Feeling a Bit Better....

...for the first time in a while, I've sat down to pay bills and haven't had a moment of blind panic at the thought of how we're going to make it through the next week and a half. What's funnier is that I've not been paid the extra money for pimping apartments on Saturdays! Woot! I might be able to give my kidlets Christmas after all this year. Seriously, for the past few months, I've felt like we live paycheck to paycheck. And sometimes not even that. We've battoned down the hatches and have cut out much of our unnecessary spending, so that has helped. I still have a bunch of credit card debt I would like to see paid off, but for the moment I'll settle for not bouncing checks! *winks* I still will work as many Saturdays as I can so that I can pay down some of the credit card debt.

...so for the next few posts, I will instead bitch about things like Sunday school and AT&T, and muse over getting set up to use the computer at the library.

Productive Weekend....

1 batch of toll house-type cookie bars made with Ghiardelli (spelling??) chocolate...yum

2 rooms rearranged....the office/scraproom has been demoted to simply the office, while the dining room-formerly-known-as-half-the-daycare-room has been promoted to my crafting area/guinea pig room!

6 hours worked at the apartment. I showed my first apartment and got to keep chipping away at the mysteries left behind by the former property manager. Fun, fun. At least it was not so boring that it made being away from the twins all that much hard.

18 Christmas cards made for my mother-in-law.

60 minutes worth of sleep with Erin on Friday night while Griffin and Collin finished watching "Curious George".....can anyone tell me how it ends??

"I Don't Like Griffin..."

Apparently last night when I was out, Erin came up to Aaron, stating that she didn't like Griffin. Upon Aaron's questioning why she didn't like Griffin, Erin said, "Because he's got boogies in his nose." Aaron went to inspect Griffin's nose, and he did, in fact, have a bloody nose. Aaron cleaned Griffin up, and Erin said, "I like Griffin now."

Vindicated....

...for years I've worried about Collin. He is so much like me that it's eerie. Coupled with the fact that he looks like me, and it's downright scary.

...today we had parent-teacher conferences. Collin's teacher this year is the very first to admit that perhaps being so overtly sensitive might not be a good thing. What do you mean? Crying at the drop of a hat when things are amiss won't always get you sympathy from your peers?? He told me today that he has been working on toughening him up a little, or, at the very least, addressing it with Collin. NOT ONE OF HIS TEACHERS before has ever agreed with me on this very point. Perhaps it's because they've all been female, but still.

...I do worry about my little man. I suppose that is my job, though, no?

The Office Bitch....

....not what it implies, really. There is more than one definition for bitch.....and bitch in this sense means "someone you does everything you ask of them." This is what I am when I'm not the Office Monkey. I'm currently working at the apartment complex for which I moonlight as "Apartment Pimp." I found out I was working at said place at 8:45 last night, just as I was about ready to hop in the shower with the gruesome twosome for an oh-so-not-relaxing bit of clean-up. I don't really mind receiving calls in the evening, asking me to be the Office Bitch, but I do hope next time they will be more considerate and do so before my kidlets' bedtime.

...and another thing. There is no one else working here with me. Therefore, I am in dire need to use the toilet and get some freaking food.

...I feel like the office version of Mikey.... "Give it to Stephanie...she'll do anything." *hears sniggering behind hands*

Working on Saturday....

...despite the fact that I do miss my babies something awful, I don't mind this so far. I say so far, because you never know what the next minutes have in store, especially in this business! It's been very quiet so far, and I am actually doing things that didn't get done yesterday for my "real job." It's nice to know that, despite the fact that I'm probably underpaid to begin with (you can bet that my sorry ass will be bringing this up in a year when it's time for a review!), that the company I work for will pull for me and help me figure out how to earn extra money. And if I wind up working 3 or 4 Saturdays a month, I think that I will have enough to make ends meet a little better than what I do now. Saturdays here seem to be fairly easy, though, so I'm not complaining too much about the situation. And, the debts that are starting to make me worry are really, in the grand scheme of things, not too bad. I just don't want to have to worry about them and have to add to them because of our current situation. We've been in this spot once before, and it's not a pretty thing.

...anyway, it's back to sacrifices for me. This is OK. Aaron's been worrying about it, but I would rather roll up the sleeves and dig in so that it's not so bad now, than have it all snowball out of control and not have taken the time to do what I can now to help the situation. It's only 6 hours extra a week. I was pulling 20 hours extra a week before. See? Not so bad, this situation. I wish that I could put these 6 extra hours on the regular work-week, but "so ist das Leben." I just think that it will only be for two years or so. After that, we'll not be paying out quite as much in daycare costs.

...Speaking of daycare costs, I really do have to muse at how two little people who have enriched my life so much could simultaneously screw it up so much.....

Nervous....

....Am getting ready to donate my hair....*bites nails*

Urgh....

....so I know that I've been a very bad Office Monkey in keeping you all up to date on my sorry life. What can I say? Life's a little nutty lately, and tends to lean toward the "Life's a Bitch" side. Between fucked-up family finances (oooh...gotta love alliteration) and the injustices of life that are too numerous to mention, I'm in a bit of a panicky bad mood.

...the good news in life? My company is going to let me work Saturdays for some extra cash. I shall now be "Office Monkey turned Apartment Pimp." Hopefully this will allow me to breathe a little easier when it comes to looking at my bank balance. We shall see.

...don't get me wrong. The kids are great...we're fairly healthy. But other than that, I'm just not feeling life right now.

Serendipity at Its Best!

See what I mean?

I Do Know My Real Friends....

....and those are the ones who have sent me their thoughts and concerns about my post yesterday. It was actually not as big of a deal as it sounded. I befriended someone work-related. We would have lunch together and would chat. She left the company last week, but first she spread untrue things about me. Funny how other people had heard from her, but I've not heard one word since she left. Now I know why.

...it just goes back to the fact that I really hate it when the rose-colored glasses that I tend to keep on break, and I have to look at the world how it really is.

So ist das Leben. (Such is life.)

On a different note, I took my Purple POS in to the collision repair center today. Nationwide better be on my side, as the grand total is $1200!! I am really beginning to think that I should have just taken the money for it. After I'm done using and abusing this car, I'm sure no one is going to buy it from me anyway. Who wants a purple piece of shit with a dented hood. And possibly multi-colored, if the body shop doesn't do a good paint job??

A Bit on the Sad Side....

....it just really sucks when you thought someone was a friend, but turn out not to be.

....that is it for today.

Happy Birthday, Judy! (and our trip...)

First and foremost, a very Happy Birthday to my friend, Judy. Can't wait for dinner this evening....keep thinking where you want to eat!

OK, so enough about her...let's move on to me....I'm a narcissist, you know. *winks*

No, I know I'm a very bad blogger and have not kept you all up to date. So here goes. Aaron's cousin got married in Buffalo, NY this past weekend. Despite our economic troubles, we threw caution to the wind, took Friday off, and went up for it. But, people tend to marry once in a lifetime. We have the rest of our lives to figure out how to make it out of debt, no? hehe ANYWAY, Buffalo is a mere half an hour away from Niagra Falls. So, on Friday, we went there. Beautiful, I tell you! Wedding was on Saturday, had a bunch of fun, but my eyes are still burning from a woman who was old enough to be my grandma who decided to dirty dance with the groom. That image will remain far longer than I'd like, I'm afraid. Sunday, we were going to hang out some more, but decided to go home instead, due to lack of cooperation by members of our family still under four feet tall. I don't really blame them...it was out of their routine like none other....but that didn't make me want to leave them in Buffalo any less. So, after eating at the Anchor Bar, home of the Buffalo wing, we headed home.

But....this is what made the trip a success.....no one puked!! AND...I'd had enough gin to preserve myself for a lifetime on Saturday night. So I would have to chalk the weekend up to a success, despite the fact that the trip was cut short.

World Travel....

...OK, it's just to Canada, but I didn't even think about heightened security and the need to bring our birth certificates with us. HA! Am a big dork. Thanks to Aaron's Uncle Joe for enlightening us on this little fact! Am off to check whether I need my marriage certificate, too. That might prove to be a bit more tricky to locate if I need it. Sad, eh?

The Glass Castle

...so I read this book. For those of you who don't know about it, it's a memoir written by Jeannette Walls. It's about her childhood, growing up poor and neglected. It drummed up more memories for me about my own childhood. Granted, my neglect only lasted until I was about 8.5, and I was never totally neglected. I always had my grandma to help out, so I was never left to my own devices for more than a day or two. But the fact that my own mother wouldn't take care of me has left me more than a little disturbed. Sometimes the things said in this book hit very close to home. Other times, it left me feeling thankful for those in my life who helped me get out of the situation. Still again, it left me feeling that, if Jeannette Walls could tolerate her mother, despite the larger degree of neglect, perhaps I should be a little easier on my own mother? Of course, since I wrote that letter, and since I've gotten the feeling that my own mother has written me off, there has been quite a weight lifted off my shoulders. Perhaps this is very selfish of me. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm spending more time and energy on those people who actually cared about me and who made me feel good about myself growing up. Why hold up any notions that everything is OK with my mother, in particular, when there is not one stitch of normalcy in that relationship at all? For a long time, I kept up the pretense. And what I feel most guilty about is the fact that I got to the point where I would just accept all the material things my mother would give me, even though I held such little respect for her. For that, and only that, I feel guilty. For the rest. I feel free.

Holy Beautiful, Batman....

....is so freaking pretty outside. Ate lunch outside today, I did.

....We had a laid-back weekend. It started out fairly shakily and ended likewise....tummy-wise that is. I destroyed any sense of gastrointestinal well-being on Friday with four shots of gin on an all-but-empty tummy. It wasn't pretty to vomit into a mixing bowl like a toddler. At least it wasn't all over my own sofa.

...Yesterday we went to a park and had a cook out. Something didn't agree with me, so I made several trips to the facilities last night. If you know me well, you know that the only times I get up in the middle of the night for such festivities are when I'm either sick or pregnant. And, since we'd have a urologist to sue if it were the latter, we'll go with the former. Not pretty. At all.

So, am hoping for a better week than last, no? I can do without car-accidents and gastrointestinal woes. Rub the Buddah for me, guys.