springading.com

I’m getting very bad about updating, I know. And at first, I started to tell you why (mostly, because I get annoyed at squinting at the screen–my Internet surfing has dropped dramatically as my eyes get worse, let me tell you), but I’ve decided to pitch it. You don’t need to know how much my eyes suck. Just know that they do. They really, really do.

So. A couple days ago was Valentine’s Day. There are some people who complain about it being too commercialized, that it’s just some stupid gimmick for Hallmark to make money. To those people, I say you’ve forgotten the real importance of Valentine’s Day. Or, at least, the importance to me. Wanna know what that is?

It’s a day to cheat on your diet. 

So, yeah, nay-sayers. Shut up. It doesn’t matter who buys you chocolate! Buy it for yourself! Valentine’s Day is an excuse to gorge! Who cares who invented it?

Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to tell someone you love them while stuffing your face. There’s that aspect as well. It can be your dog, though. Hallmark doesn’t judge.

Anyway. Besides chocolate, Jim got me the third volume of the Buffy comics. Turns out, we also had the first and second ones here, but I did not know this. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS? Apparently, Jim brought them into the relationship and forgot he had them. I’d divorce him for forgetting to tell me, but I’m afraid he’ll take them with him. So I just hog his comics instead.

And his chocolates.

I bought Jim the complete collection of H.P. Lovecraft. Should keep him busy for a while, I think. It’s a pretty big book that would take anyone else forever to read. So for Jim? He’ll probably have it done in a week, once he starts reading it.

Anyway, on Valentine’s Day, Jim and I went to Evelyn’s, which was short-staffed but was still sooo good, and then we went to Walmart and picked up Serenity and Stargate: Season 1. I was excited about Serenity, since I’ve been wanting it for a long time. Admittedly, it was nice to finally get something “frivolous.”

I’ve been thinking about this lately, actually. One of my friends at work told me that I needed to learn to be frivolous sometimes. This is because…well, truth be told, I’m a bit of a tightwad with money. True story. Anything that is not in the food or bills categories gets deemed “non-essential” and I refuse to spend money on it. This is why I haven’t gotten my hair cut since my wedding (why should I PAY someone to TAKE my hair?) and why just about all my clothes have holes in them. Even when I buy yarn, it’s in small amounts to make functional things like dishcloths and beds for the cats.

Luckily, Jim got his loan money in and is able to help out with gas and groceries, allowing me to knock out the car stuff with my check. (The mechanic has ordered the parts! Can’t wait until my girl has her whole face back!) He should be getting paid for painting those Warhammer figures, he’s insisting I take half of it, and he’s suggested that I get a Kindle. (Not sure if it’s really going to help with my reading-on-the-screen issues, but it would be nice to have.) Soon after, we should be getting our raises at work (my review was good!) and our gainsharing checks. I’m hoping to put this check toward a new computer because this laptop, I’m afraid, is on its way out. Although, if I get a new computer, I’m thinking it better have a much bigger screen. Because of, you know, the eye problems.

Anyway, to me, that’s “frivolous,” since technically, my laptop hasn’t broken, and even if it had, it’s not like we couldn’t go to the library to use theirs. Although we can’t if we don’t want to kill someone. The library computers are absolutely awful. Someone remind me, if I’m ever a millionaire, to donate nice computers to our library.

But after that? My eye is on Medieval Times. And maybe even House on the Rock. The ultimate in frivolity. And I will totally get there. Who says I don’t have goals?

When did Pandora start displaying ads from Match.com on the right-hand side of the screen? How annoying. Especially when you’re a happily married woman. That’s just a recipe for trouble if your husband happens to walk by, sees the blissful expression on your face, and thinks it has to do with the guys on the screen.

No, honey, really, it’s Amy Lee’s voice that’s doing it for me!

Actually, I don’t know if that explanation would get me in any less trouble, heh.

Anyway. For someone who likes her life to be uneventful, there have been a lot of “events” around here. As promised, Tuesday was hellish. We were on the phones all day; queue times were crazy. Our work served pizza for lunch to help make the day more bearable. That would have been awesome, if I were not on a diet. While I do allow myself a “cheat day” once a week, Tuesday was not that day, and I was not wasting my cheat day for pizza at work. So I had to grit my teeth, take phone calls, and smell pizza I couldn’t have.

To make the day worse, it ended a text from Jim while I was rebooting my computer for something like the third time that day. I glanced at my phone. You’ll need to get a ride home. I’ve been in an accident. I’m okay.

Sigh. I got a ride home from Angela, which was fun, as I haven’t gotten to talk to her in a while. We pulled up in the parking lot and checked out the damage of my car.

My poor car. My cute, little car. Yeah. It’s not so cute right now. The passenger front below the headlight and along the right side over the tire are gone. Now the windshield wiper fluid tank and a tangle of wires around it and the headlight show for all the world to see. You know those sci-fi shows where there’s an android, all nice and human-looking, and the android inevitably gets injured so pieces of flesh go missing, so you see part human face, part scary robot face underneath? Yeah, my car reminds me of that. It’s kinda creepy, if I think about it too much.

Luckily, though, everyone’s okay. Most the damage was taken by our car. The other guy only got a broken finger, and Jim wasn’t hurt at all. With the exception of having to pay my deductible, insurance is paying for everything else. Jim, of course, feels terrible about the whole thing, but hey, when you drive around as much as he does, it’s bound to happen.

Also? This is what insurance is for. I’ve had my own car since I was 18 years old and have never filed a claim. As far as I’m concerned, this is kind of like the pay off for paying through the nose all these years. Kind of a crappy pay off, admittedly.   But still.

Oddly enough, while you would think I would be freaking out about money, I’ve decided that Jim and I should go out to dinner and a movie tonight. There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned car accident to make you realize that life is short and that you spend too many days doing nothing, saving money for “someday,” when that elusive “someday” may never come. And it’s true: Jim and I rarely go out. Oh, we talk about it. We’ll be like, “Let’s go crazy! Let’s go out! Let’s cut loose and party!” And then we’ll go to Walmart and sulk around the aisles, knowing full well that we’re not going to buy a damned thing.

Tonight, though, it’s gonna be Mexican food and a movie! And it’s gonna be awesome. I’m glad I didn’t give my cheat day up on Tuesday for that stupid pizza. Even now, I’m pretty much skipping lunch to make sure I have plenty of calories to work with for dinner. And let me tell you, I am starving. The fact that I’m daydreaming about what I’ll order tonight is probably not helping.

I just gotta hang in there for three more hours. In just a little under three hours, Jim and I will be celebrating life with a plate of nachos.

Okay, for real? I’m going to find something else to do. Something that will keep my mind off food. Ugh, dieting. Wish me luck!

Even with a day off in the middle of this week, it’s been a long week. It’ll be even longer because I’ve opted to work overtime tomorrow, but to be honest, not having to cram 10 hours of overtime in 5 days is nice.

And when I’m tired, I just think of this man:

This man needs an ed-u-ma-cay-shun!

My boy toy is in college and needs that degree. But he doesn’t need any lessons giving me the old stink-eye to get me out of bed on a Sunday morning.

(OMG, he’s so cute.)

Other sources of inspiration come clad in fur:

Gremlin helping me try to figure out my digital camera.

Last weekend, I became obsessed with trying to get better with my digital camera. As you can see, Gremlin tried his best to help me.

Gremlin is giving me the FAIL! look.

As you can tell by the above blurry photo…I’m not good with my digital camera. Sorry, Gremster. You’re still the master.

Anyway, last weekend was a pretty good one–but it didn’t come without an impact.

Jim decided I needed to go out for a change. On a whim, he took me to Michael’s in O’Fallon to buy some yarn. I’d wanted to make Gremlin a cat bed for a while because the poor thing has been pitiful since Emmy peed on his and ruined it. And Gremlin, being the little trooper that he is, kept climbing into empty Coke boxes and sleeping in them.

Anyway, Jim knew that seeing Gremlin sleeping like a HOBO in empty Coke boxes broke my heart into a millions pieces (yeah, I have a heart…weird, I know), so he insisted that I buy some yarn. It was a wicked afternoon. By wicked, I mean delightfully wicked, that we were being bad. We were wasting about a half a tank of gas that I hadn’t budgeted for this little trip, we ate at Arby’s, for which I also hadn’t budgeted, and I bought $15 for 2 skeins of blue and brown yarn. Guess what? I didn’t budget for that either.

We came back and between that day and the next, I made this:

Gremlin's new pad.

Okay, so it’s more of a pad with a lip on it than a bed. As it turns out, those 2 skeins of extra bulky yarn were not enough to give it higher sides. Still, I plopped it on the ground, figuring it’ll have to do for now. It’s gotta be better than a Coke box. And guess what? HE LOVES IT.

So do Piper and Emmy, though. Piper’s next on my list. Emmy, since she is the one who PEED IN EVERYONE’S BEDS, can wait. Hmph.

Anyway, actually getting out of the house, driving, and getting something that I wanted for a change–and ask Jim, the last time I actually bought myself something that wasn’t grocery related was sometime in June, and it was yarn for a baby blanket–this was something I really needed.

While I made Gremlin’s so-called bed, Jim carved our pumpkin:

Our first pumpkin together.

Yup, this is our first pumpkin together. We had meant to get one last year, but Jim’s nana died on Halloween–I think it was Halloween, or it might have been the day before–so we never got one. Also, subsequently, because we were so busy with the wake, I never did make Jim that birthday cake I had promised him.

Speed through the week–moves at work, new/old cubicle neighbors, work eval (I’m doing good!)–and we get to yesterday, Jim’s birthday, where I finally realize the impact of our little fun last weekend.

So, yesterday, I had the day off. I took it off just to work on Jim’s birthday cake, buy his present, get ready for his special birthday dinner…all that good stuff. Jim went to school because guess what? They don’t let you out for your birthday, heh.

So I dropped him off, got home, and the first thing I did was checked our bank account.

The amount in the bank wasn’t so horrible. But I had mailed out a couple of bills a few days ago that hadn’t been cashed yet. Figure that amount from what the bank thinks I have.

Bad. Bad. As in I couldn’t even afford Moe’s bad.

Panic. Panic big time. Seriously? How could we have this little after bills? I know we spent a little last weekend, but that can break us?

The answer is yes. It can. I should know better to ever think I can spend $15 on myself. (Or Gremlin.) Good thing I froze my Warcraft account.

I tried to calm down. I knew I was getting paid at midnight, but did I want to risk assuming one of those checked wouldn’t get cashed today?

I checked one of the places that I sent money to. I found an old check, noted the date I had written on it, and saw that it took them about 6 days from that date to cash the check. This last check had only been mailed three days ago. I decided to risk it. But don’t think that it didn’t give me an ulcer.

And if I’m gonna risk it, I’m gonna risk it big. How? I got Jim Batman Arkham City, that’s how. Then I spend $20 on dinner, all while praying that at least one of those checks do not clear within the next 8 hours.

Got everything, came home. Made Jim’s cake. I don’t have round cake pans anymore (another “lost during the divorce shuffle,” I’m guessing), so I have to make do with this rectangle pan whose appearance neither Jim nor I can explain. We both say we didn’t come into the relationship with this pan, and yet…there it is.

So, the recipe says for this 13×9 pan, I need to bake it at least 40 minutes. I happened to check it at 32. “That looks done to me,” I said, confused. I noticed the temperature was above the 350 I had put it at. I took the cake out and checked it with a toothpick. It came out clean.

After a lot of prodding, I finally managed to get the cake out of the pan, but not fully intact. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve made a cake, I’ll grant you, but I’ve never really had problems. I was already annoyed that my cake was breaking apart on me, but when I ate one of those crumbs, I was even more annoyed. It was pretty dry.

I threw it away, picked Jim up, went to watch him play Warhammer at Castle Perilous, read A Dance with Dragons.

Came back home. Tried second batch. Meanwhile, Jim tries the frosting that’s already been made and concurs with my assessment: The frosting is damn good.

The second batch was bad all because I was completely stupid. “3 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda,” I read aloud–as I grabbed the salt. You know how that went.

By now, I’m tired, my feet hurt, and I am furious. I have a breakdown. Jim calms me down. I stand up, ready to try again.

Mix everything up. Wait for oven to preheat to 350.

Wait. It’s at 370. Move the knob down a notch. Check 10 minutes later. It’s at 325.

“Oh,” I groaned. “I forgot…” Our oven doesn’t do 350. It will go above or below, but it will not cook at 350. I put the cake in, already disheartened. I’m hovering over the stove. After it cooks 20 minutes, I’m checking it every five. The minute the toothpick comes out clean, I’m on that thing, pulling it out of the oven.

This time, I had cooked it in a glass pan. I didn’t like how flat the other one had made it. We flipped it over, and we immediately noticed 2 things. 1) This cake didn’t want to slip out easily either, and 2) One side was burnt, while the other was barely browned.

“DAMN IT,” I said. “I completely forgot that our oven doesn’t cook evenly.”

Yes, folks, I did know this. When I cooked bread a couple months ago, I commented to Jim that I didn’t think our oven cooked evenly because one loaf was drier than the other. Want proof that your oven is doing such a thing? Cook a rectangular cake.

So I knew this about our oven…and forgot. I wish I hadn’t forgotten. Maybe I would have thought to ask Jim’s mom to borrow her oven. This should tell you how very little baking we do.

Jim asks that I frost the cake anyway so we can try it. I do. We each had a piece. Jim insisted it wasn’t so bad, but I thought it was awful. My piece was burnt and had this terrible texture. I’ve never cooked anything so terrible in my life. I actually felt humiliated.

“At last you tried,” Jim said, trying to be helpful.

“But I’ve never actually tried and failed,” I complained. “Not with anything I actually cared about. I’ve never failed at baking!”

Jim tried to console me, telling me that it wasn’t my fault. I can’t fight an oven that doesn’t cook evenly. It doesn’t stop me from feeling like a complete failure, though. And what’s worse? Because I made three batches of cake batter, I used most of the milk, so we didn’t have enough milk to make the soup I had planned on making Jim for dinner. We ended up ordering pizza instead, on the credit card that had a little bit of money left on it.

So yeah, I’m pretty sure I ruined Jim’s birthday. But at least he can take solace in Batman, I guess.

So, here are the lessons for the week:

1. Budget for entertainment because if all you do is work, you WILL need something just for you. Even if it’s only for yarn, lunch, and gas.

2. Do your best not to live in crappy apartments with crappy appliances. But if you must, try not to go too crazy on the yarn so you can move ASAP. Preferably in a place with an oven where you can actually cook something at 350 .

3. Husbands are great pumpkin-gutters, but cats are terrible photography instructors.

They’re also bad about reminding you to go to bed because you have work in the morning. Gah! Good night. Here’s hoping this Friday will lead to another awesome weekend–but easier on the wallet.

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.

That’s all I can tell myself today: DON’T PANIC. I tell that to myself between nail-biting and panic attacks, though. So, sorry Hitchhiker’s Guide, but it’s obviously not doing me any good.

If you haven’t been following, I’ve been slammed with a lot of bills this month. I also found that I have waaaaaay less money in my account than I thought I would have after bills. I frantically texted Jim this morning, telling him to not use the debit card for anything like, God forbid, food. Because more than likely, we didn’t have enough money to cover it.

Apparently, all the eating out we did last week due to having a broken fridge has taken its toll.

But, thankfully, we have a lovely thing called a savings account. Money shuffled around, problem solved. Well, not exactly, but we can get by. And I get paid the day after tomorrow. There will probably be more shuffling around with bills, but hey, at least there is no shortage of overtime at work. At least not lately.

Work has been another ball of stress. Recently, they’ve put almost all the written staff on the phones because phones have been so crazy. When you go from never having to take calls to taking calls almost 8 hours a day, that can really mess you up.

So far–knock on wood–I haven’t been one of the people put on the phones. It turns out one of those “special projects” that I’m on has gotten so, um, ”special” that the VP has taken notice, and now those of us who work on that project are considered “resources that cannot be tied up on the hotline.” I believe that’s how my supervisor put it, anyway. I’m relieved, but just hearing my co-workers having to take calls on the hotline all day stresses me out, so I just put in my earbuds and crank up the volume on my MP3 player. I don’t know how I used to do it 40 hours a week less than a year ago.

Also, because I like my co-workers, I wish they didn’t have to be on the phones either. Luckily, they’ve been having to spend less and less time on the phones lately, so that’s good. Especially because, with them on the hotline, written work is piling up, and now we’re getting behind in the written area. But hey! That means more overtime for me. Woot, woot.

Okay, so, wow! That was boring! Sadly, work and bills are pretty much the only things on my mind lately. Oh, and the 10 pounds I’ve gained since the miscarriage. That’s what happens when you resume drinking soda.

Speaking of the miscarriage, I had labs done yesterday and saw the doctor today, and I still have pregnancy hormones in my system. When I groused about this later, Jim said, “I’m not surprised.” Which is just him being a jerk, claiming that I’m picking on him more because there are leftover hormones from the pregnancy. Whatever. Suck it up, buttercup.

At any rate, the hormones, while there, are at least now down to a very low level. As in 8. But I still have to come in for a follow-up visit to check them again. SIGH.

This visit, though, she verified that I wanted to go back on the Pill. Jim and I said yes. We decided that now would not be a good time to get knocked up again because 1) it’s so soon after the last pregnancy, and 2) Jim is on Chantix, and we have no idea how that will affect anything. But then came an interesting moment when she asked how long I wanted to be on the Pill for. The question behind the question was How long do you want to wait before you try again?

It’s a hard thing to decide, being put on the spot like that. She had pen in hand, poised for writing the script. No chance to collogue with my husband. So I opted for three months. We will be back at the end of November to decide what we’re doing next.

Afterwards, Jim was like, “So…you really want until December before trying again?” He sounded disappointed.

I explained that I’m a little gun-shy about getting pregnant again. I’ve been pregnant twice in a span of a little over six months. I’ve had two miscarriages. Neither is fun. Also, both are exhausting. And with the financial crunch that we’re in right now, I cannot afford to be sleeping all the time.

And just…well, like I said…I’m gun-shy, okay? This has been a really rough year. I’m afraid of having another miscarriage, afraid that I’m just setting myself up for more doctor visits to find out what’s wrong, and I just don’t have any more in me to deal with it. Mostly, I just want work a lot, pay off bills, save lots of money, and build up for next year. Because I’ve got a plan! Next year, there will be money in that savings account, a trip in the works, and plans to move into a bigger, nicer place.

So, DON’T PANIC. Because next year is gonna be awesome.

I guess I’d better post now, while Jim’s out with his friends, because this is pretty much the only time I can post.

So, where the hell have I been? Well, I’ve been working a lot, that’s what. As I’ve mentioned before, Jim’s dad loaned us money to help pay for Jim to go to school this semester since Jim was late on getting that stuff done. Half of it is a gift, half of it is not.

Jim’s mom paid half of that half, so now the amount I owe his dad is a quarter of what it was. So that’s good. Although, ideally, I’d like to pay everyone back everything, but it’s helpful to know I only have to pay the much smaller amount.

There’s that. And you know we’re going to have to get Jim’s books as well. Any of you who have ever taken a full college course knows how ridiculous that can be. When I was going to SIU, it was never under $300.

Okay, so that’s the school stuff, right? Well, there’s also the car: I’ve been working on saving money to replace all four tires on our car–our frequent drives have taken a toll on my poor, little car, and the tires are pretty bald–and we’d like to replace the brakes as well. And speaking of the car, it’s time to update the sticker. That’s another $100 due next month.

So, I had already been planning on working overtime with all this stuff. Still, I was okay. But then–then–I came out of work on Tuesday to a very upset Jim.  After a little prodding, I got the story out of him.

Jim had decided he was going to surprise me. Our freezer needed to be defrosted big time. We were starting to have a hard time opening the freezer door. He got a really nice dinner started for us, put it in the fridge, and then went to work on the freezer. He had planned on asking me, once I was home, to get something in the freezer, and then I would open it and see that it was nice and clean and I would be all surprised and happy with him.

What happened instead: He was almost done getting it all cleaned out, tried to scrape off the last bit of ice off the back of the freezer–and punctured it.

Goodbye, Freon. Goodbye, fridge.

When he told me this, I didn’t say anything for a while. He got upset. He wanted me to be upset at him. But how could I? It was an honest mistake, and it was one he made while trying to do something nice for me.

But…I simply didn’t know how I could do any more overtime. I was already exhausted. And I guessed that our fridge would probably cost about $500 to replace. Jim’s uncle and dad (both run a rental property of their own, so they’re more in the know about these things than we are) estimated about the same.

So we had to buy a cooler. I’ll say this: We now have a really nice cooler. I figured if we had to buy one, we might as well buy one for the long haul, right? Poor Jim’s nice dinner he had prepared was ruined, as he had to unplug the fridge after the incident.  We ate Taco Bell instead.

The verdict was that we needed money, we needed a lot of money, and we needed a lot of money fast. Luckily, I work at a place where that is at least a possibility. I’ve never had a job where I could pretty much do overtime whenever, and right now, I’m really grateful to have the job I have.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing all week. Working. Working a lot. I’ve worked 7 AM – 5:30 PM every day this week, and I’ve signed up for 6 AM-1 PM tomorrow. Yup, by tomorrow afternoon, I will have worked 17 hours just in overtime.

But–good news! I called the office, and they replaced our fridge, right? I was bracing myself for what they were going charge us. Well, they left a receipt on the fridge. Guess what it said?

$50.

$50. Not $500. I checked and double-checked the placement of that decimal, trust me.

I’m terrified it’s going to be a dream. That they’re going to tell me that $50 was just to haul it up, and I still have to pay the rest of it. But that would be kind of weird if they did. I mean, this isn’t a new fridge that they gave us. It’s obviously used. But if it’s $50, I don’t care. If I don’t have to worry so much about the fridge, I might actually be able to pay all this other stuff off in the next couple of months. I might be able to get by this month, albeit it by the skin of my teeth, but still…I might.

So I’m just going to be happy for now, try not to worry, breathe a sigh of relief–and go to bed. Because, as you can imagine, I’m pretty freakin’ exhausted.

Night, y’all.

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.

SIGH. I’m bored. So bored. I’m watching Angel and thinking that all these people who die on this show have exciting, interesting deaths, at least, whereas I am probably going to die of a tooth infection. Which, even that, with its death and stuff–boring.

My tooth really has been bugging me.

Not much has been going on. Jim has started school. This is the first time he’s ever gone full time, and while he’s reduced his hours at work, he’s still working three days a week. So far, he’s doing well, but the semester’s still early, and five classes with that much work is…well, it’s a lot.

It’s a lot of hours to put in while going to school; it’s not enough hours for two people trying to pay bills. Jim’s the food-and-gas guy, whereas I’m the “everything else” girl. I’ve come to terms that I will probably have to start picking up on the tab on groceries, which wouldn’t be such a big deal if I didn’t want to get rid of our credit card bill so bad. I’ve been paying for that thing since, like 2008. I was doing a great job last year of getting it knocked out, then had a couple of rough months where I only paid the minimum and BAM. It was right back where it was.

Credit card companies are evil.

So Jim and I are trying to cut back, when there’s really not a lot to cut back on, since we never were big spenders in the first place. We figure we can save some money by eating in and not driving around so much. I’m proud that I didn’t hit Jim up for one of our drives at all this week. (I asked about it one night, but that’s because I was verifying that he didn’t want to. Honestly, I was too damned tired to go anywhere, anyway.) I’ve also been working overtime. Yet, after looking at today’s paycheck and mentally subtracting all the bills, there’s just so–so little of it left. And I feel like that damned credit card will be hanging over my head forever.

But, alas, I’ve been broke before. Very broke. And I’ve also gone from that to not living from paycheck to paycheck before now, so I know I can do it again. And you know what helps immensely with not living from paycheck to paycheck? Not having a car payment. Which, just doing what we’re doing now, it’ll be paid off in a little under three years. Way too long to be making a car payment, sure, but it’s at least a definite light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

A very long tunnel, but hey–as long as I can see that light.

Back to cutting back on money: that means trying to have cheaper hobbies. I’ve got my crocheting, but Jim has video games that he seems to just burn through. And XBox games are not cheap. And remember D&D? If anyone remembers way back when we started our “Homebrewed” game–can you believe it’s almost been a year?–then you would remember that initially, it wasn’t just a way for Jim and I to do something together, it was also a way to save money. Except lately, we haven’t been playing. First, it started off with me. After, you know, things happened (I really don’t want to talk about it anymore), I couldn’t get myself back into it. Then the holidays, then it seemed like Jim couldn’t get himself back into it, and last week and this week, it won’t happen because Jim’s been scheduled to work on Saturday.

Truth be told, I barely remember where we left off. I kind of miss it.

But even if we don’t do our D&D game again, I have a plan. Just work more overtime, even more than I’m already working. Because then when I get home, I’m dead tired, and all I want to do is sleep. As far as hobbies go, they don’t come any cheaper than that.

Speaking of…I think I’ll head to bed. I plan on doing more overtime in the morning. Night, y’all.

I suppose I should pop in here and say hi once in a while, especially while I can.  As I’ve mentioned before, November is National Novel Writing Month–or NaNoWriMo–and I’ve managed to convince Jim to participate.  With only the one laptop, though, it means I’ll have less time on it.  And, no, I’m not complaining.  This will tear me away from the computer to try to finally hammer out Jim’s Lego Pirate Ship Blanket–especially since I think after I’m done with it, I’m going to dust off my knitting needles and make a blanket for my dad.

Although Jim just requested a new crocheted dice bag.

Jim has gotten excited about the contest.  He’s been throwing around ideas and ran two of them past me last night.  I like both and hope that he writes about both eventually.  Unfortunately, the conversation about what he plans on writing turned into a conversation about what I’m not writing. 

Not long ago, I had told Jim that I wanted to write some sort of fantasy story.  I even asked him for short stories or novels so I could get a better feel for the genre.  (It might come as a surprise to you, but I’ve read way more sci-fi books than I ever have fantasy, so I wouldn’t say I’m very knowledgable in it.)  Jim happily recommended books.  And then last night, I announced I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Jim was disappointed.  And then I got defensive.  And then I got psychoanalyzed about how I don’t do things that are easy for me, which, incidentally, includes drawing, which Jim (I can tell) gets a little bugged that I’m not more into, yadda, yadda, yadda, and I don’t think Jim gets it.  Writing literary fiction is easy for me.  That’s just what’s in me.  I don’t think I have what it takes to write a fantasy story.  So if the argument is that I only want to do things that are a challenge for me–bzzzt!  WRONG.

I think writing a fantasy story would be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write.  And keep in mind that I used to have independent study poetry classes with Judy Jordan.  (Hint:  She’s made people cry in her class before.  I was not one of them.  I was lucky–she named me as the best writer in both the undergrad and grad departments.  Huzzah!)  So my point?  I don’t wanna write a fantasy story because I work all week, I need to do more overtime, and I don’t think I’m gonna have time to do something that I think it going to be very difficult for me.  I cannot tell a lie:  I don’t think I’d be good at it at all.

In all honesty, though…if I ever do write something in the fantasy genre, I think I’m going to set it in Jim’s world of Valt.  I’ve asked Jim, and he seems happy with this.  He actually thinks because I haven’t read a plethora of fantasy books or participated in a bunch of D&D games, I could put a fresh perspective on it.  We’ll see.

Okay, seriously?  Let’s quit talking about writing.

So, I thought about posting earlier this week, but honestly, I don’t have a lot to say.  My life is fucking awesome.  Oh, there are a couple problems.  The student loan people are trying to tell me I make too much money to defer my loan any longer and want me to pay over $400 a month.  Which, HA.  HA.  HA.  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.  I sent them more current payment info that clearly shows that, no, I do not make enough.  We’ll see how that turns out.

Also, in not-so-cool news:  Something is up with my cats.  Not one, not two, but three accidents in a week.  And I think it’s Emmy, which is weird because Emmy just doesn’t have accidents.  She acts fine, but I’m starting to worry if it’s because she’s so old and she just can’t hold it like she used to.  Poor girl.

Work has been great.  I seriously like my job now.  Before, I wanted to try to get rid of bills and find a way to get my master’s degree ASAP.  Despite how much I love southern Illinois, I wanted to find a way out of here.  Now?  Now, I want to pay off my bills, get married, have kids (er, maybe, I don’t know about that one), buy a house, and stay here because I don’t see a point in quitting a job I like that pays well. 

And things with Jim, of course, are awesome.  The other day, he sneaked a little love note in my purse; the other night, he suggested I light a candle when I went to take my bath, and I found that he had carved “I love Spring” in it.  I laughed so hard, but honestly, it was the sweetest thing EVER.

If I could just figure out why I’ve had nearly constant stomach problems for the last week and a half and get bills squared away, I’d say I have a perfect life.

Anyway, I’m going to run.  Hopefully, there will be another “Homebrewed” post up sometime next Friday.  So far, we’ve missed three weeks in a row, and I’m hoping we don’t miss tomorrow’s game, too.  I’m actually looking forward to it–it’s been too long, and I feel bad that we just left Natalia, Iema, Corin, and Sunshine hanging in the Underdark.  Right after Iema had died and been resurrected, no less…

Until then!

Ugh.  The ER bill came in.  I just love how I get one bill from the hospital, telling me I don’t owe anything, that my insurance covered all of it, and then another one rolls in, telling me I owe almost $300.  However, seeing that the bill was originally over $5,000 and my insurance covered almost all of that, I can’t really complain, can I?

Now comes the debate as to how much overtime I should do.  We’ve been “requested” (read: very strongly recommended) to put in 30 hours of overtime in February, but we can do more if we get it approved.  There are two divisional Saturdays on February, so I have to go in for those.  I’m considering going in for every Saturday.  The money would be good, but my god, I don’t know if my sanity could take it.

But, damn, I really liked that I could put $700 toward the credit card bill last month.

Okay, let me try thinking about something other than bills for a change.  What else?  I’ve discovered if you have blood sugar issues (and, therefore, very shaky hands) and a slight blur in one eye, plus a just plain out-of-date contact prescription, it doesn’t make cross-stitch very easy.  In fact, I don’t think I like cross-stitch anymore.  Too bad–I remember it being easy, but being bent and squinting over fabric just isn’t my idea of fun these days. 

So I tossed that project on the table and tried to teach myself the double crochet stitch.  Except it seems like everyone says to do it slightly differently.  In fact, when I tried even looking up what a swatch should look like, I’ve seen varying results.  Guess that’s the downside of teaching yourself everything.

You know another downside to being me?  The fact that I need to get ready to go work.  Overtime.  Ugh.