I got an email back from the assistant office manager letting me know that the manager would be out of the office for several days, but she would be happy to help me with my "urgent maintenance request."
I called her to let her know that I wanted to sit down to address a number of concerns, and we made an appointment for 1pm.

She was very nice. I was surprisingly calm and direct. We addressed my immediate, recent concerns first. Then I told her that every time I call the office to report a maintenance issue, I'm made to feel like a PITA, and the office staff is often rude. Maintenance issues are often done half-assed, so we have called about some problems (especially water damage) repeatedly over the years (I won't list them all). As a result, we have basically given up and live in an expensive apartment that looks like a ****ing dump. I gave her a list of issues that need to be addressed in my apartment.

She was very apologetic, and put in a work order for all of the maintenance issues, and will follow up. I also asked her to put my reserved handicapped sign back up. I had it pulled when I wasn't driving. It was a pleasant and productive meeting.

I have no idea when maintenance will come to fix the issues, or how long the repairs will take.


The recommended time for stage 1 of the South Beach Diet is two weeks, and I've done it for 3 weeks now, losing 9.2lbs despite my cheating. When I started the diet the first time I was 167lbs, so I lost 13.6 overall.

I'm actually enjoying the diet as is, but it's very restrictive, so I'm going to kinda switch to stage 2 now, and start adding adding a serving of fruit to my diet once a day. I hope it will help with my pop tart cravings
The expectation is to lose 1-2 pounds a week this way.

A week from now I can add an approved starch, and so on, as long as I'm not gaining weight. Whether or not I will do it that quickly, I don't know.


I have to go grocery shopping again. I know I complain about that every week, but that's how much I loath it. I just hope I'm as lucky as I was last week as far as parking, crowds, and rude people.
I didn't have as have as many problems with my meal plan or food list this week, but that's because I really didn't over think it. My priority is having enough food for both of us to eat.