There are only a few days before Valentine’s day and I know for sure that Sean and I aren’t doing very much this year. We were originally going to go out to dinner but then a few bills sprung up and we really just can’t afford things like that at this point in time. We’re both working our asses off to make ends meet but with over $3000 due in taxes (between us) there’s not enough to cover half of that in our bank account right now. We’re literally broke and until I hear something about any of the resumes I submitted in the last few weeks I really don’t know what we’re going to do. Last year he was sweet though, he’s a romantic at heart (most days – at least) and I woke up to beautiful valentines roses that morning and couldn’t have been happier. He also threw in a massive teddy bear as well. This year it’s going to be me cooking dinner for the two of us and hoping things in the house stay calm enough so that we can enjoy dinner without any major interruptions.
Author Archive
Valentine’s Day – Fast Approaching
Monday, February 11th, 2008Sigh of relief
Monday, February 11th, 2008They just walked in the door about ten minutes ago. Candy has an enlarged heart and theirs fluid behind it. She’s now back on numerous medications and is receiving a specialized senior diet. I’m sure that’s going to be rough considering she’s used to pasta, chicken and other table-food that dogs typically don’t have unless they’re spoiled. Hell, even Bella eats that way because of my distaste for dog food – and everything that could possibly be wrong with it based on the previous recalls. We all know that she’s not going to be around for much longer, but hopefully she’ll at least survive for another couple of months so that we can all easily work into the inevitable – especially Karen, she’ll definitely take it the hardest.
Not a good day.
Monday, February 11th, 2008I’m in a funk right now because of a rather hectic morning. A little over an hour ago, Karen’s dog made a horrible crying/moaning sound and collapsed. She’s 16 years-old, with a level 3 heart murmur, arthritis and a thyroid problem. Yesterday she had a similar episode where she just fell over, I awoke to the horrifying scream coming from Karen who needed help. Today it was a bit worse, and Karen wasn’t here to witness it.
Candy did her usual pacing around the house. She spends a lot of time sleeping so I guess to get her exercise she walks up and down the hall for a little while and goes back to bed. While that may not seem like much she’s a Shih Tzu who only weighs about 15-pounds so she really doesn’t have to go very far in order to get some kind of exercise during the day.
I saw her walk past, she looked at me as she usually does “Who the hell are you?” because she’s pretty old, close to completely blind and when she sees a waving hand she attempts to come closer but half-way through will forget what she’s doing there. It happens at that age though, based on charts she’s the equivalent of an 82 year-old woman. (It’s not 1 year to us is 7 to them, it’s based on weight and actual age).
She headed down towards the living room and the next thing I hear is a screaming cry that scared the living hell out of me, her legs didn’t buckle she just toppled over and then urinated all over herself. She was barely breathing, her heart-rate very obviously increased (you could see the little thing pounding out of her chest) and usually if you touch her or if another dog (Say Bella or Princess) comes anywhere near her, she’ll typically take off. She didn’t move.
I called Karen at work and couldn’t get through the four times I did. Sean finally called and used a term other than “Emergency” because supposedly the other member of support at her job has no idea what “emergency” means and changed it to “very important, life & death situation”. Within two words “It’s Candy” she hung up the phone and within five minutes was in the drive way.
Now both her and Sean are at the Vet, they have been for a little over an hour now and I have to say I’m concerned. She did this yesterday without the cry and the urination so obviously something pretty bad is going on.
Karen is obviously upset about it. Candy is her baby and she’s reacting in a way that’s shocking to everyone. She was the sole-caretaker of her mother (Sean’s grandmother) for quite some time before she passed away. Whenever something went wrong Karen was in full control. Say Shorty (grandmother’s nickname) had trouble breathing or she broke her hip or just something that would happen to someone with disintegrating health, Karen always had the right paperwork in hand when the paramedics showed up and she knew exactly what to do in order to fix the situation.
When it comes to Candy however, it’s the complete opposite. She becomes erratic, has no idea what to do and screams bloody murder if something goes wrong and she needs someone’s help. This makes me wonder what would happen if Sean and I did actually make that move to Ohio a few months ago. Would she be able to manage a situation like this on her own? Would Candy have passed away by herself because no one was here to look after her during the day? It’s just questions on top of questions and it does scare me. Candy is Karen’s baby, she actually treats her better than Sean sometimes but that’s a whole different situation. She gets full priority and I honestly believe Karen wouldn’t know what to do with herself if Candy was no longer around.
Lately she’s accepting of the fact that she’s a very old dog and a lot of trouble to take care of. From medication, having to hand-feed her because too many things on a plate can be overwhelming, to grooming, wee-wee pads having to constantly be picked up because she refuses to go in the same place twice unless it’s clean.
It’s a lot to maintain and at the same time Candy keeps it interesting. She’ll tell on the other dogs when they’ve done something in the bedroom. She’ll tell on anyone who walks within a few feet of her because they’ve disturbed her. She’ll run too quick (which isn’t good for her heart) and wind up bumping into something because she didn’t see it coming. And while it’s horrible to laugh at something like that, she’ll then tell on the wall for being there so you honestly can show no other emotion but humor when it happens.
It’s almost 2pm, they left around 12:30. I just hope she comes home with her. Something tells me this is going to be a very difficult week.
I wonder…
Sunday, February 10th, 2008I just downloaded this new program, Mars Edit, I’m trying it out for 30-days to see if I like it or not. It allows me to log into all of my blogs by only using one program. Now while there is an option for “WordPress” I did experience some trouble with getting things to publish to a self-hosted WordPress blog. It very easily can connect to wordpress.com though, I know that much.
Anyway…there’s a pretty big sale going on at Kmart this weekend. King sheet sets are as low as $20 which is pretty sweet. Target finally shipped my duvet set this past week as well. It was about damn time considering I ordered it over a month ago. But I figured it was going to take a while considering pre-orders and what not. It’s a tan duvet set that comes with two shams. At only $30 I have to say that’s a bargain considering the $75 duvet that’s currently on the bed. My mistake was in purchasing an Ivory color to brighten up the room. It certainly makes things seem much brighter, but every little speck of dust and dirt shows up on it. And we had a previous sheet set on there that was fleece so you could clearly see all of the little green balls building up on all sides of it as well. Drove me nuts!
Sean’s currently playing Halo so who knows when we’re going to get out of here. Either way it’s time to get ready to cross the street…heh.
Slacking Off
Saturday, February 9th, 2008I’ve been slacking on just about everything lately.¬† I finished the template for my interview but I have to say I really don’t like anything past the main header image.¬† I don’t know what’s wrong with my creativity lately.¬† I used to have inspiration busting out of the seams but it just isn’t that way anymore.¬† I’ve been down to the beach pretty frequently over the course of the last few weeks and I have to say it gave me enough creativity as one would require to tie their shoes.¬† I wear slip ons 90% of the time, so you can imagine my annoyance.
Right now I’m staring at a blank screen in Photoshop in hopes to be able to come up with a new template for AGn Designs, the current one is bothering the crap out of me and even surfing around template related sites for ideas – I still can’t come up with anything.¬† While everything looks great in my little bookmark folder of favorite templates, when you start merging things together and doing it for yourself – it just doesn’t come out the way you’d really want it to.
There’s really nothing going on on the ‘net either, same BS different day as far as blogs are concerned, there’s nothing interesting in the news either.¬† Something tells me this is just going to be one of those down days where nothing’s really accomplished.¬† I would like to head down to the beach but since it’s a bit warmer than usual I assume that it’s going to be packed and that’s really not worth it – I’d prefer peace and quiet instead of barking dogs and rowdy children.
I’d like to clean the office up today but Sean has a “day off” so he’s more than likely going to be playing Halo or Assassins Creed for the entire day.¬† Either way he’ll be in the way so getting a vacuum in here is going to be damn near impossible.¬† I’m sure a fight will break out between someone and he’ll head to bed to go to sleep to get away from it – then I can get the vacuum in here and get some shit done.¬† My desk is in shambles and cleaning it up before I sit down and get my taxes done is pretty important to me.¬† I owe money this year, I know that already.¬† Unfortunately there’s no money to pay it with.¬† I may wind up having to have someone do my taxes for me, just so I can do some kind of “pay with installments” option.¬† I’m sure I owe about $1500 (at least) considering my income last year on just paid blogging alone, I didn’t even factor in the business aspect of things.¬† This is just going to be HEAPS of freaking fun, I can sense it already.
Not too much going on…
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008It’s unseasonably warm today. I went through my morning routine with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. On my way outside I bundled up not realizing the extreme weather change. The bedroom was rather chilly this morning, so that’s another reason for not thinking about it. I had on my pull-over because I tend to wear that all day and knowing the chill I put my regular coat on as well. The second I stepped out the door I felt the wind but it wasn’t a chilled wind that I’d grown accustomed to over the course of the last few months (it is Winter after all). I quickly had to come back in the house to strip down to my T-shirt because anything more than that would have been murder. The last weather check shows 68¬?F(20¬?C for Bronnie). We’re expected to get up to about 75¬?F (23¬?C). I do know this is part of the big string of storms that just hit the midwest last night. The last time I looked at the death toll it was 52. I can only imagine what the storm is going to do when it makes it’s way up here. Bella is SO going to need to learn to use some wee-wee pads today once that rain comes through, this complex floods with a half-hours worth of rain, torrential down-pours? Oh my.
Voting was yesterday, and I walked into the elementary school with a big grin on my face ready to cast my vote for Obama (yea, after carefully reading through transcripts and watching him on television – he’s my choice this term). Some have asked why I didn’t want to vote for Clinton and my main reason is she’s a republican posing as a democrat, and she’s dependent upon her husband for way too much of her exposure. She also doesn’t seem to know how to turn off “politician” mode. So naturally going with the more laid back guy who is willing to put forth changes that are good for this country, especially on topics of economy and immigration, he’s the one (for me) to choose. You’re entitled to feel different about it, that’s why we’re the country we are. I would just like to see a President in office that doesn’t base his entire choices of our country on a religious standpoint. Yes, he’s against Gay marriage, but he’s not throwing it down our throats either.
But anyway, I get to the school and wait in line, only to be told that I’m not going to be able to vote because when I registered at the DMV a few weeks back I listed myself as independent and unfortunately you can’t vote independent when there’s only Republicans and Democrats up for the primaries. So that upset me quite a bit. The lady assured me that come November I’ll be able to vote for whomever I please. Thankfully Obama won Delaware anyway, I’m just hoping that he can actually keep it up and take over as many delegates as possible. While I really do believe that it’s time for a woman to be in office, I don’t believe Hilary is that woman. There’s nothing against her personally, there are just some things about her mannerisms that really bother me.
So after all of the voting stuff was done we headed back up Route-1 and stopped into one of the Outlets on the way home. Tanger Seaside, or something like that. I had a few gifts from Christmas to return and they were purchased from the Lane Bryant outlet. I was going to return everything in New York when I went shopping up there but you can only return outlet clothes, to outlet stores. I also don’t see the point in calling it an OUTLET when it’s just as expensive as the free-standing stores or even the ones in malls. But my reason for returning everything was based on the fact that everything was huge on me. I used to enjoy swimming in clothing but that’s because I was making every effort to hide myself, even though it only made me appear larger in the long run. I’m now going smaller in sizes and while things are still a bit large on me (depending on the item, of course) it’s no where near as bad as I used to be.
But with the $50 credit from the clothing, and the $40 some-odd dollars off with the gift certificate from my father (It was $200 but I did go shopping when I was up in NY). I picked up a pair of capris, a button down pin-stripe, and a few bed shirts for the whopping total of $7. They would have owed ME money if I could have used my $10 off certificate that I got from the Lane Bryant store but unfortunately they don’t take them. Savages.
I’ve been working pretty hard on coming up with a template for my interview. A phone call on Monday with the CEO has me in full “get ‘er done” mode and I’ve made a few different logo variations for one of their partner companies and now I need to remake their current template. The pressures of February/March are beginning to take it’s toll on me though, we’re coming up to the 2-year mark with Joe and my concentration has been more like A.D.D. My sound sensitivity has come back with full force, making it even harder to concentrate. I have to get this done within the next few hours though – I just hope I’m able to design something they like and be content with it as I’m sending over files.
:: crosses fingers ::
Sticky: Helping Honey!
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008Note: New posts are underneath, this is a sticky.
Alyssa is looking to get a free 16GB iPod Touch from MP3Players4Free. Head over to this entry on her site for more information.
Weekly Round-up.
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008I had my interview yesterday, it went pretty well I guess.  I spoke to the CEO and then the head of the I.T. department, I filled out the application and then I left to get some coffee and head home.  Hopefully something good comes of this, with the loan and all of the other finances needing to be paid off any income that exceeds $50 a day would help me out a great deal.
Last month’s numbers were no where near where I needed them to be to get myself situated.¬† I didn’t really do any paid blogging because Google being a butt with their page rank reductions has hurt quite a few people.¬† While I was averaging $200 a day for quite some time, I’m lucky to bring in $50.¬† Design work has dwindled as well but that’s because I haven’t really kept on top of things either. Floating around GAF is a dead end for me at the moment, word-of-mouth worked well for a while but now only doing random updates here and there really doesn’t pay the bills.¬† All in all I’m just hoping that something big happens soon or I’m just going to say screw it all and go back into retail.¬† Putting 10 years of your life into something is supposed to feel more rewarding, but when you’ve got nothing to show for it at the end of the day other than a portfolio and a low balance in the bank account – is it really worth it?
Tomorrow is kick-off, I’ll be hanging out in the office with the game on in the background.¬† A lot of people I know are only watching for the commercials – why isn’t it about the game anymore?¬† One team has won every single game this entire season and the other – well us New Yorkers are still scratching our heads – at least I am, IDK.
In any event, Bella needs to eat and I need to lay down.¬† I’ve been awake too long, it’s starting to catch up with me.
.: Crosses Fingers :.
Monday, January 28th, 2008I just received an email that has me jumping for joy.¬† One of the jobs I submitted my resume to responded and are interested in setting up an interview.¬† I have to say I’m ecstatic about this because it was from one of the companies that I was really interested in working with.¬† I have to email them back and setup a meeting sometime next week.¬† I’m not sure if it’s the pizza from dinner or just my nerves but my stomach is in so many knots right now it’s unreal.¬† I’m sure I’ll have more of an update other than just the meeting itself.¬† Never know, maybe I’ll actually get this job and be well on my way to getting things back to normal.
Snap Happy
Monday, January 28th, 2008It’s been a rather unproductive week, mainly because I’ve been a bit under the weather. I cleaned up the house and have been maintaining that for the bulk of the week. I got some grocery shopping done, picked up a few odds and ends for the house and basically have been floating around with odd and end jobs and that’s about it.
Lately I’ve found myself getting “click happy”, having the Mac and my digital camera is really sparking all kinds of creativity. So much so that I’m considering setting up a photoblog on my new domain but I’m not really not too sure about that. I’ve decided to pull out some PHP books and refresh my memory so I can recreate the gallery script I used to use on my site (acidGALLERY) it was created for early versions of PHP4 but now that all of my servers are running on PHP5 and a higher MySQL version, naturally a few things are going to have to change It’ll be a fairly basic script, admin panel with the standard category, description and auto-thumbnail options. I’m also going to work it into a script that Jackie sent me a few days ago. I was having trouble trying to setup a very basic gallery (where I did all of the work myself) where the popup was javascript based and had a next/previous option with descriptions. Thankfully she pointed me in the direction of one she uses and I have to say I’m pretty content with it thus far. It’s an HTML based script, you do all of the work yourself – and that was enough to spark my interest in creating a new one.
Anyway…Sean and I have been doing a lot of driving around lately to clear our heads. I’m still patiently waiting on a response from the companies I’ve submitted my resume to. It would absolutely rule if I could land the job that’s closest to my house but I’m willing to do some kind of traveling if it means a decent amount of money in return. I just got really lucky when I found positions that don’t require a Bachelors and I know that with the money coming in there’s the option of banking it all for either moving into our own place, buying a house or maybe even both of us going back to school. Right now we’re both working pretty hard because we’ll need to get some money together for taxes and considering the $8,000 loan and the paid blogging earnings from last year, something tells me I’m going to owe quite a bit of money.
I’m also unsure of where exactly it’s going to go. While I have been living in Delaware for the past year, I didn’t have my photo ID changed over until late December. Something tells me I’m going to have to pay New York taxes as opposed to the Delaware ones and I’m not too sure if I’m happy about that. I do have a few write-offs this year though, that should help me out. Between buying computers and other business related items – I’m sure I’ll break even at some point. It would be great if I could personally claim the Mac but Sean made the actual purchase of it and he’s got his own things to pay. We’re ready to get our taxes done, unfortunately we’re waiting on companies to send out the forms. I know you’re supposed to receive them by February, hopefully these companies can keep true to their word.
And since I’ve been so snap happy lately, I figure I’ll just link them up.
Busy and equally productive
Monday, January 21st, 2008I crashed around 8:30PM last night. The night before I found myself finishing “Copy Cat” because it got to the point where it was just too good to put down. Sean was a bit taken back by the fact that I not only finished the entire 450 page book in less than 5 total reading hours but he also didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go to sleep and just read it later. It’s one of those times when you’re so drawn in and taken back by everything that you have no choice but to push yourself and keep on going. I kept myself awake by avoiding laying down, which is probably why my back is bothering me – based entirely on how I was sitting. I also had a few cups of coffee and one of my Starbucks shooter things. That was more than enough caffeine to get me through the day and I really did need it.
Karen and I did a little shopping yesterday. She was heading up to Dover so she could go to Sally’s. It’s a beauty supply store and there isn’t one anywhere near us so the 40-minute drive was really the only option. I’m not complaining though. The second we walked in I was like a kid in a candy store. I’m all into the hair aspect of being a female, this may have a lot to do with having a salon-based upbringing. I floated around the shampoo, loaded up on conditioner, oil and other moisturizing leave-ins were purchased as well. I even picked up a new brush to put in my purse and later realized that there was a compass on it. I have no idea as to why they’d put it on a brush but considering it’s meant for purses and backpacks, thanks to it’s small design, I’m sure it’ll come in handy at some point.
I wound up calling my sister while I was in the store to ask her about a semi-new product called “Hemp”, put your bongs away it isn’t for glaucoma. It’s supposed to be a pretty intense moisturizing shampoo and conditioning set, and since I bought both products I was given a cute little see-through bag to match. I’m actually really happy with the bag because the second I saw it I saw myself reorganizing under the sink in the bathroom so I could easily get to all of my hair products. I swear I can’t wait for Sean and I to have a larger bathroom to work with so there’s the option for more storage. While I only have a wet/dry flat-iron and a high-watt hair dryer that doesn’t mean I don’t wish to expand. The way most women are about make-up, I am about hair product so naturally I want everything so I can mix and match and just play around as much as possible for the absolute best look.
Anyway, on our way back from Sally’s we took the long 40-minute drive back down to Rehoboth and stopped in Walmart, while entering the parking lot our female-intuition based radars picked up that someone was having a clearance sale. Rounding the corner there was a big sign on Fashion Bug that caught our eyes, “Up to 60% off”. Quickly parking the car we bolted for the door and went our separate ways, she floated into the skinny section and I pushed my way through some extra-large bbw’s in the plus sized department. Something about big girls and sales, it’s strange.
When I finally made it to the proper racks I floated around and landed myself two new robes (Buy 1 – Get 1) and the cool thing about both of them were the fact that they were already 50% in price ANYWAY. The one robe was originally about $50 and it was on sale for $25, then it was put in clearance for $12.99 when you make the purchase of a second one with equal or lesser value. So now I have a pretty pink robe with hearts on it, a nice blue robe with moons and stars and a new bed shirt that says “Lovable” on it. I almost came home with a new jacket but I really had to wonder if I was willing to spend $50 on something I can only wear a few weeks out of the year, it was also of “lesser quality” in regards to the fabric so that altered things for me as well. It’s original price was around $120, it was on sale for about $45 which is very reasonable, I have to say. I’m not a fan of olive green so I looked into the dark gold color, only next to the green it looked more like Orange than anything, so I guess it was copper. Either way it’s still sitting on the rack at the store, so I guess you can imagine how that turn out went, now can’t you?
The bitter cold made us run to the car so we could repark closer to Walmart, after going around the parking lot for about 10 minutes we finally found a spot close enough to the door where we weren’t going to freeze our butts off and proceeded to finish up our shopping day. I was done about 20 minutes before she was, but she’s known for getting lost in stores so it’s not a big deal. I stood up front for a while and waited, couldn’t see her anywhere so I went outside to load the car and have a quick cig. She’d locked the doors so I had to walk back in and wait patiently, we finally met our glances just as she was coming to the check-out line and I went to wait outside for her, not realizing that the temperature dropped about 10¬? in ten minutes. After she made her way out the door and bolted to the car we basically threw everything into the van and headed home. Upon arrival we saw that the weather channel had us listed at 3¬?F(-16¬?C) and boy does that explain a lot.
We all had dinner, I retired to the bedroom and while my original goal was to begin reading another book; within a half hour of my being in the room I crashed. Sean woke me up about 3am when he was taking Bella out for a walk and then I wound up falling back asleep around 5:30am. I slept until noon and I’ve been up ever since. I’m just now getting around to doing everything I needed to get done tonight and hopefully I’ll be able to send out a few more resumes before I get to bed.
A book recommendation, followed by randomage.
Sunday, January 20th, 2008Since there isn’t much going on these days, other than sending out resumes and hoping for the best, I’ve been doing a lot of reading to keep myself entertained. A few months ago I picked up a book at the grocery store. It caught my eye because the author, Erica Spindler, has been a favorite of mine for quite some time now. It’s one of her newer books, Copy Cat, and I have to say I highly recommend it to just about everyone in the mood for not only a romantic story, but a suspense thriller as well. Paperback cost me about $7 but you can find it on Amazon for as little as $1.
The Sleeping Angel Killer provides the chilling focus to Spindler’s 12th bloodcurdling romantic thriller (after Killer Takes All). Kitt Lundgren and Mary Catherine “M.C.” Riggio of the Rockford, Ill., VCB (Violent Crimes Bureau) vow to catch a serial killer who sets the suffocated bodies of 10-year-old girls in their own beds, dressed like angels in frilly white nightgowns, hair spread out on their pillows and pink lip gloss applied postmortem to their mouths. Spindler’s setting of a “meat-and-potatoes” Midwest town provides a fresh background for two believable and very cool investigators. Kitt, a recovering middle-aged alcoholic, tried and failed to catch the murderer five years earlier, during a 2001 killing spree, while her own child was dying of leukemia and her marriage was falling apart under the strain. Now, when eerily similar crimes recur, someone calls Kitt, identifying himself as the original killer and the new perp as just a copycat. M.C., an ambitious, distrustful newbie, is assigned to help Kitt with the investigation. The detectives must overcome their personal problems in order to catch the monsters, a task culminating in a breathless finale.
I’m not done with the book yet, I only started reading it before I went to sleep last night. After about an hour I was 150 pages in and found it damn near impossible to put it down. The only reason I did was based on the lack of ability to keep my eyes open. While I was enjoying the book, my head was still telling me to go to sleep and no amount of fighting it was going to keep me awake for much longer anyway.
The book has a day-to-day theme going on with it and oddly enough the story was set in the February/March time frame of 2006. A few things caught my eye, mainly because March 2006 was such a difficult month for me. I noticed that chapter 7 is the only notice of the ex-husband (thus far) and this fell on the date of March 7, 2006. The reason this caught my eye was based on the fact that the very first line of the chapter read “Hello Joe”. I found it pretty freaky, this character is talking to her ex-husband the same day I lost Joe. I know that it’s purely a coincidence but it stood out for me, and probably had a lot to do with why I sat here for so long reading as much as I could before I dozed off.
I had some pretty strange dreams last night, not sure why but all family members that have passed on came to me and started yapping about something important, what the message was – I have no idea. I just think it’s strange that I haven’t dreamt of my Grandmother since I was 8 years old and there she was standing in front of my desk with some kind of a message that I just didn’t understand. I didn’t hear her, I knew she was talking to me, you can always see someone talking to you in your dreams. I’m just unsure of what was actually being said, I just remember screaming “Speak English” because it sounded like “Womp, Womp, Womp” whenever she opened her mouth.
Another interesting dream happened just as I’d dozed off to sleep. I’m unsure of whether or not it was based on the book or not but I was walking up my stairs (the one’s in NY, not DE) and at the top of the stairs was Tony Soprano’s mother (now deceased). I could literally see right through her, she looked at me with this evil grin on her face and then her eyes rolled up in the back of her head. I went to run inside but I couldn’t get my keys out of my pocket and I stood there screaming “Wake me up!”. When I finally did wake up it had only been about 20 minutes since I’d gone to bed. It was just one of those freaky dreams that chills you to the bone and sticks with you all freaking day.
And speaking of bone chilling, according to my weather monitor it’s supposed to get down to about 3¬?F tonight. A quick snow shower came through this evening but I haven’t been outside since about 1am to see what kind of “damage” was done. Down here you don’t get much, we’re too close to the ocean and everything tends to melt within an hour because of the salt in the air. I hear NY is getting some pretty decent snow, I kind of wish I could be up there right now to enjoy it but I have to accept the fact that Delaware will never be New York and I need to move on. It sucks, but nothing I can do about it.
Weekly Wrap-up.
Saturday, January 19th, 2008The carpet cleaning turned out very well.¬† At first we were a little apprehensive about having every carpeted room done in the same day but it worked out OK.¬† The bedroom is squeaky clean and the office couldn’t get much better than it currently is.¬† I was very surprised with the way the living room worked out.¬† All pet stains and most odors (thanks to their deodorizing treatment) are gone.¬† Of course we left the dogs out of the room for a while until things dried up.¬† Unfortunately Princess is still pooping on the floor but when you’re 10 years old and trained to do everything in-house, you just don’t know any better.¬† At least there hasn’t been any urine on the floor, that acid in urine really is what kills the carpet to begin with.¬† So either way it worked out well and it was nice to see what this carpet looked like in a “brand new” state.
Sean and I have done pretty good this week,¬† something has sparked in us that has brought us out of the fighting slump and closer together to the point that we’re constantly joking around with each other and there’s no major frustration between us.¬† It’s not that we were having “trouble”, it’s just that current situations have been taking their toll on us. Luckily we’re over it now and things are great.
I’ve been hitting the bricks for a job in the area, I believe I came across an absolutely perfect one today that I found while surfing the web.¬† Maybe something good will come from it.¬† My main concern is reaching my goals by the end of the year and I’m confident that’ll happen if I’m hired by this employer.¬† The loan will be paid off, a car will be purchased and maybe a shiny new apartment is in the mix as well.
While I’m itching to get back to school, I’m thinking of holding off until the end of the year.¬† Since I’m under 24 and not living at home, even though my father is no longer responsible for me financially, I’d have to include him on the financial aid forms, unless I go towards a bachelors degree.¬† Up until recently I’ve decided upon DeVry and since that’s an associates my financial aid would be based on his income and since he makes like $65,000 a year, I doubt I’d really get anything covered by FAFSA.¬† So I’ll look into other routes and hopefully something will spring up.¬† I do know that I can hold off for a while, getting bills in order is more important to me right now anyway.
With my downtime I’ve been floating around the different dealerships in the general area.¬† I’m giving myself a $10,000 max budget on a car because spending anything more than that just to get me back and forth from work would be completely absurd.¬† Naturally this means I’m looking into a used car but I also find no point in owning a brand new one either.¬† Anything I can get from a dealership down here will be covered under whatever Warranty they happen to have, and that’s all that’s important to me at this point in time.¬† I’m sticking to Chevy though, it’s kind of a family tradition.¬† My father has owned them for years (even though he currently has a Jeep), my sister has a Chevy, my mother, step-father and lord knows who else, even Sean has one.¬† So to stay with it I’ve been looking into the Malibu or the Cobalt.¬† I have to say that the 2008 Malibu is absolutely gorgeous, but the price tag isn’t that attractive to me at this point in time – heh.
Anyhoo, it’s about 1:30 and I need to get myself ready for bed.¬† Time to take a quick shower, brush my teeth and curl up in bed with any random book I pull off the shelves until I fall asleep.
Going Crazy…
Saturday, January 12th, 2008In about five hours my alarm is set to go off at the loudest it’s ever been. By 10am I need to be in the shower and ready to start the day because between the hours of noon and four PM I’ll be waiting on Stanley Steamer to get here and take care of the carpets. Now, when one pays a company to come in and do….say…6 rooms, you also pay a bit extra so that they can move things around. So please tell me why for the last two days Sean and I have been moving everything out of the living room, dining room, bedroom and office? Because while they claim they’ll move things for you, it only falls under certain categories and if they DO move it for you, it needs to be completely cleaned off. They don’t move plants, they don’t move bulky furniture (king bed), they won’t move wooden bookcases unless they’re cleared off and they won’t touch electronics. Guess who’s house is filled with everything they WON’T move, but were paid extra for? :: waits patiently for your guess ::
I attempted to get into bed around 3:30 because thanks to a faulty alarm clock (Sean) I didn’t wake up as early as I wanted to so I knew I was going to have to fight to get myself to sleep tonight. Who would have thought that an hour and half later listening to Sean wheezing, Bella snoring, and the different paperboys doing 80 miles an hour in a 13 mile-an-hour complex could keep me wide awake?
I’m in the kitchen because there’s so much stuff piled up on my desk (to get it off the floor for the cleaners) that I can’t even use my iMac. I’m not sure of where my laptop is at this point considering the house is in complete disarray. My DS is no where to be found but something tells me Sean had something to do with that, considering his “throw it anywhere” strategy when we started this project. He doesn’t understand that if you’re organized going into this, it’s so much easier to put everything back and get back to your regular life without having to go through bags and stacked up things where you’re unsure of their original origin, but men tend to do that.
The coffee pot is just about done brewing, Karen sets it for about 5am considering she’s up around 5:30 (most days). Today she has a doctors appointment at 9am so I’m sure her alarm is going to be beeping soon as well. I don’t know what to do to get myself to sleep. Usually staring at a screen for a little while does it for me, reading a book works if the screen remedy fails. Unfortunately, neither one is working for me right now. I guess because I feel as though there’s so much to accomplish today. I would love to just start cleaning right now but the only thing that’s really left to do before they show up is vacuum and that’s kind of rude to do at 5am. Both Karen and Sean can sleep right through it, but I doubt that’ll have the same effect on the neighbors considering how loud the Dyson is. With the window cracked I can hear it up the street.
I need to find something to do that will bore me enough to get me in bed. Maybe I’ll surf around MySpace for a while, nothing but uninteresting people there.
More than a simple upgrade.
Sunday, January 6th, 2008The WordPress upgrade issue should hopefully be resolved with the release of Fantastico 3, unfortunately I have no idea when that’s actually going to be but at this point in time it’s not overly important.¬† I’m sure when it’s a mandatory upgrade everything will be processed accordingly.
An issue I’m having at the moment is with my laptop.¬† I’ve said before that I’m looking to get a new one and since then mine has been on the fritz.¬† I’m unsure of if it’s something Sean’s done (since he’s been using it for the last week) or if my computer is slowly crashing but when it comes to the brightness on the screen, something just isn’t right.¬† I have “Brightview” and that only works when I have my AC plugged in.¬† This evening it’s showing me a brighter screen when I’m running just on the battery.¬† I was able to fix it while holding down Fn and pressing f7 but the changes being made in the first place without my immediate knowledge is a bit annoying.¬† Maybe Sean’s eyes started to hurt and he turned it down, who knows – that’s a small thing in comparison to the extreme lag I’m experiencing as well.
So what does this mean?¬† Over the course of the next few months I’ll be banking some extra money (probably just leaving it on my Paypal account) and saving up for a new laptop.¬† I don’t need to spend $1200 to get something extreme.¬† I’m looking more along the lines of a $750 max budget.¬† I use my laptop primarily when I travel, or when I just don’t feel like being in the office.¬† I never use it for graphics anymore because I have the iMac now, I do think using it just for code is more than acceptable.¬† So I’m more than likely going to get something with the same statistics I have on this one, I just know I’ll save a little money considering this particular model is almost 2 years old.
I’ve narrowed my choices down to Acer or HP.¬† Either one will suffice for me.¬† I’ve noticed a rise in Acer machines lately and the ones I’ve worked on have really held up the way you would expect a decent computer to do so.¬† Typically they’re less expensive than HP’s as well.¬† Then again, so is Gateway but there’s no way in hell I’d even consider owning a Gateway ANYTHING.¬† No moo-cow box for me, mmhmm.¬† If I really wanted to splurge I’d pick up a Macbook but I don’t really want to spend that kind of money when it’s good to have a Windows based machine at my fingertips for a much lower price tag.
Take the Upgrade?
Friday, January 4th, 2008I signed into WordPress and saw that I’m supposed to do some kind of a manditory update on my WordPress installation.¬† Unfortunately I’m unable to get in touch with the server master for my reseller account so I can’t even get Fantastico updated.¬† Then again, I’m not even sure if there’s an update for it either.¬† I really do need to stay on top of things this year, maybe I should add that to my list of resolutions huh?
We’re staying here a bit longer than we’d originally planned.¬† I really do love being up here and I’m getting to spend time with family that I haven’t seen in quite some time.¬† Sean and I have decided to look outside of Delaware for either an apartment or a house and then go from there.¬† The half-way point for access to both families is in New Jersey so we may wind up looking up that route.¬† Hopefully we’ll figure everything out once money is good enough to make such a move.
