Warning: rant ahead (ignore, I’m bitching about money, or lack thereof)

Just when you start to feel like you might be digging yourself out of a hole, life loves to come along and slap you right back into it face-first it seems. Last night I found a decent sized lump on my dog's side (I just lost my second dog about a month ago, very suddenly and unexpectedly) so now I'm scrambling to figure out how to pay a giant vet bill associated with at best, biopsy and bloodwork and possibly surgery to remove it. Add that to the worry of whether his poor life is compromised if it's cancerous. I've never left the vet here with any less than a $600 bill and usually they are about $1000 or more. It's insane compared to the costs where I used to live and I'm still adjusting to that. But when I'm barely ekeing by to start with, let's just say that the stress is too much right now.

The property tax bill came the other day too. Oh boy. Stupid Virginia.

I also have to figure out how to get my divorce pushed through by the end of the year or I'm going to have to file taxes married but separate again, which screwed me last year. Another chunk of change I didn't have but had to pay Uncle Sam anyways. Add to that the rediculous lawyer's retainer I'm about to pay because they can't find him to give him the papers, making it contested and therefore I have to pay (in spite of my contributing to the legal fund every month since I started working here for this very reason, because it covers most legal costs as long as it's not contested). Why does it have to be so hard to end things quickly and easily?

I still hate work (HATE). And no one will give me a second job because places like restaurants and retail apparently don't like to hire people with semi-professional full-time day jobs. Gotta love it.

Beastie Boys show in Richmond tonight. I tried to sell my ticket yesterday once I found out about the impending vet bill, but no luck. So I'm can't justify wasting the money completely and I'm going to go, but damn, why can't life just give me one little break? Just one.

*extends middle finger to the world today*

Mondays suck

Well, that didn't take long to blow 365 days of snarkiness out of the water with a weekend, did it? Oh well, it was a valiant effort while it lasted.

I dread Mondays. Dread them. But today as I pulled into my space at work I realized that the boss is out today and the day improved somewhat. It just takes a little thing sometimes.

Yay for Friday!

Happy dance for the arrival of the weekend!

It's still so cold here and I refuse to turn on the heat just yet, but dang. I think I'm going to have to put a second blanket on my bed tonight since my down comforter is still in a box somewhere in the garage. I am over skirts for work with the weather, and opting for pants to keep my legs warm. It's not working. I think the AC is still on in my building. Brrrrr...

Halloween party this weekend! I love dressing up for Halloween and always try to come up with unique costume ideas. I think I did pretty good this year. Stay tuned for the reveal after the weekend!

This is awesome. Put in your name and give it a whirl.

What's your pleasure?

People who come to my house for movie night might be a little weirded out by the fact that 99% of what I have are horror movies. What can I say? I'm a blood and guts kind of girl. My favorites, which have been for a few years now, are Rob Zombie's creepy House of 1000 Corpses and the Devil's Rejects. They aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I love the twisted nature of the characters. Scarier than boogiemen and ghosts I think.

So here's your part for my 365 blogging effort, in the spirit of Halloween...

What is your favorite horror movie?

Is it really only Wednesday?

Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold! Did I mention I'm cold? Yargh! I shouldn't complain because cold at 60 degrees is a hell of a lot better than cold at 0 degrees like it was in the place that shall not be named, but still...

I don't have much in the way of cold weather clothes that fit either, so I had to resort to big tall boots with my skirt today so my legs stay warm. I really need some new work clothes, but no money means no wardrobe. It'll stay the same four or five outfits in rotation for now. Maybe I'll ask for clothes for Christmas this year.

Yay for sick professors making class get out early last night! It was SO nice to be home at 8:30 on a Tuesday night. And I'm skipping class next week for the Beastie Boys show. Eeeeeeee! (that was a squeal of excitement, in case it wasn't clear).

I am STILL battling this stupid cough. I've had it for weeks now, since I came down with the local crud about two or three weeks ago. I'm so over this. Can't do much about it though. And everyone else is fighting it too, most of them just as long as I have had it. Stupid cold and flu season. Grumble.

I really need a new job. That is all.

Addendum to earlier post

I also refuse to wear Uggs or Crocs.

And I got a 91 on the midterm I stressed out so badly over last week. Boo ya!

That is all. Back to your regularly scheduled afternoon.

Clothing I refuse to wear

No way, no how:

1. Sweater dresses. They look itchy and bulky and though they seem to be all the rage this season based on how many there are in the stores, they just sound horribly uncomfortable with me. Plus, I'd feel like I forgot my pants.

2. Turtlenecks. I'd really rather not having something tight around my neck all day long. Plus it makes the bottom of my hair flip out funny sometimes. No thanks.

3. Back zippered pants or skirts. I am convinced at any moment my ass it going to come barrelling out of these when the zipper doesn't hold as I sit down. Ass one, zipper zero. 'Nuff said.

4. Flats. Anyone who sees me regularly knows I'm a heels girl. Tall heels, at least three or four inches lately. I'm short so they give me some height, make it so my pants don't run along the floor and get all messed up on the bottoms and make my calves look (a little) thinner. The only exception to this no flats rule is when I'm wearing chucks.

5. Anything that shows my fat knees. I wear jeans all summer. Most of my dresses come just past the knee. I hate my knees and I'm not about to look at them myself, much less let anyone else see them if possible.

In opposition to all that I hate above though, I am seriously coveting these: This has been another installment of 365 days of snarkiness. Carry on.

I hate Mondays!

It's cold this morning here. I had to use the heater in my bathroom getting ready this morning for the first time since spring. Brrrr. Nothing like having to get out of bed on a cold Monday morning to set your teeth on edge.

I dropped off the car this morning at the shop because the "check air pressure" light is on again (this also happened last winter but it went off after awhile) even though a check of all four tires shows they are just fine. When I called for an appointment, the guy asked me "did you check all five tires?". Five? Oh yeah, the full size spare underneath the car has a sensor in it too. Oh. OK, well, I don't crawl under my vehicle, that's what the mechanics are for. An hour after dropping it off the shop calls and tells me it was indeed the spare being low on pressure. Enlightening for the next time it happens. Wonder how much they'll gauge the dumb girl for to figure out this piece of information?

So I get here at a whopping 7:30am because of the car drop off this morning. This is a whole (*gasp*) half an hour later than I usually get to work! I come in the back door right by my office to find my boss standing right in front of my office (?!?). "Oh, I was wondering where you were. It's so unusual for you to be late." Let me get this straight. One of my coworkers was out of work every day last week being "sick" (I'm just saying, if you're out for a whole work week and are supposedly on antibiotics, you should be getting better each day you're on them and if you're not and are still to sick to work, maybe you ought to check yourself into the hospital). Another coworker is in his office about two days a week right now (I know, this is all a continuation of my vent last week... maybe my friend will stop by again to check on my health!). I haven't taken a whole day off since Sept. 8th (I take very few whole days off, ever, and even that was a rarity) and you're going to freak out if I'm a half hour later than usual to the point you'll take up camping in front of my office door? Wow. Just, wow. I should have just called in sick all week apparently.

Just in case you didn't want the real thing...

Saturday blogging, wow!

I didn't realize how hard it would be to blog on the weekend days when I am feeling so lazy! Especially since this is the one weekend in forever where I don' t have to be anywhere or do anything (well, besides the usual laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping...). It's cold and cloudy today and I think the kidlet and I are going to chill and watch horror movies instead of going out and finding something to do. I like these kinds of days, honestly. Quiet, laid back and relaxing.

I really need to get my ass under control. It's gaining land mass at an alarming rate these days. I am going into next week aiming to eat less and healthier. We'll see if I can manage to shrink it, global warming style so it doesn't begin to require a mailing address and zip code of its own soon. I need to start walking again too, harder to stick to that now that the weather is cooling a bit and the days are getting shorter.

Some people I know think I'm nuts because I was out walking on the 100 degree days this summer but don't like the 60 degree ones now. What can I say? I'm a warm weather girl who thrives in the heat. Give me 90s, give me humidity, give me thirst. I think it feels good to sweat out the impurities for an hour and then step into air conditioning. Even in the mild winters here where I can walk barefoot and short-sleeved on the beach the day after Christmas are still too cold for me (though WAY more tolerable then that frozen landmass they call a prairie in the winter, somewhere off in the middle of the country).

Speaking of the holidays, I'm totally ready for them now that the cooler weather has moved in. I'll be spending both Thanksgiving and Christmas at the beach for the first time since the early 1990s and I can't say how happy that makes me. It's a wonderful time down there that time of year, with empty beaches full of improved winter shell collections, locals only nights out and quiet peaceful walks through the dunes. I miss my family (well, mom and dad, because after many years my sister and I have ended up in the same town again, weird!) and will be glad to see them again.

My snark is too snarkilicious for you boy

OMG, micromanaging-createchaos-assriding-obsessive-typeA boss. There is NO reason for you to arrive at 7am, be in my office by 7:02 with "two questions" every single morning! Especially on a Friday when I want to chill because the week is almost over. Here's a clue... if you'd distribute the workload more efficiently by, oh I don't know, perhaps making some of your people actually do work instead of giving it all to the three people who were unhappily merged in your department, maybe you wouldn't have so much to stress about.

As it stands, your five employees barely come to work much less appear to actually do anything, while the three of us are here all day, every day, sometimes late into the evening or even on weekends. I get it, your people can't do what we do (I personally think some are unable to function in basic day to day society, but who am I to judge?) but DAMN. And when you're already not paying me for the quadrupled workload that I was hired to do, and the new hiring freeze means we can't fill the position we desparately need (to actually replace TWO people now, but who's counting?) because you dicked around on the hiring process for six months, then BUGGER OFF because I have zero tolerance for more bullshit.

Blah Blah Blah

I finally slept well last night for the first time in weeks (maybe months, I've lost track). It felt so good, even though I wanted even more when the alarm went off this morning. Maybe it holds hope for a resumption of normalcy at some point...

I cannot wait until this weekend, which is the first in a long time I haven't had something to do or somewhere to be. After awhile of that, even the fun things seem like a burden. Now, if I can just find the energy to get my house in a more decent order, that would be great.

I've started another round of cleansing my possessions. I went through about six more boxes yesterday and am pretty much giving it all to goodwill or throwing it away. It feels so good to purge, and my ability to let go of things right now is strong. If it's not sentimental (and even then, some things still have to go), it's most likely out of here. I am starting to think I might need a dumpster.

My grass needs cut. Badly. I hate lawn work. I need a cute lawn boy to mow the grass with no shirt on. Applications being taken...

I know, the 365 days of snark is turning into 365 days of blogging. Now that I might be less tired soon, I'm sure the snarkiness will return in full force. I have a hard time keeping my inner voice in check a lot of the time ("did I just say that out loud?") and it is bound to rear it's head again in the near future.

No real snark today, just venting...

It figures that as soon as I start the blog-o-snark to have some stress relief I'm feeling so buried that I don't really want to do it. I'm going to try and persist though because I think it's a good outlet. In any case, today's entry...

I did my midterm last night. I was going to do it tonight but I reached the point yesterday where I just felt that I wasn't getting anything else out of studying. My brain was full, and that I should just knuckle down and get it done so I didn't have to stress on it anymore. I have no idea how I did yet, and I also can't tell you how I feel about my work. I had two and a half hours to complete it and finished with about 5 minutes to proof it. I could have written more I think and I don't feel like my work was very organized, but I guess I'm glad it's done. I'll be glad when I get the grade so I can really check it off mentally. I'm hoping for a B at least, but we'll see.

Have I mentioned that with the recent raise push back from the state, I won't be getting any salary increase here in two years and three months since I started working here by the time it finally rolls around? And that's assuming that the raises that were pushed back from November 2008 actually get paid on the new July 2009 date. I'm not holding my breath. I just love that this happened when my job here is about three or four times more work than I was hired to do as well. Makes me really happy. *rolls eyes*

I'm beat, I have this awful bronchial crap that's keeping me up at night in coughing fits and I'm stressed to the max. I need a vacation, but it's not happening until the holidays at least (and don't get me started on how that's not really a vacation). Does anyone have any valium? *sigh*

I snark, you snark, we all snark for snarkiness

Day two of the great snark-olution.

Yesterday McCain and Palin were at the Virginia Beach Convention Center for a rally. The McCain campaign estimated the crowd to be about 25,000. The Fire Marshal said it was more like 12,000.... Tick tock, baby. :-)

I am going to take my stupid midterm exam either tonight or tomorrow, not sure which. I'm reaching the point where short of one more study run-through, I just don't feel like I'm getting anything else out of the cramming. For the record, these kids who were undergrad history majors, who have no careers to spend all day at before they put in their class time, whose mommy and daddy pay for their school and their car and their rent and their food and probably their beer too?

Yeah, they suck.

Around the snark in 365 days

Some Monday morning snarkiness after not having a voice yesterday and therefore having a backbuild of stuff I couldn't say...

Bicycle lanes. There are about a million of them here, some in really rediculous places like Rochambeau. Yeah, I get it. We love the tourists and bikers here but damn, if the area goes out of its way to give you bike lanes on every damn road, then for goodness sake, STAY IN THEM. If you have a special lane on a 55 mph road (which really seems assinine to me, but whatever) then stay the frick in it and off my already narrowed car lane. I'm amazed there aren't more bicycle accidents around here, but I guess that's because we're all so accustomed to them being out in the middle of the road like they're invincible.

It's a pretty well known fact that I drive like an asshole. There's no other way to put it and I am totally fine with that description. I have zero patience for other drivers, I'm always in a hurry and I like to do a million things while I'm driving. I am often texting, drinking coffee, changing songs, etc. all at the same time. Yes, it's a bad habit, but knock on wood, I haven't had a ticket in about 15 years now (and I still swear there were no "kids present" in that stupid school zone three blocks from the school) and the only accident I've ever had wasn't my fault. I am in the best of the best category for my car insurance. How many of you can say that?

Did you know in Illinois they take your license from you when you're ticketed? Well, technically you're allowed to choose giving up your license or paying the cop $200 in cash bond (I kid you not). Right, because I regularly drive around with $200 cash in my bag. And have you ever tried to get into a bar when you're right at about 21 years old with a ticket as proof of your age? It doesn't work too well with the bouncers (excuse me Mr. Bouncer Head Muscle Man, I'm with the DJ...).

The kidlet sometimes says the most hi-LAR-ious things without even meaning to. In the town I used to live in out in the middle of nowhere midwest, this guy used to walk around in a robe carrying a giant wooden cross all day on Easter. Now, I can think of about a million other ways to spend my Easter (Reese's peanut butter eggs and mimosas anyone?), but to each his own. Anyhoo, we were driving down the street and saw the psuedo-Jesus and the young kidlet (who is being raised to choose her own religious beliefs when she is ready, and therefore didn't understand what she was seeing at the time) said, "What is that guy doing? It's not Halloween!). I almost wrecked the car (not from driving like an asshole, for the record) from blowing diet coke out of my nose when she said that (that really burns, by the way).

So fast forward to church-related comment number two a couple weeks ago. We live right down the street from three churches (all within a block of each other) and one of these churches has someone putting up their sign out front with witty (or not so) churchy-type statements and quips all the time. The other day it was something about the revival they were having the coming weekend, to which the kidlet responded in all seriousness, "What are they planning to revive?" That kid SLAYS me sometimes. A lot, actually.

Anyhoo, that's it for today, but I am considering undertaking an effort to blog 365 days of snarkiness starting today. I may give up out of laziness (it definately won't be for lack of something to say, as everyone who really knows me will understand) but I thought it might be a fun way to challenge myself a little and at the same time have a good outlet for my frustrations. So we'll see how long I can keep it up. Just wait for the first hangover blog...