Recently in nablopomo Category

oops. well, i guess i haven't been all that diligent about posting this month. but, i will say i think i did pretty well for someone who hasn't been in the habit since, oh, last NaBloPoMo. 22 out of 30 days? not bad, indeed. go me!

sorry about all the cats. but, just like when people start spawning, all i have to talk about these days are my infuriatingly adorable purr babies. you know, like how they managed to destroy two framed photographs last night while i was down in the laundry room for no more than seven minutes. sigh.

as i was talking to my mom last night, i mentioned to her that i've been reading a lot lately about the minimalist movement, i just didn't realize that adopting kittens would force me into the lifestyle with the removal of all my stuff from my walls, shelves and floors in the name of kitten-proofing. or, as i said to Christopher, i just can't have anything nice now that i have cats. oh well, at least i have the cats. they're pretty nice. most of the time.

i've been reminded lately of how hard it is to have friends who live very far away. i'd almost forgotten what it felt like after i started to have friends who actually lived in the same area code as me. it's a strange sensation. on one hand, it's so amazingly awesome to have a connection with someone fantastic who really gets you; on the other, it's such a heart-breaker to not be able to spend real time with them because of epic geographical impedance. and to think, for a good seven years or so, those were the only kinds of relationships i had. how sad for me. it both makes me very glad of my awesome local friendships and disappointed for all the things which get missed because my other friends aren't nearby. everybody needs to move to Vancouver. we'll get a giant old house and live commune style! but with more frequent showers and no fucking patchouli.

tomorrow night is the finale for ANTM cycle Boring and there will be people playing with my cats to enjoy it with. this weekend, Kingsley goes in for his second service and i will be exercising my bumper-to-bumper warranty and getting yet another set of new windshield wipers because the ones they put on in July are shitty streaky and gross. seriously! they only last four months?! blah. stupid cheap wipers! a least they'll be free. oh, and Sunday is Got Craft? day! i'm almost considering lining up at 7am just to get in on the swag bag magic. anybody want to come line up with me?

oh, yeah, i think i'm skipping Christmas this year. i can't decorate because of cats and i shouldn't bake because of the size of my ass. my work party was last Friday, so i boycotted and trying to organize a department lunch is full of frustration. if the weather co-operates, i'll be going to Parksville to spent a couple of days with my mom, leaving my cats alone to destroy anything left out in my apartment. if the weather is prohibitive, i think Kimli has said she's going to kidnap me, which might be the most festive option available to me.

it's kind of a holiday tradition that i talk to my friend Tyler in a huge rush while he's visiting his childhood home in Arizona. i guess when he's away from the excitement of his high-falooting life in the city of angels he has more time to catch up with old (old, old, old) friends.

i don't know why i'm mentioning it other than i really love it when we get to send more than one message to each other each week. part of me really misses the hours (and hours and hours and hours) we used to spend online chatting or talking on the phone into the wee hours of the night. the other part of me wonders what i could have done with all those hours (and hours and hours) if i'd been so inclined. hrm.

anyway, there's no real point to any of this. just that i have a very large amount of affection for my friend Tyler and there aren't even enough words to express how happy i am we are still in contact (however sporadic) and that after twelve years we finally got to meet and it must have went well because he keeps saying he wants to come back again (even though it hasn't worked out that way yet).

btw, i ate about 18 timbits and drank approximately 1.5 litres of coffee for breakfast this morning. i don't think i'll ever make sense ever again.

p.s. today is my work birthday. 13 years! i've worked here as long as i was in the public school system. i should get a diploma! or at least a cake. where's my cake?!

my dad came over tonight and did all the hammer and nailing to build the foundation of my awesome cat furniture. it would have been completed, except that the staples he bought didn't fit his staplegun, so sisal and carpet will have to wait for a proper reload.

there's supposed to be snow tomorrow. i'm not happy about it. i'm a little scared to take the new car out in the snow for the first time. i just have to keep remembering i have replacement insurance, so if it goes smash, i get a new car. hopefully in celestial blue this time.

last night, i came home to a wad of grungy hair on the bathroom floor. seems my cats are clean freaks, too, and were very helpful by cleaning out the shower drain. i guess i'll keep them if they're insisting on being so handy around the house.

now, if only i could get them to learn how to wipe their feet before leaving the Booda Dome.

i've vacuumed my floors more in the last three weeks than i have in the last three years. why didn't anyone tell me cats are so damn hairy? it's taking a lot of self-control to not freak out about the fur and paper balls and bits of kitty litter and pieces of food all over my apartment now. but, my neat-freak impulses run deep, so i've ordered myself a Furminator off Amazon. it won't be here until after the holidays (probably), but after discovering my duvet is already covered in cat, something had to be done. i don't know if it will work, but it was a third of the price at the local pet stores, so i thought i'd give it a shot.

my search for the perfect cat furniture has turned into Project: Make a Thing. with the help of my dad, the kittens should have their own custom scratch-perch by the end of the week. i hope it turns out as awesome as i've imagined it; but, whatever. the price is turning out to be just right: practically free! i think the only thing i'll have to pay for is the sisal rope for the scratching pillar. yay for handy dads and access to power tools and wood scraps!

p.s. i pulled out the little heater and turned it on full blast last night for over three hours and it only raised the temperature in the living room three degrees. ugh. i'll be glad when this cold snap snaps back outta here. *brr*

seems i suck at weekend blogging. sorry. i was too busy:

a) being cold
b) playing with cats
c) sleeping
d) freezing
e) being with awesome peoples
f) having hot showers in order to not freeze to death
g) eating amazing cheesecake
h) going to bed in order to combat both full moon malaise and the brr-cold

to blog about the goings on, of which, see the list above.

there are a lot of things i love about my apartment. of the less than five things i hate, the biggest has got to be that i don't control the heat. it's central to the building and has some magic setting that makes absolutely no sense and takes three to five days to react to whatever the outside temperature is. as a result, when winter SLAMS into town, my home is like a frozen winterland of shivering.

friday night, after dinner, dishes and chores were done, i was sitting on the couch with my kittens watching tv and i started to shiver so violently i got a headache. in order to combat the cold, i got in a blazing hot shower. so hot, i got a little woozy. it was blissful and burny and so very nice to be able to feel the searing in my fingertips. afterwards, i wrapped up in my towel, housecoat and buried myself under the duvet in bed in hopes of thwarting a return of the chill.

next i knew, it was 10:30 pm and i had no desire to wake up. ever. i hopped up and groggily turned off the lights, scooped the litter and went back to bed where it was warm and there were cats.

that kind of set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

other than some awesome potluck movie-time at Kimli's saturday night and brunch & Main St. adventures with Colene & Christopher on sunday, there wasn't a lot going on. except the mahjong. so. much. mahjong. seriously. i had tiles floating in my head as i fell asleep last night (after not getting dinner in time enough to fend off a grumpy low blood sugar headache and the chill set in so i, again, ended up in bed at 7:30pm just to keep the bad at bay).

anyway, rambly but cold. that's what you get today. hi!

this was going to be comment on Jen's post about the role of "emergency accounts" in her financial plan, but it got a little long as i realized i had a lot to say on the matter.

thanks to no-fee accounts offered by both my brick-and-mortar and online-only banks, i have a lot of different accounts set up to help me segregate and manage my limited income:

emergency fund - unexpected everything, major car bills, loss of income (sick, strike). this account used to be non-existent. i spent everything, and more, that i made and spent a lot of time shuffling money between credit cards. then, i somehow got my shit together and realized i needed a cushion to get me through unexpected rough patches. three years ago, i used the contents of it to buy the Golf from hell after i crashed my Geo. i heart this account so much. it currently has more in it than it ever has and just knowing it's there to keep me from financial ruin is worth every penny.

car/gas fund - a fixed amount goes in every month, gas bills get paid out of it and the difference builds for regular maintenance (which, thanks to having a brand new car, should be very inexpensive for the next few years). the long-term goal is to increase the monthly amount over time so that when it's time to trade in my car, there will be enough to help subsidize the purchase price of a new one.

yearlies fund - i added up all my once-a-year bills then divided the amount by twelve. that amount, plus a little more, goes in this account each month to cover things like car insurance, tenant insurance, flickr account fee, medical deductible, BCAA membership, domain hosting, etc. you know, those budget-busting bills you usually forget about until they're way too close to the due date. hell, i even save for my twice-a-year haircuts and dental cleanings in this account!

cat fund - after a discussion about pet insurance vs. savings account on twitter, i decided to go the savings account route, especially after adopting two cats and research showed that there are huge disparities between premiums and coverage between pet insurers. unfortunately, i had to dip into the emergency fund to pay for Rose's paw x-rays because i hadn't yet made a deposit into this account. oops. maybe i made the wrong decision...?

frivolous/targeted fund - this is my "fun" account. the plan has been to put a set amount into this account so that when an opportunity arises that i can't work into my monthly budget (and most don't these days), i would have a small pool of money to use for it. say, a small trip or a sewing machine or cats -- all of which i did this year, thanks to this account! unfortunately, whenever there's an unexpected withdrawal from the emergency fund, this account gets shunned until it's topped back up again.

i also have smaller ones for charity giving, christmas gifts and transitional savings (short term savings to cover monthly bills charged on credit cards to obtain rewards); but, the five above are my big ones. if i didn't have them, i'd be in dire shape financially. i wouldn't know what was coming or how to handle it when it did. i lived there for a long time and i will never, EVER go back. i may be crazy spreadsheet lady; but, i'd rather be that then stupid credit card girl.

i like talking about my money strategies. we should do it more often.

and just like that, most everything is right in the world.

or at least it doesn't feel like everything is wrong, which is pretty close to all right.

when i arrived home yesterday i immediately took to my bed, whereupon i was joined by purring cats doing weird things to inappropriate parts of my body. this would have been joyful enough, but then i saw something. Rose was walking on her sore paw! i nearly lept out of my skin with excitement. keen observation revealed not 100% improvement, but nearly 75% of steps were taken with all four paws. healing achieved! no more worry about a lame kitten or kitty codeine doses. phew! i didn't ruin my cat! yay!

just that would have been enough to help me out of my funk, but then Shan & Josh came over to meet the girls. we sat on the floor catching up and playing with kittens. we even watched ANTM and ate pizza! it was a fairly awesome way to fix a shitty day in hessieland.

except for that part when Josh tried to smuggle Amy home in his jacket. bad Josh! i can't really blame him though, she is pretty adorable.

so, yeah. whiplash moodswings. ain't i just a barrel of monkeys?

wow, i'm bloo.

i'll blame my uterus today, but i'm fairly assured the overarching reasons are valid and as soul-crushing as they feel at this moment. i'm just not usually flooded with hormones and cramps enough to let them get to me this way.

i tried to explain to a co-worker my desire to void my life of all my stuff, only to build it back up in a more mindful manner. she didn't get it. she kept saying things like "that would cost a lot of money" or "couldn't you keep your nice couch? maybe put it in a different spot?" uh, no. that's not really the point.

although, the point seems to be a bit of a moving target in my head right now.

as i type this, i want it all gone. all of it. bare walls, bare floors, empty shelves, empty closets, nothing but me sitting in the middle of my living room floor staring up at the rippled ceiling. then a coat of blisteringly white paint over everything. after that...

and it's gone.

right now, i want to go to bed with a cat on either side of me and not come out unless there's pizza or a sack of money enough to keep me in the manner to which i've become accustomed.

i wish i wasn't smart. if i were stupid, maybe i wouldn't realize i'm not living up to my potential and i wouldn't be so damn disappointed in myself. maybe i'd be happy with my dreary day-to-day and unable to see that there could be so much more, of only i hadn't done X, Y or Z in my past to limit my options today.

it's times like these i really wish i liked to drink or do recreational drugs. it sometimes feels like an acceptable coping method. but, i don't. and that makes me feel even more pathetic.

blah. just ignore me. that's kind of what i want right now, anyway.

my head's a jumble of thoughts today.

i'm suddenly overcome with STUFF. i want to give/sell/throw everything i own away and start over from scratch, being more particular and precise with what i bring into my home and life. i routinely get this urge, but right now, it's entirely overwhelming. i really would just chuck it all and start fresh if i had the resources to do so. suffocating. that's the sensation. it's all just too much for me to handle right now.

me, the cats and some scrunched up pieces of paper is all we need, right?

so, if i start posting tweets about all the crap i want to sell, don't be surprised. especially if it's craft or seasonal stuff. you know, the shit which lives in boxes and never sees the light of day? oh, yeah. and all that bento box crap i bought and never used.

i got myself almost a full night's sleep for the first time since bringing the kittens home. i didn't wake up for anything until almost 4 a.m.! i don't know if they were super-quiet or i just slept through all their antics, but i really needed the rest.

the time change is fucking with me so hard this year. well, i shouldn't really blame the time change. i'm blaming the short amount of daylight. i get up, and it's dark. i go to work, and it's dark. i come home, and it's dark. i go to bed, and it's dark. i get home from work between 4:30 and 5:00; but, it feels like it's 8 or 9 o'clock because it's so damn dark out! even with every light in my apartment on, i have such a hard time accomplishing anything at home because it feels as if it's almost bedtime and i should be winding down instead of doing something/anything. the irony is, all this dark is somehow making every day feel so much longer than it should, but i still can't seem to get stuff done!

i can't wait for spring.

oh, yeah. the cats found the toilet paper yesterday. luckily, they just pulled it all off the roll and didn't do too much shredding of it. i certainly hope it doesn't become a habit. that stuff's not cheap!

i might have to go out at lunch. there's actual daylight out there today. who knows when we'll get to see it again.

wah.

i was too busy making spaghetti sauce, playing with cats and socializing to post on sunday.

instead you get this back-dated excuse.