ladydouji

Thursday night I ended up with insomnia and couldn't sleep. So friday morning I ended up mailing off a doll I sold and a few other errands, and finally getting a 4 hour nap. Jen came over in the evening with her cat Einstein for a kitty play date with Patch and we watched Wrecknation while making plans to go to the Forbdden Gardens closing sale. We ended the night early because we were both tired as hell and I actually went to bed before midnight.

Saturday I woke up at 6:30am with no alarm and actually felt perky before having any caffeine. Useful for the day, but very very weird for me. Went and picked up Jen and we headed to FG. Took a while to find as they had taken down the banners showcasing it. For the closing sale they were only allowing 40 people in at a time so we ended up waiting for about an hour before we were let in. We looked around for a while just kinda looking at the exhibits although several of them had already been dismantled partially. Looking at the mini terracotta warriors I saw some heads that had broken off the soldiers. I then had the idea of taking a few of them, maybe painting them white and putting them in my front little garden area at Halloween. So ended up getting five of them and a little vase. Jen picked up a little billfold and cooking apron from the remains of the giftshop. Then we headed out to my parents because I wanted to pick up my mortgage documentation so I can do my taxes. Mom took a look at me and mentioned I should get some lotion as it looked like I had gotten a little sun. At first I was surprised, but then Jen said I was a little pink and I noticed the lobster red patch on her arm. So yep we had ended up sunburnt. We went to lunch at a Mongolian stir-fry place which was yummy and made a random decision to go see Green Hornet. Since we had time, after lunch We went to Ooh-lala for cupcakes. Some of the yummiest and largest cupcakes ever. back in the car, making room for Jen to put her drink down I uncovered a can of spf 50 sunscreen. The word fuck was uttered many times.

Green Hornet: it was a lot of fun and a good updating to the old story. I'm not sure if I would want to see an entire movie franchise from it, but a tv series, or maybe follow the comic book series.

We finally head home and I dropped Jen off.

Sunday: woke up nice and refreshed, went to head out to work and found my driver side front tire was completely flat. Called off work and called my dad for help with the spare. Went to NTB to see if the tire could be repaired and guy took one look and said nope. Since I bought the tire at Discount Auto Tire he recommended I go there in case I bought the warrently(can't remember if I did or not) and even if I didn't I may be able to get a pr-rated discount on a new tire. DAT isn't open sunday to tomorrow I have to get up early and see if they can be done before I have to head in to work.

As part of my New Year's resolution I decided to explore/visit a new place in Houston once a month. This month I went to the Houston Holocaust Museum and Memorial.

When I got there my bag had to be search, which to me was a little unusual for a museum. The museum itself is rather small. One main exhibit which had a brief history of anti-semetism in Europe explaining how that laid the groundwork for the holocaust. Things like Jews not being allowed to hold public office, or being required to live in certain places. The exhibit slowly built up everything that led to the Final Solution. First how Germany suffered massive inflation and shortages after WWI which discredited the ruling party and enable the rise of Hitler and the nazis, who gave Germans a convenient target for their anger. It also explained how Jews were sloly stripped of their rights and persecuted. All in all building up to the Final Solution where Jews and other undesirables were shipped to various camps to be killed. I did like how they included information such as the others included within the Final Solution being homosexuals, and the Roma.

Other than the main exhibit, they had two art exhibits. One called Displaced Persons, featuring photographed taken to Jewish survivors, the other Fragile Fragments: Expressions of Memory featuring artwork created by 3 female artist working with Holocaust survivors and their memories.

Outside the museum had a German boxcar used to transport people to the camps as well as a Danish fishing boat used to smuggle Jews out of Denmark to Sweden. I wasn't able to get a close look as there was a school group(I assume as least from the school buses I could see) on tour and taking up the space.

All in all a throat-provoking place and worth the visit. Now to hunt down the video of the Auschwitz survivor dancing at the various concentration camps with his grandchildren.

RAGE TIME! My old crappy apartment, which once left me without heat for 3 days while Houston was in a freeze just sent me a bill for 2373.92. Their justification is insufficient notice penalties of 1400$ Lease termination of 595$ and cleaning charges of 50$. They're also claiming that I gave no notice and that I moved out 2 weeks after I actually did.

So oni-con was this past weekend and for the first time in years I actually got to go all three days. It's been way too long since I could do that, screwed up my sleep schedule but it was worth it.

Friday: Some-how woke up around 8:30 got all punkified and headed out to the hotel. I got there early enough that there wasn't a long line for a badge. Some improvements is that they didn't have the dealers room spread out across two locations like last year, and the Artist Allery was in it's own room, rather than in the hallway making it easier to move around. Things that bugged me, is that for one of the two anime viewing rooms they never actually labeled it, so it was mostly ignored. Also while the panel rooms were labeled, they never posted signs or schedules about what was in each panel room at the door, so if you didn't have a schedule you were pretty fucked.

Explored the con while waiting for the dealer's room to open and found that there was a steampunk group and they had a steampunk museum. I mentioned that I had made little doll-sized steampunk guns and the guy in charge said, "Bring them in and we can put them up with a little piece of paper with your name." Well I got bored waiting for the dealer's room to open so I ran home, got my guns and brought them in. Guy thought they were extremely awesome and I became a last minute addition to the museum. Later I found out another in their group collected dolls and needed steampunk guns for her dolls. We exchanged info for later.

Dealer's room opened and I started exploring. At first I didn't find much, but did pick up some volumes of Fairy Tail, that I've been reading online. Also got a Snow(from FF13) action figure. Cursing the fact that ff13 is the first time I want figures of all the characters and not just the boys, plus this is the time that they're the most expensive. Typically the figures have been 20-30 dollars. FF13's are 40$. The dealer gave me a small discount because the Snow figure was the last one he had in stock. And a woman was selling home made yukatas and hair shinies( Pan-Gaia.com.) I had my hair in pigtails at the time and another customer commented that her hair in a single braid wouldn't be as thick as one of my pigtails. I ended up buying two combs and the dealer asked if I was from in town because she wanted to use me as a head/hair model for her shop. In the artist alley I got a phone charm and badge that says "what do you mean there's no such brand as god damn tea? Met with my friend Sarah and her fiance for lunch. Then Sarah and I just hung out waiting for panels and I met a cute Snow cosplayer. Went to a couple panels, first about airsoft guns, the one about leather-working. I left halfway through the leatherworking on although I wanted to stay for a panel about wigstyling. I was just too tired.

Saturday. Again got up ungodly early for me about 9-ish. Got dressed in my lolita outfit and let my hair out into pretty waves. Second day was more of the first with wandering around, taking photos of cosplayers. Didn't buy much in the dealers room again but got tempted by several things, but decided to wait until the last day of con. Watched some bad anime in one viewing room(dubbed anime at an anime convention. Really!) In the other viewing room they did have some new stuff, in promotional disks from the anime networks simulcasts. Lolita outfit started feeling too warm so went home and changed. Later went to the yaoi-fest and had a blast. I thought it was going to be watching some yaoi anime, but apparently they couldn't actually get licenses to show any(cons are so legit now) Instead we played games, such a yaoi trivia, bingo, Whose line is it anyway? and match the seme to the uke. We actually ended up going through all the panelists planned activities but we had the room as long as we wanted so we ended up playing Truth or Dare for several hours. Finally went home and went to bed

Sunday: Last day of con and I ended up sleeping later than I wanted and missed the steampunk panel I wanted to go to. Hit the dealer's room one last time and picked up a bento box, some gundam models(Deathscythe Hell Custom and the GX 9900)Dome mini posters of Snow and Hope from FF13 and a grab bag. Grab bag turned out decent with a hetalia placard thing, Lithuania keychain, Cross Marian key chain, and a Clamp and wonderland figure. Chatted with friends, picked up my doll guns and went home.

Took an extra day off work and worked on organizing my art room. Found an old sketch that said on the cover "one day I will be a responsible adult with a family and a mini van and a mortgage but until then I reserve the right to be a moody obnoxious brat who dresses funny and shows up late for dinner" Welp I have a mortgage and my pt cruiser could count as a mini van, but since I don't have the family I'm still reserving the right to dress funny.

So Mom and I swung by home depot to pick up the room darkening shades I need for my bedroom. Turns out you shouldn't do window measurements while sleep deprived like I did. Cause I bought the shades, got them home and they're one inch too short. Add in since it was my fuck-up I can't return or exchange them.

So I didn't finally get to close on my house. nice large stack of paperwork to do it too. Now to finish packing up all my miscellaneous stuff and movers are coming on Saturday. Worst thing is although I got up at 7am on Thursday and still had to go to work after the closing I still can't fall asleep.

So today was the inspection for the townhome I want to buy. The place isn't in perfect condition(no surprised considering the age and changes in building codes since it was built) but it's not going to fall down on my head and the biggest problems are ones the homeowners association needs to take care off.

The biggest surprise was when I pulled up and saw the plants in the front area. When we first looked we saw a giant alien cactus thing, and some tall bushes and climbing vines. Turns out the bushes and vines were roses and now they're in full bloom and gorgeous.

Why do I not have an exhausted icon? Oh well.

This week has been very tiring for me, emotionally, mentally, and now it's going physical.

Last Saturday, after I lost Chester I found a perfect townhome for me to buy. 3 bedrooms, close to work, hardwood and tile floors. I was a bit worried about looking at it because it was a little over what I wanted to spend, but my realtor saw that it's been on the market 288 days and at one point was listed at a price in my range(and obviously didn't sell) So he thinks we'll be able to get it for 75,000. I already have a mortgage pre-approval letter, but I do need at least 5000$ for a down payment and closing costs. Looking at what I have, plus incoming paychecks, and cashing in my value shares, it looks like I'll still end up about 1000-1200 short. Eeeek! My father told me to run my numbers and talk to them(Mom and Dad) and they'll see if they can help. I'm putting stuff up for sale in various places(and will probably either post or link them here)

Work this week has been stressful and busy. I work at a bank and it's tax season, really nuff said. I will say that there have been some stupid decisions by management recently. One they introduced a new level of service called Online service bankers. They're somewhere between regular consumer telephone bankers(give balances, go over transactions, cancel debit card etc. . .) and online general bankers. The only thing they can do is online enrollment. and reset passwords. They know nothing of basic browser troubleshooting, or even how most of how online banking works. Management also didn't make an announcement to the main online support about this new tier rolling out. Result: we start getting calls from bankers over really easy shit and wondering what the fuck new bankers are being trained on and how they can be so stupid. Yeah not really conducive to a pleasant day at work, and that's before dealing with actual customer.

Then last night my old nemesis insomnia came to play a visit. I feel asleep a little after 7am, and then woke up around 11am. And I've been running around all day since. Here's hoping I pass into a blissful restful coma tonight.

So I got my paycheck(with 3% increase woot) plus my tax refund today. And it's my first paycheck without a car payment needing to go out so I'm pretty flush right now. I did order a new computer as my current one is beginning to slow and become annoying. It should be here in about 3 weeks. Resisting the urge to go into a nesting mode and buy stuff for my apt(like new bedding) or storage, or decoration. I'm still house hunting and anything I buy is just another thing that would need to be packed up for the move.

*toes* I did give into temptation for a cute pair of shoes from clarks. Mid-heel, double strap mary-janes. Super comfy as well