"I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U my friend!"

[spritechan]

I don't feel like doing my 30-day thingy today. Will resume tomorrow

I've been in a rut lately, and it's the annoying kind of rut. Not the kind where I just sleep all the time, but the kind where things irritate me more easily than normal, and I'm snappish. I don't like it. I'm also back to 130 pounds D: I feel gross and all my pants are tight and everything is just frowny.

But! Good news? I GOT THAT JOBBBBB. Woo. I'd be far more ZOMG YES SQUEE BEST THING EVAR if I wasn't so pants-shitting nervous about all the responsibility I accepted, and my selfish crybabying about Steve and I going back to opposite schedules. That means only two more weeks of cleaning and sitting around doing nothing though! I really can't wait. Mom was very insistent on letting me know how Paul was all gushing to her about it, which was cute. My auntie Connie also sent me a bunch of kind words and good vibes via Facebook because her phone won't text me (lol, or her daughter. Two of the people she texts most!). I love her to death! She's the best.

The job has 18 days of vacation time, 9 holidays off, I'm salaried (at least they gave me the impression that I am), and they offered me the highest pay they could. Looking at statistics online, it would appear that I make around the 77th percentile for a Case Manager. Which is likely true, because I passed up a LOT of great-looking jobs based on the fact that they pay equal to or even often LESS than what I make as a glorified janitor. Sooo... woo! A few thousand more dollars per year won't hurt me, and I think I got lucky because I have a variety of experience but very little targeted experience, and basically NO experience in making connections with resources (ahhhhh!). Like I said, 9 times out of 10, if I get the interview, I get the job.

INTERJECTION RANT: Skateville hasn't returned my calls and I haven't gotten my amended tax form (it's been a month), so I STILL can't file for my tax return yet  >:[

/rant

This weekend we went to my sister's new place. It's really nice. Three-bedroom, shared with her best friend (and her boyfriend and her son) and her own family. The boys share a room, Sarah and Chris get a room, and Bethany and Tony get the biggest room. Sarah and Chris's bed is exactly what Steve and I are probably going to get (framewise, I already have the bed itself).  Here's kinda what we're looking for, but much less swanky. I LOVE the style of bed where the mattress is recessed into the frame. It's cute and compact, and prevents the cats from climbing under the bed. Sarah said they got theirs from Ikea (and that it was pretty cheap), but Ikea's website is complete crap so I can't show you.

It was Sarah's boy Tristan's birthday, so it was a good excuse to check out the new digs and get free homemade egg rolls from Chris's mom, Summai. XD She makes like a billion egg rolls for every huge occasion and they are YUMMY. Tony said he was interested in seeing OUR place. I assured him we went the money-saving route and our apartment is not nearly as nice-looking as theirs. Because it's not. It's gonna be cute!

At 10am Steve and I are signing our lease!!! SOOOO excited for that. I have all these plans for food and spices and jars to store things in instead of plastic baggies and painting and book shelves and game shelves and the cat tower! Oh, so excited. Speaking of the cats, I've switched them AGAIN foodwise. I discovered that Nero just licks the juice from the wet food and leaves the rest to get crumbly and dry, and Grim still prefers the dry food overall. So! I spent like a half hour at the store, reading ALL the labels on the dry food, and finally selected a food that had gross things like corn meal or brewer's rice as far down in the ingredients as I could get without breaking the bank. I can't remember what brand it was, probably PurinaOne, but it was a special type that only comes in smaller bags and has turkey as its first ingredient, and some other meat as the second. I was going to completely wean them over a week, but Grim went crazy immediately for it and is actually AVOIDING the food he's been so set on for the last... his whole life! Yay!

I opened an ArtFire account. Only the basic account until I see if my items sell. I only have two things up on there right now, just experiments I made yesterday. You can check them out here. They're not anything great, but I wanted to at least get SOMETHING up on there. I'm starting a pillow tonight, my first attempt at double knitting (not to be confused with duplicate stitch)! Yayyyy knitting! Yay being crafty!

Okay, must stop futzing on computer. O_O

Comments

[silver-tiamat.livejournal.com]

Yaaaay! Job having is of the good--plus, that extra thousand dollars will really help dig you out of the Kitty Pit. =D I'm really glad that he seems to be doing a lot better and STAYING that way.

Haha-oh man, you can tell we're poor. We don't even have a frame. Our bed's just on the floor, as it. and we have more blank walls than covered walls (I had a lot more artwork, but about 20% of it is still in FL, and even that wouldn't cover ALL the walls). I've been trying to do art for the walls, but man....it's hard when I don't usually like what I draw. =/

But, having our own place is worth any number of sacrifices in style. I love living not with my parents more than art on the wall, fancy bedframes, awesome paint, uncreaky floorboards, etc. Besides, I rather like our place, warts and all. =D I hope you guys are happy with your new place! =D

We've been training our kits to be as flexible with food as possible. When they were wee kittens, they got a big variety of foods, different meats, different brands, etc. We waited until they showed a distinct preference for one, and that's the one they've had for a while now, but they've always had two different dry foods, one that's on the cheap side, and one that's on the expensive side. This way, they're not taught to be picky eaters, and they get the right amount of nutrition at the same time. =D

[miss-ljv.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the extra money will definitely be helpful in paying off those bills! Steve said yesterday that if he does get a second job, that money would go to completely paying off all our debt (ignoring student loans), which would be AMAZING. He's applying to places, but after seeing how my work schedule will go he'll have a better idea of the hours he should be looking for. And Grim is much better - Steve speculates he probably got scarred from 3 catheters in a month and that's why he doesn't pee so much at a time :( Because he still only goes a little bit, waits a bit, then goes again, but otherwise his attitude is phenomenal and he's back to being the most adorable EVAR.

...We sleep on a couch XD When I lived in my apartment I just had the mattress and boxspring on the floor too! We'll probably have it like that until we can get a frame. I mean, Steve will likely sleep on the couch more than the bed anyway, especially if we're not sleeping at the same time. I don't think magazine clippings counts as "style" XD. It's going to be soooo weird going from Steve's walls, covered in all those magazine pictures, to BLANK, BARE walls =O I have a bunch of picture frames (and also your drawing for me, etc.) that I'm hanging up, and I bought a 3' by 4' white board to make into a calendar to keep track of my work stuff!

But you're exactly right - we DEFINITELY prefer the cheaper, kinda janky place to a high-class place that stresses us and stretches our budget. Hands down.

I was always told it's hard on cats to be switched from foods or given a lot of variety - cat food bags explain how to wean them, and every single vet I've ever talked to says to gradually change foods. *shrug* I like this new food, though!

[silver-tiamat.livejournal.com]

That's what I've been saying about getting a first job--we'd use the money to basically reset our debt (small though it is, we're not making a lot of progress on it), so that we could stop paying interest on things. After that, my paycheck would go towards a lot of the things we spend petty cash on, like going out to eat, or buying books, tea, games, etc. Man, just ANY job would make the difference. D=

Yeah, you mentioned before that it'll be really weird not to have a couch, but a BED to sleep on! Strange little story: When I was growing up, one of the common things people had for sleeping, especially for sleep-overs, were futons. This fact later surprised me, because I'd run into people over and over who had no idea what a futon was! XD

Magazine clippings totally count as style! Well, A style at least. I usually have bulletin boards that I fill with pictures, funny quotes, random paraphenalia, and sometimes magazine clippings! We also have a white board as a calendar (which brings our total up to 3...oddly enough), which we use primarily as a way to track our expenses for the month, and now, to plan out our meals for the week. The calendar in the bedroom keeps track of appointments, volunteering days for me, weight, # of pushups, and events. The other calendar is just pretty--it's a Japanese calendar we got for free for the New Year at our Asian grocery! =D

Most of the time, the reason why you wean cats is because they're not used to changing diets. If you feed them one bag of food for 7 years, and then try to mix it up, it WILL confuse and upset them and their digestive system. But the same is true for humans! If you've lived your life on bland English food, then suddenly start consuming traditional Indian food, you're going to be in for a wild ride. We watch for signs of bowel distress, and if they're not eating, but because "variety" is part of what they know, it doesn't bother them. Besides, in the wild, they'd eat a pretty darn good variety of food--as my cat Chico did when he chased and killed small game when we lived in T-mec and he was an indoor/outdoor kitty (bunnies, mice, lizards, even a gopher once).