What A Difference

Here I am, sitting at a Corner Bakery with a pomegranate lemonade, enjoying the free WiFi internet and I am starting to look at things with new eyes.

It will still take some time to be fully satisfied, but I took a very important first step - I have finally moved out of my hell hole apartment!

WOOOHOOOOO!!!!

I cannot believe how much I went through at that place. And you know what, it was truly telling when I had cleared everything out of there (which should feel really weird) and the apartment really didn't feel any different to me. I knew then that the place meant absolutely nothing good to me and it will just be so much better for me to be out of there and not have to feel weighed down by the place that I live.

:)

I can't tell you how relaxed I am right now...

So I still have some things to worry about. For one, where I am now is somewhat temporary. I will be house sitting for a friend while she is trying to sell the house...but we'll just see how everything goes.

The fact is, this feels so much better.

On the road towards happiness and feeling more like myself again! Yay.

Air Conditioning Update

Alright folks, wanted to update on the air conditioning situation.

They fixed it on Friday. I spent a good portion of the day thinking about it and checking in with them to make sure they fixed it before leaving for the weekend. It was 90 degrees in my apartment and I was not willing to put up with it anymore. I actually came home during the day just to make sure that it was actually cooling down.

The air conditioner apparently needed freon. Okay, easy fix. Here's the thing - since they replaced the unit one of the previous times I was having issues with it, the thing is only about 10 months old. And let me tell ya', a 10-month old air conditioner should NOT need freon.

That's all I'm gonna say about it. It's fixed (for now) and I will be glad the day I get to rid myself of this place. Makes me sick how terrible this place is.

LIVID

http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TX-Dallas-Gleneagles-on-the-Creek-formerly-AMLI-at-Gleneagles-734485.html

Another One Bites The Dust

I'm pretty sure this apartment is cursed. I just cannot seem to do anything right here.

No, this time it wasn't an apartment-specific thing, but I'm gonna blame it anyway because this place has bad chi or karma or something. Today, it was about finally installing the printer that my mom got me for Christmas.

Yes, I understand that it has been a ridiculously long period of time that I have had this printer and not installed it. Part of me was waiting for the ink in my old printer to run out (which it just did recently) but I believe part of me knew something bad was going to happen when I tried to install this stupid thing and therefore was avoiding it.

So I'm following the directions, I'm fairly good at figuring things out intuitively, but somehow I did a misstep and it all went to hell. The directions tell you to plug in the USB cable but then not to plug it in. What I mean by that is it tells you to plug it into the printer but not into the computer. Now why tell me to plug in the USB cable but not fully plug it in - that's just stupid. Just tell me to plug it in later (like 4 steps later) when I actually need to do it. Okay, so I accidentally plugged it into my computer. Does that give the printer the right to never work? Sorry, gonna have to return this one - I plugged in the USB cable too soon!!

Well, I'm sure that wasn't really the problem. I disconnected everything, tried turning things on and off, unplugged things, and even turned my computer off and back on. The whole problem was something with the print cartridges but they were brand new (came with the printer) and I had installed them correctly.

I went ahead and loaded the software thinking perhaps I could just get the printer to "install new cartridges" as if this wasn't the first time I was doing it. After I installed, it said to test a print page. I went ahead and tried and it located one of the six cartridges as being the problem cartridge. Okay, let's take a look at that one...full of ink, inserted correctly, nothing looks damaged on the cartridge or in the printer...but it doesn't work.

At this point I feel like a caveman beating two rocks together because I am so mad that the printer cannot identify the cartridge that is obviously in there correctly and isn't damaged. I start yelling and cursing at the thing because all I wanted to do was set it up today. Why does it have to give me grief? Why does it have to be so hard?? Yaarrrghhh!!

I don't really want to go buy another ink cartridge because the one I have is perfectly fine. I also don't think this printer really sells the cartridges one at a time, but I'm only guessing about that. I can't call Customer Service because they're not open. I can't print anything until I get this fixed but that's not really how life works...well, I can always hook up my old printer. I can't just drop everything this week to call the Customer Service, which I'm sure will ask me something stupid like "did you install the cartridge correctly?" but I'll have to do it - I'll have to sit on the phone with them (mind you, I'll need to be at home to make this call) to see if they can figure out why I'm having issues. It just makes me so infuriatingly mad to not be able to get this to work. And it's a huge "I told you so" because I should have installed it months ago to make sure it worked because now I'm pretty sure I won't be able to return it. Also, if I do have to return it it means lugging it to Austin.

See, cursed. I can't do anything right. I was so on a roll this weekend too because I cleaned up my apartment (still need to vacuum but I was super proud of all I got done) and was feeling like I could get a lot of things squared away - the printer being one of them. I'm not terrible with technology but something seemingly so simple did not work for me. Cursed. I will be so glad when I finally get to move out of this dump and hopefully leave the bad karma behind. I need things to start going right again so that I don't always get my motivation squashed.

Now this beautiful printer just sits on my desk with nothing to do.

Fuck It

Excuse my language but it is just necessary.

I had a lovely holiday, took Friday and Monday off to make it a little vacation, saw a huge group of my family for our first family reunion in 7 years, and I'm looking forward to spending time with family in the Dallas area soon, but I'm just done with my apartment that continues to be a place of pure and utter crap that interferes with all these nice things.

I will blog about all of that later but in rears the ugly little head of my crappy place first - I cannot leave this place for a weekend and come back to serenity because there's always something to deal with! It was fairly small this time - the chain for the fan broke off so I can't turn it on - but it's just the sheer volume of crap I have had to deal with since I got here.

I had just been in the office to get the new security code for the workout room, walked around to the workout facility to test it out, went back to my apartment to start unloading from my trip, and pulled the chain to turn on the fan. Since I had just walked to the office and saw about 4 people in there, I decided I should be able to call and get someone - nope. Walked back over there to put in my request and saw the head maintenance guy. You know, he actually has been very helpful but it's just not worth it anymore.

After I told him about this problem he of course asked about other things in the apartment. I told him how I had tried to get word to him by putting a note clearly labeled with his name in with my rent check (knowing they would absolutely get it) and it still didn't get to him - they just handed it off to someone who didn't know anything about my apartment. At that point I knew I would no longer go into the office unless it was absolutely necessary and that I will be moving elsewhere when my lease is up. I am resolved to this but of course him asking me how things are made me tell him this whole story and he kept telling me what all he could do. I said, "honestly, after that last time trying to get through to you I am just done," and I went on to explain how it has just been too much. He continued to offer his help, etc., but I just laid it out that I will no longer be here after my lease is up. "Things like this," I said holding up the broken chain to my fan, "have just happened so much and I can't deal with it anymore. I have other things to spend time on and this just isn't it."

He was very nice and I told him it was no fault of his and he had been very helpful, but getting to him is nearly impossible and the time and effort I put in and have put in to this place is so much that it has soured me to the whole place. I just will not deal with it anymore. Instead of letting it stress me out and taking time during my evenings and weekends to call, call again, go in the office, etc, so forth and so on, I just let it all go.

Now hopefully I can just enjoy this place until I leave. Little things like this chain breaking just tell me again and again that this is not the place for me. I'm done.

Crisis Of Confidence

Things have been happening around me, and to me, and to others...and it's all giving a beating to my feelings of confidence. My cryptic post the other night was just a taste of what has been going on.

I feel like I went through enormous life changes about 7 months ago and now I'm going through enormous life changes again - a little too soon for my taste. 7 months ago everything seemed too good to be true, now things are showing a bit of their true colors.

I am not down and out yet, but I have certainly been struggling with a few things.

Apartment/Moving
You know, my apartment looks great. And after 7 months, I know that that is all it has to offer. A long list of maintenance problems, mainly with major appliances, has plagued my existence here. As an update, the hot water situation has been fixed to the point of being tolerable so I can finish out my lease and move on. Tolerable is not a good way to be describing your home, but actually I feel more at peace now because I am not trying to attack the same problem day after day.

As far as missing family, I'm doing pretty well with that one. I think more as a result of it being a pain in the butt to spend my whole weekend driving only to spend about 24 full hours in Austin, I feel that I don't need to go too often. But really thinking about it, I'm glad to have this time of independence from my family because I want to focus on a relationship - me and the world. Hello, world.

Work
I have had the most wonderful experience I could have imagined at my job so far. I feel lucky that I found this opportunity at just the right time, the stars aligned, and I'm in my dream job. Any stress thus far has been about learning the ropes, time pressures, and handling new experiences.

However, my first experience with writing a brief has thus far not gone as well as I would have hoped. The big picture, I think, is that brief writing is seen as all-important when you're in school but it is just a small portion of what you actually do in your job. I think that it is a very tangible thing that planners can point to so people equate planners with briefs. My foundation in Planning wanted me to have a really stellar first experience with writing a brief.

Though the process is not done yet and so my first experience with a brief (at my job) is not over and could still change, I have thus far conflicted with my account service team and the client. Whew, that's kind of a big deal to me. It's part me not being very familiar with this new brand, part me not knowing how to work with this team yet, and part me not being confident to the point that I can defend my brief. That really exposes a wound here, but I realized that this is something that is really not taught to you (and can it be?). Reaching out for answers, I have come back to a very rational and factual place: planners are lucky because they have the research to fall back on for defense. When I have the power of knowledge behind me, my instinct, gut, and confidence will be stronger. And time and experience will definitely help too.

This one has really been affecting me this week but I am taking measures to work on it.

A side note: I worked and worked and worked in school towards a goal. Now that I have achieved that initial goal, it's about setting new ones, learning and growing, and molding my career/shaping my future into what I want it to be. I'm not sure that I know what I want it to be yet - time will tell.

Life
Gotta hit all the major areas, doesn't it?

I just want to keep something in mind for myself. While secretly I wish everyone could do this too (or keep it in mind too), I know that it is up to the individual to carry out. I think you can provide guidance and opinions, but people want to do things their own way. Flip that around on yourself and ask if you really take what other people say to you into consideration - do they have a point? Maybe you think everyone should just stay out of other people's business...but we're human, aren't we?

Here's the general idea: "Sometimes when you open up to people, you let the bad in with the good."


This is all growth, this is all about becoming the very best person I can be.

I'm still faltering a little...that's the crisis.

Taking It To The Mattresses!!!

Yes, I am usually a fairly reserved person. Yes, I am courteous and respectful. And as a tenant, I always pay my rent on time and keep a tidy apartment.

But DO NOT f*** with me - I can be pushed to a certain point (because I don't believe in immediate retaliation, but would rather try to work through things) but will not tolerate mistreatment.

My apartment complex has gone too far. So far this evening, I have written directly to the management company that owns my apartment complex, wrote a scathing review on ApartmentRatings.com, and looked up information on how to move forward with my complaints.

I will potentially be suing my apartment and might be moving.

I ask for your support and encouragement during this time...I intend on fighting quite a battle.

I'm Taking The Reigns Again!

...and it feels pretty good.

I'm going to do what I can every day.

This is at the job and at home.

I feel more in control, I feel empowered.

Example #1: I have had all of these piles of mail all over my apartment for months now. I get a new stack when I go home (Austin) and it's overwhelming! With it all surrounding me and never getting any better, I felt like I would never want to get to it but knew that I needed to. So yesterday when I got back from Austin, I took my new stack of mail and all of the other stacks that were all over the place (I even found one downstairs afterwards) and just opened it all.

You cannot believe what a load off it was! I must have opened 5 months worth of mail.

And that's what I want to continue to do - not all at once but take steps every day to do something. It's so very easy to get behind, and once you're behind you get even more behind, but I'm hoping this is a turn in motivation and it will make me strive to get ahead or at least to a manageable state. Maintenance is so much easier.

Example #2: My apartment complex will no longer dictate my mood. I'm taking control and I will make my situation better. I've come to the point where I want to take legal action but I just had to get there mentally - it's time.

More on this I'm sure...

I Have To Make More Of An Effort

*A big sigh*

So I have lived in Dallas for about 4 months now. Job - great. General feeling about most things - great.

Apartment? There's really no reason to go in to a lot of detail because it can all be summed up here. In the short amount of time that I have lived in my current apartment, my air conditioner has broken twice, the air conditioner was replaced, I have been without hot water twice, the hot water heater has been replaced (twice), and a big leak in the refrigerator has been fixed. Trying to get the apartment and maintenance staff to fix the problems has been like pulling teeth. All that - not so great.

However, now that those major problems are behind me I am hoping to start fresh. I took a look around this weekend at all of these small, unfinished projects at home...even though I have been dealing with lots of things in the apartment, I'm hoping that I won't have any maintenance problems for a good while so that I can focus on living life at home.

Little things need to get done, everything needs to be put in order, so that I feel fully settled. Then, I plan on exploring this city a lot more.

I have a general feeling that I don't like Dallas...I don't think I've given it a very good chance at impressing me though. So I want to make more of an effort.

There's always something to work on, and my area of interest right now is home. Work life is great and I will be working on that during the day, but I would like the evenings to be a lot different.

I need inspiration, I need movement - organizing, cleaning, cooking, working out, relaxing, communicating with friends and family, reading, getting outside, exploring.

Maintaining is easier than fixing.

Well, That's Not What I Thought Would Happen

So I thought that I would just have to keep on my apartment management to get my hot water heater fixed and then I could finally just enjoy my awesome apartment - apparently not.

I'm really bummed right now because of the things that I have found out this evening.

First, I received an e-mail from the manager that basically said they can see nothing else that could possibly be wrong with my hot water heater and so I feel they will take no more measures to fix it because they don't believe me when I say that this stuff is wrong: getting only 20 minutes of water before it turns cold is wrong. The hot water heater taking 6-8 hours to recharge its hot water is wrong. Not being able to do laundry or run my dishwasher and take a shower in the same day is wrong.

Everyone I have asked about it has said: that's ridiculous! You shouldn't be running out of hot water after 20 minutes. AND, it should only take about 30 minutes for the hot water heater to recharge so you can use it again.

So I talked to my mom about it, once again, because I just really didn't know what to say to the apartment people anymore to get them to do something. I was heartbroken when she said that I probably just need to look for another place...I am certain that I would adore my apartment if major appliances didn't break every month. Well, yeah...

After all this crap I decided that it would be a good idea to just take a break for a while and think about things. I still have to live here for 8 months at least so I needed something...and it came along in the form of a very nice old man, Nick, and his dog, Bear, that live below me. I went outside for a second and Nick was out there - he invited me to come over and watch the Cowboys game. It would be a good chance for me to hang out with a few people from the complex and get to know my neighbor a little better. This sounded great and was just what I needed.

While I'm hanging out, Nick said, "Well, I'm out of here in a week. I bought a house."

I don't know why it upset me so much but this is pretty much the only neighbor I have gotten to know and now he's moving. Not good, not what I wanted to hear.

I know that I just need to take a whole different viewpoint on this whole apartment thing so I can make the situation better for myself...but for now I am just going to be a little sad. I'm tired of fighting to get my maintenance issues fixed and I'm tired of working so hard to make my apartment work out.

And The Verdict Is...

Sooo....I got to enjoy a temperature-controlled apartment ALL evening. :)

I think tonight I will sleep so much better - it's not too hot, I can actually make it colder or warmer based on what I want and need, and I just have peace of mind that (for now) things are alright at my apartment.

Yay.

...and of course there was a cool-front this evening, so my new air conditioner came just in time to be turned off. Whatever. :p

I Just Feel Helpless

I am sitting once again in a warm apartment - my air conditioning is acting up for the third time since I moved in just three months ago.

I feel like there is absolutely nothing I can be doing to make this better. I just have to sit and wait for the new air conditioning unit to come in because they are just going to replace it at this point. My apartment is my home and my sanctuary, or at least it's supposed to be. I feel like my life has been put on hold for a few days because everything is not right. If you don't feel comfortable at home, where exactly do you go?

I'm just hoping that after this gets fixed I will get to enjoy my apartment for a while without any major problems. Knock on wood for that one because I already asked that the last time my air conditioning went out. :/ I enjoy my apartment very much but I'm just frustrated about all of these problems.

I talked to the apartment manager and they even offered me the model apartment to sleep in, so I have options. I feel it's getting better but it's still not great.

So I know that people have to deal with maintenance issues all the time, but can we spread 'em out a little bit? :p

Please Tell My Stuff to Stop Breaking

Stuff that has broken since the weekend:

(1) My AIR CONDITIONER! (Fixed, but now it's cold...wasn't cold when it broke.)

(2) My other headlight (got the right one fixed about a month ago.)

(3) The alignment (that was fixed a couple of weeks ago) is inexplicably off again - another trip to Firestone.

(4) Walked into my apartment this evening and *pop* goes my dining table light - my favorite light in the apartment, I must say.

A note to my stuff: please, please stop breaking. It is annoying. Thank you.

Oh, and of course the response is: Well, that's the joy of owning a car and apartment/home. :/

Hot and Cold

Why is it that we have to go straight past jacket weather into colder weather? I would like to just ease into it instead of going from summer to winter. Ah well, at least it's cooling off.

So my air conditioner got fixed just in time for this cold snap - haha. I am just hoping everything goes smoothly with the heater now. :p

I was reflecting on my last post today as I sat at work worrying about my air conditioner. Here we had the other extreme - focusing too much on my apartment. Well, probably not too much but it was distracting.

This weekend was affected by it too as the comfort that you should feel at home was taken away from me. It affected other parts of my life as well: I didn't feel like I could communicate as well because I was distracted, sitting in a hot apartment, and only thinking about what I needed to do to fix it. I talked to both my mom and dad but had to cut them both off as I was just plain grumpy on the phone and couldn't concentrate.

Today I felt uneasy at work as I didn't know what was going on at home, hoping I would return to comfort instead of more problems. I checked in with the complex in the middle of the day and felt a bit more at ease as it was fixed.

It's just that apartment living took center stage today but in a pretty negative way. I am feeling a bit sad and homesick today just because I can't rely on my apartment to be my home yet. I need to feel completely comfortable - it is supposed to be my sanctuary and it really sucks when that's out of balance.

Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow I will be focusing on bundling up. ;)

The Other Half of the Day

Having just started my job a little more than 2 months ago, I have obviously been very focused on making a good first impression, settling in, and doing my work well. I have learned a lot in the short amount of time I've been there and want to continue to be focused on making my way towards my own client. However, recently I have realized that there is the whole other half of my day that I have been neglecting a bit - my home life.

I have neglected it because when I get home from work I am tired, I want to just sit and relax, and I have been gone many weekends so I haven't really been able to just thoroughly enjoy my apartment. The last couple of weeks I have set out to do just that.

Now I have been hampered just a bit with this enjoying business - right now it's about 85 degrees inside my apartment, and though a cool front is coming tonight it doesn't seem to be coming soon enough for me. You see, some crazy thing is wrong with my air conditioner and though I was able to catch it yesterday, the part they need to fix it won't be available until tomorrow (Monday). So bummer for trying to enjoy it because a hot apartment is a bit less than comfortable, but this is just part of an apartment or home - stuff breaks.

So, due to my lack of focus on my apartment living, I decided to go to a community meeting last Thursday. Several from the apartment complex gathered to speak to the manager and the three courtesy security officers that are present to help with issues at any time. I enjoyed the meeting because it was an opportunity to understand what kind of security is offered here, as a single girl can't get enough of that, but it was also an interesting view of some of the residents.

Here we had several complainers bring their grievances to the meeting. They were quite amusing (to me and several other residents) after a while. Their bitching went on even though the security officers had explained what the problem was or how they were going to take measures to fix it. But I think the most amusing thing was how out of touch one woman was about security and apartment living. She wove an elaborate web of encounters, she's just certain that all sorts of drug deals go down here at night, but then changed up her story and said that it was all hearsay. She wanted people to volunteer and take 1 hour shifts to patrol the complex. It was pretty obvious that she didn't get out a lot and I realized how caught up people can get in one thing.

Aha, a lesson. Though I'm not as in touch with the apartment complex as that woman, perhaps I can dial it up a bit. I do need to be aware of security issues and it made me feel safer just going to the meeting and learning what the security officers can do for me if needed. But it does feel nice to have many, varied outside interests instead of focusing on just one. It can't be just work, not just my apartment, not just thinking about friends and family - they all kind of swirl around, buzzing in at different times of the day. It's about striving for balance.

So I'm going to watch out for any crazies, as always, but do that in many different atmospheres ('cause crazies are everywhere!). :p