springading.com

From my informal poll of the providers I talked to while taking hotline calls this week, I’ve learned that my company is one of the few that have Martin Luther King Day off. No wonder why the day after MLK day is the busiest phone day of the year–the providers are trying to get two day’s worth of stuff done in one.

At any rate, I do have a three day weekend and an agenda to match:

• Bread machine! I love my bread machine. So far, I’ve only made the one, plain, white bread recipe in it several times, but it’s just so good. I might try one of the other recipes this weekend, though. Just because.
• Craft stores! I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned the giant Warhammer 40K army that Jim was commissioned to paint a while back that he’s still working on. Anyway, Jim told Phil and me last night that he was going to Hobby Lobby today to get something to make one guy glow-in-the-dark. Of course, you know I’ll be going with him…and that I’ll drag him over to Joann Fabrics while we’re out because I still have money on my giftcard, which brings me to…
• Knitting and crocheting! I’m thinking of using aforementioned giftcard to get the needles for this cthulhu dice bag pattern. Phil asked me last night if I thought I could make that, and I said no way, it’s above my skills, but then I started looking at the pattern, and you know what? I think I might be selling myself short. Sure, I’ve never done the magic loop on knitting needles and I’ve never worked on circular needles period, but I think I could do it. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to get to this right away, as I’m still in the middle of crocheting Piper’s cat mat. I ended up having to rip out just about everything I got done on New Year’s.
• Sewing! Ha! Okay, yeah, I’m not about to sew just yet. But my other plan is to take my sewing machine out of the box, dust it off, and just figure out how to put the thing together. Even if I had time to try a project, I don’t have the stuff. One thing at a time.

Now, as to how much of this list I’ll actually attempt is anyone’s guess. For now, I’m gonna watch some season 6 of Supernatural.

I’m on my second cup of coffee, and I know I’m going to regret it later. The past week or so, ever since the scary symptoms I had a few weeks ago, I’ve been trying to monitor what I eat and drink, see what sets off alarms, and it seems that I’m getting reflux symptoms after caffeine. Still, it’s still early-ish, I’m tired, and I want to be coherent enough to write something before Jim gets up.

So, it’s been a week since the last post. In that time, I found that my work had ALL the wrong 2012 benefits listed for me (they basically had me listed has not having insurance at all for next year); I called the Employee Services people and gotten it corrected (our peeps are so nice, so that was a bonus); I got a small raise (WOOT); and I actually spent Saturday doing stuff.

This Saturday was so much busier than most Saturdays. I cannot lie: I pretty much do nothing on the weekends. Since Jim quit his job and went back to school full-time, I don’t even do laundry or shopping anymore. It was nerve-wracking at first, especially when bills were so tight, to turn shopping over to Jim. Still, I held back and told myself he had to learn how it worked.

And WOW. I’m so freakin’ proud. Jim struggled a little bit the first time, but he’s done great since. I always budget for $100 per week for groceries, which we never spend, but I rather overshoot. The last time he went groceries, he spent about $110. “Oh no,” I thought. “How could he go over budget?”

Um, no, Spring. That was $110 for two weeks worth of groceries.

Okay, I totally went on a tangent there. My point was, we had money left over to actually do stuff on Saturday.

First thing: Jim paid his dad back some of the money we owe him. I said that we actually had enough to pay his dad back completely, but Jim pointed out that we hadn’t even started Christmas shopping. There’s a good chance that we’ll be able to finish paying his dad off by January though.

Second, I had lunch with Tracy, Eva, and Darren at O’Charley’s yesterday. They’re some people I work with. We all used to sit by each other, but since then, Darren has been moved to a different unit, and Tracy and Eva were part of the lucky few to get selected to be able to work from home.

I was a little out of my element, since I’m so rarely social, but it was worth it, since I don’t get to see Tracy and Eva anymore. They’re doing great, loving being able to work from home. Yeah, if I ever get my own place around here, I’m totally going to look into doing that. But our work has very specific criteria your home has to meet before you can work from home, such as having your own office with locked drawers. (Keep in mind that we handle people’s personal information, so security is a must.) Needless to say, I have neither.

But I digress. Part of going out to lunch and catching up meant that I was caught up on office gossip. I know–it’s kinda weird that people who work from home know more about what’s going on at the office than I do. But at work, I pretty much keep my earbuds in all day and just work. I mean, that’s what I’m getting paid to do. So, no, I never know what’s going on. I got to learn all about it over a plate of nachos, who is getting divorced, who is having an affair with whom.

(I have to say, the big one that is apparently going around the office…it floored me because it involved someone that I would have never expected it from, someone I actually respected and thought was one of the nicest people in the world. Guess it goes to show that we’re all human, and even nice people occasionally will do awful things.)

Anyway, after lunch, I came home to Jim. We went to Hobby Lobby. I bought more yarn. YAY. Came home, played a little Fable 2. I’m FINALLY starting to get into it. The key? Actually learning what I was doing. Oh, I still don’t know totally what I’m doing, but I’m getting better, and it makes me enjoy the game more.

However, while I was playing the XBox, Jim started getting texts from his friend Ben, warning Jim that someone he detests has managed to weasel her way into their D&D group, despite Jim’s protests about her playing, despite the fact that she is very well aware that she’s not really wanted there. It would be one thing if Jim was the only one that dislikes her, but he isn’t. Not by a long shot. So Jim is pissed because, apparently, he’s the only one who has the backbone to tell her no (she originally tried to get into his Spelljammer game), and now he’s debating quitting the D&D game.

That bit of news put a damper on the evening. “Jim, let’s just do our own game when Matt’s is running,” I suggested.

“I want to play in a game, I don’t want to DM everthing!”

“Then teach me to DM!”

Jim just shot me a look. Even I knew that was a long shot. I get so self-conscious while playing. And I barely know how to play; DMing is a long ways off. As in, maybe in another lifetime…but certainly not this one.

Luckily, we were distracted by BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

“Are those drums?” I asked. We went to the window and looked toward the middle school. The band was out. “Hey–is today the Lights Fantastic Parade?”

It was, and we decided that was the perfect distraction for Jim’s gaming woes. We decided to walk, since it was in the 60s earlier that day. Maybe not the best idea, as the wind picked up by the time we got there. By the time we sat down, we were freezing.

The parade was…eh. What do you want? It’s not that big of a town. Also, the toddler behind me kept kicking me in the back. “Stop kicking the lady,” said the woman next to him, who, I deduced from the conversations I overheard, was his grandmother. His mom was on the other side and just ignored it completely. I gritted my teeth during the whole thing. Next year, we’ll bring chairs.

Anyway, during the parade, some girls were giving out flyers to a new restaurant called Evelyn’s on the strip. It looks like they’re just starting out–not a ton on the menu yet–and most of the menu was meat-based. I don’t think most soul food is vegetarian friendly, anyway. But while I’m no longer a vegetarian, I still don’t like a lot of meat.

(Sidenote: I don’t think I even mentioned the no-longer-a-vegetarian thing, did I? After being a vegetarian for 14 years, I’ve stopped. The reasons why I stopped is two fold: 1) we have saved money by having Jim and I eating the same meals–we simply couldn’t afford to keep doing it the way we were doing it, and Jim as not going to be a vegetarian, and 2) after the second miscarriage…well, I want to rule EVERYTHING out about why it’s happening. I know you can get enough protein being a vegetarian, but not the way I do it.)

Still, I don’t like much meat at all. Everyone acted like if I would “just eat a little bit of meat again,” it would all come flooding back and I’d be devouring every animal in sight. My cats would start to look good even, heh. But, nope. For the most part, I don’t like the taste of it. There was some meat on my nachos at my lunch with my co-workers (I immediately wished I had ordered it without), so I didn’t want any for dinner. I stuck with the mac ‘n’ cheese.

WOW. It was really good. It even rivaled my own macaroni and cheese, and I have to say–I make damn good mac ‘n’ cheese. (Two kinds, actually. The regular kind and the Tex Mex kind.) I can’t remember what Jim got, but he was shoveling it in so fast, I thought he was going to choke. “This is SO GOOD,” he said. “This is the BEST…Oh my god, we’ve got to come back.”

And we will. Providing that we can manage to keep funds up.

So, yeah, if you’re the Carbondale area, check out Evelyn’s, give ‘em your business. The service is really good, too.

Jim couldn’t eat everything, though (SO MUCH FOOD), so we walked home. By then, we were freezing because of the wind, and it started to drizzle by the time we made it back to our apartment. Jim hopped in the shower, and then he put in Carnivale, which we traded with his Aunt Donna for Justified. We watched the first two episodes of Carnivale, and I have to say, I think I’m going to like the series a lot. The cinematography is great, and it’s got…mood. I’m all over the moody stuff, heh.

Anyway, it’s after 11 now. I probably should see if Jim wants to wake up, since he doesn’t like to sleep in too late on the weekends. Not sure what we’ll be up to today. Sadly, no Walking Dead tonight–yeah, that mid-season break is kinda lame–but I guess I can just use that time to knit more dishcloths with the yarn I bought.

This will be short–our TV shows (Once Upon a Time, The Walking Dead, and Hell on Wheels) start in 10 minutes–but I hope everyone had a good holiday. My four day weekend was great, full of my favorite things: knitting, Dollhouse, Dexter, video games, and, of course, Jim. I’m kinda bummed to have to start another week working 11 hour days.

Oh, well. One thing I wanted to mention. I know I’m not the only person who has quit World of Warcraft because of money reasons. (Although I think I’m one of the few whose laptop just can’t handle it anymore.) Over the weekend, I decided to check out Runes of Magic, which, I had heard, is very much like Warcraft, except free.

So I downloaded it. And I can attest that it is very much like Warcraft, which I was happy with. Granted, it also overheats my laptop the way Warcraft does, but at least I’m not losing $15 a month for a game I can’t play. Because I can’t play more than 15 minutes before my laptop shuts down on me, I haven’t gotten very far in Runes of Magic–my toon is only level 6 or something like that–but this is what I’ve noticed so far:

• Music. It’s just not that great. Put it on mute and let good, old fashioned Pandora do the mood-setting for you.
• You can only play either a human or an elf, from what I’ve seen so far. That kinda sucks.
• However, there is way more customization of your character. I love that.
• You get a ton more gold in the starting quests–I think my girl already has almost 2,000–and you get dailies up front. Also, you get a mount up-front–but you “borrow” it.

Okay, I’m feeling better since the last post. I think what I needed was a nap–a really nice, long nap, which I got yesterday afternoon, promptly after getting off work from overtime. Good thing, as I only got about 5 hours of sleep the night before.

Also helping my mood: Jim surprised me with a pumpkin that he had bought while I was taking aforementioned nap, I’m seriously thinking about updating the look of this blog and starting a crafting blog (yay for fun projects!), and the second episode of The Walking Dead is on AMC tonight.

See a preview and get ready!

Normally, I do most of my posting either on Wednesday or Friday nights, since that’s when Jim is usually out with his friends. But Friday night, I got caught up in blocking more of those squares for the baby blanket I’m knitting, listening to the Geek Girls Network podcast, and playing Facebook’s Sims Social.

If you know me at all, that last one should sound really weird.

Jim looked at me like I had grown another head when I told him I was trying it out. Previously, all he’s ever heard me say about The Sims was that it looked stupid. I’ve decided to give it a shot because 1) I desperately want a new game to fill the gaping hole that Warcraft left behind, 2) everyone claims it’s so great, and I really shouldn’t knock things I’ve never tried (unless it’s LARP–everyone should get a freebie on that one), and 3) it’s FREE.

The FREE really got me.

The Sims Social, however, has not.

“I don’t think I’m doing it right,” I complained to Jim. “I’m just clicking on stuff. She eats. She plays her guitar. She even goes to the bathroom. What am I supposed to be doing?”

“You’re doing it,” Jim said flatly.

That’s it? There’s nobody to shoot? I can’t even build additions to the house–the one part I think I would like in the game–because you have to have friends play it, and I refuse to send friend requests for a game. Argh! And what’s even worse is that these Sim people are NAGS. I logged in last night, and my Sims girl’s little happiness level had dropped, she was sighing dramatically, and hinting that she wanted to go visit someone. “Tough luck, bitch!” I told my little Sim chick, and I forced her to go play on the computer instead. If I have to sit at home alone, so do you!

Needless to say, it didn’t take too long for me to log out, hunt down Angry Birds, and play that instead. Smashing snorting little pigs is way more satisfying.

Anyway, that’s been the theme of my week: games. Honestly, that’s been the last few weeks–trying to find a game that I can’t put down. I’ve played some Fable II, and now my character has a husband and a kid. By the way, a game that includes the sex noises for making said baby? Yeah, I’m not a fan of that. I was with Jim when he was helping me marry my character off to another man, so he was also there for the wedding night. I was a little embarrassed.

(For someone who loves dirty jokes, I’m oddly prudish about such things. Weird, I know.)

Still, I’m not finding myself addicted to the game. I’ll go weeks without playing it. I’ve been spending a lot of time searching for other games that I think I would like on the XBox 360. So far, here’s what I’m eyeing:

Dance Central 2

Shut up and dance!

Honestly, any of the dance games, since I’m too ignorant to really know one from the other. I remember I used to love Dance Dance Revolution, but alas, being in a second floor apartment means jumping around isn’t a good idea. I’ve been looking some of the videos up on You Tube, and this game doesn’t look like it has too much jumping, but it still keeps you moving. Acceptable alternatives: Just Dance 3 and Zumba Fitness. I’ve heard that Zumba is a ton of fun.

Alas, I need a Kinect for these games. But if I had one, I would also totally get number 2…

Rise of Nightmares

Rise of Nighmares...or Rise of Barf?

I’ve heard that this game is really gory. Nothing to get you out of the dancing mood like an axe in the face.

To be fair, I don’t know if there are any axes involved. I just know there’s blood. Lots and lots of blood.

Anyway, the idea of a horror game with the Kinect intrigues me. However, I’ve seen some pretty bad reviews of it, so I’m thinking that for this game, I’m gonna wait until it hits the cheap bins.

Assuming I ever get a Kinect to play it with, anyway.

So are there any non-Kinect games I want? Oh, yeah. And Jim’s gonna kill me, but here’s one that I think looks like it has promise…

Final Fantasy XIII

She will cut your FACE.

My knowledge of the Final Fantasy games mostly comes from the anime community, back when I used to go to the ACen conventions. Anime fans love this stuff. They just eat it up. And even though I had never played the games, I always recognized the characters. How could I not? People cosplay them everywhere.

So, one day, back in the days of my Playstation 2, I picked up Final Fantasy X-2.

I was not impressed.

However, I had also heard that X-2 was not the game I should base my impressions of Final Fantasy on. I’ve heard the others were better. Couple that with the glowing review I read just last night of Final Fantasy XIII–and the super awesome graphics, which I’m a sucker for–I’m thinking that I’m definitely willing to give it another shot.

Of course, all this depends on me actually getting enough money in the savings to feel comfortable enough spending some on non-essentials. It took me three weeks to fork over two bucks for lotion, just because I figured I could live without it, so I shouldn’t be spending that money. The car still needs new break pads and an oil change; Jim’s dad still needs to be paid back. Until then, I’ll stick with my knitting. Yarn is only, like, 5 bucks.

And the XBox just cannot beat a deal like that.

*Note: I just realized that I totally stole the title “Gamer’s Paradise” from Jim. Somehow, I think he’ll forgive me. I hope!

This week was a good week. Another niece had a baby. Went to Jim’s family reunion. We were the most recently married, so we won a peppermill with different kinds of pepper to be used in it. Awesome! I’ve always wanted a peppermill. Went to Jim’s mom’s to see his aunt and cousin. Got belated birthday giftcards, one to Chili’s and the other to Houlihan’s.

Jim and I have already planned on using one of those this weekend. Oh my god, I’ve missed eating out.

A really wonderful thing that we got was from Jim’s aunt. It was a belated wedding present–a check. A check, might I add, that covered the rest of Jim’s school books (we couldn’t afford to get them all) and will pay for his calculator for his math class, too. HUGE WEIGHT off our shoulders, let me tell you. Now the extra money I’ve been making from overtime will be shoved over into savings to save up for new tires instead.

Jim and I have been noticeably less stressed since we got that. Someone is getting a thank you card.

What else? I’ve been cooking a lot. Cookies, pancakes, bread, and brownies–all from scratch, no boxes here! Cheaper to make it yourself. Besides, I miss cooking. Know what I miss even more? A big kitchen to cook in. But at least I have an appreciative husband to eat all this stuff.

Oh, yeah, something I’ve failed to mention: Jim is off the Chantix–he’s been a non-smoker for over two months–but he is now eating a ton. It may sound odd, but it makes me happy. I always hated that I could actually outeat him. Now I can’t keep up.

That’s not the only appetite of his that’s gone up. BOW-BOW-CHIKA-CHIKA-BOW-BOW. (That’s supposed to be porn music, not a weird puppy chow jingle or something.) Needless to say, we’ve been a very happy couple lately.

And you know what was a really nice way to end a really nice week? This link, posted by my friend Paul on his Tumblr. He has to know that I’m going to totally repost an article called “10 Badass Women from Fantasy Literature,” ESPECIALLY when, right at the top, it features one of my favorites from Game of Thrones, Arya Stark.

One could argue that Arya is a little girl, not a woman. I’d like to see how well you argue with Needle up your nose.

Anyway, this reminded me that I had been thinking about writing my own list of my favorite women in sci-fi/fantasy for a while now. (Hm, that seems like a very Paul-like thing to do. Maybe he’s a bad influence on me!) I’ve never written it, though, because it would be hard to do a top 10 or anything like that. I mean, I could come up with ten favorites just from Babylon 5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer alone.

Still…someday.

But not tonight. Tonight is for sleeping. Tomorrow is for overtime.

This week may have been good, but I didn’t say it was done.

You know what I found myself thinking the other day? I miss Warcraft. Yup, really, although I don’t know why. Nobody I know really plays anymore; or, at least, nobody I know in real life. I think I miss it when we all played. Right now, they’ve all moved on to a play-by-post game that I opted out of because I’ve been too fried to do anything like think, much less be creative. Oh, well. Moving on.

There are other cool things happening. First of all, my niece Amber went into labor this morning, so Lily should be arriving soon. The really cool thing? Today is my dad’s birthday. Tomorrow is mine. In a little over a week, it will be Amber’s sister Jasmine’s birthday. So, yay for adding another Virgo to the ranks!

Last I heard, Amber was only dialated 2 cm, so there is a very good possibility that Lily might hold off making her debut until MY birthday. As cool as that would be, I would rather Amber NOT have to be in labor that long. Today’s just fine by me!

Anyway, normally on Sunday evenings, I start getting edgy because I know that the next day is Monday, which means work all over again–especially hard when you’ve just worked six days. But, as it turns out, I decided to take my birthday off, and I even made up the overtime that I would have missed tomorrow by working it yesterday instead, so now I won’t have to make it up next week. Smart thinking, eh?

I thought Jim and I would do some of the celebrating today, considering that this is the ONLY full day off we had together this week. While I have tomorrow off, Jim still has school, so it’s not like we can spend much time of it together. Jim even asked me last night if I wanted to go to one of the state parks around here today, to which I agreed.

And then today, he told me he was going to the local comic book store to fix terrain with the guys he plays 40K with. He left after breakfast, and he won’t be back until dinner.

…

Yeah. This did not endear me to Warhammer at all.

To be fair, Jim mentioned planning on doing this earlier this week, but I’d forgotten. And, apparently, he had forgotten at one point, too, because he asked me to go out with him today–and then backed out of it when he remembered this so-called lunch with the guys.

I say so-called because lunch does not take six hours.

At least he surprised me with a nice, clean bedroom yesterday. You have no idea how messy it was and how much it was bugging me. So that was nice.

Anyway, all this unexpected alone time means I can surf as much as I want. I found some really cool stuff:

• Bristol Renaissance Fair. I found this via Chronic Geek’s Live Journal. And, like her, I cannot afford it this year either. But next year! Totally…well, maybe.
• Sweet and Spicey Pickled Grapes with Goat Cheese. Yeah, you can tell I’m playing on Live Journal right now. And oh my god, this looks so good. And not TOO many ingredients, so I think I might even be able to afford this. I wonder if I can get the stuff for this on my next paycheck?
• A Year of Slow Cooking. You know, I think I’m just hungry. But seriously, this site looks awesome. Especially because I’m severely lacking in crock pot recipes, and crock pots are the shit. I’m pretty sure those are one of those Life Lessons that my mom taught me–albeit, minus the “shit.” My ma, not much for the swearing. She’s a classy lady.

Oh, and the other thing I did today was delete my Flickr account. You might notice the pictures from it are gone from the right-hand corner of this page. After copying and pasting my ID and password for the third time and only finally getting in after my fourth attempt, I had had it. I’ve been having that issue with Flickr, and it’s been pissing me off, so as soon as I got into my Flickr account, I saved all my pictures, deleted my account, and moved them to Picasa.

I still need to do this to my old Flickr account, the one I had before the divorce.

Anyway, this post has bounced around enough. I’m gonna watch Firefly. Hope Jim’s having a good time and he feels relaxed when he comes back–because HE is making dinner. Hmph.

I am beyond stressed. Getting s’mores at work today didn’t even help.

Oh, yeah, we TOTALLY got s’mores. My job can be so awesome sometimes.

But still. Stress! There’s the recent stuff, of course, that I’ve dwelt on enough and don’t feel like dwelling on anymore.  Unfortunately, the doctors keep me dwelling on stuff by having me come into the office to check to make sure those pregnancy hormones are going down after the miscarriage. Initially, my levels were something like 1400, and by Monday, they dropped to 400. Weirdly enough, if I took a pregnancy test right now, it would probably still come up positive.

Yeah. Weird. But since the levels are still not around the 0 mark, I’ve got to come back in a couple of weeks to get blood drawn again.

Anyway, leaving early the last two days = make up time today, which is just time over that is straight pay and not overtime pay. I HATE THAT. I like my overtime money. I like it a lot.

But back to stress. Today was  just a bad day at work, s’mores be damned. I learned a new workflow that I thought would net me more closures, but then they turned around and said we couldn’t use it. The tech who told me was so bummed about it, she needed one of my Jolly Ranchers to cheer her up, heh. Apparently, the s’mores didn’t cut it for her, either.

And then Jim kept texting me because he was freaking out. He was trying to get signed up for fall classes and found out that he’s not eligible for financial aid this year. I’m not surprised; I warned him that once we got married and they figured in my income, he probably wouldn’t be eligible because I “make too much money.” HAHAHA. Anyway, that wasn’t shocking, but they turned around and told him they “wouldn’t do” government loans either. Huh? What the hell?

Oh, and by the way, they told him, the money is due tomorrow.

I was pretty pissed about this. When Jim submitted everything, the e-mail he got said that the financial aid office was supposed to get ahold of him if they needed anything else. They did need other stuff. They did not get ahold of him. And they were only now telling him this because he went down there to ask them about it, and they were telling him the day before the due date. And it was looking like he wasn’t going to be able to go to school for the fall.

So, Jim was freaking out. I tried to reassure him by telling him that he could just dedicate himself to writing until the spring semester. He kept texting me, though, and it was freaking me out because I know that Jim hates that he’s not working, and the only thing that has been keeping him sane was knowing he’d be in school full time soon, and that going to school does, in fact, contribute to our household’s future. I worried another six months of no work and no school would drive him into depression.

But then he told me that his dad paid for it. His dad is telling him that we’ll only owe him half the money, since he helped pay Jim’s siblings’ college.

But…new stress. I hate borrowing money. This is especially how I did not want to start my marriage–borrowing money from my father-in-law. So now I feel compelled to pull even more overtime to get that paid off ASAP. Jim tells me not to kill myself over it, but…I don’t know…Jim’s mine to take care of now, ya know?  MINE.

And then there’ s stress that comes with the fact that Jim and I are fighting more than usual. Even though I know it’s been totally the clash between the pregnancy hormones and the Chantix, it still sucks. Luckily, Jim will be done with the Chantix in about a month, so that should help a lot. And, of course, my pregnancy hormones are dropping. I should be back to “sane” level fairly soon.

But I had to admit something else entirely that had been bugging me for a while to Jim last night. Jim has one big hobby, one thing he loves that keeps him going these days: Warhammer 40K.

And I hate Warhammer 40K.

There. I admit it. And I do. I’m not even sure why. I’ve tried to like it. I listen to Jim talk about his games. I listen to strategies. I look at how he’s painting his little army guys and how he’s adding modifications to them. They’re very cool.

But I hate them. I hate Jim’s little army guys. I think they’re boring. I think they’re cocky-looking little assholes that are overpriced and suck up too much of Jim’s time and energy. I hate hearing about the guys that Jim plays with. Some of them are complete dicks, and about what? Because they have no legitimate lives, so they can dedicate themselves to the stupidest hobby on the planet?

Ugh.

Jim is a good husband–a little too good at times–and immediately offered to quit playing. Which, of course, is dumb. Why do guys tell you they want you to talk about how you feel about something, and when you do, they automatically go into “fix-it” mode? Do that, and I won’t say anything again! Just because I hate Warhammer doesn’t mean that Jim should quit his favorite hobby. That’s dumb. It’s just how I feel about it; it doesn’t mean it’s right or logical or anything.

Really, where it’s getting to me is that I’ve been trying to fit in my overtime around this gaming schedule, and I’m getting resentful of it. When I have to pull a couple of insanely long days just to make sure I get off work as early as possible on other days for these stupid little army guys that I don’t even think are interesting, I get a little annoyed.

So I think Jim and I have agreed that I’m not going to try to “fit in” my overtime around the gaming anymore. The overtime comes first. We’ve  got bills to pay. Still, I’ll try not to pull the nearly 11 hour days on his gaming days. I’m not a complete asshole. But Jim’s going to the comic book store an hour later than he usually would have isn’t gonna kill him, either.

Here’s hoping that’s the case, anyway.

One day I’m gonna write a happy post again. I really am.

Hey. Things are okay. I’ve been trying to keep my mind off sad stuff and keep focused on everyday things. Mostly, I’ve been keeping myself busy with work. Last week, I worked a lot of overtime, more than I normally do, mostly because I want to fill up our savings account. I want to save up to move into a bigger place next spring, as well as try to replace all our tires before winter, since they’re all almost completely bald. Yeah, if it rains even a little bit, we start hydroplaning. So it’s kind of becoming an issue.

Gremlin isn’t helping, though. About a month ago, he had that bladder infection that wiped out almost half of our savings account. Well, this past week, he started peeing in the bathtub, which is supposed to be a red flag that the infection isn’t gone. So, yesterday, we whisked him off to the vet. 10 minute visit, a little bottle of medicine, $150.

This cat is costing me more than even my cat who died of pancreatic cancer did. Geez.

But better $150 now than a bazillion dollars later. Also, it would kill me and Jim to see Gremlin in that much pain again. But it’s still hard because right now, we’re doing our best to save money with only my income. We’re actually doing fine, but I’m desperate to get the savings account back up so we have a nice net to fall back on when emergencies happen. Jim’s quitting smoking is helping a lot, and I just froze my Warcraft account.

No, Warcraft isn’t a lot of money. But it’s dumb to spend $15 on something I almost never play. And I would play it again as a way of cheap entertainment, but since Cataclysm came out, I found I can no longer do dungeons on my laptop. The game overheats it. Recently, I’ve found that this is becoming an issue even during regular game play. So until I get a desktop, which I don’t see happening for a very long time, my account is frozen.

Although I might try to play a little bit before the official freeze date.

Besides, that $15 could go towards yarn. I’ve been getting more into crafting hobbies, anyway. Oh, and by the way, it turns out I will not be doing those 5 scarves for work. (Don’t even get me started on why.) I’ll finish the third one up because it’s almost done anyway, and I’ll still give it to some charity because I’ve always wanted to make stuff for charities, but right now, I’m knitting a baby blanket for my niece Amber, who is due next month with my soon-to-be great-niece, Lily. After that, I want to wrap up the Lego Pirate Ship blanket for Jim, which has been hibernating FOREVER, and then make him a crocheted D20. I’ve already bought the pattern. Phil has expressed interest in one as well, so I’ll probably make him one, too.

I’m a little wary, though, as I’ve seen picture of others’ crocheted D20s, and most of them look kinda…sloppy. Not like the picture. And I’ve never made anything “stuffed” before, so I’m already at a disadvantage. But we shall see. Knowing me, if it comes out looking overstuffed or understuffed (as just about EVERY SINGLE ONE I’ve seen has been), I’ll rip it all out and start over. I can be a bit of a perfectionist that way.

After the crocheted D20s, I’d like to crochet a blanket for my great-nephew Isaiah (my niece Jasmine’s little boy), but I can’t seem to find the pattern that I want to use anywhere. I had this PERFECT one for little boys, once upon a time, and I always wanted an excuse to make it, but it seems to have gotten lost with all the moves. Argh.

Actually, I’ve been wanting to make that same blanket for my nephew Seth, too. Grr, I really need to find that pattern!

What else is new besides work and crafts? Oh! I finally finished A Storm of Swords, book three in the Song of Ice and Fire series. It took me forever because I can’t seem to stay awake these days. But it was fabulous. I’ve been chatting more and more with Jim’s friend Ben on Facebook about it because, truth be told, we don’t really know each other, but we DO both really love these books. Jim’s all happy that I’m talking to some of his friends; I’m happy that Jim has another friend aside from Phil who isn’t an asshole, heh.

Okay, admittedly, the friends that I have met–the ones that Jim actually considers friends, anyway, not the ones he pretty much has to deal with because of other people–haven’t been assholes. But trust me, if you’ve heard some of Jim’s stories…he’s known a LOT of assholes. No wonder why he wants to stay home and be a hermit all the time now.

Speaking of being a hermit, I must return to my hermit-hobby of knitting and continue working on Lily’s baby blanket. I need to get that done within the month. This week, though, I don’t plan on working nearly the amount of overtime I did last week, so I should (knock on wood) be able to stay awake long enough to get some work done. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Because, frankly, I’m just too tired to do it myself these days.

Hey, did I forget that I (for the most part) wrapped up scarf #1?

Scarf #1.

Yup. This is my scarf that I made to get me back in the swing of knitting. And, of course, is one of the five scarves I’m making to satisfy my goal at work. I still feel like my tension is off, and some things are not as easy as I remember (namely binding off), so the next one will probably be knitted too. Except that I’ll work some purls in there as well.

And since we’re in picture sharing mode, I thought I’d post this one:

Anime girl.

Thanks to waybackmachine.org, I found an ancient doodle I did while waiting for my ex-husband to get up and get dressed one morning. And I thought it was lost forever. I know I didn’t keep it. I mean, who keeps their doodles?

Waybackmachine.org, that’s who.

Anyway. All’s well here. It started off rocky on Monday. Actually, it started last Friday. I was crabbier than usual, which didn’t really let up over the weekend, and Monday, when I sat down to work, I realized I was in an abnormally bad mood–seriously, I’m in a good mood most of the time–and that what I really needed was a “me day.” Since Jim’s and Karac’s game folded, Jim’s around all the time. And while I love him, as I’ve mentioned a bazillion times before, I require more alone time than the average person. So, on a whim, I requested PTO for Tuesday. To my surprise, it was approved.

And it was glorious. Tuesday, I did nothing but surf the Internet, watch TV (Charmed! Supernatural! Angel! The Last Unicorn!), knit, and eat cookies. And, apparently, that is exactly what I needed because I was in a much better mood the rest of the week, even with overtime. Jim and I even skirted some sensitive topics later that week, and when he started looking nervous, I said, “Relax. I’m not mad about it or anything. Just want to talk.”

So, yeah. My “Prevent a Mental Breakdown Day” was so successful, I’m thinking of making it a regular thing. That is, unless Jim does another game with his friends. Because if I get Friday nights alone to recharge again, I might be okay with just that.

On that note–gaming, that is–Phil is talking about starting up a Birthright game, to which he invited me last night. I thanked him because that was nice of him, but I’m going to see how it pans out. If they need more players, sure, I’ll play. Jim is always wanting me to do more stuff with him and his friends, and I’ve heard that Phil runs good games. But Phil’s game would also be a good opportunity for me to have my alone time if Jim goes to it alone, and frankly, I think the guys enjoy having “guy only” time. I would, too, if I were them. No having to watch what you’re saying or doing or edit past stories because someone’s girl is there? Yes, please.

Anyway, I’m going to get going because I hear lots of thunder. Not sure what the posting schedule will be like next week, as Jim will be starting school full-time on Monday (yesterday was his last day at work!), so he’ll probably need the computer more for papers and stuff. That’s okay. More time to crochet and knit and read the books from A Song of Ice and Fire series, right?