About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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May 20, 2008
It’s been a long three months with the iPhone, and the last two haven’t been very rosy at all.
Apparently, the phone isn’t accepting (or registering) phone calls, randomly, and doesn’t necessarily deliver all of my sent or accept received text messages. It also pretends that calls aren’t coming in when I’m using other features like email or internet, or vice versa, pretends calls are coming in and kicks me out of the applications when calls aren’t actually coming in. >:(
I’ve spent a good three hours on the phone with AT&T and Apple, and spent another two hours at the Apple store troubleshooting the dang thing. The guy at the Apple store was nice enough to just replace the phone, but like a fool, I hadn’t backed up all of my contacts, songs, and photos to iTunes because iTunes doesn’t work on my home laptop. *feeeeeh* Since I hate keeping personal information on my work computer, I decided to go with Option Idiot: just don’t back it up. And then don’t plan ahead for phone replacement. Luckily, the guy was also nice enough to burn a CD of my photos for me.
Now I get to reenter over 200 contacts.
Naturally, this leads to great temptation to find the money to buy my own Mac laptop to replace the 5-year-old Vaio that always has to be plugged in and has a perma-dark screen because the brightening function doesn’t work anymore.
Or, I could just get my butt in gear and figure out how to make iTunes work on my computer at home. Yeah. That’s the sensible option.
May 19, 2008
My Vanguard contribution has been knocked down to the minimum allowed: $12.50/check. Awww man. Now I’m sad. But, this will improve cash flow, and actually, increase the total amount that is considered 5% of my check when payroll calculates my matched contributions, so this could increase my matched money by a little bit. That’s not bad. We’ll see if that’s how it works out.
I officially declare today, Monday, May 19th a ME DAY. [Fun nerd fact: In 1998, May 19th was our D-Day for an AP test. I can’t believe I still remember that.] The bosses owed me a freebie day off (off the books) since they gypped us before our last business trip, and the way those fellas have been acting, I decided I’d better take it before they “forgot” about it. It’d just be too too convenient.
But, before I go on out and play, I’d better get some of this money madness off my mind or I’ll be distracted all day.
Unbudgeted Spending:
Amazon – Friend’s gift – $32
Grocery store – household supplies on sale – $23
Post Office – few sheets of Forever stamps to last a year – $23
Parents’ gas and grocery spending – way too much. ~ $220?
My personal spending doesn’t seem like much, but it’s outside the budget entirely which throws a major kink in the expense account. And I’m still brainstorming about which tailoring jobs I can afford before the end of July because I need some of my nicer clothes to fit me for another business trip. I’m going to need to get even more creative to pay for these expenses without dipping into the mini e-fund, because I’m already doing that for rent. Grr.
Misc Income:
PayPerPost – I’ve not had ANY new opportunities for at least a week or two now. 🙁 Why am I suddenly unqualified? I am getting the payouts from last month’s posts, though, so I can add $33.50 to my fledgling house fund.
Ebates – A check should be coming my way at the end of the quarter.
Chase rewards – I love my cash plus card, with 5% on gas and groceries, I’m already near my next $50 check! That’ll help cover half of the expenses above. At least something reduces the sting of $50/tank of gas!
Regular Income:
It’s just not cutting it. I was able to make do with creative juggling for a while, but I’m going to have to do something drastic to increase my take-home for at least a month or two. There’s a big ole knot in my tummy as I say this, but I’m going to cut out my contributions to the 403(b). I don’t get a match on that anyway, so I won’t be losing free money, and I’ll start up again as soon as I find out what the heck’s going on with my salary come July 1st. It’s time to be an adult about this decision, and not pout about it. (I’m totally pouting.) My biggest fear is that I’ll get comfortable with the “extra” income and not want to start contributing again, much less contributing more at the end of the year to make up the difference. Also, it’s felt like the retirement contributions were the only goals I was meeting this year.
Alright! So I’m off to find a Macy’s because I have a gift card and I’m not afraid to use it if I find my holy grail of bags. And then I’m taking myself to see Ironman. Yeah! (Prepaid ticket.)
May 18, 2008
I don’t wish I were less organized and more rich, no, no, I’d like to retain my level of organization and be richer than that. I know, apples to oranges. But it’d sure make booking last minute fares for a holiday weekend seem less painful/impossible.
I’d rearranged my schedule and wanted to visit BD in June, but it turns out he has to be here for the weekend. That means no us time. Instead, he asked me to see if I could make a Memorial Day weekend trip happen. Compared to the $600+ prices for just a regular, round-trip ticket, the $300 fare plus an unnecessary rental car on Travelocity almost seems like a deal. Uh, I don’t think so, Tim. And with gas prices, driving would cost at least … $120 each way. Eeep! Even with an awesome 400-450 miles per tank average, that’d still be a doozy of a gas bill. Oh, plus over 8 hours of driving each way.
But if I were rich and had $7000 in my travel fund, not just $700, I would probably go ahead and spend up to $350 to go see him for a long weekend.
Phooey. Times like these, I can’t wait to be financially secure and even well-off.
May 16, 2008
Pretty disappointing week for someone who isn’t supposed to spend money on lunch.
Sunday: Groceries – eggs, OJ, brown rice, whole wheat pretzels, grapefruit. $9
Monday: Brought stew, but didn’t buy carbs at Trader Joe’s. 🙁 I just can’t find a loaf of bread that doesn’t crumble there. Spent $1.50 on a bagel.
Tuesday: Leftovers, bought another bagel: $1.40
Wednesday: Went to the cafe but was thwarted. They had some jacked up “Visitor’s Cafe” because they were having a Grand Opening celebration for employees only, and I ended up paying way too much for a lump of lasagna and dollop of mixed veggies. $6
Thursday: Picked up a sandwich with a coworker (and asked for extra tomato slices: free!), and got gypped into paying for her sandwich too. $8
Friday: I’m eating my frozen pizza, dangit. I refuse to spend any more lunch money!
Also, I used up all of my cash 🙁 See? See what happens when I keep cash in my wallet?
There’s a day I was going to be out on sick leave. I’d finally managed to coordinate three important appointments in a single day because dealing with piecemeal appointments is aggravating and being out of the office for personal business has become taboo due to disintegrating relationships. What happens? Naturally, BB wants his birthday celebration scheduled the very same day.
Of course.
He’s completely unaware of my appointments, as is his wont, but there’s no profit in pointing that out.
In the spirit of learning how to think about all the possible political ramifications of this conflict, I’m weighing the pros and cons of rescheduling all my appointments or refusing to accommodate BB’s whims.
Stand my ground because:
I don’t have to struggle to coordinate three departments’ schedules.
I win personally. Professionally, no win. They don’t care if I have to go through a lot of trouble or not.
I don’t look like a pushover.
I win personally. Professionally, possibly negative. They want me to be cooperative with them. I can stand my ground with other people, just not them.
My presence isn’t that important.
It’s not, but I don’t gain anything by proving it. However, my absence may be remarked upon and I would have no control over the commentary that might ensue.
Change the appointments because:
As above, it’s not my presence that’s as important as my absence would be.
Yes, other colleagues have been absent for other staff members’ birthdays, but this is the Big Boss. It’s different.
It’s not impossible and doesn’t cost me financially to reschedule.
Unless it was a prohibitively expensive trip or appointment, the trade-off would be an intangible benefit to a tangible cost.
LB is all about sacrifice.
And is demonstrably bitter about the appointments of various kinds and trips that he’s chosen to give up. Obviously, they were all choices on his part, but he’s definitely bitter about it, so it doesn’t matter that it was his choice to do so. As long as it looks like sacrifice to him …..
Ultimately, it seems that I have nothing to gain, but potentially could lose a chance to rebuild frayed relationships if I choose to retain my current appointments instead of taking the time to reschedule for a later date. Even if the effort turns out to be futile, ie: they change the date of the celebration, the effort to accommodate them was made. While it could be construed as overly accommodating, or even syncophantic behavior which I’m not noted for, it’s also a concession. And if I concede this battle, knowing what and why I’m conceding, I’ll be more prepared for other battles that may be more important to fight. (ie: Con. I’m not giving that up.)
Rusty though they are, I feel like I’m working out my political chops a bit.
May 15, 2008
I’m ‘fessing up to my $33 outfit transgression today. I’m going to need your *professional* opinions here. A and I were browsing the mall and mostly managed to avoid all shops that I didn’t have gift cards for … except for Papaya. Whoops. Occasionally they have the odd really nice piece on sale, so we checked their clearance racks. As usual, there was a whole lot of nothing, but I turned up this high-waisted, knee length pencil skirt that I couldn’t resist. In the history of pencil skirts, I’m sure I’ve put up better fights.
Sorry the pictures aren’t great; I haven’t figured out how to take better clothing pictures yet, but this is just so you get the idea.
The skirt’s form-fitting, with a few inches of lacing up the back to make it just a bit interesting. I plan to cover up that bit during the day.
(Front waist)
(Back waist)
And the white silky blouse could probably use another button up top to keep the top of the collar closed.
But, blouse tucked into the skirt with black closed-toe pumps and a black jacket to profesh’ it up… what do you think? Did I make a huge mistake here, or is this a viable outfit?
