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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September 27, 2007
We’re finally having my birthday lunch in the office today. I selected the cuisine and menu because we have a horrid habit of over-ordering and stuffing our mini-fridge to a fare-thee-well. We can’t do that now because mini-fridge has been smelling weird for the last three days and no one can figure out why. Most of the time I’m really embarrassed by non-friend celebrations of my birthday (meaning anything staged by my family or work cohorts) because I hate being the center of attention. But now that it’s nearly a week late, it doesn’t feel like it’s really my birthday anything, so I don’t mind as much. Yes, weird.
Whether it’s because of this last big conference that required a big clothing buy or just the all-expenses-paid sort of mentality that’s seeping into regular life, I’m fresh out of motivation. It may finally be wearing off now, but I’d better not get too complacent.
Cake does a really strange rendition of “I will survive.” Or is it just weird because I’ve never heard it before? Gloria Gaynor DID do it first, right?
Fabulously Broke tagged me for a “How we met” story, so I’ll have to get that post together. Soon.
Oh! And I finally faxed off the correction to my 403(b) to increase my contributions to $1000/month for the next three months. Since I have a thing about keeping as much of my income as retirement or planned goals savings instead of paying some ridiculously high amount of tax on untaxed income, this should help offset my total taxable income tax bill that’s to come by reducing my taxable income. It’s possible that I won’t be filing as Head of Household this year, so I’m preparing for a heavier tax burden. I hate that my tax status is so changeable without any appreciable alterations to my actual lifestyle.
What else? The check will be, supposedly, in the mail next week. This whole raise business has been abnormal and decidedly odd. Whatever, come here li’ raise!
September 26, 2007
So frequently I’m advised to buy high-quality classic clothing because “it’s an investment, and you’ll be able to wear it for years.” Well sure, if you’re not ME.
It’s 12:30 and already I’ve gotten egg gook on my shirt, dirty from moving boxes, and two minutes ago, I suffered a tomato catastrophe. While trying to fork a cherry tomato, it exploded from its back end and spattered me from arm to midsection with gooey tomato guts.
Now you can just imagine how horrified anyone should be to sell me anything nice, much less how eager I’m not to spend real money on clothes that I’m going to wear. *shaking head* Honestly.
September 24, 2007
Earning a sticker for each no-spend day thing is simply not working for me. I love stickering the planner, but simply haven’t matched up the sticker and the behavior at all. It turns out that simple withholding of spending privileges is more effective reinforcement than is the reward of a pretty Pochaco sticker for every day I don’t spend money. Somehow I’m spending more, and more frequently, than I anticipated.
That’s weird. I used to respond quite well to my dad’s incentive plan of 1 Slurpee for each 10 “good job” stickers earned at school; what’s changed since kindergarten? Well, I guess getting a sticker on the planner doesn’t actually mean anything in my everyday life; it’s not tangible the way saving money is. That’s what happens when you choose a method of reinforcement that doesn’t actually correlate well with your goal: it doesn’t work!
In the interest of full disclosure: I spent over a hundred dollars *cringe* at Forever 21 before the conference. I got two nice basic slightly ruched tank tops for only $3 each, a lovely kimono dress, a kimono style shirt, a black and white chain-design strapless top, and a lusciously silky gorgeous handkerchief style dress that looked almost exactly like a $300 version that my friend had bought last year. It was expensive for the store ($40), but oh so irresistible! I can only find the picture of the kimono dress to post, so you’ll have to trust me on the irresistibility of the other dress.
The two tops were necessities because I didn’t have any nice tops for a couple business casual dinners, t-shirts simply wouldn’t do, and the dresses were lucky finds that’ll be used at a later date. I hate panic shopping like I often have to before an event, so I now have two nice dresses for work-related events and won’t have to scramble for either the X-mas party or whatever else comes up.
Since my return, I’ve spent money on breakfast and lunch foods because I still haven’t gotten myself to the grocery store. Bad Ms. M! Bad!
And then … the (work) girls sent me to eyeslipsface.com whereupon I spent $12 on 3 lip glosses, nail polish remover, and some experimental makeup pieces that I’ve never tried on my own before: eyeliner, eyeshadow, and a tube of skin color correction stuff. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to try them once, freak out because I just don’t DO makeup, and then try to find a happy, healthier home for them. It’s ok. Almost everything’s a dollar there, and using the coupon code “Carolina” we got another $10 off the total purchase. We three combined our order to save on shipping (6.95) and will receive 23 pieces of makeup and 3 makeup bags for a total of $42. We’re pretty impressed with the bargain prices. Even if I’m packing my bags for a guilt trip ….
Hee, BoyDucky was genuinely confused:
“So, how did you buy make-up … at work? And … but .. you don’t wear make-up!”
“Yes … yes I know. It just looked so pretty! All the colors looked so pretty. And they say they smell good. I’m a sucker for minty things.”
I apologize, it’s been an age since I last blogged. Much has happened since you last tuned in: we survived the conference in San Diego, a marriage proposal was made during my absence and the birthday weekend was cold, rainy and full of comic books and sleeping in. Ok, not much has happened at all, really. We do, however, have the two final candidates for the bridesmaid dress! (courtesy of David’s Bridal).
Our first contestant is a lovely satin number. She takes after her mother, a ball gown, and has her father’s sense of flair with that beaded band across her middle. Please meet contestant number one!
Our second contestant is a daring charmeuse/chiffon. She’s got flair in the form of a cute tail, or as we in the business like to call it, a “back cascade.” The empire waist and chiffon halter are unified in our formfitting contestant number two!
Both dresses will require quite a bit of alteration, though I think the second one would be less complicated. I need to rustle up a personal seamstress whose services I can afford on a regular basis because I simply don’t have the expertise to tell what is and isn’t feasible. Opinions, anyone?
September 13, 2007
The good news: Sis-in-law had just about given up on her daily vigil over the football tickets by yesterday evening. Two weeks of babysitting the ticket sale website hadn’t borne any fruit and she was deflated. But apparently my short note of encouragement that I sent galvanized her to give it one more go, and she’s now the proud purchaser of 4 reserved seats at the USC-Cal game at Cal! She was over the moon about it, and I know the boys will be too, when we spring it on them.
Except. Enter the bad news.
Except Boyducky’s papa is not doing well at all. He was moved to Intensive Care yesterday for observation and an emergency procedure that did not go at all as the doctors had anticipated. The procedure was much more invasive and much more complicated. We’re awaiting news on when his third procedure will be scheduled today, and if I’m exhausted from being there the last two nights after work, I can only imagine BoyDucky’s emotional and physical drainage.
Since BoyDucky’s flight was this morning, we had to cancel it. VirginAmerica charges $40 for canceling or changing flights, making his $49 one-way fare almost a wash, and we’ve yet to reschedule the return flight.
In the meantime, his poor mother is working everyday, fitting in hospital visits between taking care of the business and home, dealing with their insurance and hoping that the emergency procedures were performed by doctors on their network. All accompanied by the worry for her husband, of course.
The rather vague expectation now is that his recovery will now take between weeks to months, but we’ve no idea what kind of recovery it’ll be. We’re just praying that today’s surgery will go well and be the last one needed, so he can start recuperating. Then BoyDucky’s siblings have to get together and hash out a schedule for each of them to be home with their mom and take care of their dad for the next few weeks to months.
I don’t know what this means for the New York trip or the surprise birthday weekend yet, but I know we’ll have to address those logistics eventually. That’ll likely be my job, I serve as support crew so that they can attend to things directly related to his medical care.
In the meantime, I can only hope that his dad’s recovery goes well from this point on. From a practical standpoint, there are many factors to be grateful for during this time: the older kids make enough money to fly or drive home as necessary, and will probably be able to make some arrangements with their respective jobs to be there for their parents. They have steady jobs, and don’t have to worry about losing their jobs over taking care of a parent. Thank goodness their parents have decent insurance. It’ll still be expensive, but if they had to worry about how to afford any of the health care he needs, this whole ordeal would be much harder than it already is.
September 12, 2007
but the word on the raise is … weird.
The guy in charge, let’s call him Treasurer because that’s how I think of him, has decided that it would be best to just send me one half of the total raise before January 1st. The other half would be sent after January 1st. Leaving aside the obvious vagueness of the whole thing, that’s one quarter of my salary in a lump sum UNTAXED.
Holy tax implications! I’d better hie me to the Benefits Office and hike up my pre-tax contributions for the rest of this year. I have no idea how much that’ll really help, but any little bit at this point is probably good.
My foodie friends, I have two questions:
1. Chez Panisse of Berkeley, excellent or just good?
2. Is it good value for the money? This basically means that the experience and the dining are on par with the money they’re charging. I’m not impressed by being fed inch size servings laced with pretty colors if the taste and eventual satiety isn’t there, in other words.
The sister-in-law proposed it as a dinner option, prefacing it with “I don’t know if it fits your budget” so I automatically selected it as a lunch option instead.
Does anyone have input/insight on this restaurant?
