Category: Uncategorized

Picture of the new car.

Picture of Calliope.

Update: I drove the Kia to work yesterday and today, and am definitely getting the hang of it. Didn’t stall it once driving home today, though I think I did this morning (but only one time). At any rate, I’ll be an expert by this time next week, I’m sure. It’s nice to have a car that I care about keeping clean… and a little foreign too….

Matt’s taking the opportunity to work overtime at his new job this week. He likes it a lot better than McCullough so far, though he did tell me what one of his coworkers said yesterday — that if being an electrician was easy, they’d hire women. Also that he’s noticed that women seem to be getting tougher and men weaker, thus the downfall of American society. (Oh, shudder.)

But, what do you expect? My expectations are continually being lowered (or at least reaffirmed). Matt exceeds them by a long shot in this case. (And in most.)

So he probably won’t be home until around 6:30, which will be 12.5 hours after he left this morning. At least if one of us has to be working overtime, it’s the one who gets paid extra for it.

This means that I have another 3 hours by myself though. I need to clean up the kitchen (made dinner last night but didn’t exactly get around to cleaning it up), do yoga (did some cardio yesterday and keep reminding myself that if I want to see any results, I have to keep doing it, ugh)… mail the rent check and electric bill, um, what else? I bought a file organizer at Target last night and still need to organize it.

We watched the first hour-and-a-half of Milk last night. Would have watched the whole thing except that we were both about to fall asleep. I’ll watch the rest of that today and then send it back to Netflix. Netflix, by the way, is totally awesome if you have high speed internet. There’s SO much that you can watch online, no commercials or limit! I’m a fan (except when my internet won’t stream fast enough).

For the first time in my life, I have a car that cost more than $400 and was made more recently than 1994. This is a good thing. We went to CarMax yesterday and ended up getting a 2007 Kia Spectra. It was a good price and we were able to put $1000 down, which isn’t a huge amount but did help with the monthly payments. I’ll post a picture as soon as Matt gets home with it, though there’s nothing too special about the way it looks. Just a regular-looking white car. It IS a manual though, which is why I have to wait for Matt to get home with it since I drove his to work this morning and he drove mine. We took it to an empty parking lot yesterday and I practiced a bit and then drove home (it was a close parking lot)… and it wasn’t too hard, but I’ll need a bit more practice before I’m comfortable. Especially on hills.

So yeah, finally finally finally bought another car. I’m thinking I might list the Buick on Craigslist to see if I can sell it. I did get Carla’s approval last night, as she was in town for a day or two.

So we went to the bank… I guess almost 3 weeks ago to try to do the joint account thing. The BoA that’s closest to our house was just rebuilt and reopened and had a $100 bonus special if you open a new checking account. As a new customer. So, since Matt was banking with Regions, he opened a new account and won’t be able to add me to it until the end of July, which is also when we’ll get the bonus. But anyway, at least we’re at the same bank now, which is very convenient.

Now… we need to get car insurance together and have both names on the policy. This will be way more expensive than I’m used to car insurance being, since I’ve always driven pretty shitty cars. I’m bracing myself. Plus I don’t know if car insurance is like health insurance and you have to wait for their open enrollment or whatever to cancel. Matt’s policy is with his dad, I think, and he doesn’t seem to know much about how to change it.

Oh, money is so annoying, but I guess it’s a good feeling to be responsible with it and reap those benefits. Like being able to buy a new car because you have good credit. But then there are always more bills to pay.

It’s 6:10pm. Matt’s still not home. I’m bored.

I was supposed to work today. I went in on time, but have been experiencing mild chest pain/discomfort for a couple of months now and this morning it got so disconcerting that I called Mark to see if he could work the rest of the shift for me so that I could go to the doctor. He came in around 9:00 and I went to a walk-in (since my stupid employer changed our health insurance providers… again… and I have to find a new primary care physician… again). (BTW, this does mean that I’m not off tomorrow anymore, which is fine.) After describing my symptoms and having my vitals taken, I was told that the chest issues are being caused by bronchial spasms! Phew, not going to have a heart attack. I mean, I kept telling myself over and over again that my heart is perfectly healthy; I’m young and not overweight, I exercise (sometimes), my EKG and chest x-rays were normal, my blood pressure is always normal, I don’t have a family history of heart disease, etc. Plus, I DO have asthma and acid reflux problems, both of which could very easily be causing chest pain. But, I just wouldn’t listen to myself. Silly me.

So, after going to the doctor, I came home and did laundry. And blogged about how silly people are to think vegetarians are unAmerican. And then I came home and watched half of Grass, a documentary (on Netflix) about the rise and fall of marijuana (or, as they spelled it in the early part of the 20th century, marihuana). Turns out that it was banned because some idiot wanted to make a nation-wide narcotics ban, so he made up stories about how smoking marihuana makes you kill people and go crazy. When both of those claims were shown to be ludicrous, he started saying that marijuana inevitably leads to heroin addiction (which no one will contest is a bad thing to be addicted to). I mean, everyone knows that once you start smoking pot, you HAVE to start doing heroin too. It’s just common sense!

Anyway, I only watched half of the documentary because Matt still wasn’t home and I needed to go to the Costco pharmacy to get my steroids inhaler before they closed.

So now I’m back, and I’m bored and hungry and Matt still isn’t home. Did I mention that he’s been working about 12 hours today? OH! Did I also mention that he got a new job? Finally!!! It’s with Travis Electric, and he’s starting out with $1.50/hour raise. Which is still less than I make, but hey! Who really cares? It all goes to the same place. He starts the job on Monday and we HAVE to buy a new car before then. So either tomorrow or Sunday. I’m thinking I’d like a Subaru just because I really like the AWD on his car, but the most important factor is money. As usual.

I’ve taken up knitting. It’s harder than crocheting, I’ve decided. I’m making a dishcloth right now that requires cabling which is not fun. At least not yet….

And now, because I’m still bored, I’m going to attach some pictures. Hope this post hasn’t been too rambly or boring.

These are the basil sproutlets (uh, I’m sure there’s a technical term) which have grown from seeds.  I really  need to repot them; they haven’t grown much in the last week and I want fresh basil!!

THIS is the jewelry tree that Matt made for me out of copper wire.  It’s kind of two trees.  Isn’t it nice?  In the background you can see my very pretty fake orchids.  The real orchid is in the other room with no flowers.

Lastly, this is immediately to my right.  Silly cats think it’s their bed or something.

I’m at Matt’s parents’ house doing laundry.  Since there was nothing interesting on TV, I was flipping through channels and stopped on Lifetime’s Wife Swap (which I think is one of the stupidest shows on TV).  However, I kind of got sucked in because Family A was your good ol’ American working-class, shoot-their-own-deer, regular Joe family.  Family B was a vegan, hippie-type family.  They swap the moms for two weeks, right?  So, as you can imagine, there was a little bit of strife when it came to meal planning.  Mom A tried to force family B to start eating meat.  She also made their teenage daughter throw away all her PETA protest signs and then told her to start thinking for herself.  THEN, when family B started trying to explain, yet again, their belief structure, Mom A got all worked up and started crying because they wouldn’t eat meat.

Anyway, it made me mad.  Mom A gets hurt and upset because Family B says everyone should be vegetarians — Mom A points out that her family can’t afford to NOT hunt for meat to supplement their meals.  She says their house payment is pretty much the same as their paycheck.  And then she goes off crying.  And the next morning, she’s trying to force the family to eat meat again.

First of all, it’s better to hunt for your own meat than to buy it.  Secondofly though, why all the animosity towards vegetarians??!!?  It’s like it’s unpatriotic or something!!  I mean, regardless of my desire to live in Europe (not so much Greece), where is it written in the annals of Being American that you have to eat meat???

Okay, I’m done venting.  Just this last question: why do people have to be so damn narrow-minded?

again, I have a cough that won’t go away. unlike last time though, it’s not debilitating (yet, anyway). it just makes my throat and head hurt when I don’t stop coughing… and I’ve been needing my inhaler more than usual. which is never any good. why can’t I just be healthy??? I mean, it could be a lot, lot worse… but these annoying minor problems I keep having this year are getting on my nerves.

on the positive side though, I had a customer at work today thank me for being so cheerful; she said that she’d been having a bad day and that I made her day brighter. this made me feel better than people who tip me (though I also got a $6 tip which is EXTREMELY unusual).

Bought a new bra today because I had a “free panties” card from Victoria’s Secret with $10 off of any purchase. I got one of the ones that are never in the semi-annual sale and paid about $38 for it (including tax), which was a pretty decent price. Ever since being criticized for only owning one bra, I’ve made sure to own several.

I bought leeks, bay leaves, pearl onions, and lemons at Kroger today. Going to Aldi’s for the essentials since they’re SO much cheaper than any of the other grocery stores. Also stopped in at B&C for some bread and tea, and was going to get a sandwich but the line was too long. This is the Green Hills store, mind you. I don’t know why anyone goes there ever (unless it’s the middle of the afternoon when no one’s there) because the lines are so confusing and the store is so small and cramped.

Anyway. Then I came home and cleaned up. Still need to clean the litter boxes and give Varmy some food, but she still has a little bit. Poor Bitey didn’t have any when I got home, though I don’t feel too bad since he’s obviously not starving.

Going to work out when Matt gets home. Probably try to do some cardio because I think I’m gaining weight … maybe. At any rate, I’m certainly not losing any. Really need to start doing cardio every day … lack motivation, though. Matt’s been doing a bad job of making me stick to it, too; he’ll either go running or let me talk him into not doing anything at all. I guess I can’t blame it on him since it’s my fault, but you know. Stupid delayed gratification.

So now I’m reclined on the (newly-made) bed, waiting for him to get home. Not sure what I’ll make for dinner since none of the ingredients I listed above are for any particular recipe. There’s one recipe that calls for leeks and fennel, but I didn’t see any fennel at Kroger. I might have just missed it. I wonder if you can substitute something else? Onions or something? That recipe also calls for white wine… maybe I can talk Matt into buying some Yellow Tail or something. All this cooking might happen tomorrow since I’m feeling a little unmotivated currently, and anticipate wanting to cook even less after working out. We’ll see. At any rate, Katie — you should definitely expect an invitation. Maybe tomorrow night. Probably.

(among other things, of course)

So, I went on an organizing spree a couple of weeks ago, and found several books/DVDs that we don’t want or watch anymore. Yesterday we took them to McKay’s to see what kind of in-store credit we could get. Among these DVDs, I’ll add, were the first 4 seasons of Weeds which we liked initially … but it just started turning into a soap opera (Showtime? imagine!) and got to be a little too over-the-top. They were all in good condition though, so I figured we’d get something decent for them.

We ended up getting $83 in store credit!!!! It was awesome!!! So I got this Italian vegetables cookbook that I was going to get anyway, plus Best in Show, Reno 911 (season 4), and Sealab (season 4). The latter being purely Matt’s choice. But yeah, and there’s still over $30 left. Talk about making cleaning up gratifying!

I’m a sucker for cookbooks lately. Katie can bear witness. I did sell back a few of the ones that I don’t use … and a few of the ones that I used to use but don’t anymore now that we’re not buying meat. Which makes us, for all intents and purposes, pretty much vegetarians. I mean, we’ll still order meat when we go to restaurants sometimes, but we’re generally trying to keep it out of our diet. (Which means that I really need to stop eating bacon at work … or at least cut down to two days a week or something.) So, I’ve been buying vegetarian cookbooks lately since regular cookbooks only have vegetarian entree sections… which ends up being largely a waste of money. One thing I miss about meat, though, is all the Italian cooking. I mean, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken parmisiana, etc. This cookbook I got yesterday has a bunch of veggie takes on Italian food — lots of artichokes, olives, leeks, etc, with sauces using cream, lemons, capers, tomatoes, etc. The good ol’ Italian staples. I’m excited about trying them. Most of them look like they’d be awesome with some pasta and bread.

Perhaps I’ll remember to blog whenever I try some of the recipes. I’ll probably end up making one of them tomorrow. We’ll see.

Anyway. There wasn’t a whole lot left to say about the flooding. The biggest way we were affected is that our power went out for a while (apparently the power station down the road was sitting in a big pool of water; we tried driving down there to see it but the road was blocked off and it smelled awful) … and since one of the two water treatment plants here was damaged, we’ve had to conserve water. Like the rest of Nashville is supposed to be doing. Though, driving home from work today, I did see a guy watering his trees in his front lawn. Granted, they were obviously just planted and the sun’s been pretty unabashed the last few days, but still. I’ve been using rain water to water my plants.

The other reason the week has been interesting is just that because of the flooding, work has been super busy all week. Some people have been out of power, others probably out of clean dishes, and Monday and Tuesday most of the schools were out. So the whole week seemed like a big, long, under-staffed weekend. And today was Steeplechase. I’m actually off tomorrow, thank God (and we’re going to church, too). Next week had better be normal. I’m tired of being tired.

It’s pretty nice right now, though for some reason I’ve been in a bad mood all day. I feel much better now that I’m home, but still not great. Even though it’s gorgeous outside and my bedroom is quite lovely, and Matt’s dozing next to me. And Bitey’s next to him. I’d probably feel better if I took a bath, which I can’t do since we can’t use much water. Maybe just a sponge bath. At least then i won’t feel so sticky.

Tomorrow, after church, we’re going to TACA (the arts and crafts festival in Centennial Park) and it will be awesome. I missed the fall festival, I think, and just love going to these things. Too bad there won’t be much time for sleeping in….

I keep meaning to blog. It’s 9:15pm right now and I ought to be getting ready to go to sleep since both of us have to work in the early morning, but I’m not all that tired and I’m quite comfortable… so I’d rather forfeit a little sleep.

So, it rained a little over the weekend. Most everyone who reads this will already know that we were not very much affected; or at least none of our possessions were destroyed by rain and our house was not flooded. It’s a wonderful thing to live on top of a hill and to drive a car with all-wheel drive. I appreciate both things more now. I had to work both Saturday and Sunday AND Monday (okay, yesterday was my day off) and did have to do a little detouring due to flooding on Annex. The rain over the weekend was ridiculous too. I took White Bridge to work on Sunday because I was afraid Brook Hollow would be flooded (it was in only one spot), and the rain was coming down so hard that, I mean, it was scarier driving through that than it was through the flooded alley that I shouldn’t have driven through anyway. And it had rained like that all day Saturday and at least half the day Sunday. My mind is still pretty boggled that all this flooding came from rain. I mean, have you seen all the pictures? Ridiculous!

So yeah, we’re fine. I do know some people from work whose houses have been flooded and/or destroyed. None of my close friends had problems though.

Matt just turned off the light and wants me to stop blogging. So I guess I’ll continue this. Besides, one of the cats is making biscuits next to me and snagging me with his claws, and the other one is purposefully trying to bite my fingers and get me with his claws. Stupid playful kitties. Why can’t they just play with each other? Geez.