Welcome to the ATL

So I was all set to give a glowing post about how great life is right now, but shit just keeps happening.

Working out has been awesome, and I'm finally seeing the results I want - i.e. most of my closet fits me again! But of course, I somehow threw out my lower back and hips, so I've been in pain since Tuesday afternoon. Doesn't matter if I'm sitting, standing, or laying down. It just plain hurts, and stretching hasn't helped at all. And all I wanna do is keep working out! Grrr.

Last week, my dad called me to tell me they had to put our dog Prince down. He was thirteen years old, but incredibly healthy. Every time my parents took him to the vet's office, he would tell them that if he saw Prince just out on the street, he'd say he was 6 or 7 years old, certainly not 13. He had lost a bunch of weight when I saw him at Christmas, but when I visited just a couple of weeks ago, he'd gained most of it back thanks to extra food and doggy vitamins. I was unaware that would be the last time I saw him. Apparently he got a stomach virus, and he wouldn't eat or drink, even after my parents took him to the vet for medication. There really wasn't anything they could do for him. My dad said it was all very peaceful, but it still hurts. None of us expected it. I'd even had a dream earlier in the week that our 16 year old lhasa apso had died, but he's still going strong. This is the third pet I've lost this year. Shorty, one of my rats, passed back in January. She had a cyst problem that I couldn't prevent, and I was surprised she actually lived for as long as she did. Then a month later, my favorite rat, Tuxedo, died without warning one afternoon. She was the sweetest of my girls. We had bonded so well. She loved to sit on my shoulder and brux (the rat equivalent to purring) really hard. I have two new rats now, Cookie and Cream, but socializing them has been slow. I miss my girls. :(

Work has been insanely busy, and we haven't had much success finding another designer to join our team. I've seen way too many awful portfolios, and one promising recent AiA grad ended up having no web or Photoshop experience. It felt like I was going to have to take on the added burden of teaching him the basics while carrying more than a full-load of work. I actually have a friend that I used to work with interviewing this week, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he gets to join the team. It'll be awesome to lighten my load a little and have another person in the office to talk movies and music with.

And now to the shittiest thing that's happened so far this year - we were burgled yesterday while JJ and I were both at work. JJ called me at work around 5, asking if I had locked the front door when I left. I asked him why, and he said everything was gone. I started to freak out and told him to talk to the front office and call the police. Fortunately, one of my coworkers drove me home, and the police arrived just a few minutes after I did. They think it was just one guy. He somehow forced our deadbolt open with a piece of metal and shut our sweet Boston Terrier in the bathroom. He then grabbed JJ's Chrome messenger bag, filled it up with our PS3 and controllers, PSP, Roku box, my Toshiba laptop. He grabbed my gym bag from upstairs and went through my jewelry box, but fortunately, didn't think anything was super valuable. He stole our change bag, and walked out with our 32" flat screen TV. I feel so violated and angry. I keep thinking about someone rifling through all of our things while our poor dog is shut in the bathroom, wondering who this stranger is.

I know we live in the city, and it's to be expected, but I've always felt so safe here, partly because their just aren't that many people living around here. The whole complex is gated, although the parking lot gate was open all day yesterday because of rain. Our building has a key-code access, too, but the front office thinks that since it was the end of the month and people were moving out, someone could have easily propped that door open, and anyone could have slipped in. And despite this, I still love our home and I still feel safe. It's just a huge pain in the ass. We don't have the money to replace all that stuff, so we have to wait until we get a claim check from the insurance. Thank god I got renter's insurance, or we would have been screwed. And I'm frustrated, because that laptop had all my music and movies, plus The Sims. I haven't had time to play that in forever, and I knew JJ would be working tonight with the car, so I was so looking forward to finally having the chance to sit down with it. But no, it's gone. Fortunately I have this little work laptop, so we can still watch Netflix and Hulu on it... but it's definitely not the same.

Ugh! All I want to do is work out so I get my endorphins, but I can't because of my back. And I want to bake something to kill some time, but I don't want to undo my progress from working out. And don't worry, I'm not getting obsessive again. My diet's actually been pretty lax the whole time I've been working out. It's just when I'm not exercising that I try not to eat sweets. I'm sure by the end of the weekend, I'll feel so much better. But right now, I have a lot of emotions I need to process. I keep alternating between lots of anger (which I never feel), and just feeling sad and helpless. And the last time I felt like this was dealing with the aftermath of my rape 18 months ago. I don't enjoy being back in that emotional frame of mind, even though the feelings of violation and loss aren't anywhere on the same scale as the rape.

Here's to hoping the rest of the year proves to be more awesome.