May 31, 2007
I’m such a baby. My neck pain is back and that means a week-long, or more, cycle of pain—> tension—> more pain —> more tension. Yoga breathing and slow stretching isn’t really doing anything to alleviate the discomfort and I can feel my appetite ebbing away. Ugh, this would happen on my friend’s birthday: we’re having a combination of Cuban and Thai food for lunch! None of that fusion business either, it’ll be honest to goodness Cuban bakery goods, and Thai food from our usual Thai place.
So, no real posting; I’m just praying this wears off soon.
May 30, 2007
Foggy gloom is marching ’round my window at work and matches my work mode perfectly today. I’m playing boot camp sargeant, making everyone work on projects according to my priorities because they clearly don’t understand that their other-topic conversations are wasting time and jettisoning any prayer we had of completing this project on time. I’m (we’re) down to missing the deadline by hours, and there’s not a thing I can do about it until these people, from Big Boss on down, get their dawdling doodads together and get their durned tasks DONE!
I’m not sure what’s worse: that their attention is STILL wandering after I’ve rudely interrupted their conversation and sent them back to work, or that Big Boss thinks I enjoy being slavedriver to these big babies!
To tell the truth, being bossy is boring. I can’t do anything else until they get their work done, so I’m just setting ’round waiting to crack the whip on the next hapless fool who interrupts Little Boss with a “good” excuse to stop working on his part of the project.
On the other hand, I’ve got my heater going full blast and I’m trying to untangle/understand PearBudget’s analysis. It starts the counter for the month in the negatives, and then either works its way to positive with income, or muddles around in the negatives throughout the month if spending matches the income. If savings is a “regular expense” line item, does that mean not saving as much as planned is a negative or positive as calculated in the analysis? It’s calculated as an expense, so wouldn’t that actually show up as a positive because it’s not “spent”? Hummm ….
May 29, 2007
Wow, happy Tuesday everyone! What a jam-packed weekend it’s been! I hope y’all got as much done with just as much free time in between things to relax and enjoy.
The Friday elopement took FOUR HOURS. We raced from my work to the courthouse, only to arrive about 5 minutes late for their appointment. The clerk reassured them that it would be fine, they’d just have to wait a little while. 30 minutes later, we realized that perhaps Friday courthouse weddings were a tad more popular than we expected. I wondered what everyone’s story was: were they here because it was spur of the moment? (well, as spur of the moment as it can be, since you have to have your license all worked out before you can make an appointment for the ceremony) Were they avoiding the big wedding hullaballoo? Were they trying to avoid the big Asian ceremony that I’m dreading?
Surprisingly, once we stepped into the wee chapel, the whole thing became extremely nerve-wracking. I thought I’d made my peace with the idea of keeping this a secret, and that my best friend was getting married. But no, it hadn’t sunk in yet. Still hasn’t. Quite frankly, I couldn’t believe we were actually going through it all. Then we stood in line AGAIN after the ceremony to turn in the application for the certificate. Two hours of standing in line rubbed off some of that just-married glow. But when the new hubby left us in line so he could feed the meter, some guy walking past did a double-take and leered because he thought that it was us two girls who’d gotten married!! Of course we started giggling. Who wouldn’t? Apparently he didn’t see this sign:
(Yeah, there were signs posted that we could only take pictures in the chapel. No, I sure didn’t see them until after I’d taken all my illicit photos of the other signage.) Wedding: 15 minutes. Waiting in line and traffic: 3.5 hours. Ugh!
I spent Saturday running errands and attended a coworker’s father’s funeral. I haven’t been to an American funeral since high school, so I ended up wearing all black – isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Had no idea, so I picked out all my black, warm-weather clothing and called it an outfit. It was insanely hot too, I found myself sweating within seconds of getting into my car.
Sunday, I ambused my water-hating dog and gave her a bath outside. We sunbathed for about an hour waiting for her to dry after I washed my car. I should have taken a picture of her, she was being too cute! She kept pushing my book out of the way so she could lay her head in my lap, or rolling onto her back for a belly rub. She’s really not actually lapdog-sized, either. Don’t tell her that though, she still hasn’t figured it out. Then I spent the rest of my day resting the rest of the righteous: feet up on my desk, reading a book, and NOT working. Mmmmm… yeeeeeesss…. that was good.
Monday was a pick-up-and-get-done day: I had work and laundry to get done, and my friends came back from their year in France/Morocco/Spain so we hit Coldstone’s for some good, old-fash, overpriced specialty ice cream and free gossip. The Citrus Sunsation smoothie was surprisingly good, despite the THREE dollar price tag on a little 6 or 8 ounce cup. And they use styrofoam, I just can’t get behind that.
May 24, 2007
In my experience, scrapbooking is not a frugal hobby, what with all the nifty gadgets and doodads like the stamp punches, 60-jillion types of scissors, and then of course the necessary papers, cardstock, stickers, letters, etc. The cost stalled my scrapbooking efforts for a while.
Luckily I have a friend who has purchased way too much of that stuff and doesn’t use it anymore, and wants me to borrow it instead of buying my own, so this can be affordable! At least, it’ll amply supplement my stash of paper, stickers and borders that I haven’t used because I have a horrible fear of (glue to paper) commitment.
All I have to do is go get it, or perhaps she’ll even bring it to me! And this Sunday, I’m planning to meet up with a few train friends to make a few more pages for my Italy scrapbook. We’ll pool our resources and tools so we don’t all need our own shape-cutter, blades, and cutting mats. At this rate, I may finish the book in time to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of my one vacation to Italy, way back in ’02! (Aw geez, I just realized I only have 5 more years until that date, better get hoppin’!)
May 23, 2007
My Banana Republic gift cards arrived last night! Now that I don’t have to feel guilty for “wasting” those Thank You points! Mmm … *rubbing hands together* … now for a good rousing SALE.
Happily, BoyDucky and I simultaneously reached the conclusion that $650 each in traveling expenses is too much for a Friday destination wedding. Vancouver would have been beautiful, I’m sure, but having to take two days off in a month I’m already taking three days off makes my skin crawl, and the costliness of the trip topped up my apathy. Thankfully, he’s not extremely close to his brother’s friend, the groom, so he doesn’t feel bad about sending a gift and regrets.
So my awards points and miles are safe, for now. 🙂
May 21, 2007
BoyDucky asked me to go to a wedding with him and his brother/sis-in-law in Vancouver this July. A looksee on Farecompare.com, Orbitz.com, AA.com and United.com later, it seems that the airfare is not just ‘spensive, it’s pretty ridiculous.
I went through the whole process of agonizing over whether I can really afford to spend $450 on airfare and another $200 on the hotel. You can, however, can skip the agonizing: that’s a no. Or at least I couldn’t possibly justify it. And then the epiphany hit me: If I had just held off on redeeming all those points for another week, redeeming them for gift cards I won’t need anytime soon after all, I could have my ticket! And I could have probably redeemed more points for the hotel stay! *groan* Now how am I supposed to learn my lesson about the evils of hoarding when this sort of coincidence occurs?
I feel like a prize just slipped through my fingers.
I’m still 3k United Miles shy of the required 25k, or 6k Thank You points short, looking over all my rewards accounts. I suppose I could look into converting some Starwood points (20k points –> 25k miles) into United miles, if I want to give up on my Starwood points for now.
Right about now I’m not sure if it would have been better to consolidate and focus my rewards earning on just one or two accounts, or if I should be grateful that there may still be some point gyrations that would save me $450-650.
Yar, I say! Thar be fist-shakin’ in the Ducky household tonight. (There also be some consideration of asking Big Boss if he couldn’t spare a few, oh, say, 25k miles. What? It could be a “creative” perk!)
Ah well. I could always not go.
Edit: Holy cow! The only award flights available are 50k miles!
