Who needs a house out in Hackensack? Is that what you get for your money?

This will be my last blog from my apartment. As some of you know I have been "moving" for the last few months after it was decided in late spring that I would be moving into a house across town with a coworker rather than renewing my lease. Today is my last day here.

It is always bittersweet to leave a home. I sit here on the floor in a totally empty loft (and if you saw it before you'd be shocked at the size; all of my crap severely dwarfed the place). My green paint is still on the walls; the apartment office found the task of providing me the correct shade to paint it back to be a difficult and insurmountable one. The carpets are freshly steamed, because I am a firm believer in leaving no reason for your landlord to not return atleast a large portion of your deposit. The thud of the hammers from the carpet guys next door is impossible to ignore. Shadows from the 6 foot weeds that more resemble small trees spy through the discolored mini blinds. I was fond of this apartment at times.

But as I sit here I try to remind myself of all the struggles and hardships I encountered whilst living here. Not to depress myself, no, but to remember how lucky I am to be moving on. I have always been one to dwell on the past, and nowhere here to escape it. There have been small highs followed by crushing lows. Pleasant triumphs were had only to be met by suffocating defeat. I can not in my right mind be sad to see this place go. The character of the loft is immense, but it's not enough to redeem the mental, emotional and often physical pain I felt here. Perhaps the joys of living alone were lost on me. There was too much time. Too much time to sit and dwell; too much time to agonize over all things big and small; too much time to feel depressed, alone and forgotten; to much time to wallow in self pity and hatred; too much drinking; to much shopping; too much TV; too much sleeping; too much not living my life to the fullest. I mean I'm not a slug or anything, but I can honestly admit now what I've known for quite some time which is I let myself be a lesser version of me here, alone, away from the truth in love.

So I'm about to close my laptop, pack up my car with the last tiny load and hit the ground running (not literally... we all know how much I hate to run). Somerset Square can kiss my ass.

Sarah's Summer: Cliffnotes Edition

Holy Moly.

Sooo what has Sarah been up to lately? Traveling. A lot...... well atleast a lot for me. Things have been busy since the Big Lebowski Birthday -

Little Lebowski Urban Achiever (Monica), The Dude (Me), and Maude Lebowski sans robe (Carcie) enjoying some "caucasians"

and if you missed that then you're a sucka (and most of you did miss it). Family was in town, Sarah was moving her happy self clear across town, parties were happening; it was nuts.

Next was a short albeit busy week at work then it was off to the mountains for some R&R. But before I could leave I had to haul all my clothes, makeup, etc (y'know the things I need to go out in public) to the new casa... we'll get to that in a little bit. So after work I load up the Focus and head out into the clear blue yonder to the beautiful mountains of NM. I arrived late Thursday night and quickly settled in for a "relaxing" weekend in the mountains (with a mountain of things piling up at home). We ate, we gambled, and I finally met the lovely Eric. I enjoyed the treat of a supreme pizza at his establishment Cafe Rio. Good food, good people, good place. Right on.

I said my goodbyes to the view and made it back to Texas by 8pm. Just enough time to unpack, wash and repack (the reason I needed everything in one place): My flight was leaving for Atlanta in 34 hours. Toss in another busy day at the office and an evening filled with prep for a weekend of more work (in dress clothes) and Sarah had her hands full. I squeezed in two hours of sleep before my 4am wake up time and I was off to the Peach State! We landed around noon Atlanta time, took the Marta to our hotel downtown, then promptly speed walked to Gibney's for some turkey burgers and the best Diet Coke I've had in recent memory. Next was booth set up at the Americasmart until 8 o'clock. Ugh. I love traveling for work, but the exhaustion was already setting in and the show hadn't even started yet. Some General Tsu's chicken at Hsu's helped ease my pain and it was home to the Marriot Marquis for some sleep.

Shows go a lil' something like this: wake up at 6:30, meet at 8:15, scarf down breakfast and head to the booth. Sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, lunch from Lassiter's, sell, sell, sell, sell, eat at a fancy high priced Atlanta hot spot, head home, repeat. Good times, but very tiring. I flew home Monday only to discover my good friend Andrew was in town. Scratch the 10 o'clock bedtime, and head to a softball game with him and Connor. Drop the boys off at the Library for some drinks and then I finally made it in bed just before midnight. What's the point in sleep now? I was running on auto pilot, a feeling I remembered all too well from my restaurant/retail days and a feeling I realized perhaps I was getting a little too old for. Even coffee couldn't revive me; it was just keeping the status quo: awake.

I struggled (and I do mean struggled) through the hectic work week. It's nice to get out of the office and have a chance to work with our customers in person... that is until I have to come back to the office and work the other end of the business: order entry. I very much like my desk job as well, but it's kind of like TP'ing your own house: You have fun making the mess, but you still have to clean it up. The loooong week ended with a celebration! A coworker, Carcie has the same b-day as Harry Potter so what better way to celebrate than with an HP themed party! We all dressed up, had HP inspired treats such as butter beer, pumpkin pasties, polyjuice potion punch, etc. I dressed as Dobby, Carcie was Tonx, Jacq was Dumbledore (complete with a three foot wizards hat made from poster board) to name a few. Aaron actually shaved his whole head (eye brows included) and came as Voldemort. We filed into the theatre much to the delight (they were delighted to sit there and make fun of us) of our fellow theatre goers and enjoyed the Half Blood Prince.

So here we are today. I still haven't moved out of my apartment, I've got a laundry list of things to do to get there and the clock is ticking on the time I still have left with my Bro's truck. I hope everyone else is having a more relaxing summer. Things have been nuts-o but good! I'll be back to my usual updating once I get settled. In the meantime I'm getting paid to blog! You can check out our companies new (and I do mean very new... I have very limited time to work on it so it's a work in progress) blog at http://www.stephenjosephgifts.wordpress.com/

Peace out!