springading.com

Originally, I had started this post while doing laundry. Hence, the title. Since then, Jim insisted that he finish laundry up, despite the fact that he’s sick and really has no business doing it. Regardless, laundry is done. But I  refuse to change the title. Moving on!

Hope everyone had a good holiday. Well, everyone who celebrates any sort of winter holiday this time of year. If you don’t…well, hope you had a good weekend, anyway.

It was a good weekend for Jim and me, all in all. Friday night, Phil came over. Phil brought over Kung Fu Panda 2, which he and Jim watched while I picked up pizza and played on the Internet. I was fighting all I could to not give Jim his Christmas present early. See, right after work, I went straight to Game Stop and bought something I knew he’d been itching for: Assassin’s Creed Revelations. Jim, as it turns out, had money set aside for Christmas that I didn’t even know about, so the money I had earmarked for Christmas shopping? Yeah, he didn’t even touch it.

Therefore, present: Justified!

So they watched TV and played video games, while I tried to talk myself out of giving Jim his present early. Phil had barely left when I blurted, “Okay, so do you want your present now?”

There was a bit of back and forth, and we finally agreed to give each other one present. As it turns out, we both thought that the other had given us one gift because that’s all we could see. Well, we’re more alike than either one of us thought: I had his “good” gift hidden away (I’m so proud–I got it past him after work by sneaking it out of sight in my lunchbox) and he had my “big” gift hidden at his sister’s house. We agreed to give each other one because we couldn’t wait, so he got his game (which he was NOT expecting–the look on his face was priceless!) and I got this book.

Overall, we both had a good Christmas. My other gift to Jim was the second season of Supernatural. (We were missing seasons 2, 3, and 6. I figured someone would know to get the most recent–which I was right, his mother got it for him–but only I was privy to which seasons in the middle we were missing.) My big gift from Jim was actually a joint gift from him and his sister and her husband. And guess what it was? A BREAD MACHINE.

I’m excited. I’ve wanted a bread machine since I was something like 18 or 19 years old. I’ve already warned Jim that the next time we have pizza, I will have made the crust in the bread machine. HELL, YES. He and Phil can eat it and like it!

(Don’t know what it is with guys and their hatred of homemade pizza crust.)

Oh, but that is a little bit of a problem. I’m getting this bread machine right in time for my diet, which, incidentally, I started today. However, I’m thinking that food-wise, I might not be too bad off. I signed up on My Fitness Pal today, entered my calories, and easily came under the suggested amount of calories. I’m pretty sure my issue is with soda and coffees with lots of creamer, which I laid off of today.  So, my hope is that I can still (mostly) enjoy everything my new bread machine has to offer–and still lose weight.

I think the secret is moderation. Yeah, I know: Not news.

We got a lot of other great stuff. I got several skeins of yarn (YES, YES, YES!), a cordless vacuum cleaner (THANK GOD, my old one sucks and the cat hair is driving me nuts), a Scentsy (didn’t even know I wanted it until I had it), a hat, scarf, gloves, socks, a food processor (yay!), candles, and lots of lotions and soaps and perfumes.

Oh. OH. And one of the other presents Jim’s brother Robert gave us…let me just backtrack and tell you why it was perfect.

When Jim and I first started dating, he was living with his friend Karac, and I had just moved out of my sister’s to this apartment. My apartment was still a mess from moving, so I wasn’t exactly inviting company over. (I went on a few dates with one guy who tried to invite himself over. Wasn’t happening.) Jim was also embarrassed by his living situation–ugly bedroom, his roommate was always fighting with his then-girlfriend–so I was never in his place more than five minutes to pick him up for dates, and I never saw his bedroom.

Anyway, after something like six dates, I decided it was time to invite him over. We could drive all we wanted around town, but a new relationship that is ready to go to the next level needs a certain degree of, ah…well, privacy, heh. So, finally, one night, when I was dropping him off at work after a date, I asked, “Hey…do you ever want to come to my place? Maybe watch a movie or something?”

Jim was surprised. “Sure!” he told me. “You know what? I just rented Tropic Thunder. I’ll bring that over. We can watch that.”

So that was the first time Jim ever came over. I cleaned up a storm that afternoon. He brought Tropic Thunder over that night. But, ah…we didn’t watch much of it. Oh, I remember hearing it play in the background. I also remember going all the way through and then playing again. But the movie? Yeah, we didn’t really watch it. Not that night anyway.

That was also the night we decided to make ourselves official as a couple.

Fast forward to last night. Robert hands us this smallish package. “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this before, or if you’ll even like it,” he admitted. “But–I don’t know. I saw it and, for some reason, I was thinking that this was it for you guys–the perfect gift.”

Jim opened it and we started laughing. Yup. It was Tropic Thunder.

Sweet, no? Anyway, I’m going to wrap this up and find something else to eat. I’m gonna grab an apple. I’m not particularly hungry, but I came in with few enough calories that My Fitness Pal is warning me about my body possibly going into starvation mode if I don’t try to meet the 1200 calories. Who’da thunk that would be an issue?

Well, this post was started almost a week ago, but then it came to a screeching halt when I was writing and heard the mouse trap go off. Yup, a mouse trap. In all my years of apartment-living, I’ve never had a mouse, and if it hadn’t been for Gremlin hovering around the bottom drawer in the kitchen, we would have never known. We hadn’t seen any evidence of a mouse until we checked the drawer Gremlin was so desperate to get into and found mouse poop.

If you’re wondering why we hadn’t noticed it sooner, let me point out that it’s a rarely used drawer. Pretty much every where else is clean.

I really hate mouse traps. But I also hate mouse poop. I also hate arguing with Jim about when said mouse poop should be cleaned up. Me: Immediately. Him: Never.

Okay, I exaggerate. He wanted to wait until we verified that all the mice were gone before he cleaned it up. “Otherwise,” he said, “I’ll just have to clean it up all over again. ”

Whaaaaa…? If someone breaks into your house and poops in your kitchen, you do NOT leave it there, saying, “Well, they might break in again, so let’s just wait and see and clean all the poop up at once.” That’s just crazy talk, not to mention gross.

Whatever. Jim caught himself a couple mice and has cleaned up everything very nicely. He’s a nice guy, that man.

Sadly, that was our excitement for the week, epitomized by images of Gremlin circling that drawer and Jim shaking his fist at an imaginary mouse, shouting, “I declare war on your tiny, furry house!”

I think I picked a husband that’s like my cat, come to think of it. I don’t think that’s really a bad way to pick one’s soul mate, really.

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.

I forgot to mention that I saw a preview for this over the weekend.

It almost looked like it had promise…until Kristen Stewart showed up. Kristen is a pretty girl and all, but Snow White? C’mon. Jim’s right: Rose McGowan would have been a better pick.

Also, Kristen couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. But, hey. Some people get better with time, and with her, there is only room for improvement. Can’t get much worse.

That being said, this is one I’ll add to the “wait until it comes out on DVD” pile.

I started the month with three days of PTO; I’m now down none.

One day was used for Jim’s birthday. That was fine. I had planned on that.

Then last Tuesday, I started getting all the symptoms of a migraine. I refused to go home early, but I did have Jim pick me up after 8 hours rather than doing the overtime I had planned. The migraine lingered for a bit, so I ended up taking Wednesday off to recuperate.

So, there was one day left of PTO that I was hoping to cling onto, since December is just around the corner. I had wanted to keep it because you never know when a snowstorm is going to hit, and as we all know, my little car slides just at the thought of snow.

And then last night happened. Went to bed, feeling fine, around 10:30, right after Hell on Wheels. Woke up about an hour and a half later with scary symptoms: Back pain. Shallow breathing. Nausea. Heart burn with chest pain.

Yeah, that last one scared me the most.

Jim will be the first to tell you that I don’t usually have problems falling asleep. He’s actually a little bitter about it, I think, because he always has trouble sleeping. But last night, I was in so much pain, that I was shuffling around a lot, just trying to find a more comfortable sleeping position, throwing covers around because I felt hot, and Jim did a first ever in our entire relationship.

He moved to the couch.

But now he couldn’t sleep either. I had told him my symptoms. Normally, I don’t worry a whole lot about my health, but even I was getting nervous about these symptoms–especially because this isn’t the first time I’ve had them. And now he was worried as well.

I took Ibuprofen, Tums, a bath. Nothing seemed to work, although the bath did help my back. But the only thing that seems to help, as it did last time, is time.

So I ended up using that last bit of PTO, figuring there was no way I was going to make it even 8 hours in an office chair, much less my planned 12, if I couldn’t even get comfortable in my own bed, and working on an hour and a half of sleep is a bad idea. Also? If they caught wind of my symptoms, I’m afraid they’d call an ambulance, as has happened to others in the past. I can’t afford an emergency room copay right now, and even if I decided that I really need to be in the ER, I don’t want it to be the hospital they would send me to.

I’d rather stay here and go to the ER if I decide it’s necessary and go to the hospital I choose.

So I’m home, but man, what a crappy night. I feel bad because Jim missed almost all his classes, partly because he didn’t get any sleep either and partly because he was worried about leaving me alone. Even when I took a bath, he lay awake, worrying.

Also, part of the crappy night was telling Jim that while I appreciate the fact that he doesn’t seem to notice I’m overweight, and it’s very sweet that he bought me those Christmas Tree cakes because they’re my favorite…it needs to stop. Regardless of whatever’s going on with my body, I’m pretty confident these symptoms are weight-related. I need to lose weight. It’s time for me to start eating like a grown up.

Kinda sucks because he just bought me a whole box of Cap’n Crunch. Now I’m thinking maybe I should hope for snow in December. Because now without PTO, I’ll actually try going into work, get into an accident, and die. Because, really, is a life without Christmas Tree cakes and Cap’n Crunch worth living? I mean, really?

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.

Today sucked, and I had the day off work. I actually think if I had gone to work, it would have been a better day. That tells you how terrible today was.

But happy birthday to Jim, anyway. Assuming that I didn’t ruin it for you.

As for YOU, Today, I’m just giving you the big, fat bird.

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!

No, the title of this post has nothing to do with the book that Jim hates so much. It has to do with my freakin’ life. I’m sure everyone is sick of me complaining about money, but hell, I’m sick of  complaining about it.

It’s not that we can’t pay our bills. We can.

It’s not that our bills aren’t getting paid on time. They are.

It’s not that we can’t eat. We do.

It’s that I’m working 10+ hours overtime a week and there’s no extra. It seems like overtime should mean plenty of leftovers, and I think if I wasn’t trying to get so much extra stuff done, there would be extra. But, three days ago, I once again had to warn Jim to be careful with money. Our bank account was getting low.

I honestly don’t know how I can swing paying Jim’s dad back before Christmas and getting everyone Christmas presents. Do you know how many people we would have to buy for, just for those living in southern Illinois alone? A bazillion! I. Cannot. Afford. It. I. Cannot. Do. This. I can get bills paid and food bought, but barely. I cannot even afford to replace my holey socks after my paycheck has been divvied up.

I wish people would just let me quietly sneak past the Christmas season without celebrating it. But you know how families are.

And with working all this overtime, the other area where I feel like I’m being nickel and dimed to death is in the energy department. (Yeah, I’m stretching the metaphor a bit. But I’m tired and cranky right now, so y’all just have to deal.) I’m so tired all the time. I need to finish craft projects I have, but I’m just too worn out at the end of the day. And worse? My friend Meagan is in town, and one of the reasons we won’t be meeting is because I have to do overtime tomorrow, and I already know I’ll have no energy to be social. Being so introverted means that socializing is already an energy drain on me, no matter how much I like a person. Socializing after working 6 days a week? Not a good idea.

I found this out the hard way when I met Paul last week, after having pulled yet another long week. I might have been firing questions at him, but that was me on autopilot. I was exhausted.

Despite all this, work itself is actually going pretty well. For now, anyway. I had two nice surprises this week.

One, I found out just a couple days ago. They’re testing out how bigger monitors affect productivity. I’ve often thought a bigger monitor would be awesome because I constantly waste time moving my bazillion windows around. Well, apparently, the test run they did in another department showed that bigger monitors net better productivity–up to 20% more. My supervisor assured me that my productivity is fine, but I’ve been selected as one of the people to get to test the bigger monitors in our department.

SWEET. I’m very excited about it. We’re going to be moving desks (yet again) at work next Friday, and it’ll be waiting at my new desk.

The other cool thing, I found out about on Monday. My supervisor called me up to his desk, and I was baffled as to why. I soon found out: I got a “gift of appreciation” (which was a Visa gift card) and a certificate. My boss said it was being given to me for several reasons. One, they feel that when they handed me one of the special projects I’m on, I really took ownership of it. I’ve notified them of several issues and updates that even the higher-ups weren’t aware of. We’ve had a couple of workflow updates based on information I’ve given them. And here I was worried about being a pest!

The second thing my supervisor told me was that they were aware that I get flipped to work different books of business a lot–but I “never complain and always do a good job of it.”

Awesome! Usually, never complaining gets me mostly ignored. It never has gotten me a gift card. I was excited about the gift card, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. I was thinking of getting an oil change.

Yes, my life has gotten that lame.

So I was thinking of what on earth to do with the gift card when Jim and I came home to a note on our door. The letter was regarding our cable/ISP. Our building is switching to Mediacom.

Okay.

They’ve given us a listing of channels that will come with Mediacom. No HBO. Which means…no Game of Thrones in the spring. If we want it, we’ll have to order it.

Jim started to get mad. But there was more.

With the switch to Mediacom, that means we will no longer have our current ISP, Goldentree. Although I guess their name is Guestek now..? That’s what it said in the letter. But getting back to the point, currently, I don’t have a monthly payment. I think it’s included in the rent, which, I will have you know, is crazy-high, but I always justify it because utilities are included. Anyway, the letter advised that we would need to make arrangements with our Internet provider because Guestek would no longer be available. So we’ll have to switch to Mediacom–and welcome yet a new monthly bill that I hadn’t expected.

Jim flipped out. “You’ve got to be kidding me? So after all this–TV with less channels and now getting a bill for our Internet–we’re basically paying more for less?”

“Sounds like.” I handed him the gift card. “Here. Go buy a game.”  Not like I was going to do anything fun with it anyway. Fun? Who has time for that?

“You sure?” he asked.

I nodded. If I work just one more hour of overtime–maybe two–it should get me the oil change.

Yup. Nickel and dimed and overtimed.

And now I’m going to bed. Because, so far, nobody’s figured out a way to charge me for that.