Sunday, December 03, 2006

it's a gas

yeah, i know... it’s been a while. so be it. things have been crazy. november was just a sucky month. yes, we celebrated 2 anniversaries (4 years & 18 years), but it otherwise just sucked. finances have been extremely tight - worse than i’ve ever had - and it’s put such a strain on us. so in the immortal words of pink floyd...

money, it’s a gas

don’t know where to begin. started out okay. then we lost it. we were in the hole. got out of the hole in the middle of the month, and were fine. then this jackass who we paid in july for doing some work on our rental house, finally cashed the check. scared the hell out of me when i saw it come through the account. what the hell. anyway. that killed us for another two weeks. that was right after we got paid in the middle of the month. so now we’re just getting back on track. but in my mind, we’re still behind. I'm angry and I'm scared and i’ve never had to live like this. well, once, a long time ago, but that was in a galaxy far far away that we don’t ever talk about. so i flip out, then hubby bubby flips out bcs my flipping out scares him.

it’s so different, him and i on money. he’s used to going without and having utilities turned off. i didn’t have that as a child. then we’re questioning if we should find a smaller house, something less expensive. i don’t know. if this keeps happening, then yes. but we were fine before.

i think it’s my damned student loan payments. they’re ridiculous. I'm a social worker. we don’t make the kind of money graduate school costs us to become social workers. it’s a horrible catch-22. so i don’t know. I'm going to try to consolidate my student loans down even further and see if that helps. but in order to do that, i have to call between 8 & 5, monday through friday. uhm, i work during those hours. well, most of the time. i’ll have a couple hours this monday to make a call.

that’s the thing i do love about my job. we’re only supposed to work 37.5 hours a week (830-5). but when you actually look at it... it’s a lot less. usually. if i only count face to face time with clients it’s a lot less. like last week i only “worked” 24.5 hours. that doesn’t include drive time. hmmm... haven’t really thought about it like that. the other hours are drive time and paperwork time. i also did an assessment interview that i can’t count as face to face time. so i guess it works out. if i look at it salary-wise, it definitely looks a lot better. makes me feel a little better. so i can kind of balance the days i get home at 5 or 530 against the days i come home at 2. my supervisor has said that she doesn’t care if we’re out working all day as long as we meet our expected average at the end of the month. so that’s nice. makes me feel better about my horrible salary. at least i have a salary. let’s not give it a kinahara.

been trying to find an on-line typing service to work through. but all i’ve come up with are scams. and sites that you have to pay money for their “secrets.” uh, no thanks. just want to do some transcription work, or type reports, research papers, that kind of thing. just need to find people who have that type of thing. just want some extra money. thought about getting a part time job, but when would i do that? and if i did, when would i see my husband? or have time to myself? I'm too wiped out after working all day to work on week nights. and on the weekends I'm usually doing paperwork or babysitting. or sleeping. so i don’t know. that’s why i thought if i could find something from home. we’ll see.

so we just have to be better about spending and saving. we already killed the digital cable. sigh. I'm gonna miss the original programming, but other than that... we weren’t watching any movies on hbo or showtime or anything. just “weeds” and “the l word.” we can still watch those at my parent’s house. or they’ll tape them and hubby bubby will put them on dvd. oh - but was i yelling at the cable co early last month. it seems that they never received our payment for last month’s bill, and it never went through our bank account. so i had to put a stop payment on the check ($32 to do that), and write another check. but in the mean time, i was screaming at india about not penalizing me for the mail not getting to them. they turned off our digital box. they refused to read the notes from previous conversations. and they refused to do anything to help us even though they could see on our account that this was the first time it had ever happened, and that all previous bills were paid in full and on time. cock suckers. i can’t remember the last time i yelled at anyone the way i did india. it was bad. unfortunately there’s only one cable company in town, and they rake you over the coals for their services.

so yeah. it was a bad month.

but it’ll get better. it has to.

been working on holiday presents. everyone’s getting yarn for the holidays. i’ve been being very creative with the crochet crazy stitch. i’ve made a full size afghan, a shawl, and a lapghan. and they keep on coming. been using stuff out of my stash - very proud of that. getting rid of all my homespun. things are coming along.

i’ve been in a lot of pain lately. off the celebrex - that wasn’t working. last week the doc had me on prednisone. but that didn’t work. been in screaming intolerable pain the last two days. but i can’t afford to keep trying stuff. not at $50 a pop. plus the $30 office visit. so i guess i’ll have to suffer through. i did get prayed for the other day. one of my clients knows that i have this arthritis and prayed that i’d find something that works. very sweet. unfortunately, i don’t think it works that way. almost wish it did. but that’s why I'm up at 340 in the morning. too much pain to sleep. too much on my mind, too, i guess.

I'm gonna try to sleep. otherwise i’ll be useless tomorrow. i’ve got paperwork. go figure. and grocery shopping. and bill paying. and car cleaning out. and i will be better about writing. i need to do that every day. it does help me. it’s just so easy not to. i’ll do it. i’ll do it. even a few minutes a day to decompress from everything. stick a fork in me, I'm done. end script.