very overdue update
1.  sheila and closed on our house today.  we signed our lives away, and we're moving on wednesday.
alice is helping us pack the truck on tuesday night.  my mom and dad are helping unpack a little on wednesday, and sheila's mom & grandma are coming down that day also.  though i don't know if they intend on helping or what.  plus i think alice will help us on wednesday too (right, alice?) .
syd is coming up on thursday and staying the night, and hopefully we can get cherie over to take a look at the space where i want her to do a mural and we can go paint shopping.

2.  we adopted another dog.  she was rescued from a neglect situation.  we drove over 3 hours in a snow storm with white-out conditions just so that she would not have to spend another night outside.  cute little red & white beagle.  about 3 or 4 yrs old.  got her a dental, a spay, a microchip and some shots, and named her olive.  she's mostly sheila's little girl, which is good because charlie's such a one-person dog, and i am his one person.  charlie doesn't really appreciate olive (1 uptight older phobic dog who does not know how to play + 1 hyper playful obnoxious energetic dog = do not want).  when we take the two of them over to my mom's to be with her 2 dogs, olive and emma (her paws with a cause foster puppy) tear around the yard and work out all their wiggles, while charlie and daisy (the old man and the old lady) relax inside.

3.  so yeah, i've had a lot more contact with my mom lately.  mostly it's been good, but i'm very nervous that things are going too quickly.  and it would totally be my own fault too, because i call her all the time, and we get together and do stuff.  too often, i think.  i kind of miss the feeling i had when we were not in touch as much... i felt more independent and more proud.  i have a hard time letting myself depend on other people.  i wish we could hang out as friends instead of mother/daughter.  as hard as you can try to make that happen, there always IS a mother/daughter dynamic there and it will never go away.  plus with the two of us being in such completely different income & socioeconomic brackets, there's always a feeling of inequality.  i would rather be her equal, but these factors, plus others, make that not an option.

anyway, pics of 1 & 2 are forthcoming, but i think i might need to buy a new camera first.  i've been looking around at them, but i have such a hard time making a decision.  the one i have now doesn't work right anymore, but i don't want to learn how to use a new one!  it's one of those things that stresses me out way more than it should.  i mean, this morning, i bought A SHITTIN' HOUSE.  (and a fucking entertainment system but we don't need to talk about that right now).  yet i can't pick out a camera.

oh, ps, if you want to see pics of emma, go here.  note the date.  she has doubled in size since then!