I'm trying to decide if my thumb is green enough to handle a small trellis with some Jasmine entwined on it. I think it would be really lovely to have some on my balcony. I was actually thinking of buying some trellis slats and fixing them to the sides of the balcony to give us a bit more privacy. Not sure if the landlord will allow that though. What I really want to do is paint. I *really* don't think the landlord would allow that though. In fact after a quick call to her I've discovered I'm not allowed to paint, put border up or put a trellis on the balcony :( I hate that. Why could I not paint at the least? Especially if I said I would paint it back to the blah white it is now when I leave. How depressing.

I hate apartment life. It's fine if you're young and footloose and fancy-free, but man, I'm sick of hearing neighbours fighting, neighbours screwing, neighbours screaming across the courtyard, neighbours smoking weed while I try to explain to my child what that funky smell is. I'm also tired of hauling groceries up three flights of stairs, and climbing four flights to do laundry. I want a garage. I never want to scrape ice off of my car again. I want a lawn that I can pay someone to mow. I want to run around the house without fear of disturbing the neighbours. I want a little garden. I want a place where I can DIY to my heart's content.

Well why don't I go find a house to live in? Hmmm.. There are two major 'pros' to where I'm living now: 1. Rent is cheap, but place is nice enough and 2. My landlord is incredibly cool about working with me when I'm struggling to get rent paid on time. Which *knock on wood* I haven't had trouble with so far this year, but then it's only May.

I need to come up with some sort of plan. I think the key to me getting away from here with little fuss from the family is if I was offered a job somewhere that paid incredibly well - well enough that I just couldn't turn it down. I often have people ask me why I stay here in Nebraska if I hate it so much and the answer is not easy to make them understand. Here's the short version: When I left my ex-husband, I had nowhere to go, no money, no clothes, nothing. I moved back in with my family in California and began a struggle to get back on my feet. Six months later they decide they can't afford California anymore and I have no choice but to come back to Nebraska with them. If they couldn't afford it, how could I, a single parent with a baby? So Nebby beckoned. My father died right after we arrived here, moved a few times and ended up where I am now, got my act together and put myself through college and still hated the lack of anything to do here so I upped sticks and moved to England for a year and loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, I had a tyrant boss, and I was working illegally. After coming back, my mother died. Followed soon after by my Aunt and aside from my grandparents, that's pretty much my entire family. My sister lived 3 hours away while she was at university, then she moved back to Cali, and now she's living in London.

Did I say short version? Hehe. You should see the long version :D

Anyway, my grandparents are wonderful people, but they are also what ties me down here and I know that's awful to say. I love them dearly. I want my daughter to be around what little family she has left as much as she can, so the sacrifice on my part is that I work in a great job for shit pay, live in an OK apartment with shitty neighbours and continue to struggle with no opportunity to improve the situation short of winning the lottery. So I need a plan of attack. And I need time to think up a good one. I need to stop waiting for opportunity to come to me and go out and make it happen. *cheesy slogan alert*

So I'll write if I come up with a good one.