No Promises This Time

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.

Matt and I are getting joint checking accounts. Probably tomorrow.

Living together is so easy. It’s ridiculously easy. We rarely fight, we agree on most everything, we have almost no problems, ever. It’s almost unnerving sometimes except that occasionally there will be a problem, albeit most of them caused by hormonal imbalance on my part.

Matt just reminded me today though, which is why I didn’t blog about it earlier (probably). It’s just a fairly big step, is all. First the merging of our personal libraries onto mutual shelves, and now bank accounts. For heaven’s sake!

Just got my hair cut today. Matt’s parents gave me a gift card to Super Cuts for my birthday (though I suspect it just happened to be a good reason for them to give it to me, since they offered it to Matt first but he was not interested). (I could be wrong though.) Anyway, I like it. I have bangs now, again. And slightly shorter hair. Not the drastic haircut that I’m used to getting, but the bangs to help.

I did the dishes this morning. After I dropped Bitey off at the vet to have him neutered, which has needed to happen for a while now. Also after I ate breakfast, by myself with a book about the Gospel of Judas, at Waffle House. I have now completed all the laundry as well and need only to put it away. Do I really want to change the sheets and make the bed? Or do I want to do some yoga and maybe take a shower? Another option would be to make the bed and then go outside to read some more of this book, which is pretty interesting. Sorry, it’s not right in front of me and I’m too lazy to go get it, but it’s by Bart Ehrman who seems to be a pretty prominent early church scholar/historian.

(Oh, here’s the book.)

Anyway. Yet another option would be to stay sprawled out on this unkempt bed, blogging and doing other sundry things on the internet. So many options! I know what I SHOULD do — make the bed and then do yoga. But I’ve already been productive today! On the other hand, I did spend most of the time at Matt’s parents’ house (where we do our laundry) crocheting or reading. Both of which are enjoyable. So.

Blogging about it is not helping me decide what to do. So, let me tell you about the bag that I bought the other day. It all started at work. My left contact was giving me some trouble, so I managed to find a bottle of super-old saline solution in the office and went to the bathroom to try to clean the contact off and put it back in. Well, I did manage to get it done, but I think the solution was so old that it might have put something on the contact that made my vision out of that eye fuzzy for maybe half an hour afterwards. It went away and I threw the contact away this morning anyway… but all that to say that I decided I should start carrying around some contact solution with me. Which immediately made me want to buy a big purse. The kind that will hold everything.

So, I went to Target after work (and after debating with myself all day about whether I should give in to the whim or not) and ended up buying the last Liberty or whatever bag that they had there. It’s really cute. And it holds everything. I feel slightly trendier carrying it around, and a LOT trendier if I’m wearing those 3″ wedges that I bought about a month ago. Yep. Me, trendy? I fight it, I do. But sometimes I just like the stuff that’s in style! Oh well. Whatever.

I don’t think it’s in style to read about the Gnostic gospels, though. So there. Nor is it in style to read Italo Calvino, which I am not at the moment because the book I want to read by him I can only find NEW at Borders and such, and I refuse to pay $14 for such a cheaply made paperback edition. Seriously.

I bet I could get a good price for it on Amazon Marketplace though. Maybe I’ll stop blogging and go look that up. We’ll see if I get the bed made after that. Oh gee, another 30 minutes has passed already!