November 4, 2006

Insane Family

Right, so it’s not that they’re mentally impaired so much as INSANELY INTELLIGENT. My little cousin scored just about perfect on his SATs. Holy crap.

Random Ramblings

It’s Saturday. Finally finally finally Saturday!! A bit spendier than I had expected it to be, but since I didn’t complete all my errands, it’s goin to be spendier still, by tomorrow evening.

I was really looking forward to this weekend because it was to be a get-a-lot-of-work-done weekend. I was going to get the oil changed in my car [way overdue], a haircut [also way overdue], and get a LOT of work done [yep, also overdue]. Sunday was going to be laundry and lounge day. This is what really happened:

Being the hibernatory bear that I am, I slept right through my 7am alarm and did NOT get out the door in time to be the first person in line at my car dealership. I hate having to wait two hours for an oil change on a weekend so my battle plan was to hit the dealership before anyone else and then scoot two counties over for my haircut. But I didn’t get up until 9, so I thought I’d just have to try again early Sunday morning.

[$12] Sadly, it was my 8th cut, and you know what that means: Buy 7 cuts, get your bangs screwed up for free!! The overweening confidence of Jacob, my erstwhile, one-month’s experience on the floor stylist-to-be led him to judge that my Asian hair could be chopped with one snip o’ the scissors to get the bangs I’d asked for. Nope, nope, nope. My bangs promptly protruded in two thick tufts from my forehead, blending with my already ungroomed eyebrows to form a hideous Groucho Marx imitation. His quick solution was? A flatiron!! That actually made it worse. *sigh* And I had to keep HIM calm. How fair is that? Oh well, I [quietly, because I couldn’t hurt Jacob’s already fragile ego] pled with the instructor for quick release from 10-year-old-asian-girl-bangs-hell and she managed to cover up most of it and they waxed the rest.

[$0] I gave in on the way home from haircut hell and stopped at the car dealership: I didn’t want to wait two hours but I wanted to wake up at 8am and drive all the way back out again Sunday morning even less. So, I spent two hours sitting at the car dealership doing some work while I waited for my oil change. I’m not sure if he intended to sell me a car or hit on me, but in the last 20 minutes a salesman brought me a bottle of water and showed me to the Snack Shack where they give away free hot dogs, water, soda and chips. My car was ready just in time for me not to find out what he really wanted. 🙂 Then the service guy told me that I need new brakes, new rotors, a new fan belt cause I only had one [uh, I thought I only needed one? I don’t know, time for me learn car maintenance again….], and that the rotors alone would probably cost about $420. *bigger sigh*

[$11] Groucho time was fun and all, but it pretty much convinced me not to try to wait another two weeks to have my eyebrows taken care of.

[$11] The grocery store yielded chicken and apples today: Banquet has a TMF on their Honey BBQ chicken which I will happily try for free and Tyson sent me a Free Chick’n’Easy product coupon some time ago, so I picked up some chicken strips. I’m going to have chicken for lunch all week! And apples. And bananas. Yum!

And I managed to round up a couple of the girls for dinner plans tonight at Bombay Bistro [I’m never sure what $-$$ really equates, but it should be affordable, split between three gals].

And now that it’s five pm and my choices are to cram 2 hours of work in and give myself a bigger headache or just … rest. My automatic reaction is to push myself until I collapse and just can’t do anything else, but this may be a good time to evaluate the kinds of decisions I make that may promote financial health while neglecting my actual health. I still have all of tomorrow and I can’t look at it as not being able to afford to work less overtime so much as I can’t afford NOT to recharge my batteries and REST.

Oh, and? $23 was totally worth it not to look like THIS anymore:

November 3, 2006

Mebbe I do!!

Oddly, this has been the appropriate response to everyone this morning ….

It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Augh, I can’t get that song out of my head!! It’s partly because I’m toasting my English muffin and debating: butter? peanut butter? *peanut butter jelly time!* but more because my coworker found this video to go with our cheesy office music selection:

Just like the good ole days

But only, different. This time last year I was so through with the hostile atmosphere I was working in that I said fohgit this! I signed up for scholarship searches with Fastweb, the search engine I used back in high school when I was trolling for college money. I knew it’d be more difficult this time around because I actually make what appears to be a decent wage [cause they don’t know how many HOURS it takes!!] and because it would be for graduate school.

Whatever the government’s assumption is (you’re a big kid now so we’re not giving you free money, etc.), all I know is that FAFSA will not serve me as well as it did when I was an undergrad. I mean, it wasn’t any free ride like my smart friends had, but it definitely made it possible for me to afford college while I was just starting my new job and new school and all that.

Hence, my renewed friendship with Fastweb. Only, I’ve noticed that you can’t ever just sign in anymore. You always have some big splashy financial offer [most frequently it’s an online university] and then it takes you to a credit card offer with all your stats conveniently filled in. All you have to do is click the BIG RED BUTTON THAT SAYS YES! TAKE ME FOR A FOOL! Or you can click baby brother’s “no thanks” opt out link buried underneath the flashy red button.

I know they have to support themselves some way, but that’s just a little shady.

Oh well, I guess friends change.

November 2, 2006

*streeeetch*

I keep racking my brain for a suitable post that I have the energy to complete, sensibly, but just can’t. There are about six different topics I’d like to touch on, but just can’t. I don’t function very well on about three hours of sleep. I’m not falling over – yet- but I ought to be. I don’t know what’s wrong about the temperate weather conditions but I feel like my winter-prepped sleep system was kept up all night because I was too warm.

I’m just tired.

Plus, my fingers are puffing up from working on the computer too much. Ew.

October 31, 2006

Open Enrollment Prep: Things I Didn’t Know

Luckily for me, Open Enrollment runs from November 1-22nd so I have all the way up to pre-Thanksgiving to do my research and make my decisions regarding changing medical plans, my FSA allocation and all sorts of other goodies. When I unearthed my desk this morning, I came across my Benefits News 2007 newsletter which informs me that:

My co-payment under the HMO will increase by 50% from $10 to $15 per office visit.
*The PPO 90%(covered)/10%(copay) split remains the same.

One aspect of the PPO prescription drug benefit is clarified a little: Mail service is available for lower co-pays on maintenance medication.
*I expect to have some sort of maintenance medication, all the time.

Life Insurance: Can be purchased in multiples of your regular annual pay – 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x.
Your Age: 25-29
Rate per month per $1,000 (payroll deduction; after-tax dollars): $0.039
*They include term life insurance for dependents. I think their whole explanation of how to calculate life insurance, and why you carry it, should utterly negate the point of life insurance for children, shouldn’t it?
“You buy life insurance to replace your income in the event that you die when others are relying on you for support.”
*Yes, I am one of those young folks who will find it necessary to buy substantial supplemental life insurance for the next few years. I want to make sure that my parents will be taken care of, especially if I’m not there to do it.
Designating your beneficiary: I didn’t know that I could stipulate “per stirpes” (“should a primary beneficiary predecease you, the beneficiary’s share of the inheritance will go to his or her heirs”) versus “per capita” (“should a primary beneficiary predecease you, the successor beneficiaries would share the inheritance equally.”)

Supplemental Disability Insurance: Unfortunately, there isn’t any information on this and I know I wanted to make a decision about this.

Thursday is the Benefits Fair so I can try to get answers to most of my last niggling questions before I actually have to make a commitment. I feel very organized about this whole benefits thing, finally. Maybe I’m getting the hang of it!