agony

i don't have a ponytail holder with me today. my hair is driving me nuts. heath would enjoy this.

listening to...

straight line by silverchair. i like this song, but today i love it. it's helping to block out the chatty cube dwellers around me!

thanksgiving cleaning

so, my goal for tonight is to do some serious going through of the drawers. i've got too much stuff again, and i failed to handle the summer to fall transition smoothly. i'd like to bring up piles of clothes for my sister to go through, knowing full well that the vast majority will end up at goodwill (which is great because then somebody will make good use of them). i know it's sort of rushing things to get it done tonight, but oh well! i want it done and there's not much on tv tonight anyhow. :)

thanks to heath, the laundry is pretty much done and the apartment is quite clean since he spent his day off yesterday taking care of the place, even though he wasn't feeling well (what a guy!). so, there isn't much cleaning to do in general. much to his dismay, i'm going to make another big mess (but a temporary one, i promise, and one that will address the issue of the closet vomiting my shoes and sweaters lately).

congratulations are in order!

very exciting news!

i FINALLY have a zero balance on the most naggiest of credit cards. this isn't the card that had the highest balance or highest interest rate (ah, wait, it DID have the highest interest rate - double congrats for me), but this was the card that had been all too easy to use even after i vowed to "not use credit cards anymore." it was the one that i stupidly kept in my wallet, and pulled out to pay for this and that, then got irritated when i saw the charges had wiped out the payment i had made the month prior. grrr. this one was extra challenging, too, because they didn't have a website where i would have to STARE at my indiscretions.

i don't have all my debt paid off yet, but am getting a lot closer. basically, i've learned my lesson and now know how painful this debt thing is. i was in too deep, but have made huge progress climbing out. by the end of the ordeal, it will have been several years (YEARS) of living more frugally than i should have to based on my salary so that i could rid myself of the weight this puts on my shoulders. it will be worth it. i hate having the debt hanging over my head, so i just got in the habit of throwing money at it every month until it goes away. bear in mind that i've made a point of not completely restricting myself from fun (see: triathlon stuff, trip to mexico, possible trip snowboarding), but have still steadily made progress in a positive direction. as we all eventually learn (and i wish i learned it faster), balance is everything. i've even got a savings plan and a plan for paying for school if/when i go back next fall. life aint cheap, but at least i pay with cash now! i can't even imagine what it will feel like to have it all paid off... i'll probably go ahead and buy myself some laser eye surgery or something!

he's obviously summoning or identifying prostitutes...

how ridiculous is this?

some people have WAY too much time on their hands coming up with ways in which to be offended. i've seen some questionable things lately, but this is one of the most ludicrous.

kindle

saw this on amazon.com this morning. it's a new product that is essentially a big improvement on e-books. this device allows you to purchase and read newspapers, books, blogs, etc. all on one device that is about the size of a paperback. it connects wirelessly to the network (over cell phone lines, so no wi-fi hotspot needed, and no fees for connecting to the network) and allows you to download content wherever you are. seems pretty cool, but is also sort of pricey and i haven't investigated enough to know if it ONLY shows materials you've purchased directly from them. because if that is the case, that's where they get ya, of course. kinda cool, so i thought i'd pass it along.

note to self

when wearing glasses, do not blow on your hot tea in attempts to cool it down, for you will end up with foggy lenses.

foul moods all around

venting:

how on earth can somebody feel justified in giving ME the bird after THEY completely cut me off? yes, i honked but only because he swerved into my lane and about took out my right front fender. my guess is that it was probably because he was in a mercedes and thus is entitled to drive like a moron; therefore, it would be inappropriate for him to not cut me off then act like it's my fault for being in the way. oh boy did i give him a dirty look when i passed him later. yeah, that will show him!

this after i saw a woman completely lose her cool and freak out on a guy in bed bath and beyond because he allegedly cut in front of her on their way to the newly opened register. i was actually really glad to get back to the office after running errands today!

we can walk the streets safely again

possibly. on my way to work, i saw a dead animal in the middle of the road. as i approached it, i noticed it was black and white and upon sniffing the air thereabouts, confirmed that it was a skunk. now, i don't know if this is the gigantic mutant skunk that heath almost ran into (on foot), but it might have been. either way, it is one less skunk haunting the streets of evanston.

on an entirely unrelated note, i'm stupidly hungry right now. it's all i can do to not run down to the break room and buy poptarts.* i had oatmeal, but am hungry again. grr. maybe i'll go buy a healthy something out of the vending machine...

*on monday i bought poptarts and proceeded to have far too much difficulty with them. one of them slipped between the side of the toaster and the little shelf that raises and lowers your toasting food. this led to serious poptart carnage and ended up costing me about 5 minutes digging the gooey shards out of the toaster with a (plastic) fork. so i'm scared of them now, despite their deliciousness.

shout out

heath and i made a lot of progress this weekend on the apartment. we put the last few things into storage on saturday to clean the place up for guests that night. then yesterday, we went down to the storage area and completely revamped the whole thing. we decided on a bunch of other stuff to get rid of (donating what we can), consolidated some boxes of stuff, and reorganized to put the holiday stuff in the front and the camping stuff in the back. it was a big job, but was worth it as we will have a much easier time finding and accessing the things we need to get to.

a big shout out to heath for all his hard work. he did a really good job getting everything in the storage unit efficiently. he took the lead on figuring out how to pack our stuff all in there, and, as hard as it is for me to admit it, he did a better job than i would have. i just get too impatient with that stuff and would have gotten it "good enough" but not as good as it needed to be. so, i just wanted to thank him again for what a great job he did.

the drawback to going through the storage unit is that i ended up bringing some stuff BACK to the dining room (doh!) to put into piles to donate, sell, or further organize. it's frustrating to have this kind of stuff back in the dining room, but i want to go through all of it this week, if i can and get it taken care of, rather than just jamming it back into the storage closet. i'm trying to be good about not storing/keeping stuff we don't want/need.

daily gratitude

today i'm grateful that i noticed before anybody else today that my sweater was on backwards. oops. it was really itchy in a meeting and icouldn't figure out why until i felt the tag through the fabric. i got it turned around.

back in the saddle

i'm starting my new training plan today, so will be tracking that sort of thing on my triathlon blog. feel free to check it out if you'd like. i need some accountability!

daily gratitude

wednesday, october 31: i'm grateful that i live in a neighborhood where kids get dressed up and go around trick or treating. it was fun to walk around last night and see the costumes and the halloween decorations. some streets got really into it. hopefully when i have kids someday, i'll live somewhere that they can easily go around and trick or treat.

thursday, november 1: i'm grateful for fall. the colors are so pretty right now. i want to get outside some more this weekend and enjoy it more.