I am convinced that January is out to get me.

We're scheduled to have a blizzard on February 1st. This will be a vast improvement on January 2011.

A whole day of catching up

Last week, my part time job increased my hours. Good for revenue, bad for sanity. I mean, I'm already working a full time job. When I took this job a year ago (exactly a year ago yesterday), I thought I'd keep it until we adopted & then it'd be up for reevaluation. Well, here I am, a year older ... and the job is really not a good fit for me at all. I will be talking with my boss on Wednesday to let her know that, too. She's a good egg & a huge part of the reason I've stayed. That and the fact I really enjoy what I do when I'm there. The only problem is that the hours I'm there are the hours I really need for other things, and it crowds the rest of my life so badly that I wind up doing things like spending almost an entire Saturday, just playing catch up on all the things I typically would've done throughout the work week.

But the good news is that we're slowly but surely detaching ourselves from Chase (who screwed us over royally), by moving everything over to another local bank. Much more friendly & personal & not trying to sell us anything. Cripes, the folks at Chase tried to sell stuff to me even as I said, "I am taking all the money out of this account & closing it." GET A HINT!

Also today I managed to get color copies for our local adoption agency's profile. We needed 5 updated color copies. We've not got them & I just need to get them in the mail. So, that is done, thank goodness. I even managed to use an old copy card I got from Office Depot to defray the cost by about $10.

We picked up cat food ... groceries ... bread ... and now I have dish soap. Little things, but seriously -- I ran out of dish soap on Sunday (the stuff I need for handwashing our nice knives & pots & pans) & didn't have any time to get to the store between now and then. Yeah. I am waaay too busy.

I'm going to pull out some photos from our December 2009 trip to Walt Disney World & see if I can start assembling some items for when I do some scrapbooking tomorrow. And if I can find more stuff to sell at a local scrapbooking & sticker consignment sale thing that's the last weekend in February. Hey, every buck counts, right. We're doing what we can to get some more cash together for the adoption fund, and I've still got my half.com store going strong (got some more books from a friend yesterday!), but I think it's about time to let the craigslist thing go. It just seems to attract weirdos & junk mail.

Side Jobs

Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Once again, Jim Butcher earns a place of pride on my bookshelf. Every story was appealing and interesting in its own way. For fans of the Dresden Files, this book provides a glimpse into many secondary characters' backstories ... and also provides a whole lot of chuckles, tense moments, and pieces of sheer glory. Can hardly wait for Ghost Story!



View all my reviews

First 13 days of 2011

Some interesting things so far this year ...
(1) Found out my gas card was canceled, the hard way, when I went to get gas and it was denied. Further investigation reveals that our credit cards have all had their credit limits dropped to within about $100 each of their current balance. So much for paying down our credit cards so we'll have some "room," when we need to travel for the adoption process. Fit. To. Be. Tied.
(2) My honey cut off the tip of his left-hand ring finger while trying to cut little toasts out of sourdough bread. It resulted in a trip to the ER. He's meeting with his primary care physician later today so we can get an inkling if it's healing well enough, 4 days later, to just let it keep going or if it'll need plastic surgery. God, I hope not.
(3) We're changing gyms. The one we've been at for almost 8 years has changed its programming, and for $125/month for the 2 of us, it's not worth it, even if it's literally 3.5 minutes away from home.
(4) My part-time gig has evolved into a 0.25 FTE job. My full time job ... well, it's still a full time job. I am going to burn out pretty fast. I can already tell, because when it was only 6 hours a week, it was getting hard to manage lately. I took the job on just so we could pay off our credit cards (uh, see #1 above, right? Grrr.) and get some funds for the adoption process. I figured that when we adopted, I'd revisit if I wanted to keep it or not. I never thought it'd be a whole year later & I'd still have it. I'm meeting with my supervisor in 2 weeks to let her know my thoughts & concerns.
(5) I'm burning out on the whole online sale thing for Craigslist, Amazon, Half.com, and Ebay. I think that at the end of the month, I'll post things for one last hurrah ... and if they aren't gone by the middle of February, I just need to let it go. Too much of a headache. Okay, the Half.com stuff isn't ... it's easy to maintain, but the "inventory" is taking up a ridiculous amount of space.
(6) I'm trying to be positive, I really am ... but 2011 is not being very nice to me thus far. It seems like every 72 hours I get a "WHAMMO! Adjust to this, bitch!" notice from the universe. I'll figure it all out ... just one step at a time, right? A huge shout out to Kim, River, Jason, & Barbara, 'cause I know you've all got my back!!!

Journal Your Christmas 2010 Album completed!

Well, I've completed the album. We enjoyed it on the coffee table for about 1 day & now it's been packed away with the rest of the Christmas stuff.



The title was pure happenstance. I was already set on the big 2010 in white ... but I ran across those really old typewriter key letters purely by accident. I like the way it turned out.



And I am a lover of all things snowflake related & was able to make good use of this charm I scrounged from a fellow JYC'r in years past!



All in all, I am glad I participated for a 5th year & feel I documented some things that were unique about this year!

Journal Your Christmas, January 1st

In the past 4 years, I've done all the way through the 12th day of Christmas with Shimelle ... but this year, I feel like I'm reaching a natural resting spot with today's page, so I'm calling my journal DONE. I'll post a photo of the completed album tomorrow, when the lighting is decent. I just finished decorating the cover tonight.

Here's my page for today:



Here's to a magnificent New Year.

And now, time for more Black Jack Justice* with my honey, whilst we sip tea & enjoy a cookie or two.

*if you're not familiar with this podcast, you really should check it out. It appeals to a wide variety of tastes & ages, and is set during the Golden Age of Radio, although it's being produced currently by Decoder Ring Theatre. You can find the first couple of seasons on iTunes or you can download 'em through the link I've provided above. A half hour of good clean fun, with a few chuckles and chortles thrown in for good measure. Or at least we do laugh a fair amount while we listen to it.