Starting over....

It's strange how you can get so attached to a home that you've only spent a very short time walking around in. You start picturing your life there. You've already started picturing where all the furniture where go, where to hang the artwork and all of the little upgrades you want to do to it to make it your own.

You realize how attached you've become to that home when the seller doesn't want to take your deal. We fell in love with a house the minute we walked in. We knew it was perfect and what we wanted. We have no desire to look further. We submitted a contract the next day. Unfortunately, after three days of agonizing waiting, they refused our offer. Ours was the best offer even. He didn't like having to resign the contract in a couple weeks, switching it to an FHA approved home. He took a major hit on the house and went with a conventional instead so he could close quicker.

That day wasn't one of my best.

I swore I was going to give myself a break from house hunting, but I couldn't. I didn't want to sit around. I started looking immediately, trying to find another "perfect" home. Perfect isn't something we'll find again, but hopefully we'll find something close.

Our Agent is out of town this week and we're suppose to be contacted by his assistant so we can look at some more homes, but we have yet to hear from him. I guess his sense of urgency is different then ours. I don't want to be waiting until the last minute to find a home, close and get it done before the December 1st deadline so we can take advantage of the 8K government incentive.

Whomever says that buying/flipping/selling a home is fun, is nuts.

I hate this process.

Why do some people act the way they do?

Remember, that one of the reasons I started my blog again was to vent. I felt like I couldn't say anything before and now I just don't give a shit. Plus, so many people, especially the people I might write about don't read this blog anymore. Lucky me.

We went to see Harry Potter this morning. The theater was packed for an 11am movie which was kind of surprising. Minutes before the movie started, in walks my Ex and his current partner and sit on the row in front of us. This doesn't bother either one of us. My Ex and I are fine with one another. He's fine with Steven as well. We speak when we see one another like nothing is wrong. I honestly didn't fully expect us to be best bud's after the whole break up. I'm not that delusional. But we're nice to one another. There's no bitterness, hatred or uncomfortable feelings at all.

It just blows our mind how uncomfortable it makes his partner. Uncomfortable I guess isn't the right word. It's how angry, jealous and bitter it makes him. He literally hates us. We were all fine and got along great until one weekend a few months ago, after texting to my ex, he grabs the phone and starts going off on me by texting to Steven. Obviously, it was none of his business. What my ex and I were talking about was a serious subject between he and I. It's a wonderful thing what alcohol does to someone and what it brings out. When they're drunk, some people open up their mouths when they should keep them shut.

I've never been known for being the type of person to shut my mouth and take someones shit either.

Ever since then, he's made things very uneasy. Brian has to sneak a wave and a hello while the partner looks away, ignoring us on purpose and acting like a child. He actually pretends he can't see us. I hate the fact that first off he's making it difficult for my ex. He's a good guy that shouldn't have to deal with this, but he's also not the type of person to say anything either. Secondly, that it's caused the friendship that we could have continued with to dissolve. The new partner has said it himself, that he prides himself on being a bitch. Lately, it's showed.

This is the first Ex I've ever had that I'm not still on speaking terms with or that I'm still able to be friends with.

It bothers me more then I want to admit.

It feels good....

...to be somewhat social again. The last few days we got our asses out of the house finally. We've had a night out with Glenn who's in town for work. One of my dearest friends Jim showed up to have a couple drinks at Woody's as well. Afterwards we all headed to Snuffers to eat as much heart clogging food that we could, continuing to talk and have a great time. I miss that.

Last night we had dinner with Gary and Troy at Ball's Burgers. It was great seeing them both. It had been way too long since our last dinner. We have good intentions. Troy is moving to Hawaii so we thought it best to make sure we see him before he's off to the land of perfect weather. We're really going to miss him.

We also got two invitations to Bear pool parties for the month of August and a Birthday party invitation for this coming weekend.

My life as a social butterfly seemed to be coming back, at least for a short while. We've been hermits lately due to Steven's project for work which has taken up so much time. We've also been watching our spending so we can pay off all our bills in the hopes of buying a home this year.

Unfortunately, not evryone understands that we're not capable of going out for drinks and dinners every other night of the week. We're lucky if we can schedule and budget a movie once a week. I'll be glad when this whole house buying experience is over.

We miss some of our friends. Some have moved on and we never hear from them anymore. Others, it's just tough to find the time when we're both available and able to meet.

Other times we're just too lazy to get our asses out of the house when it's 105 degrees outside.

I'm ready for Summer to finally start feeling like Summer.

House Hunting...

Saturday, we met with our friend John, The Real Estate Agent. After going over the normal formalities and basically scaring the living crap out of me, we sat down to look through some houses to go check out. I hate this process. There never seems to be the perfect one. I found something wrong with all of them. Not small things, but big enough things to cause me to not want to live there at all. I know it was our first 5 hours of house hunting, but it was frustrating.

One of the new constructions, I fell in love with. It was listed initially at 350K and the price is now 189K due to the fabulous market the country is in. Quite a bargin, except for the fact that it's a townhome and Steven's really wanting a home with a yard for Max and possibly another dog some day. Max probably does need a playmate. I guess I don't think about Max as much when deciding on a home for myself. I know a dog and owner will adapt to whatever type of living situation they're put in. When you live in an apartment, condo or townhome, you learn to walk your dog more, take them to the park and doggie day care on a consistant basis. Sure, when you have a yard you can let them run around and take care of all the exercise themselves.

I don't know. I'm not in the mood to buy a place and turn around in 3-5 years to sell it for a profit and then do this whole process of house hunting all over again. I'd rather be terrorized by a scary clown and we know how much I love clowns. The thoughts of putting so much time and effort into remodeling and upgrading over the years only to sell it doesn't appeal to me either. I'm too old for this shit. Many people love this sort of thing, but I hate it with a passion. It causes tiny panic attacks, frustration and way too much analyzing and thinking on my part. It's tiring.

It's such a huge decision and it scares me to death.

Social Networking Hell

I'm sitting here while Steven fervishly works on his project for work. I have to say that I'll be happy when this project is completed and done. First off, our office area of the loft will look normal again. You all know how much I can't stand it when things are not organized. Secondly, I won't be sitting here on the computer for 4 hours a night killing brain cells while he works. Ah, the sacrifices we make.

I keep playing around with Blogger, Facebook and well, Twitter. Tweaking things constantly. Putting up stupid status updates. At least I'm not one of those status updaters who tells you he's awake, he's eating, he's going to bed, he had a great bowel movement, etc.

Although, twitter just confuses the hell out of me. I update both through ping.fm to make it easier, but honestly can't figure out the reasons or purpose for twitter. Just the fact that I need to keep up with what the hip and trendy kids are doing these days. I use to swear up and down that I would never join any sort of social networking site and before you know it I'm on all of them, including LinkedIn. Here I was quitting blogging because I felt I had nothing to say and now I'm on more sites then I should be. Who really needs to know my every thought and my every move?

When the hell did I all the sudden have something to say?

San Francisco Trip

Two weeks ago, Steven and I got the chance to spend four days in San Francisco, enjoying the city, eating amazing food, seeing all the sights we could possibly cram in and then got to experience my first San Francisco Pride. The first three days we rode my first trolley car, went sigtseeing and saw the Golden Gate Bridge, Presidio, Haight Ashbury, North Beach, Alamo Sqauare with the Painted Ladies, quickly through China Town, Fishermans Warf, Castro, gawked at the sea lions, saw Beach Blanket Babylon (which was amazing!) and the Civic Center. I know I have forgotten a few things.

Sunday was spent at Pride. Half a million people. Not quite the same as our little Dallas Pride. Didn't see much of the parade, but ran into Victor, Tony and their son Bruno and hung out with them, checking out all the booths and eating way too much food.

I won't bore you with all the details, other then the last thing we did was to sit on the beach at Fisherman's Warf and watched the sun go down behind the Golden Gate Bridge. Romantic, huh?

I froze my ass off. This Texan isn't use to that sort of weather.

Check out all the pictures here.

Had to have one of the obligatory "in front of the bridge" shots.

The fog would NEVER leave enough to get a clear shot.
One of our favorite parts of the city, Palace of Fine Arts.
I swear Steven's favorite part of the trip is seeing the sea lions.
Ok, walking in this city is hell. Loved Lombard Street though.
Went to Winchester Mystery House our first day when we landed in San Jose. House built by a crazy woman. Creepy, but very interesting. Like a big dollhouse.
Our favorite picture. We had to print of tons of copies for family already.

Why I'm back, I have no idea....

I had a feeling I would be coming back. I didn't know how long of a break I was going to take, but deep down in my heart I knew I would be back to blogging. I think I just needed a break from all the crap. In many ways the last year or so has been rough, mixed with so many incredible things as well. But it had gotten to the point where I felt like I couldn't express what was on my mind freely. My blog had always been a place where I could bitch, complain, vent, share, ask for help. I couldn't do any of that anymore. I felt that too many people in my life read my blog or could stumble across it and might not like what I had to say. I felt censored.

I don't have those feelings anymore. At all, so beware. So many of those people are out of my life now. If they were to stumble across the blog and read it, I really wouldn't care.

The past year and a half has been an amazing year. I'm in a relationship that truly makes me happy, where I feel like I'm an equal. I have someone who's in my life on a daily basis and who truly loves me and I him. We have so many things in common, including Art and our obsession with all things Disney. I mean, there's a reason for spending the rest of your life with someone if I ever heard of one.

I'm not discounting my previous relationship. It was a wonderful 4 years. I wouldn't trade it for anything. He provided some wonderful times and experiences that I'll never forget. We were just two very different people who wanted different things. We both made mistakes, myself more so. In the end, it worked out the best for both parties. I would have loved for us to have stayed close, but his friends and current lover prevent that from happening. Childishness, drama and backstabbing are things that I do not deal with and will avoid at all cost. Life's too short to deal with all that shit.

My social life has changed drastically. I was a social butterfly, with tons of friends, going out and doing things constantly. Now, we're homebodies and how quickly people drop you to the wayside when that happens. It's not like we don't like to go out, enjoy dinners, drinks or movies with friends. We do. Luckily, we still have our best friend couple, Brandon and Dusty with whom we love dearly. We don't see one another as much as we both would like, but we try at least and do get to see one another once in a while. Hopefully, that will continue to grow.

Other friends in our life such as the ones we made through The Ranch are pretty much gone. We don't keep in contact. Hell, the last time we were there it was as if we were total strangers. That part of our life is gone and we're ok with that. It's in the past and I have a feeling that we probably will never go back. What would be the reason? Even many of the friends I had from my previous relationship that we hung out with here in town have disappeared as well. Moved on. I guess I would say that true friends are the ones that have stuck around. True friends are the ones you see and hear from and the ones who want to spend time with you. There are very few now. How can you go from tons of friends down to ones you can count on one hand?

This past year has been an eyeopener regarding all of that. At times we feel like outcasts. At the age of 43, there are times where it feels like Highschool all over again. I'll admit, it hurts. Nothing is worse then sitting at home, hearing and reading about friends out having a good time.

I guess it's time to move on from them and start to cultivate new friendships. Kind of what starting this blog up again is about.

I missed it, missed my blog friends.

I'm back everyone.