Living in Des Moines has been WONDERFUL!! I finally feel like I'm in a place that I can enjoy. Like at the moment, while Lilly is in preschool for the afternoon celebrating her 100th day of school, I am sitting in a cute little coffee shop that cater's to mostly college students using their free wi-fi. For those of you who haven't noticed my lack of time online, I had to get rid of my internet and cable at home in an effort to save money. Over the summer, Lilly and I frequented to Valley Junction Farmer's Market and had a wonderful time browsing through the booths and listening to the music. Lilly really liked to tip the music guy cause he always winked at her when she did. Then we would get some food and sit on a bench and enjoy supper. There has been almost a peace to our lives since we moved to Des Moines. Something that I can't quite describe but we have been able to relax a bit more, laugh a bit easier, and breath a bit deeper. Not that there hasn't been any negativity since the move. 'The Others' are making sure to have their negative impact on our lives, which just seems to be increasing but I refuse to let last. And even though we absolutely adore the apartment we live in, the management hasn't been that great. I say this because the management has done absolutely nothing to punish the people above us that I have been complaining about since May of last year. First it was the swimming pool that they kept on their porch and regularly emptied on my patio-even if we were sitting on it, and the food that was being dropped onto our patio, the ciggarettes they dropped onto our chairs so we now have holes burned through them... And the NOISE!! The music, the 'bowling', and the 'roller chair races' that they have all day and all night! And the sudden and heart stopping bangs that shake every picture on my walls! Then shortly after New Years I had to call and complain about the pool of vomit that was left directly in front of my sliding glass door with evidence that it had dripped from above, and last week I discovered a bag of garbage on my patio that the raccoons were tearing through and spreading all over. I called management about the garbage and they instructed me to clean it up myself, so I let them know that if nothing was going to be done about it then in the future I was no longer going to carry my garbage bags all the way to the dumpster, wading through the muddy swamp in front of it in order the throw my bags away cause all I had to do was throw it onto someone else's patio and it would now be their responsibility! That knowledge was really going to be a time saver for me! I then hung up on them and looked in the bag and found an envelope with their address on it (proof it was theirs) and called the cops to have them handle it. They not only made them clean it up but they filed a vandalism report and told me that they would be calling the 'big guys' at Conlin Properties to let them know how their managers were handling things. I'm relieved to be able to report that I only have to deal with this for a few more months. I plan on moving (yet again) at the end of May to a brand new apartment complex in West Des Moines. It's not that far of a move and the apartments are literally IDENTICAL to the ones we live in now, they are also owned by Conlin Properties, but it puts us closer to my parents which will cut down on some of my travel time and gas expense and it puts Lilly in the West Des Moines school district for next year so I don't have to worry about trying to open enroll her in that district cause that's where her 'daycare provider' lives and where she spends the majority of her days while I attend school. The Housing Agency is trying to give me a bit of grief about moving (cause they messed up when I first moved down here meaning my lease with my apartment is over before my lease for this apartment with them is) but I hope to have that all cleared up soon. The good thing about trying to be overly prepared and get things done a month in advance is that if little things like this comes up there is time to try to get it taken care of!
Let's see, what else has been going on... Oh yes! School! Lilly is in preschool this year and absolutely loves it! Her teacher is wonderful and she quickly made friends! She can now recognize and write almost all the letters and numbers 0-9. She does confuse 6 and 9 occasionally, but she is quickly getting better. She can write her full name, Mommy, and Freddy all by herself, and a few of her friends names as well. We are working on longer names like Grandma and Grandpa and she proudly wrote the names on all the Christmas presents by herself, even Uncle Robbie, Auntie Amanda, and Uncle Wee-Wee! Lilly is constantly surprising me by the things she is learning and how smart she is! She is more than ready for kindergarten and can't wait to go "in the fall" as she keeps telling everyone. School for me has been a bit of a challenge. I adore Grand View! I love most of my teachers and the whole atmosphere of the school and the classes I have/am taking. The downfall has been the amount that I have been forced to miss due to personal issues (that I cannot blog about). Because of the amount of time missed my grades hasn't been the straight A's that I was getting before transferring here and it's making my GPA drop a bit, which is really freaking me out! But I am trying to keep my head up and stay strong! Luckily, Mom and Dad have been willing (though not always happily) to take Lilly for more time than usual so I can focus on catching up and doing what I need to do. Not having internet at home has made things more difficult as well, but that's what the library is for! I am looking forward to a bit of breathing time this summer, though I might end up making up some lab time that I missed over the summer if things work out like I hope they will. I recently found out that I am 3 credits away from being a junior, meaning if I had been able to make up the time in my algebra class last semester I would be a junior! Ugh! Oh well, this just means that my last semester at GVU I will only be required to take one class to graduate and I can fill the rest of my time with fun classes that I want to take just cause!
Now, onto another issue that has been taking up a lot of my time and causing me to miss some school that I can blog about-my health. For those of you who don't know, it hasn't been the greatest lately! I collapsed in October and ended up spending a few days in the hospital in incredible amounts of pain but on some really good painkillers that made me not really care. The dr's then sent me home and said take tylenol and see your family dr. I spend the next week at home, in bed, barely able to move before I could get in with the family doc. They tested me for so much that I am now scared of needles and came up with nothing. They are thinking it might be fibromyalsia, which is not something that can be tested for. A couple weeks ago, when I was going from one class to the next, I had a shooting pain go through my right leg and couldn't walk again. Kinda felt like what happened in October, but then it had been both legs. I managed to get in ASAP with a specialist that I had started seeing and they did back xrays, said my spine was a bit too straight, and made an appointment for me to get a back scan done. Now that was a fun experience! I actually did have a good time that day. Grandma took me to the hospital where they injected me with a radioactive fluid that had to be brought in in a thick lead container so that people in the halls weren't exposed to the radiation and then they told me to come back in a couple hours. Grandma and I went out to breakfast at IHOP (man that was good) and then stopped at Sears before going back to the hospital. Then it got boring for a bit while I was basically tied up and shoved into a machine for the xrays. Then Grandma and I went to Younkers where I learned how great of a bargain shopper Grandma is and she bought some wonderful things for Lilly and I! Then we went to Costco, a store that I wish I could go to more, and back to Mom's to pick up Lilly. The results of the bone scan were nothing special and they said they wanted to try physical therapy before doing a MRI. I started PT yesterday, could barely move the rest of the day and am struggling a bit today, and I now have to do this twice a week! Like I wasn't busy enough already!!! But this too shall pass. I just hope that at my dr appointment in the morning I'll be able to get something more to help with the pain that doesn't make my head all fuzzy!
Got to go for now-it's time to pick up the munchkin from school. I'm eager to hear how the days festivities turned out! I'll try not to neglect this blog anymore, but no promises! Life has been more than crazy!
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