parts unknown

Something that particularly annoys me these day is that people often ask me how I'm doing, and my only honest answer is "I don't know". Something I do know is that people who have never lost a parent have no idea what it's like, as your emotions are  quite unpredictable afterwards. 

For example, I was beginning to think that I was beginning to recover from my initial grief when I walked into a Barnes and Noble and encountered a hideous pink and white Mother's Day banner. They had it all figured out for us, and I had always bought my mom one of those pricey stand-up cards that look like this.

I didn't stay for long.

Also, I'm still attempting to ready my mother's house to put on the market. Neither brother is helping much. There is a big difference in whether you sell a house that's insurable or not, as you cannot get a mortgage for an uninsurable home (unless renovations are part of the loan, like HomeStyle) . So I decided to attempt to put a new roof on the house, or at least attempt to, as there was a hail storm last month that appears to qualify the neighbors' homes for new roofs.

Although I still plan to leave Texas later this year, the unknown factors are making me more than slightly nervous. Will I ever make new friends? How many cats am I stuck with? What if I really hate my new job/home/city? Considering I never had these fears when I was younger, this makes me feel a bit of a coward.

One factor I'm sure about, however, is that I need to quit pretending I have any sort of relationship with Ian* these days, as I don't. I haven't seen him for almost a year, and he never even calls me. Sometimes I feel that living in his house rent-free is a clever revenge, but ultimately I just want to go away.

Work-wise, I am still waiting to see what the salary raises are. At least I got an amusing update to our lending policies and procedures, regarding loan applicants' assets:

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