It never rains in Austin except on my head

Oh Internets.

Life has not been super bueno around these parts.

• The weekend after Crazy Poop Lady left her mark on our front door, a drunk driver (Crazy Drunk Lady #2) drove into both Abe's and my parked cars. Neither was totaled, but the insurance situation is a mess - it was a hit & run, she's now in jail and not responding to the insurance company's requests for a statement, etc.
• My job (which used to consist of mostly lovely interactions with lovely people) has lately mostly involved getting yelled at on the phone about things that aren't in my control. And two of my good friends and favorite coworkers are probably going to be let go.
• We are about to put my condo on the market, and some unexpected repairs and fees (along with the vehicle repair nonsense) have us feeling a little financially strained.

I know so many people have things way worse - but I'm feeling run down. I wind up in tears from stress and anxiety pretty much every day. When neighbors knock on the door, my heart races and I wonder what horrible thing is about to happen. I'm irritable and grumpy - I'm sure I'm a joy to be around. Abe is so stressed enough about his new job that I'm reluctant to dump my problems on him.

I don't know what to do. Am I depressed or just sad? Anxious or just reacting logically to recent events?

Maybe in a few weeks I'll be back to my glass-is-half-full self, and have everything figured out again. I sure hope so.

Thanks for letting me vent, Internets.

Pooped

Dear Internets,

I finally got a laptop (I love you, my lovely MacBook Pro). I'm finding it much more tempting to blog now that I'm not hen-pecking on an iPad.

Things are mostly good around these parts. Bullet points update on the goings-on at the Distractible household:

• I've been at my "new" job 10 months. I work from home, and for the most part, I really like it.
• We're getting the condo ready to sell.
• Abe started work as a police officer, and for the most part, he really likes it.
• The chickens started laying eggs. We average about two a day.
• Bailey is awesome. He loves having me home all the time. We're thinking of doing a joint Halloween costume: him as a dalmatian, and me as Cruella de Vil.
• We have another insane neighbor.

Wait, you say. What was that last one?

Well, we have another poop-smearing neighbor. She lives a few houses down, apparently. I say "apparently" because in the past 10 months, while we've seen and waved to her husband and daughters, we had never interacted with (or really even seen) her.

This all changed Saturday night when she tried to force her way into our house while drunk and on some type of drugs. She smeared blood (her own) and feces (hopefully not her own) all over our door. Her hands and feet were both bare.

We are not sure what, if anything, we did to make her angry. She said something about our dog, but Bailey doesn't bark, poop in neighbors' yards, or do anything that could possibly anger someone enough to go on a late-night poop-smearing expedition (as far as we know - he does spend an hour or two a week alone). She was arrested yesterday for something unrelated to the turd terrorism, so probably she's just nuts. (It was her second arrest this month, so if I had to guess...)

Anyway, that's what we're up to. Hopefully my lovely MacBook Pro will entice me to blog a little more often and my nutty neighbor will stay in jail. Miss you all.

Love,

Jane