#and all the storage unit stuff is already in my car

[savethepinecones]

ugh i have to do shit today

[coolspork]

They should make a type of major life event that doesn't feel like your heart is trying to consume the rest of you violently and with malice

[mousedetective]

URGENT! Please Help A Homeless, Disabled & Mostly Queer Family Get Ready For Housing By Helping With Paying For Much-Needed Loans!

PAYPAL | AMAZON WISHLIST | KOFI | GOFUNDME

VENMO: @penaltywaltz | CASHAPP: $afteriwake23 | ZELLE: DM me for email address

4/29/24 - New Post

So some stuff has happened, some of the loans I listed before have been paid, and I missed a few things, so I'm making a new post!

So, we still haven't heard about Section 8, and while I'm grateful for the shelter housing and feeding us, there's been some pretty toxic activity on my floor and I'm at my wit's end. I'm not sleeping well, I have constant headaches from grinding my teeth, and my blood pressure (which is already high and I'm already on meds for it) keeps being high when I get it checked. So we need to get housing with or without the Section 8 voucher as soon as possible.

Now, I have a list of low-income apartments all over North County. While not ideal, we have also heard of a complex of studio apartments available for $1400 which give preferential treatment to shelter occupants. But the problem is that I not only have a bunch of payday loans to pay, but I also have a payment on a two-month loan, a five-month loan, a six-month loan, and a year-long loan that eat up my entire income until I at least pay off the first three. My mom only gets $1300 and my daughter isn't on disability yet. So we can't even afford the studio until October and we'll have been kicked out of the shelter long before then.

I can probably cover the remaining payday loans and this month's payment for the two-month loan and still pay for the storage units. But I need to pay off whatever I can on the other loans, and the longer I wait the more interest that compiles. So I need a lot more than I was asking for before and I need it quickly to cover at least all of this month's payments while I work on paying off the totals of the bigger loans.

This is the list of payments I need to make as it stands now:

$300 for my loan from Ace Cash Express (due by May 2nd)

$300 for my mom's loan from Ace Cash Express (due May 2nd)

$408 for my loan payment from Ascend Loans (due May 3rd)

$277 for my loan payment from Greenline Loans (due May 3rd)

$177 for my loan payment from Green Arrow Loans (due May 3rd)

$148 for my loan payment to Possible Loans (due May 3rd)

$148 for my mom's loan payment to Possible Loans (due May 3rd)

$321.80 for my mom's loan from Moneylion (due by May 15th)

$285 for my Moneytree loan (due by May 25th)

$285 for my mom's Moneytree loan (due by May 26th)

I can't make partial payments on any of these loans except the Moneylion loans my mom has. I need the full amount for the payment to pay it off early, and for the four non-payday loans, I can't make an early payment but if I can cover the payments in my bank account with donations I'm good.

The Ascend loan was for $1,000. The Greenline loan was for $500. The Green Arrow loan was for $400. The Possible loans are $300 each, coming out as two payments of $148 (one this May, one in June) per loan. So I'm going to set two goals: covering all of the above payments and then covering the bigger loans as a whole throughout the month of May.

I can't take much more of the toxicity at the shelter at the moment, though I have hopes some of it will subside if the most toxic resident on my floor leaves this week like he's threatening to, but yeah. We just need to get all this paid off and get into housing of our own, even if it's just a studio for now. I'm including the $35 I got from a GFM towards the current totals because I spent all the rest of the money I had and I still haven't gotten that donation in my account yet.

TOTAL GOAL: $47/$4850

IMMEDIATE GOAL: $47/$2650

Goal has been met! However, the car is acting up, so we have to take it to our mechanic tomorrow. I may still need some help.

[copperbadge]

[ID: Four images; top left is a bright white light mounted on the ceiling of a shower, and the top middle is the remote control for it, mounted sideways on a wall. The top right is an overhead light in my front hallway, which is an unusual shade of green. Bottom image shows a window in the corner of my living room, with a star-shaped lamp hanging in the middle of it, gently glowing with light.]

Ironically, this is all photography of the stuff I didn't intend to do today.

I've been considering getting an offsite storage unit (more on this in another post) and it turns out some good friends who live nearby were also, but neither of us need a TON of space, so we decided to go in halves on the unit. They're a little more prepared than I am to move in, but they also have a car and will help me move my stuff when they move theirs, so for the next week or until the project is done, I'm mostly going to be packing big plastic bins with stuff I'm taking to storage. And all the bins I currently own have my full name on them in big block letters, so I won't be photographing those.

A side-effect of this, however, is that in the "DIY" bin (which will not be going to storage but needed weeding) I uncovered a light bulb that fits my star light, which had been flickering due to a dying bulb. So I got out Darth Ladder and changed the bulb. I figured as long as the ladder was out, I'd replace the bathroom lamp with a remote-control version, and that's a whole comedy of errors, but suffice it to say this one, which has a remote and doesn't NEED good motion sensing, actually has great motion sensing. So while I hung the remote on a magnetic bracket nearby, I probably won't need to use it much. I had to hang it sideways to get it to work, so now it does kind of look like my toilet has a control panel.

I found one other lightbulb in the DIY bin, a Kasa smart bulb -- I bought one for my bedroom floor lamp so I could turn the light on without getting out of bed, but they come in packs of two and I'd just kind of stashed the other one to deal with later, then forgot about it. As long as I was already running around risking death on Darth Ladder, I thought I'd install one in my hall lamp. I have two hall lamps on one switch, but I like to leave the front-door lamp on when I go out so that I don't come back to a totally dark hallway. This way, I can turn the smart lamp (nearer the living room) off so I don't have two unnecessary lights burning.

Also as you can see, it has some rad color settings, so if I want to have a little hallway rave, I can.

I sometimes find listening to new podcasts kind of challenging, so today I had some comfort-listening: The "Art Nouveau" and "De Havilland Comet" episodes of Well There's Your Problem. The Art Nouveau episode is a "bonus episode" you get with a Patreon membership and that episode alone is worth the $2 a month.

[fuzzytrashbird]

oh boy

hello again! 

assuming you saw this post and the follow up reblog, you know my life’s been a little hectic. upon paying my landlord the $425, he was like “yeah ok now give me $1,050 by next week or I’ll evict you”. which. rude. but we had a check coming this week so we had hopes.  but upon buying food to, y’know, live on, we dipped into the rent money. the landlord is now evicting us and unwilling to budge, except if we give him 400, which will only buy us a week to move out. we’re selling our car, which currently isn’t working anyway so we aren’t using it, and that’s giving us around 200-300 for it because it’s a wreck (old). we’ll have that money covered with what we have already and the car, but we’ll have around 300 bucks to get a storage unit, buy boxes, and find somewhere to stay with our cats. luckily, it seems, at least for now, shelters aren’t in the cards. 

i’m not begging for money as urgently this time, it’s technically less desperate, but still is desperate. so if anyone is willing to queue in for my commissions to help us pay for what we need to get through stuff, it’d be really appreciated. there’s no particular amount we need at this moment, but anything helps! 

so, if anyone is interested in commissioning me, or just wants to share my info to help, it’d be appreciated! 

All my info, from art examples to commission info, is on this neat little site here https://fuzzytrashbird.art/ 

and here’s my commission pricing! 

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

I need to do a whole... Post. On life and what's coming up. But it's SO overwhelming.

Edit: this became a really messy overview of it. Tldr is that I'll be in Oregon and Washington for an unknown period of time.

We have to be out of our current place by the end of February.

I have a friend who is gonna take Kono and Emily for us after that, so I'll only have Socrates with us as we face potential homelessness.

I am trying to break all of our tasks down to their base level but the overall gist is:

Whittle down our possessions by Quite A Lot.

Get all of the trash out.

Get caught up with T-Mobile and cancel my brother's line, preferably before the 21st. Unsure how do.

Keep leash-training Socrates.

Sell/toss/give away everything we can part with to raise money and narrow shit down.

Pull futon chair out of room and deep-clean. Sand the frame down and paint it. Deliver it to Weed Daughter.

Clean out closet, break down desks. One is staying with me, one is going to Adrienne. We're getting rid of like all of our furniture except for a desk, a table, and a bookshelf.

Figure out the base minimum items we need and want with us at any given time. Like... Clothes, meds, glasses/contacts, phones, toiletries, etc.

Fix the car. I have some of the parts but I need more, and I need to heavy detail clean it, and it needs an oil change.

Clean out and defrost the big freezer, because landlord will take money off my debt for this, and because I can figure out what can be salvaged or not.

Pack the things we're keeping but don't Need All The Time. Needs to be in plastic where possible.

Get a storage unit (and hopefully pay for it several months in advance) and move the keep items into it. Some items that can't be exposed to the elements (electronics, makeup) will stay at my daughter's house, but not everything.

Clean both cat boxes out deeply so that one can be at Tab's and one can be with me.

Rent a U-haul to take a massive load to the dump, and the two pieces of furniture I'm giving to Adrienne to her place.

Buy cat carriers.

Move the Bare Minimum plus camping gear into the car.

Move the bed to Tab's house because she may be able to let us stay with her until mid-March, and it would be a good transition for the cats, since two of them are staying there.

Get a copy of Raven's birth certificate.

Get all of Raven's therapy records and medical records compiled and printed out in duplicate (one for the medical binder, one for the courts). Gotta do the same for me.

Deep-clean the rooms we're in currently, possibly paint them.

Replace the flooring of the bathroom (minimum) and possibly the bedroom and walk-in closet, because it was all installed badly. Not technically my problem, but if I fix the floors and walls, landlord will take away from the money I owe him. I also would like to replace the lighting fixture because it's been dead since before we moved in, and he takes money off for parts AND labor.

Get a tow hitch installed on the car. If I can find a teardrop trailer that would be phenominal. But even just a small hauling trailer, or a freight platform, to keep stuff in/on? Would be great.

(There's laminate flooring already for the bathroom. I'd hit the Habitat for Humanity store for the rest of the flooring, cuz it's cheap af.)

Clean the den and porch that we use off.

Officially move out.

And when we're done with all of that, I have to do this stuff:

Move into Tab's for two weeks.

Stay with daughter for a few days while I take care of some stuff with a friend in Sparks.

Buy a PO Box for six months in Salem, OR.

Pack us, our stuff, and Socrates into the car and drive.

Drive to Contra Costa County (~4 hours away in the Bay Area of California) to get a copy of MY birth certificate.

Drive to Oregon.

Because we can't get approved for any of the low-income housing in this area until we get Raven's legal issues in Oregon sorted out.

If anyone has a couch we and one (1) orange dumbass cat could crash on for a few days, let me know, because the current plan is to just Be Homeless.

Raven has to turn themselves in up in Hermiston. We don't know how long they'll be in jail. It could be one day, it could be six months. They thought they were in compliance, and they were, but the courts don't know that, so we need to prove they've been doing what they were supposed to.

Before we do that, we want to see some friends. One in Washington and one in Salem. We also need to get Raven's state and national park passes because then I can get free/cheap camping while they're in jail.

If Raven's incarceration is going to take longer than a month, I'll go get the job in Salem at the T-Mobile call center. It's waiting for me, essentially. I'll get a little shithole apartment somewhere nearby and go across the state to visit them every week, and use the time to save up some money. But we don't know.

That's the worst part, is the Not Knowing. I don't like not knowing a timeline. I'm chronically late anyway, I don't need this in my life.

But if I do the T-Mobile thing, I'll be able to pay off our debts. Including the child support (we've been trying to catch up on that but it's so much and Raven was homeless for a lot of it).

But I'll also be in Oregon - unideal for me - and alone.

It's just. A lot. And it needs to be done in a very short time, with very little money.

I have pondered a gofundme, and selling like, cat toys (bc I can sew and crochet them on the cheap). But I don't have the time to invest in making things to sell, and I don't want to do a gofundme again. I also considered a small kickstarter to like, buy materials to make toys and clothes and stuff, once we go to Oregon, and send out to backers. I have been trying and failing to find a job.

I'm just so tired.

[jesuisgourde]

i'm sort of moving into my new apartment tomorrow.

"sort of" meaning that i'm only going to have what i've already been couch surfing with and i'm just going to be sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag.

unfortunately i can't even get my stuff until next friday at the earliest. this upcoming weekend is a local music festival called wicker park fest that blocks off the entire street in front of my work which is also the street that the storage unit with all my stuff in it is on. so i can't get it this weekend. and then next thursday is the first of august which means all the uhauls are going to be taken. so i have to wait until friday the second.

so tomorrow i'm gonna buy a yoga mat and i'm gonna sleep in a sleeping bag on a yoga mat for 2 weeks and haul all the small boxes i can fit in my car and then get all the big things like my mattress and bookcases and dresser in 2 weeks.

[antimnemonic]

alright hhhhh im just posting this to vent feel free to offer input but don't feel obligated to care

I've had some bullshit trouble finding a place to live starting june. bad locations messy ppl im not paying 1k a month to be stuck a year in a 3 room apartment with a half dozen animals out in the sticks

i found something slightly below my standards and under budget and only for two months! perfect, resets the clock

unfortunately. 3rd floor. no elevator. it's been 3773473 degrees everyday for like a month now, i have a bad leg, not particularly a lot of energy, im gonna have to do this again two months from now--

also my moving window is very small 😬

I've already resolved to not bother with decorating or fully unpacking since we plan to have a new apt by the end of july

im considering then, honeshtly, to just chuck my stuff in a storage unit for two months. I would have more time, it would be easier than going up and down three stairs in egg frying weather, i probably wouldn't injure myself-- and so i would only take my work clothes summer outfits and devices

but also like. ok im not like MORALLY OPPOSED to storage units but they're so materialistic..... im paying to just put my stuff somewhere, it's absurd to just think about. I feel like i rarely use most of this junk but idk how to go about in getting rid of it. i miss when I was freshly independent and on-and-off homeless and all my stuff fit in the back seat of a friend's car

[yaboybats]

It appears that going hey I should go play Legion at the LGS is an omen of ill fortune. Last time I did that I got press-ganged into swapping out a pool filter and becoming an amateur electrician.

Today I found that-

My parents are serious about me swapping one of my storage shelves for a bookcase I didn’t ask them to buy.

I need to move all the stuff from said storage shelves to a different shelving unit in the attic… that has 3 shelves instead of 5

Several items won’t survive up there (70s GI Joes with fabric outfits mostly) so I shouldn’t bring those. No suggestions on where to put them.

And I was then informed my grandparents sent HALF OF A SHIPPING CONTAINER WORTH OF SHIT FROM THEIR HOUSE and that it cleared customs recently. Our house is already full of shit. Our double garage has 0 cars in it because it’s full of shit. I swore very loudly at my mom for that one. Shockingly not upset by it.

So now I’ve cleared all but two shelves and have the shipping container of Damocles hanging around somewhere in the NYC port. Fucking hell.

[starry-hughes]

How is moving going?

it going. it sucks because i have work and things going on so i can’t just take the day off and move everything in one day, although i’m debating it.

but my parents are going to be here this weekend to help me move the big stuff. when i moved in with star bf he took his stuff that he already had to a storage unit so the bed we sleep on is my bed. so he has to decide if he’s going to sleep at my new place or on an air mattress for like two and a half weeks.

but yesterday i left my car keys with star bf since my coworker picked me up and so he packed my car up with a bunch of stuff i wanted to move today after work so im going over to my new place after work and the wifi guy is coming to make sure the install is all good and then tomorrow i think im going to get my tv stand into the new place and tv and just live off my laptop.

at some point i have to move the desk chair and bookshelf too. and i want to get it all done before thursday… haha…

[callgespenst]

A week and a half ago, my old friend JJ passed away. He told me about his cancer diagnosis…I’m not sure when, I feel like it was only a couple months ago. Last I talked to him, he sounded like he wasn’t doing bad at all. He asked me to help his family out sorting through his collection, in the worst case scenario. And the turnaround on that was, much faster than I expected, than anyone expected, I’m sure. He had only just turned 41 a few months ago. I’ve known him for about twelve years. We went to college together, took Japanese together. His influence definitely helped shape me into the massive dweeb I am today.

I knew his family, was over at their house a few times, I also knew was his sister and her husband pretty well. Today, I came up to help out with the estate sale. I’ve been absolutely dreading coming here for the last week. This is the first time I had seen any of his family in at least three years, and everyone is understandably miserable, grieving, and trying to do all the stuff a situation like this demands as best they can. So far, at least, I don’t feel nearly as awkward as I thought I might, so that’s something.

Now, if you had asked me before today, I would have told you that JJ was quite the collector. Big fan of action figures, model kits, robot toys of all sorts, not to mention a wide selection of anime dvds and manga. But uh, he had -much- more than I thought he did. Between his bedroom, the basement, the storage unit down the road, there is, an almost unfathomable number of items. Many of them, by sheer dint of sitting around long enough since he purchased them, are now worth a small fortune. At the very least, with my assistance identifying many of the more niche items, selling them all will cover the expenses typically associated with dying, and hopefully also get everything to homes where they’ll be appreciated.

Before I came here, I went to the local hobby store, partly to buy a Qubeley for another friend of mine, but mostly to ask them, if they’d be willing to buy JJ’s backlog. They were nice enough to say yes, which is good, because selling model kits online is such a pain. Having someone buy the whole kit backlog without having to ship out all those big boxes will probably have the same net profit, with substantially less hassle. But somehow yet again, I drastically underestimated how much stuff he had lying around. The trunk of my car is almost full of 30 Minute Missions, Sisters, SMPs, and all sorts of other kits that were purchased, put in the basement, and never built. And somehow there’s still more. I don’t know if it’ll all fit in the trunk. But it has to, because the back seat is covered in boxes upon boxes of Star Wars, Marvel, and He-Man collectibles that I’ll be taking to another one of my local shops that deals in used toys.

The other day I was telling my mother about all this I was going to do today, just making conversation, letting her know what I’d be up to. She told me, very emphatically, that I was not to take anything home with me. In fact, she said I shouldn’t even bring any of the items the family asked me to resell into my house for any length of time. Which, even for my mother, is a really weird thing to say. I’ve already got enough stuff of my own, to be sure, but I set aside the SMP Layzner figures, since that was a show JJ and I watched together. (Not to mention, trying to sell built model kits is typically a fool’s errand. People want to build them theirselves!). If I can find them, I might also take the Armored Core kits he had me build ages ago, when I had no backlog and he wanted to customize the final product without the extra steps.

JJ had all this stuff, and almost none of it was out on display. He had one detolf in his bedroom with some nice scale figures, and everything else was in various sized plastic boxes. I think somehow this has actually made the process of sorting and identifying -more- difficult. Took an hour today to not only figure out which Nendoroid went with what accessories, but which display base was theirs. All we had to go off of was the copyright info on the back of the base, which was anywhere from somewhat to completely unhelpful, depending on how many kanji were involved.

We found a selection of animation cels under his bed. Lots of good stuff from good shows in there, it’s a shame they were left like that for who knows how long. Somehow, it was seeing a frame of Gije Zaral from Space Runaway Ideon that made me closer to breaking down crying than I had the rest of the day. Realizing that, I had finally finished watching Ideon, JJ’s all time favorite series, and never got to talk with him about it.

To summarize, I’m feeling a lot of wildly different emotions right now. Missing my friend, most strongly. He wasn’t religious, and most days I’m not either, but I hope he’s found his way into a pleasant afterlife, or at least an enjoyable isekai fantasy type deal. There’s definitely a twinge of “oh no, do /I/ own too much crap?” and some generalized world-weariness as well. But it’s not all bad. I got to pet a lot of cats today, and one of them snuggled with me for long enough that I think I’m wearing more cat hair than clothing now. And tomorrow, after some more sorting and pricing and organizing, I’ll head home and have a nice holiday weekend with my wife and some friends.

I’ve been typing for an hour and have no idea how to wrap this up. If anyone has actually read this far, thank you, it really does mean a lot. I hope you are also experiencing a fluffy cat and maybe a warm blanket. Here’s to a full night’s sleep because it’s way past my bedtime.

[ashbrat488]

State of Grace - Chapter 17

"Come on you." Grace moved to the side to let Ransom enter his apartment ahead of her. She set his stuff on the coffee table as he sat on the couch and she helped him take off his shoes. She looked up at him as he smirked at her, "you're really going to play up this whole broken arm thing, aren't you?"

Ransom shrugged, "maybe."

She laughed as she put their shoes away. She sat next to him, grabbing the house listings, "can we look at these now?" She saw him nod as she placed one on top. "I like this one."

Ransom smiled, "I thought you would like that one. I like that one too. We can go see it tomorrow if you want. I mean, as long as I'm allowed to call the pretty real estate lady." He grunted as Grace hit him in the stomach, "I just got out of the hospital over here."

Grace shook her head before straddling him on the couch, "you think she's pretty?"

"Oh. Someone's jealous." He laughed, wrapping his right arm around her as she pretended to pout. "You have nothing to be jealous of Grace. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that I love you. And only you."

She nodded, "I know. I love you too. I'm so sorry I didn't believe you Ransom. This is all my fault."

Ransom shook his head, "it isn't. I'm the one that disappeared and then drove drunk. Let's not worry about fault, okay? Let's just move on. Kiss me." He smiled as she nodded before pressing her lips to his. She moaned as she bore her hips down on him, feeling him hard under her. He pulled away, "I want you. Help me."

Grace nodded, standing up to help him take off his shirt over his broken arm before removing his pants and underwear.

He watched her, "now you. Undress for me."

Grace smiled, unbuttoning her blouse before dropping it to the floor as he watched her, "like this?" She giggled as he only nodded, watching her pull her jeans off as she stood in front of him in only her bra and panties. "More?"

Ransom nodded, "god yes. Keep going Gracie." He watched her remove her bra, her nipples already hard before sliding her panties off. She giggled as he grabbed her hand with his right hand, pulling her back to his lap. He moaned as she lowered herself onto him, "oh Gracie. You're all I ever want."

She nodded, moving on him quickly, "me too Ransom." She moaned as he brought his hand up to her cheek, pulling her lips to his as she felt his tongue against hers.

***

Grace woke up in the morning to Ransom groaning. She turned to face him to see him holding his arm, "babe? Are you okay?"

Ransom sat up, "yeah. I rolled onto my arm is all. Get me some aspirin?"

Grace nodded, "yeah. Of course." She went into the bathroom, coming out with a glass of water and aspirin for him. She sat on the bed next to him as he set the glass on the nightstand, "you have to be more careful."

"Yeah yeah. I'm fine Gracie. Now, are you going to give me a sponge bath before we meet Mary?"

Grace stood up, laughing. "You have those bags for your cast for a reason. I'll make you breakfast though." She laughed as he laid back on the bed, pouting.

He grunted as she jumped on him, straddling him on the bed, "I'm injured over here, can't be so rough with me." He smiled as she laughed and he ran his fingers through her hair. "I love you Grace. Your house closes soon, doesn't it?"

She sighed, "it does. I need to get the rest of my stuff out into the storage unit until you and I choose a house."

Ransom nodded. “We'll pick one today," he promised with a grin.

"Okay. Take a shower."

***

"Oh, Ransom, I love the long driveway." Grace drove up to the house they were looking to buy. "It's huge Ransom. We don't need a house this big."

He laughed, "we will when we start filling it with kids. It's 7 bedrooms."

Grace stopped at the house, turning off the car to look at Ransom, "I am not having that many kids."

Ransom laughed again, "I know. But a few. 3? 4? Just come look at it."

She sighed and nodded as they got out of the car, seeing Mary come out of the house.

She greeted Ransom first, "your arm! I heard what happened, are you okay?"

Ransom nodded, "I'm fine." He motioned to Grace, "this is Grace."

Mary smiled, "yes. Of course. He never stops talking about you."

Grace blushed as she grabbed Ransom's hand, following him into the house. She looked around the entryway and sitting room, "this place is beautiful Ransom."

He nodded, "I know. I've seen the house already. We're here for you." He grabbed her hand, "let's go all the way upstairs first."

Grace nodded and followed him to the giant attic room.

"I thought this could be our joint office. You can have one side and I can have the other. That way we each have our own space, but we're still together."

"I love it Ransom. There's a lot of light up here." She pointed to one wall, "and we can put bookshelves here."

Ransom smiled, "that's what I was thinking. Come on. I want to show you the master bedroom."

She grabbed his hand again as he led her to a closed door. He motioned for her to enter. She hesitated before opening the door to find the floor covered in roses. She gasped as she entered, "Ransom!" She turned around to see him on one knee, holding the ring box in his right hand.

"You kinda of ruined my other proposal, so I had to try again." He smiled as she laughed, tears welling in her eyes. He held the ring box out to her, "you'll have to open it yourself."

She laughed, accepting the ring box to display an emerald cut diamond solitaire engagement ring. She looked back up at Ransom.

"Will you marry me Gracie? Build a life here in this house with me?"

She nodded as she knelt in front of him, "of course I will Ransom. I love you."

He smiled as he watched her slip the ring on her finger before wrapping her arms around his neck. "I love you too Gracie."

***

"I think that's the last box Ransom. I can't believe you got the house to close so quickly. I don't have to get a storage unit."

Ransom smiled as they stood outside Grace's house she shared with Tyler. He wrapped his arm around her, "I wanted to be with you as soon as possible."

She went to say something but heard a car pull into the driveway, her face turning white when she saw who it was. She groaned, "oh no."

Ransom turned around to see Grace's parents, "why oh no?"

"I never told them we were together Ransom. Or that I left Tyler." She groaned again as she watched them getting out of the car, confused at the moving truck and seeing her standing there with Ransom.

He grabbed her hand, "it'll be okay love."

Chapter 18

State of Grace

[sassypotatoe1]

I also like to remind people that phones are now a requirement to participate in society. You need an email and a cell number on your CV and to be reachable at any time to qualify for most, if not all minimum wage positions. Nevermind higher paying jobs. And you not only need a phone that can access emails, you need an internet plan. If you want to get out of poverty and homelessness you already need a phone and reliable transport, and you can only get housing financing if you have a full time job. If you rent you need to work like 60 hours minimum wage a week and then a second job as well, but you can buy a phone and a prepaid internet plan from one day's donations in some cases, with which it can be a slight bit easier to get a job. It's no longer a luxury, it's a necessity.

In the past you could submit a CV typed up and printed out for free at the local library in person and get a job. Now they're defunding libraries and declaring them insolvent and closing them up, and using an internet Cafe is more expensive than a phone and prepaid plan. You are also required to email or electronically submit CV's for literally any job, in-person hand-ins aren't accepted anymore.

People also often get tvs as gifts or second hand at major discount, and they get it for news and educational programs for young kids when they can't get into preschool. They buy and fix broken old appliances, some who are very good at it will get a broken like smeg appliance that like needs a fuse replaced or a bolt tightened and fix it up for less than the cost of the cheapest new ones. I've seen this happen a lot where I live specifically.

We have people that immigrate that want to get rid of stuff that sell furniture or appliances for insanely cheap or even give it away for free just to get rid of it because it's cheaper to buy new furniture and appliances wherever they're going than to ship their shit over. They advertise the collection on Facebook and if the person can pick it up themselves or contribute to gas for delivery they can get a 14k couch for 3k. (like 150ish euro pound or dollars).

Poor people don't buy things new almost ever. A lot of poor people salvage junk or get things for free or at highly discounted prices or as gifts. You'll also frequently see that some poor people will sell appliances to pawn shops to make rent that month.

I'm scrabbling a bit to get enough of a deposit to get an apartment that's not an outright health risk so I can move out from my parents house and go no contact because they're like, fully okay with my brother dating a nazi and also homophobic and abusive so I need to get out. It's cheaper for me to rent a storage unit, stick all my furniture and appliances in there for a year, and pay the shelter fee for a bed, shower and plate of dinner a month than renting the cheapest place available. I mean just over half of the lowest rent in my area covers storage rent and shelter fees.

If I need to get out quick and I go this route, I can save so much on rent and utilities that I can keep my phone plan and car. I'll still be dirt fucking poor, unless I can find a place that's 2k in rent and utilities combined which is literally impossible right now. I'll have to lose my medical aid and stop my meds (which can very easily kill me), but I could survive a bit.

Having "luxury" items that are actually just basic necessities does not make you a liar about being poor or bad with managing your money. It makes you smart, actually, and we need to start minding our business about poor people if it's not to give them money.

[multistanisms]

Just an update, my dearies.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

Now that the situation is less jarring and frantic and I can somewhat breathe easier, I'm more comfortable filling you guys in on some of what's been going on. Due to some ongoing issues with my apartment complex, I'm moving out well before my lease is up in July. I'm going to be downsizing to a camper on my parents' land for a while. We're working on getting everything fixed up so I can get out there no later than mid-March, but I should be able to start taking things out there in the next week or so. Things are progressing slowly, but there is progress to be had, so I'll take it.

Packing things has been quite the adventure thus far - since the camper is significantly smaller than my two bedroom apartment where I've been for four years...and I have definitely collected more things in that duration of time (but I have also gotten rid of things as well, thank goodness). For the camper specifically, one of my main priorities was my kpop collection (albums, light sticks and various freebies/concert stuff), because I do not trust a storage unit for those AT ALL. I also plan on taking my mangas and my TBR books with me. Obviously my clothes and blankets will come with me, as will one of the TVs I have, my laptop, my switch, etc (all of which won't take long to pack up, so it's near the bottom of my list).

The more difficult part at this moment is getting the money for a storage unit to house the vast majority of my belongings. This is mostly furniture; a sofa and loveseat, some shelves (there's twelve, but my parents are gonna take a few for my mom to use for her business supplies), a set of coffee and end tables, a dining room table and chairs, plus the two beds (a full size and a twin size) because the camper has a bed already. Alongside all of that will be my plushie/stuff animal collection, the remainder of my book collection (which is right at or over 200, I think? Maybe I'll count them once I can unpack them later on), and one of my tvs. I'm hoping when I get paid on today to get a storage unit and be able to start moving things to it in a week or so, depending on how often my dad can help since my car is not big enough for a good chunk of my furniture.

On top of the moving situation, I have freebies I'm making for the Taemin concert on the 18th, my own writing/typing up rough drafts to send to the betas, keeping things organized while I pack, plus bills and my job. It's been a lot and honestly, I'm surprised I've pulled through this so far, because honestly I am a mess. But we're getting things done, and that's the important part. I am waiting on betas to get back to me on things so I can schedule more updates, but once I have that, I will be able to update everyone.

[mint-moon25]

While You Wait - Calling In Your Harvest, Part 2

Public Storage

91 SW 3 St

Miami FL

Sunday - 09 Feb 2025

7:47A Est

Just Left Message with

Property Managers

At least - 3

Hispanic Male

Pretty Blk Female

Weekends

9:30A - 5P

Daily - 9:30A

Saw - that - Blk Male

Eyeglasses - 5 Times

Left - Emergency Exit

No Sound Not allowed

Enters that way - Not

Allowed - but many do

Left - Voicemail

6th Floor - My Name

(Don't call Back)

(If Police - So much

Talking - My throat hurts)

Blk Male left - Already

Came back

Loading Zone - only

Middle Lane

Empty - All - illegally

Park there - Must have

Driver there - always

They put stuff nearby

Unloaded - Then they

Must Leave

Loading Zone - only

All use as Parking

Not Allowed

White - Looks like a

Hundai

He went at back but

Less than 3 min - Blk

Male opened - Back

Doing Robbery - was

Waiting 4 me 2 Leave

Car Owner - White car

Will b Calling - you was

Robbed at Loading Zone

Only - Asked why was

Left - without - Driver?

5 Times - Saw Blk male

With Eyeglasses He had

No Car - Today - Already

Left - 7:29A Est - But

Came Back - Fast

Opened Trunk - Fast

Less than 3 min

Didn't say this Part

Car Back - Lights when

Opened

So Called - Blk Male

Stealing Back of White

Car - 7:32A Est - Sunday

Just called - (305) - Tel

February - Robberies

B 4 - St Valentine's

Flogged - Stoned with

Huge Rocks - Beheaded

After - Marriage was yes

Outlawed - Rome & Italy

Married - and - Fathers

Emperor felt - Weak men

Weak Soldiers - Banned

Marriage - Brother - yes

Followed Suit - Did Same

Married Young - People

Above Happened again

So 4 Valentine's

Blk Male - Robberies

20 Jan - MLK - Day

7-Eleven - Robberies

Twins - Blks/Hispanics

Valentine's - Special

Robberies - 17 Feb 2025

Because - George is Not

Blk or Hispanic - Wooden

Teeth as White President

Jesus is Lord

Five Below - New

Kuromi - Key Chain

CVS - Pharmacy

Coin Purse - Round Ring

Also - Removed - placed

With - Kuromi Key Chain

Placed - Ace - Hardware

Longer Rectangular Hole

$2.97 - with - Tax

Excellent

7-Eleven - $5 or more

So - CVS - Coin Purse

Or - Five Below - also

Both - are - Five Below

In my Backpack

The - Original

Silver - Small Round

Cylinder Lock - $19.99

So - Purse

Waist Bag

Either - has - Original

And - Duplicate - Key

Dear Korean Girls,

Good-Evening - Seoul

Smarter - Now

Storage Unit Buildings

Miami FL

Homeless - Robbers

HUD - Robbers

Not Entering - 2nd and

3rd - Level of Heavens

Not Entering

Liars

Murderers

Thiefs

Gossipers

Haters

Violent Men

Violent Women

Jesus is Lord

Korea - has - Chance

Not Nation

Republic Country

Jesus Christ - is Lord

[darkmoonkestrel]

daily kestrel 94/95:

yesterday at work there was a kid in the 2 year old room that had a Grinch onesie on and matching Grinch crocs, and when we went to change his pullup, the lead teacher started laughing and went "you gotta come see this" - he had a Grinch pull up on. it was literally the best thing that happened to me yesterday, and I forgot about it completely until Peyton and Paige and I were sitting at waffle house at 5:45 this morning and we saw a Grinch drawing on the whiteboard and I suddenly Remembered™️

yesterday was chaos at work but we survived, even though I couldn't stay late bc we had to get so much more packing done. I honestly didn't think we were gonna make it but we got a lot of shit loaded and made it to the storage unit 20 minutes before their access hours ended. by the time we were done unloading I couldn't really feel my fingers, but yet again, we survived. we made it to Penny's and ate pizza and slept for a few hours, and the cats didn't destroy anything overnight, despite the fact that her house is decorated in such a way as to indicate that she has never really had pets

slept fitfully, made it back to the house by 6:30, got the rest of the packing and cleaning done in the nick of time before the final walk through, got coffee at the local place downtown, went and did the signing, and then I went to work. I went from packing my house to packing presents for the Angel Tree stuff, which is only slightly more satisfying, that shit requires a lot more organization than packing a house. other than doing a couple bathroom breaks I worked in the office all day, including babysitting the front desk while they loaded up the buses with the packed presents. they also got pizza from one of the church ladies and I got to have some, it was some damn good pizza

the worst part of the day was driving back to Penny's (I managed to stop at the same racetrac that we've hit like three times already this week on runs to the storage unit) but I have a so far unbroken streak of surviving things, so you can guess how that ended. Peyton and Penny are watching a movie, I'm laying on the other couch but probably about to go to bed soon, bc he got to nap today and I did not

at the signing we talked about signatures and learned that Georgia is a "make your mark" state, you can apparently just make any unique/identifiable marking your legal signature, so that's cool. Paige is at her parent's house, I'm sure i'll see her next weekend or something, and tomorrow we have to get my car unloaded so I can repack it and head to Harley's on Sunday, but that's a tomorrow problem. the feelings about moving are finally hitting and they're mostly anxiety rn, just because we don't have shit totally 100% locked in on the new house, and we won't until we sign for that in a couple weeks, so I'm hoping the physical symptoms of the anxiety subside in the next few days, otherwise this will not be a very relaxing break between moves