lawyer and see how serious she is.

All in all, I'm handling everything okay. But I'm not sure how long that will last since there is lots of frustration and anger. So far I've been managing to keep myself busy and not dwell on things. How long can that last?