Jully 17, 2023 Monday--3:30am

Good early morning!

Well, Keanna was sick on Tuesday and Leah was too busy this past week to make it over to start on the kitchen and pantry.  But she did stop at the Bed, Bath and Beyond going-out-of-business sale and found me some automatic soap dispensers!

I haven't filled them up yet.  See the red pump one by the kitchen sink?  I have wanted to have these automatic kind ever since Leah got theirs about a decade ago.  They had a couple black ones on the sale for dirt cheap--tada!!  I have one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom.  Leah knew I planned to have this kind at the new place so I now have them early.  :)

And she saw a shower curtain that screamed Rita--took a picture and texted it to me.  Yes. I told her!

Okay.  I have had extra shower curtains since I moved here eight years ago.  Three for a while and then two--because even I thought it seemed impractical...plus I had a bright red one that clashed with my burgundy towels.  So I was down to a winter one with pine tree branches and cones on it that I used all winter (got tired of the heaviness of it, to be honest) and this one--still love, but does it really say summer?

Leah knows a bit of my secret-ish desire to have multiple shower curtains.  I've been changing them from winter to spring for years.   Have often said I would like to do it seasonally.  Was thinking about donating the winter one because it was just too dark for the new place.  Yes--yes!!  This tie dye rainbow-y shower curtain was right up my alley.

And that got me thinking--why not?!  Who cares?!  I have always wished I could switch up my shower curtains as much as I wanted--every month maybe.  And this colorful curtain just set that ball rolling!  Life is too short!!  (Was just gifted some extra time, too!)  So, I spent my money this month on ordering several inexpensive bathroom curtains!!  I feel like a kid at Christmas!!  Each one changes the entire bathroom for me.  (If you had spent as much time sitting on the throne as I have since last December you would appreciate a change of scenery--ROFL!)  These really bring me joy-joy-joy!!  I will likely show you each of them as I change them up. ;)

In general this week--I worked on reorganizing things in the bedroom and that living room wall.  Was a lot of lifting and hauling (did use my little cart for the boxes) so it was done little by little over five days.  Leah dropped off the other folding table along with the hand soap dispensers and the wild, tie-dye shower curtain.  I put the second folding table on the wall in the bedroom with the other one...and moved a lot of things around.

Got that stack of large art papers off the gatefold table and down under the second folding table...and turned the gatefold table.  In the opposite corner was piled and stacked all the empty storage containers...plus the stack of empty satchels was over on that side, too.

Allie is always right there when I start moving things about.

I got everything out of the corner and started hauling boxes out of the living room into that corner.

Took me three days to remove them all from the living room.  :)

I had to laugh.  When you are very short and lamps turn on automatically with a wall switch and sit high up on top of a bookcase for a few years...look how dusty they can get when you can't possibly see that high!  LOL!  (Same goes for the top of my frig--lol!)

I ordered two very cheap folding tables the same size as my old ones.  They won't get here till August.  (Taiwan, China?  Didn't say.)  I hope they will hold up long enough to last until I move--LOL!  I plan to use them along that wall in the living room once the bookcase is sold...or we move the bookcase to the garage if it is not sold by the time they get here.  If they surprise me and are as sturdy as my old ones--cool!  We have used the heck out of those for years and they don't take up a lot of room.  Can always donate or sell a couple if need be.

But, in the meantime, the folding tables are more or less taking the place of all my bookcases and dressers.  They will hold all the stuff I need to have readily available until it is time to pack up to actually move.  They will work well, I think. 

You might not be able to see very well, but Allie has on a collar I bought for Annie that Annie would not wear at all.  Annie wasn't used to wearing a collar and hated it.  

I was concerned about Allie after we move with her getting outside.  She has stepped into the hallway once here and she has tried to step out on to the patio once, too.  With boys going in and out on the deck...well, I would feel better if she had a collar on just in case.  So, I grabbed that old collar and put it on her.

Well, Allie must have worn a collar.  It was absolutely nothing to her.  No trying to scratch or bite it off, shaking of the head, rolling around on the ground trying to rub it off...no reaction whatsoever.  So I ordered Allie her own collar from an Etsy store.  I like the ones that have just the name and telephone number on the collar...nothing dangling and clanking.  Right now--I took a sharpie and turned Annie into Allie on this one--ROFL!

Meanwhile...

Preface: Okay, we each have this big magnetic clip on our metal door frames in the hallway here and they hang the sheet/newsletter from the office on there every Friday.  You can see those papers hanging there for days and sometimes up to a week outside people's apartments.  I used to get my mail every day but the past couple years with all the treatments and feeling like crap--there are times I am only down to check mail a couple times a week (and for quite a while not at all--Dagan or Leah got it for me).  Since I've been feeling better the past couple months it is more like 3-4 times a week.  (And I have been able to take out my own trash the past couple months--whoohoo!) 

I was out to check mail on Tuesday late so I know nothing was hanging by my door.  Wednesday I went out around dinnertime because a shower curtain had arrived.  Hanging on my door was an envelope from the office.

Now I am never happy to see one of those envelopes hanging there with a big apartment number on the front.  But this was really upsetting.  First of all, I had four more forms to fill out for the office on my annual recertification.  My recertification was for July 1st.  Beginning of July two ladies from the office knocked on my door and wanted me to sign a couple more forms--also having to do with my only getting SS for my income...which I had already filled out forms for that in the big mass of forms I filled out in May for my July recertification--with copies of proof, etc.  

But the crazy part was that two of the forms I had to have certified by a notary AND these needed to be back to the office by 8am on Monday!!  I've never in all my life in all the apartments I have lived in had to go to a notary for forms to be signed (and have lived here for 8 years).  It was already after 5pm--that meant I had two days to try to get to a notary.  Not likely to find one on the weekend.

And what were these important forms?  (1) I am unemployed.  (2) I did not file taxes for 2022.  Both of these questions were already answered in previous paperwork I had filled out (for eight years).  My only income being Social Security I don't have to file and they know I have been disabled since 2004.  All I could think of was the other seniors who live here that don't have a car or drive anymore...and who would also feel threatened by the big bold black lettering saying how this must be returned to the office by 8am on the 17th.  Especially when you see one of the next forms is a Housing Incentive Fund Lease Rider.

This is a new addendum to our lease...talking about how this complex is a NDHFA--HIF building (North Dakota Housing Finance Agency--Housing Incentive Fund Project).  Says the owner has agreed to set aside certain apartments as ESW units.  Essential Workers?  This was a senior building when I moved in.  City, county, school district, medical or long-term care facility or other workers who the state designates serve an essential public service...plus are HIF--poor enough to qualify.  Says there are income and rent limit tables they get every year from the NDHFA--but didn't include them.

"Your forms must be prepared carefully, with every question answered.  You will be signing a document under the penalty of perjury, saying that the information and verifications submitted are correct.  Households who do not properly complete their paperwork may not qualify for residency or may be required to vacate their income-and-rent-restricted unit."

When they come by and leave paperwork after my July 1st recertification--will they say I turned things in late?  Giving me a couple days to get to a notary at the bank--what if I hadn't checked my mail?  Would they have been able to evict me?  It feels like harassment.  Some of you may recall that I could have sworn they had me do my recertification twice last year--January and July.  And possibly the year before, too--been so sick and foggy brained.  Mine used to be July and then they sent a letter a couple years ago saying they were moving everyone on Fed Housing assistance to January recertifications.  How could they arbitrarily change your lease like that?  They don't seem to know what they are doing.  I thought.  Maybe they do.  My rent has gone up 25% in the past year. 

Well, thanks for listening.  I had been happy about moving in with McFamily all along, but I will be extra glad to be leaving here now.  Just feel badly for the people who can't leave.  You may recall that when Goldmark company took over management here several people immediately moved out.  That is how bad their reputation is up here.  Nobody in the office most of the time.  Now have a call center that doesn't forward the information.  It's no wonder they have some angry old people here, I guess.  I'm just glad Gerald is still here.  But he looks tired and frazzled--and is in charge of several complexes on his own now, I think.  He's the only employee left here from 8 years ago.  Well, from when Goldmark took over, I should say.

It might be that they have seen I am selling furniture and think I am not reporting income?  But all of that money is going to repay Dagan and Leah for buying all the IKEA furniture for me.  I am just paying them back.  And have not paid them back for all of it (and likely won't get enough for my stuff).  Even if the pen case (tool chest) and my wooden recipe box filled with all the recipes tried in my lifetime were sold this week (to ladies who actually were interested in the recipes, believe it or not).  I have not gotten a dollar from any of it.  Maybe that is why they are harassing me?  Why don't they just ask me what's going on.  I would tell them.

But I suspect they are doing this to everybody.  We heard rumors long ago that the companies who built this place were planning to sell it after a few years and/or it would be changed from the low-income status so they could make more money.  In other words, having the low-income apartments was a way to get funding from the government to get it built and in the contract they only have to keep a certain number of apartments low-income for so many years.  Now that was the rumor going around back when I used to go down to the community room before Covid--back when Goldmark took over.  Might actually be true, who knows?

Is it any wonder I switched to a really colorful shower curtain mid-week--lol!

Anyways, I finished moving boxes!!

All the empty storage containers are now in the hallway.  (Allie seems to like having things in the hallway again--and more stuff in the bedroom, too--lol!)

Once I get done in the pantry and studio I can go through what is left and decide what to toss or keep or donate.

I need to go through everything in the bedroom on or under those tables, too.  It's all stuff just moved from my desk and the living room bookcases.  Need to mostly decide what I need to keep out for now and what I can pack away for months.  Not much purging but I'm sure I'll find a few more things.

Made it to the notary with Leah and the boys on Friday...delayed a couple of hours due to having IBS issues...all week...long before Goldmark & the notary...so a lot of looking at the shower curtain--lol!  Changed it again on Sunday.  Too anxious to see each one up in all its glory.  This one is much calmer.  It is so very cool how one thing changes the whole atmosphere of the room.  

Speaking of which...some of you might remember quite a long time ago I won a hand-loomed kitchen towel from Hilary at Crazy as a Loom.  This vibrant color changes my whole kitchen!

So, as a present to myself for my new home, when I saw these colorful kitchen towels she had just made a little while ago...I asked her if she could save two of them for me.  

They must have arrived Saturday.  I just walked down to the office in my robe to slide the envelope with the ominous signed forms under the door and there was a police officer talking to somebody in the entryway at 2:30 in the morning?!.  Instantly decided I wasn't going to use the outgoing mail slot in that entryway--lol!  Slipped the envelope under the door quickly, scooted back to my building, put a couple letters in our outgoing mail slot, checked my mail and there they were!  Whoohoo!  She does amazing work.  So talented.

Yes, my hours took a turn.  Hauling boxes and things about for a few days...well, I was so tired I fell asleep from 7-11pm one night and then couldn't sleep till morning...and so I am on flipped hours again right now.  Such is my life--lol!  But that's okay.  The silver lining is that it has been cooling way down at night and I can have the patio door open and it is wonderfully cool and quiet.  57 degrees right now with a slight breeze!  Love it!

New towels!  New shower curtains!  I got everything moved around like I wanted.  Allie seems less stressed now that there are more things in the bedroom and hallway--lol!  She's curled up with me in my chair as I am chatting with you.  Leah is going to try to make it over this week to do some purging.  If she can't make it I have other P&P things to keep me busy--LOL!  I may have had a bad week in the one respect, but I had new shower curtains to look at--ROFL!  Oh, and I do go for my first bone scan Friday afternoon.  Not as exciting as new towels, to be sure, but I am curious as I have never had one and it shouldn't take too long.  I wonder, can they see all your arthritis?

Anyways, until next week, my precious blog family!

*hugs from Fargo*