HURRAH!

So, I haven't posted yet, but I have really good news. I have an apartment!!!! Sara and I moved in to our very own 2 bedroom apartment. It is nice, but unfurnished. Luckily, we have relatives who have extra furniture that we can get. We moved in on Tuesday and it was pretty much miraculous how it worked out. Let me explain.
Tuesday, after I got off work, Sara and I went to see an apartment. This place was great because it was 2 bedroom, not too expensive, and allowed pets without extra cost. We went to see the place, though I was ready to take it without seeing it. After viewing the place, I asked the landlord if we could pay the deposit immediately and then pay the rest after he checked our references. He said, the thing is, I need to decide who I'm going to rent to. He said he had already showed the apartment to 3 people and had several more coming to see it later that day. He then asked me if I had looked at other places. I mentioned the cat and he got this look on his face that I thought, oh no, now he won't rent to us.
After asking several more questions and informing us that he would prefer to have tenants who would stay at least 2 years and that it is always risky renting to younger people, he told us, I've made my decision, I'm going to rent to you because I know it will be difficult to find another place when you have a cat.
So, we paid last months rent and a deposit. He went home to make up the lease. Later that day we went back to sign the lease and pay first month's rent. He gave us the rest of August free in exchange for doing the extra cleaning and we were allowed to move in that night. Sure, we don't have furniture, but at least we have a place to live.
Also, my car is being worked on. Hopefully it won't be too expensive and will be fixed soon. In the meantime, I am still driving my cousins car. Things are finally coming together for me! Hopefully it won't change for a long time!

What a nightmare!

I haven't posted in a while, but that is mainly because I kept hoping for something good to happen that I could write about. Instead, it seems like I am living Murphy's Law, everything that can go wrong, is going wrong, and all at the worst possible time. Most of it you already know, but here is a recap from my nightmarish summer. Though it probably began earlier, I will begin with breaking my foot at the beginning of July and having to go to the emergency room. That pretty much killed all the rest of my summer plans. Then I had a quiet time while I was recovering until my sister called to say that she would soon be homeless. Then while waiting for an apartment application to be approved, my other sister and I actually became homeless. We are staying with family and hoping to impose ourselves for as short of time as possible, but then that housing option fell apart and we were basically left at square one, except for now me and Lizzy were homeless and Sara was fast approaching that deadline.
Now I get to the new stuff. Yesterday, I drove up to Ogden with Sara and Lizzy to look at an apartment possibility for Sara. We checked it out and determined that it wasn't worth it. Then we stopped at the mall to get some lunch before heading back down. When we came out of the mall, I had a very difficult time getting my car to start. Finally it started, and we left the parking lot, but after getting it into the turn lane, I could not get my car to go anywhere. As soon as I put on the gas, it would die. I saw a car shop up to the right, not even a block away, so I wanted to try and get it there. But my car started steaming and a passer-by thought my car was on fire. So he called 911. We had to wait for first the police and then the fire department to come and tell me that, no, my car was not on fire. It was really amusing, but also really embarrassing. I managed to get my car to the shop, with a police escort (he was going to push my car if we couldn't get it to the shop). The shop eventually got my car in to look at it. The mechanic replaced the fuel filter and the fuel pump before he determined that it was probably the carburetor and that I would need to replace it. He told me it would cost $800. That is for a new carburetor, but he wasn't even willing to try and find a refurbished one.
By the time he came to this conclusion, it was 8pm even though I had told him earlier that I thought it was the carburetor. He charged me for the parts, but not for labor (that was nice, at least) but there was nothing else that could be done. I had to call my cousin to get a ride. She called my aunt who drove down to Ogden to get us an then drove us to SLC where my cousin met us and drove us back to Provo. It was almost midnight by the time we arrived. Now, my cousin is letting me drive their extra car. I feel like a real nuisance, but I am grateful that I am learning what real family does. Other family members (I won't mention who) have treated me and my sisters pretty much like crap, even when what help we needed was of very little inconvenience for them. THIS was a MAJOR inconvenience and not only did neither of these family members act as if it was inconvenient, they said they were happy to help, and I believed them, too. This is how I've always felt family should be, but never had evidence to back it up.
So, I guess the moral of my story is that even though everything in my life right now is falling apart, it is nice to know who I can count on for help.

Being Homeless

I haven't updated in awhile. So here is a big update. I am homeless. I've been homeless for the past two days and the end isn't yet in sight. What makes it even worse is that after today, Elizabeth will be homeless, too. What to do? I don't know. I am running out of options. The nice thing is that I have a cousin who lives in Provo who will let us stay at their apartment this night. Hopefully that will be long enough . . . Wish me luck! And I still need all the prayers I can get!

Better News

So, I'm feeling a little less stressed then I was feeling yesterday, though not by much. I guess the reason I am feeling less stressed is because I have found a couple of options for the Gizmo situation. One, involves me getting my own apartment which has pluses of its own. I have to call about it to find out more information, but it's nice to know that there are options. I also now know that I will never rely on family members (except for Lizzy and Sara) to help me with a situation unless they first prove to me that they are reliable. Honestly, I got myself into this mess because I didn't take the hints of what happened with Elizabeth. I truly believed that things "would be different," ok, no, I just really wanted to believe that things would be different with Sara. But it's ok, because I've been wanting to get my own apartment and now I have a pressing reason to do so.

Stress, stress and more stress!

So why am I feeling stressed, you ask? Is it the fact that I am still walking around on crutches due to my healing/broken foot? Is it because finals are next week and I have to write a paper (in Russian) on euthanasia? Is it because I am graduating in April and that brings tons of things to think about and consider? Is it because I am preparing to take the FSOT in November which will determine my future career choices? Is it because I still don't know what I'm going to do after I graduate even in the event that I get hired into the foreign service (since I would have to have a background check done before I could actually start working)? Is it because I still don't have a place to stay come the end of August?
Although all of those things definitely give me stress, that is not the thing that has made me the most stressed right now. For those of you who don't know, I have a cat (you don't have to like cats to sympathize with me about this) and I love my cat very much. However, it is very difficult to find places here, especially as a student, where pets are allowed. So, my youngest sister was kind enough to agree to live with relatives and take care of my cat. Now, here is where the stress comes in, my sister was given an ultimatum that if she doesn't find a "decent job" within the next two weeks, they will "find her a ticket home." My sister's purpose in coming to Utah was to gain residency so she could go to school. Going back to Bismarck would completely defeat that purpose. So, there are other options. Unfortunately, those other options exclude my cat. We have many relatives in Utah, and one of those invited Sara to come stay with them in Brigham City. But, there, my cat, Gizmo (if you know his name, perhaps you will sympathize more), cannot go.I don't know what to do. I don't want to have to give Gizmo (see picture above) away because I love that cat and he loves me, but that may be the only option that I have. I'm afraid, though, that no one would take him because he's been getting stressed out lately . . . and that leads him to scratch and bite. He's not a vicious animal, he just needs human interaction and when he doesn't get it, he gets upset. I think my giving him up entirely would really stress him out.
As for me, this stress is exactly what I DON'T need right before finals . . . or really any time. It is one more problem that I have to worry about and it is vaguely reminiscent of the time that these same relatives evicted my other sister . . . I guess I should have taken a clue from that, but they told me it would be different. I guess I was wrong to believe that. And if, by chance, the relatives that I am referring to actually read my blog, I don't even care if they know how I feel. I will also say this: I feel like everything they have told me, especially in the past year, has been a lie. They told me that they don't talk to my dad about every little thing, but when they had a problem with my younger sister (the first one who stayed there for LESS THAN A WEEK) instead of calling ME and talking to ME they called my dad to complain about the situation and told him that they were concerned that I had just abandoned my sister there. Then they say that they don't judge me and want me to talk to them, but everything they do and say tells me otherwise. Now, (I won't go into every detail) they told me that it would be different with my youngest sister. I told them before she moved in that her biggest concern was being independent, that she was moving out of the house to be able to be independent. They told me that that was not a problem. But, they don't allow her that independence, and that seems to be one of the biggest things that they have a problem with.
So, I will say this, as well, I don't know if they are TRYING to push me away, but it's working.
Back to the real issue, any ideas on what to do about Gizmo? I really don't have many options available to me, and I could use all the help that I can get. And pray for me, because this stress all added together will probably give me a heart attack one of these days.