Web Site

The web site advertising our house went live this morning.

www.alicantedrive.com

It still boggles my mind that we bought this place 10 years ago for $500,000 and we will easily get $1, 500,000 for it.

Even after broker fees, etc. we will walk away with enough to buy a smaller home in Woodland Hills for cash.

A Few Updates

The realtors did their first open house yesterday so we all vacated the house for the afternoon. I'm told it was well attended and this morning our realtor called to say that two couples that came yesterday wanted to come back this week and see the house again with their own realtors. Robin and Ava, our realtors, seem confident that it will sell quickly and easily since our neighborhood is so popular and there isn't much on the market here at the moment. I hope so, I just want to get this over with and the boys are taken care of now with the needed permits.

Best of all I got a call from Border's Books late last week and they offered me the job! Woo Hoo. The flexibility will be good, the benefits and opportunities for promotion are wonderful. I go for the corporate orientation March 7th followed by a few days of training. It will be so nice to be getting a regular paycheck again instead of the occassional little check in the mail though it still feels a bit odd to think of myself as employed.

Sam begins undergoing another set of tests at UCLA tomorrow. They want a fresh set to compare against the ones from three months ago so that the next time his lungs hemorage (and they will) they can embolize the lung. It's very high risk and could kill him but he is dying by degrees now anyway so he's decided to go for it.

That is if I don't kill him myself first out of sheer frustration. Thankfully he's way to ill to work anymore, even the slightest exertion starts him gasping for breath and he's been having quite a bit of pain. Despite working himself to the brink of death he still will not listen to the doctors. If he wasn't so bad off I know he'd still be dragging himself into the office. As it stands he spends his time watching tv and doing puzzles when he's not sleeping. He doesn't even pretend to take an interest in what's going on with myself or the boys. I really want him to see someone, a psycologist or some kind of therapist but he won't have that either.

But you can't control someone else's actions so I've had to become resigned or I'll go out of my mind. I keep busy so I don't think to much and the boys and I continue counseling once a week which has really helped me cope these past few months and I definately see a big improvement in the boys attitudes and outlook, especially Andrew.

Recent Fun Stuff

I've really been enjoying the HBO series ROME. Watching the second season inspired me to read some historical fiction set during the same time period so in addition to rereading I, CLAUDIUS an old favorite of mine, I've been reading Colleen McCullough's Rome series. I'm enjoying it enormously.

When I finish I'll get caught up with my other reading. I want to try the revamped Star Trek eBook series Corp of Engineers, which is a continuation of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series which I loved. I'm also looking forward to the last Crucible novel, KIRK: THE STAR TO EVERY WANDERING and trying the Mirror Universe books and diving into Mangels and Martin's THE GOOD THAT MEN DO. Somewhere along the way I've got to finish the MERE ANARCHY series but as it was just mediocre so far that can wait.

I've got several books on hold at the library I'm looking forward to finally getting my hands on as well, including Timothy Zahn's new Star Wars novel ALLIEGENCE, the new Deborah Crombie mystery and the new MC Beaton mystery.

All of that should keep me happily entertained for a while :)

Speaking of the Crucible books our USS Angeles group had the pleasure of having the trilogies author David R. George III and his wife Karen as guests at our last meeting. David was a very entertaining guest that everyone enjoyed and he graciously signed books and answered all kinds of questions.

In addition this past Saturday a bunch of us from the Angeles went to see the new exhibit at the California Science Center "The Science Behind Star Wars". The exhibit was incredible and a lot of it was interactive. Afterwards the nine of us went out for a great meal. All in all a very fun day.

Last week I also took in a matinee showing of MUSIC & LYRICS which was cute and made me laugh quite a bit. Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore had great chemistry I thought.

Moving On

These past couple of weeks have gone by in a blur so it's nice to have an evening to just relax.

The house is now offically on the market and I've had several interviews for jobs. I got called back for a second interview at Border's Books which I thought went well. So I'm hopeful but not counting on anything and should hear back from them in a couple of days.

This next week I've to get the paperwork done for the permits the boys will need to continue at Calabasas High but I've got a verbal "no problem" from the principal. I'll feel more secure once it's in writing though.

Steph's home this weekend and it's been great to spend some time with her. The boys have been busy, Andrew with baseball and Adam with basketball.

We're still waiting on the insurance to approve home oxygen for Sam but as long as he doesn't move around much he can breath comfortably enough for now.

Life's Changes

Sam seems to be stable again for now so things have been pretty peaceful and quite this week. At least he only worked 20 hours and can now swallow again.

Last Saturday TrekNation.com finally made the formal announcement that I have resigned as their Book Padd reporter. I'm really going to miss it but it can't be helped.

My search for a new job got a bit delayed due to Sam's health issues but I've been applying in earnest this week. The result--I'm scheduled to take a couple of tests this week at the Las Virgenes School District and if I do well enough I hope to get called in to interview.

The city library system has one opening at the moment and got 400 applications for it so even though I worked for them for nine years I don't hold out much hope of getting called for an interview, but you never know. In the meantime I'm going to concentrate on the local school districts and hope for the best. Worse case senerio I'll apply at Border's and Barnes and Noble or just for some type of office clerical position. I need to find something asap.

In the meantime I am, with the boys help, slowly getting the house ready to go up for sale. The goal is to have it on the market by early March. I've been watching some of the local real estate web sites and there seem to be plenty of smaller homes in the range we need over n Woodland Hills. That would be ideal, not to far for the boys to go to school, only about a 10-15 minute drive and it's close to the metro bus routes if we need to do that for a while.

Andrew's doing really well with his driving, he's mastered parking but still needs to work on backing up. He'll be eligible to take his road test in mid-April so hopefully he'll get it the first time and then he can drive himself and Adam to school and back.

The start of baseball season is just around the corner (March 8th) and he'll be a third year umpire this year so he can ump all levels and gets a pay increase to $25 dollars a game. He's planning on umping Tues. and Thursday evening games, and three games each Saturday. His own Senior league games will all be played on Sundays so that should work out fine.