4-Day Thanksgiving Weekend

Wednesday, November 22

I was super excited about the short work week ahead of me.  The past few months have taken a toll on me and probably Ben but I can't speak for him.  The roommate crap just put us over the edge on how dumb it really was.  Between getting the vet payments and trying to get her to pay for the wall she damaged while moving out was extremely hard because she didn't want to communicate with us and kept ignoring our requests to talk about it.  Plus our mattress was slowly killing us.

After work on Wednesday, Ben and I went to the grocery store for our holiday food supplies and hit up a few of the mattress stores just to see the pricing and maybe lay in some of them to check the comfort levels.  Ben has been working the whole week on graveyard so his sleeping has been off this week.  I told him he better not get too comfortable on the beds.

We went home, ate dinner and relaxed.  Ben relaxed a little too much after his long shift at Costco of making pies and muffins all night long.  He didn't last very long on the couch.  Kitty thought he would hang out with him while he slept.  Erika spend the evening making a pie for Thanksgiving.

Thursday, November 23

We got up the next day and got ready to go to our Thanksgiving gatherings.  Ben went to his aunt's house to see his grandma and mom for the day.  I went to my aunt and uncle's house with Erika.  We were suppose to be there by 2. So we headed out close to 1:15-1:30 and made our way to Tumwater.  Doug and Jenn rolled up in a vehicle that they borrowed and of course the car had Husky license plates on it.  I guess just like Air BnB there is a similar one for borrowing people's cars.  Grammie didn't come because she wasn't feeling very well.  I knew it was going to be weird without her there.  It was always weird when someone was missing.

Since we were going somewhere that didn't have television we missed most of the Thanksgiving football games.  

Karla made tons of food and because they have food allergies, we had to bring certain things with us if we wanted to eat them.  We said grace, dished up food and sat down.  We talked about an array of stuff including what everyone's been doing since we last got together.  Karla had put paper down as the table cloth and encouraged us to use the colored pencils, pens and markers to draw on it.  After we cleaned up we got the desserts and Furbys out.  Mom had found a Furby at the Goodwill a few weeks ago and wanted to have the other Furbys teach it words. We didn't think the Furbys would be that much of a spotlight.  Karla's brother, Neil, saw we had the Furbys out and went and got his.  I had no idea they made Gizmo Furbys.  Anyway we had a great time watching them talk to each other.  Mom's Furby even learned how to say "here kitty kitty" something mom taught ours almost 18 years ago.  Wow, it's been that long!?

We got ready to celebrate our birthdays that we've been putting off because it's easier to celebrate them over Thanksgiving while everyone was around.  We didn't make a cake and just ate the peach pie Erika made. 

We sang happy birthday and Tracy filmed it because Grammie was a part of the group of people we were celebrating.  That also included Grandpa, dad, mom and me.  We handed out presents and cards and watched everyone open their gifts.  

We ate some of the desserts that were brought while we drew pictures on the paper table cloth.  I started drawing penguins and ducks.  Tracy drew a bunch of Disney characters, cats and dogs and Erika drew out a dog house and a crown for one of my penguins.

By about 6 everyone was pretty much ready to go.  It was getting dark and everyone was getting tired.  We thanked Kevin and Karla for hosting Thanksgiving and we figured out who was actually going shopping with us.  In my Escape, Erika, mom and Erika and Doug and Jenn drove themselves.  Mom would have to go with Doug and Jenn back to Rainier when we were done.

The place was insane and it took us a while to find a parking spot way far away from the store.  There were so many people here it was crazy.  Over the years Walmart has perfected the organization of the goods to prevent people from being overly aggressive, throwing stuff and yelling at each other.  Part of me is sad I don't get free entertainment of people being greedy and horrible but on the other hand, it's kinda nice not being pushed around by people wanting things that they really don't need.

I went in with a mission.  I needed a few things I've had my eye on for the past few months but waited until they were a little bit cheaper.  I got a new pillow because mine are at least two years old and it shows, I bought Ben and I a wireless printer because his printer was acting up and I had no idea how to fix it, I got my yearly Pyrex containers because I thought Suzanne was stealing them and leaving them at work and a couple of movies because they were under $2.  Mom got a few things, Erika did as well but Doug and Jenn bought a bunch of stuff including a vacuum cleaner.

While they were wandering around, I all of a sudden, had to use the bathroom really bad.  Since they had the store all blocked off and such, I had to find my way around to the restroom.  I had a short amount of time before I had a bad night so I needed to hurry.  Erika texted me to find out where I went and I told her that I was using the restroom and I would meet up with them in a few to pay for our stuff.  I hated that the Thanksgiving food I ate went right through me.

I met up with everyone, paid for our stuff and drove it out to the parking lot.  Mom went with Doug and Jenn and Erika headed home with me.  We hung out the rest of the night watching Netflix and waiting for Ben to get home from Puyallup.

Friday, November 24

I slept in because I could.  Ben had a shift at Costco and I asked Erika if she wanted to stop by the South Lacey Goodwill before we headed over to Rainier.  We checked to see what that Goodwill offered, Erika found a cheap end table and headed back home.  We loaded up the car and took recycle with us to get rid of it and stopped by the house to see what mom and dad were doing.

We ended up just hanging out for a while until I talked mom into going into Yelm to see what the Goodwill and Sunbirds had to offer.  Erika decided to stay home with dad and shoot bows and arrows out in the back yard.

Mom and I went into the Goodwill first and browsed around the typical stuff that we usually do.  That for me included the t-shirts, the sports clothes, the toys, the books and some of the random aisles of stuff.  I was looking for a used travel book of Peru (for our travels May 2019), any discarded Furbys, t-shirts of my favorite teams, any Christmas presents that stood out to me for other people, a gravy boat and a meat fork.  Since it was black Friday, they were having a deal where all the toys were half off as many as you can cram into a bag.  Mom told me to find all the beanie babies and other toys like them and cram them into a bag.  We spent probably 15 minutes cramming three bags.  She is bringing them with her this May to Ecuador for the humanitarian dental trip.

We headed back to Rainier to make sure the food wasn't burning and to start the mashed potatoes, gravy and the fixings.  We watched the Penguin and Bruins hockey game and sadly the Penguins lost 4-3.  Dad ended up losing an arrow in the woods and I helped mom bury one of the ducks that had been missing for a while and a chicken that died of old age.   Mom wanted a picture of everyone for Thanksgiving so we got Jenn to take a picture of all of us.

Aren't we precious?

We ate second Thanksgiving and it was delicious.  Since mom and dad didn't have TV still we had to stream some of the college football games through the computer.  Erika wanted to go soon so we ate some dessert, thanked mom and dad for making food and that we would see them later.

We hung out at home and watched some of our TV shows until bedtime.

Saturday, November 25

We slept in again Ben had another shift at Costco.  Because Ben worked at Costco they gave each employee a turkey for Thanksgiving.  We decided to make it today for third Thanksgiving and make turkey soup the next day out of the leftovers.  This time I put the stuffing into the turkey and cooked it for the necessary time.  I timed it to where Ben would be home in time to enjoy it.

During the day while the turkey cooked, I opted not to watch the Apple Cup because I knew it was going to be disappointing and make me mad because several of our good players were not going to play and it wasn't worth watching the Huskies win by default.  I believe if we had all of our players and our star quarterback we would have slaughtered them.  I am so tired of watching our team who is much better than the Huskies lose year after year.  It's been since 2012.  Instead, I watched some of the other football games that were played that day.

I hooked up the wireless printer so I could spend some time working on our Retro Christmas card that I was voluntold to do.  I keep being voluntold to do stuff and this has been happening more since I started working at the state and I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not.  I'm going to make the coolest Retro Christmas card ever!  The staff had chosen a pet themed card so I found out how many pets everyone had and we had a bunch so I decided to make the pets Christmas ornaments on a tree.  The people who had multiple pets I turned into presents.

After I got it glued down and decorated I sent a picture to Liz for approval.  She approved and asked if we were going to work on it on Monday.  I said sure.  That would mean we would get the text on the front and the photo and saying on the back.  One step closer to it getting done.

The turkey got done shortly after I finished the card and Ben would be home soon.  I had the potatoes and gravy cooking on the stove.  The turkey cooled a bit so I started cutting pieces off of it and putting it on the platter.

Ben got home and helped me get the rest of it ready.  Erika came out of her room from doing homework and ate third Thanksgiving with us.  It was delicious and the first time I cooked stuffing inside of the turkey.  It turned out yummy.

The rest of the evening I made an attempt at trying to get organized to get our own Christmas cards ready to go.  I got a list going and had Ben find out what his friends addresses were.  I started filling out cards according to the groups I divided them up in.  We also watched football until the last game was over.

Sunday, November 26

We got up late again mostly because we could since I will have to go to work the next day and won't get to sleep in.  We ate some cereal for breakfast and I worked on some of the Christmas cards.  We both decided that turkey soup would be delicious for dinner so we spent some time looking for a great turkey soup recipe.  

I had to go to the store for a few of the things we didn't have...mostly the egg noodles.  As soon as I got back I got all of the ingredients out and started cutting up the turkey.  I was super excited to make my first turkey soup!

As it was cooking we got the TV situated to watch the Seahawks beat the 49ers 24-13.  It should have been a much higher scoring game but we let the new quarterback do whatever he wanted during the last part of the game.  The 49ers will be a different team next year so I hope we can improve our team so we are competitive with those no-so-great teams.  I really hope we get rid of our pathetic kicker soon.

I deemed this turkey soup "victory turkey soup" because it got done just as the game was winding down.  It was tasty.

We did some laundry for the upcoming work week, watched Sunday night football and did some light cleaning of the kitchen and living room.  I was sad to see my four day weekend disappear so quickly but it was nice being away from work that long and I did get some stuff accomplished.

Next Adventure:  Treecember Paint Day

Friendsgiving

Ben and I haven't hosted a game night in a while so we decided to host November's game night, Friendsgiving.  I wrote up a list and some possibilities of food choices but sticking with the main dish being turkey and had people vote on an actual Thanksgiving dinner or turkey sandwiches like we did last year at Megan and Matt's.  I got some feedback and everyone wanted to have an actual Thanksgiving dinner.  To avoid people bringing the same thing or something that didn't go with the dinner I assigned people to bring certain things once I found out who was coming and who wasn't.

I posted it on Facebook for everyone to see and for there to be no "I didn't know" weeks before the date.  It was very detailed and to the point.  Ben and I were responsible for the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy.  I also wanted to incorporate a fun activity as well.  When Erika moved in a few months back she suggested at some point we have an ugly mug and or cup contest.  Everybody seemed game on the post.

We bought a turkey and the potatoes and gravy a couple days before game night so the turkey could thaw out.  We went to several different Goodwills over the course of the month to find our ugly cup/mug.  I ended up with a really retarded looking reindeer on a Christmas mug and I totally thought I would win. Ben ended up with a pimp and ho mug set and Erika bought an emoji poo mug.  Just between the three of us we had some pretty hideous/ugly/funny mugs.  I couldn't wait to see what other people brought.

I spent most of the day cleaning the house and cooking the turkey.  I had to get the turkey into the oven by noon for it to be done by the time everyone arrived.  I brought in the tables and chairs and even swept the front sidewalk and stoop area.

The turkey got done about a half hour before people started to arrive.  I had Ben cut it up and put it on serving platters.  I arranged the kitchen so all the food would fit onto the tables and so people could go through fairly easy.

We would have a few extra people coming over including Ben's friends Josh and Heather and Megan and Matt's friends.  I am glad I had enough chairs.

Everyone started to arrive.  As people arrived the food started to pile up on the table.  I had to rearrange the table a few times just so the food would fit.  Usually our Christmas party is the gathering that usually has everyone but this time we had everybody plus four people and the two kids.  My house was packed!

The food was delicious and of course the conversations are always classic.  Megan and Matt's friends left early because they had another function to be at.  We cleared the plates and got ready to play a few games.  So many dishes.

But first everyone brought out their ugly cup/mug and put it on display for everyone to vote on it.  The prize was a Lime Berry gift card for the person who received the most votes.  We went around the circle and we presented our ugly cup/mugs to everyone and Ben recorded the votes.  I was really sad mine didn't win because it was definitely unique and I will never find something similar to it ever.  Matt ended up winning with his gun mug so he won the gift card.

Some people left after the ugly mug/cup competition and the rest gathered at the table for some games.  Nicole always managed to bring some good games.  We played one where you had to convince everyone your dish made with weird ingredients and weird rules was the best one.  Almost like Chopped and Iron Chef mixed together.  The other I can't remember what it was but I do know we played two games. 

Everyone was gone by midnight.  I started putting everything away and started the dishes.  I just couldn't go to bed knowing that there was a pile of dishes waiting for me the next day.  I got most of the stuff put away and called it a night.  I was exhausted but we had fun.  Until the next one!

Next Adventure:  4-Day Thanksgiving Weekend

My 34th Birthday

I had the day off because I took it off from work and I was glad I did with all the stupidity that happened from the past few days.   It never fails with the weather during this week because historically anywhere around my birthday it will rain.  Not just any rain but heavy rain, wind and power outages.  The only time it didn't rain on my birthday is when I lived in Pullman.  Guess what the forecast was for November 13th?  You guessed it!  Wind and heavy rain.

I got up around 9ish and got my workout gear on.  I needed to keep up on my running.  I had just started a week before Halloween.  I was tired of being tired all the time and I noticed I didn't like the way I looked in my photos or the way I fit into some of my favorite clothes.  I picked a great time to run because the rain had died down to a mist instead of a heavy downpour.  I got my almost mile and a half in around the neighborhood in the wicked wind.  I got back just before the next downpour rolled in.

I started getting Facebook posts and they continued throughout the day.

I started taking my sweaty wet clothes off so I could get into the shower to start our day when all of a sudden the power goes off.  "ARE YOU SERIOUS!??"  What a way to end my awful 4-day weekend.  Who knows how long it would be out.  I got pretty upset because I was cold and wanted to be clean.  Ben got up and Erika was already up wondering what we were going to do today.  Ben was going to make Scooby-Doo waffles, bacon and eggs for breakfast but the power was out.  I wiped myself down with a cold washcloth and put clean clothes onto my sweaty body.  Ben got up and started putting clothes on when all of the sudden the power went back on.  "YES!"  I jumped into the shower as fast as I could and Ben went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

After the shower I got ready for my day.  I came out and we all ate breakfast at the dining room table.  After breakfast Ben gave me my birthday gift.  It could have been one of two jerseys, a legit Cougar jersey or a Sydney Crosby jersey.  It was a Sydney Crosby jersey and I was very happy to get it but I knew it cost some money and he could have waited because of the financial strain we were going to have soon.  I told him I loved it but I've waited since 2009 and I could have waited longer to get one because of our situation.

Erika, Ben and I decided to hit up a few of the Goodwills in the area for fun.  We started at Olympia, got onto the freeway and hit up the one in Hawks Prairie and then finished at the one in South Lacey.  I did find some good stuff for Christmas.  We found this awesome poster at the one in Oly and we were sad to see that it was $10, if it hadn't of been that much we would have taken it home.

We headed home because we had to feed Emmitt and Red was coming over and she didn't want to make them wait.  Ben and I headed over to the geocache, Summer Fun #8: Bubbles!!! (GC7AM0R), that was closest to our house.  We tried to go find it a few months ago but it was muggled and we patiently waited for the cache owner to replace it.  He finally did and I wanted to find it on my birthday.  It was pouring down rain and we had to find it fast before we got soaked.  Ben found it on the opposite side of the tree.  We signed it quickly and put it back. 

The soccer field was basically a lake with all the rain that we've had so far today and it had attracted a lot of seagulls and Canadian geese.  Ben had his waterproof hikers on so I told him to go chase all the birds.

We came back home, did some chores, started laundry, turned on Monday Night Football and make rice yuck for dinner.  The Raiders were playing the Philadelphia Eagles and the Eagles won that game 19-10.  It wasn't their best game but it was entertaining nonetheless.  We got our work clothes ready for the work week, got cleaned up and went to bed.  I read some of my messages people wrote on my wall and thanked everyone for wishing me a happy birthday.  Three and four day weekends always go by way too fast.  

Next Adventure:  Friendsgiving

Flowvember Paint Day

We try and have a paint night every month, with the exception of the summer because everyone is busy and it's sunny...must enjoy it while it's here.  Nicole wanted to try a new technique she saw on one of her paint groups on Facebook.  It is called flow art and I've always wanted to try it.  This was going to be a quick paint day because we would have to let it dry for a week.

I stopped by Walmart in Tumwater on the way over to make sure I had enough paint for my painting.  I didn't think I had enough in my collection at home so I just bought some new ones since they were all under a dollar.  I bought some crimson, two different grays, black and white and I had no idea how it was going to turn out.  I sure hope really awesome!

Sarah, Lindsay, Celeste and I all met at Nicole's house with our different colored paints and the adventure for the unknown.  By unknown I mean we have no idea how our painting was going to turn out and it kind of gave me anxiety...just a little bit. We brought some snacks and Nicole got all the stuff out we would need to use.

She took out all the cups and wooden tongue depressors and handed them out to each of us.  We all got six cups and sticks.  She stirred hers and watched us stir ours because we had to get to a specific viscosity to make it work.  We added some product to it to make it more runny and some oil to give it the "cells" look when it was on the canvas.  We watched Nicole do it.  She said there were a few different ways to put the paint on the canvas and she showed us the different ways.

She chose a green, blue and white combo.  She then explained once we dump or pull the cup away you pick it up and make sure all the paint covers the canvas.  She also pointed out the variety of "cells" on the canvas.  You could see that we were all nervous once Nicole was done.  I volunteered to go first.  I took my six cups and staggered poured them into my main dumping cup.  I decided to pour mine on instead of pulling the cup off of the canvas.  I made a design and watched all the "cells" transform.  I picked it up and made sure my canvas was completely covered.  Mine actually turned our really cool and it reminded me of lava.

Celeste, Sarah and Lindsay also did theirs and used whatever technique they felt comfortable with.  They all turned out pretty cool.

We set them up in Nicole's laundry room because she had a humidifier also set up so the paintings would not crack while drying.  We thanked her, helped her clean up and headed out.  We were there for a few hours.  Throughout the week she would send us updates on how our paintings were doing.  She brought them with her to Friendsgiving later on that week.  I put mine on the wall.  I hope to do another one here in a few months.  I will have to figure out what colors I wanna do next time.

Next Adventure:  My 34th Birthday

A Timeline of a Horrible Roommate

This was a co-worker of mine in the mailroom.  I really didn't consider her a friend but more of a co-worker I did scrapbooking with occasionally.  As I got to know her she became more annoying as time went on and I truly believe she uses her "problems" to her advantage.

In December 2016 she was kicked out of her house by her husband and his new girlfriend (this is a long naïve story) because they thought she was seeing someone else behind their back which in fact she was just having food with a friend.  She didn't know where to go so she came and lived with us for a week because we are nice people.  She then moved to Roy to live in a loft owned by some of her friends.  Of course I helped her move because I am a nice person.

At the start of the new year, a week into January, Ben lost his job (that's an even longer story) and we needed to find a creative way to make money for rent and bills.  I am thankful I went from part-time in the mailroom to full-time early December.  I also started carpooling with her so we could earn about $150 more on our paychecks every quarter.

In February Ben started looking for work, applied to unemployment and looked into doing perquisites for medic school at SPSCC.  In the meantime we were trying to come up with a way to make rent.

In March Ben enrolled into school and unemployment would last until August 2017.  My co-worker had a 2 hour meeting with our manager and lead.  It was about her behavior.  She sort of told me what it was for but kinda skirted around it.  Deep down I knew what it was for.

Her divorce was finalized in April and she didn't feel comfortable in the Roy loft because she thought her ex-husband knew where she was, her landlord was getting creepy and the long commute.  Both parties agreed that she would move in with Ben and I.  She moved it April 5, 2017.  She would pay for half of everything.  We got permission from REMAX to sublet to her, we were responsible for her and the damages she caused (we added this into the agreement that she was responsible for damages if she caused them).  Ben and I put together a roommate agreement.  We thought it was very reasonable, presented it to her, she read it, signed and dated it.  That to us meant she understood it.  We all each got a copy.  Ben started spring quarter at SPSCC.

I started a non-perm position in Retrospective Rating in May.  The weather started improving and we started getting busy.  We noticed she did a lot of sitting in her room.  She struggled with a few of her friends shared by her and her ex-husband.  She started defying her manager and her lead in the mailroom.  She started talking with a guy she met online who was from Port Orchard/Bremerton.

In June I had a hard time leaving for the weekend because I didn't trust her to be by herself at our house.  We had an issue with her not leaving the laundry room door open (that is where we keep the cat box and his food and water) so kitty pooped on the floor in the living room because she was careless.  Not sure if she fed him when he was supposed to be or just overfed him so she didn't have to keep to a schedule.  I'm sure she started inviting her "boyfriend" over when we weren't there.  We've never met him and we thought it was disrespectful.  We didn't trust her with a mail key so we didn't have one made.

July is when it started to go downhill.  We finally met her "boyfriend" while Erika and Travis were in town visiting for the holiday.  She never told us he was coming over and he almost got punched in the face because we got home and all the lights were off, Ben went into the house and some stranger was in the hallway...Ben immediately went into defensive mode.  She continued having him over without our knowledge.  We finally got her to write it on the calendar so we knew when he might be coming over.   At the end of July we had to go get Erika from Nevada and she moved into the extra room.  That made bills and rent cheaper.

In August, she started locking herself into her room more and more because Erika gave her access to her extra Kindle and gave her permissions to use her Netflix and Hulu accounts.  I told Erika that was a huge mistake and she didn't realize it until later.  She started not communicating with us or doing chores when they were needed.  To me that was unfair to the rest of the people living in the house and we had to constantly remind her.  She started her new job as of August 1. She started leaving really early and leaving work really late because the job was too hard and got behind.  She stopped carpooling with me and then lied to me about it even though I knew she was carpooling with someone else.  I caught them in October.  Also she brought it a poisonous plant and tried to kill my cat.  That resulted in a $1301 vet bill that she told us she would pay back.  She would be playing me $200 a month until it was done.

September was a really busy month for me because I was preparing for my upcoming international trip and I had no time to babysit her. I knew this problem got bigger and bigger the more we ignored it but I just had no time to deal with it right now.  I went on my trip and I really had no idea how the day to day stuff went.  Ben did tell me that she actually made dinner one night after Ben told her to.  When I got home I was so disappointed that no one swept the floor for 12 days.

October:

She wrote us the first letter on October 11 and left it on the coffee table, it said that she had no idea what happened and has a hard time communicating.  To us, we made everything pretty clear and had to remind her weekly on chores and letting her know when we wanted our rent, bills and vet payment.

That sparked us to find a day to talk about everything that was not going well. I chose October 17th and even wrote it on the calendar so everyone was aware of it.

On October 17th, we had a meeting about her behavior (basically) even though we called it a roommate meeting so we weren't "attacking" her.  A week before she was skeptical about how it would go down.  She spoke to Erika about it often.  This is where having her "boyfriend" around would give her support.  That, to me, implied that she was in the wrong and someone on her side to agree with her.  When the date got closer she tried getting out of it.  We found this out through Erika and a Facebook message to Ben.  We insisted she meet with us to talk about the current situation.  We can't ignore it anymore.  And we can't have a deadbeat living with us anymore.  Her "boyfriend" was not present.  Ben and I sat at the dining room table, Erika sat on the small couch and she sat on the couch next to the wall, isolated.  She did bring a notebook with her.  Ben opened up the meeting with an overview.  I went next with everything I wanted to cover.  I was prepared with the problem, the outlines/examples of each problem and a solution to fix it.  Erika was present to be the antagonist, the "why" person.  We gave the floor to her and she had nothing to say, which according to Erika a few days ago, said she had a slew of things to address.  Erika was pissed when she said she had nothing to say.  Ben asked a few questions which led to an answer from her of "I'm lost."  What the hell did that mean?  She didn't know exactly.  All she said was her job was hard getting used to.  I wanted to say, it's because you are NOT qualified for it!  But I didn't because I didn't want to hear crying.  She basically sat there looking dumb and confused.  I gave her a bunch of suggestions to work on and get better at, not just at our house, but better at life.  Clearly, she need some major work done in all areas of her life.  I guess we will see if she takes it seriously.  If not, she will have to move out.  I opted to have her do it on her own and have her do all the work...moving over her new address for mail, find a new place (which I hoped it was more expensive), playing the bills she owed us and moving her own stuff.

During the next week, I did not see any improvements, except she wrote stuff on the calendar.  Still no motivation to do chores with/like everyone else, she never spoke to us, except Erika, she continued living locked in in her room, continued leaving really early and coming home really late from work (behind at work and carpooling with someone else).  She would write "dinner w/friends" on the calendar so she wouldn't have to participate in dinner time activities.

October 23, confirmed she was carpooling with someone else and that she lied to me about it.

October 25, that evening she purposefully started clothes in the washer, took a shower while they were washing, it went off balance (our washer has never been off balance and I turned it off before it did more damage to the machine) and continued doing whatever she was doing.  When she was done I yelled down the hallway, "You need to do better at loading your laundry in the washer because I stopped it due to it being off balance!"  She came out of the bathroom, ignored me on the couch, went and fixed it.  Her clothes took forever because of the disruption during the cycle.  She was in "don't give a shit" mode and  did not care what our prior rules were for water consumption...try not to run several things at once.  If I had it my way, I would have called her out on it but Ben and Erika would have been mad at me for making her cry.

On October 31, she wrote us another letter and left it on the coffee table and if I was a betting person I would have been right with what I was about to read.  She stated that she was moving out because she basically didn't want to do chores or communicate with us anymore and needed to find a new place to live.  I was really hoping that she wouldn't leave until Ben got a job because now we were going to be strapped for money.

November 1-9, so many times (I lost count) she broke the rules because she didn't care.  Ben drafted a moving out contract, that he and I both signed on November 5th.  Ben went over it with her on November 6th with some edits that she agreed to.  So we expected she obey her responsibilities.  She gave us her forwarding address for her mail.  She was using a co-worker's address  She moved out on the 9th because Veterans day was celebrated on November 10th (we had a day off) so she had plenty of time go get her stuff out and clean.  As I was coming home from work, I noticed this truck with two people in it just chilling near Compton and 59th.  It was kinda creepy.  I then later found out that those two people were the ones helping her move her stuff to a storage unit.  She left the stuff she borrowed, the key to the house and the rest of the rent and bills (cat payment $776 of $1301) on the coffee table.  We changed the garage code as soon as we could and Erika changed her passwords to Netflix and Hulu.

Note:  she had plenty of time to do what we asked her to do with the bathroom and her room.  We simply requested that she vacuum, wipe the walls, and dust the room and wiped down all the counters, sweep and make sure her hair is out of all the drains in the bathroom.  If this was an actual place you were renting from, they would have made you do it as well before you left or you were charged.  Well she didn't.

November 10, around 10 a.m. Ben asked her to come clean and she agreed to come before noon, Ben also told her that we found a hole in the wall from a dresser that her or her friends moved from the previous day right across from her bedroom door.  We didn't see it the previous night because we didn't turn the light on in the hallway.  We saw it after we got up in the daylight.  I asked Ben, where did this come from?  It wasn't here yesterday before she moved.  There was still wall powder (our walls are drywall) on the trim and the floor  It was literally across from her bedroom door and a perfect indentation of a corner of a dresser or table.  She freaked out, asked us what damage? We explained it to her (at this point we were going to ask $75 for damage fees) and she refused to come over to clean.  We gave her until 5 to decide what she was going to do, we didn't hear from her so we added a cleaning fee of $50 to her other outstanding bill she owed us.  I had a haircut with Celeste that day and it was the start of my 4-day birthday weekend and I had to start it off with stupidity.  On my way back home Erika sent me a screen shot of her phone of a conversation she had with Erika and it basically said, "Ben wants me to clean up after myself but I don't want to, can you do it for me?" Erika said no and she said thanks anyway.  That was around 8 a.m. that morning.  She had already planned on not showing up even before Ben asked.  Why didn't she just clean when she was here Thursday night?

November 12-16, she demanded that we get her an invoice from ReMax and they said they had no ties to her but they would gladly get a quote and invoice for her to see.  Ben worked with the admins and got something drafted up.  It was going to cost her $202.46 with the invoice instead of $75 that we asked her to give us for the wall.

November 29, Ben received the invoice (and drafted a letter to go with it explaining everything) and had it notarized and certified mailed it to the address she gave us.  A few days later we know she received it because we got the receipt of delivery.  The letter explained that if we didn't get ALL the money by the end of the year we are taking her to small claims court.  We will serve her after January 1, 2018.

November 30, received cat payment at my desk at work in an envelope after 8 days of being late and her being out of town which is really no excuse because we get paid on the 10th and the 25th of each month.  She could have mailed it out on time before she went out of town via certified so she would know when we received it.

She ignored us basically throughout the first part of December and Ben tried to get a hold of her several times to try and reason with her.  Finally on December 16&17 she texted us back to talk about the invoice and all the money she owed us.  We asked her if she had the vet money because it was almost a week late (we got paid on the 10th) and she told us she sent it through the mail on Dec 9th.  We never received anything from the mail (in our mailbox or otherwise), hence this is why we were contacting her.  If we would have received something she would have the proof when she checked her bank transactions that we cashed a check.  We believe she was lying to us about sending it in the mail.  She said she was going to try and send it again but she never confirmed it.  I just wanted the money she owed us so we didn't have to deal with her anymore.

We also tried to reason with her and tried to settle out of court.  About a week before Christmas I just wanted my money.  I told Ben to contact her to see if she would accept a payment plan through two pay periods (December 25th and January 10th) surprisingly she was the first one to propose this and we thought about it.  We agreed except we added that we wanted the money in check form delivered to my desk similar to how the last check was given to us.  She basically said she would do no such thing and ignored us.  I was like, what just happened?  We were going to do what she wanted!  We told her we will get the paperwork written up and expect to be served in January.

We applied for a late fee application and if she doesn't want to pay after the 30 days of our court date we applied for wage garnishment as well.

January 5, Josh went to L&I and served her with her small claims court paperwork.  She had her supervisor come out and talk to Josh.  She basically said she was too busy to come out and would have to wait until she was done.  Josh waited until she came out.  She came out with her co-worker who she is using her address for mail.  Josh handed her the document and said a few words.  She looked really confused but she asked for this to happen to her so she shouldn't be surprised that it did.

It is now up to her to either pay us what she owes us or we will go to court on February 23.

More notes:

Always asked about dinner but never took initiative to make it for everyone, we had to ask her to do it, the three times she did do it (from April 5th to November 9th) and they were very lazy sad meals.

Refused to eat leftovers and we wasted a bunch of food while she lived with us.  When she did eat leftovers (which was very rare) she would take the best part out of the left overs and would leave the rest for someone else (rice and chicken) would take the chicken out and leave the rice.

When she put the dishes away she put them on the counter instead of drying them off with a towel...basically left them for someone else to do (she did this several times) and we talked about it several times.

In October she jipped Ben rent money because he drank and replaced one of her Gatorades back in June and she claimed she did not receive change for utilities.

We had to make a chore chart because of her.

(Adding more later)

Next Adventure:  Flowvember Paint Day

Snowvember 3 and 4, 2017

I was sitting at my desk and over my shoulder I heard someone say, "it's snowing!"  I was so surprised I said, what?  Really?  I don't recall reading or watching anything that said we were getting snow in the Puget Sound, especially this early.

I can not remember ever in my lifetime that it snowed in western Washington before my birthday.  The last time this happened was in 1973, ten years before I was born.

I drove out to Rainier the following day and they definitely got more than we did.  The chickens and ducks were running around in it.  We got a trace at our house and mom and dad definitely got at least an inch.

Some towns saw a trace amounts of snow while other areas experienced a foot or more according to the National Weather Service.  The snow is expected to move east through the weekend.

There were several blogs, news articles and even weather forecasters that said we could have an early snowfall in the mountains which in reality we really needed it after the Pacific Northwest was on fire most of the summer time.  We needed the snowpack for the upcoming summer.

A few days later we received a ton of snow on the pass and all three major passes were closed.  Maybe we will be getting more of a winter here on the west side?  I sure hope so.

Next Adventure:  A Timeline of a Horrible Roommate