Long-time reader, first-time writer. Apologies on the length.

My family and I live north of Chicago and bought a home last year. The previous homeowner’s parents built the home (in 1986) so we thought we knew everything.

The home has a main floor, upstairs (four bedrooms), finished basement (one bedroom) and attic. The…

Two years ago, I got severely, awfully sick (probably the flu). I didn’t go to work for the entire week. It was all I could do just to keep myself drinking liquids and soup and shuffling to bed. The worst part was my husband was traveling for business, so I was all alone, just me and our sweet black cat Libby.

Around five years ago, I was a TA for an undergraduate literature course that had 300 students; there were two TAs and our job was mostly to do grading (sigh) and hand out exams and set up PowerPoints and stuff of that nature. Basically, assist the professor in all manner of tedium while she lectured. Due to a…

This just happened, on the 1st of this month.

This took place when I was about 10 years old. My mom had rather quickly filed for divorce, but she only had a part-time job and made very little money, so finding a place to stay that was affordable and available immediately was tough. A friend of hers told her that she and her husband had…