March 5

Okay, instead of taking a break from my blog, I've decided that maybe I'll just start posting every day and vent all this poisonous crap that builds up inside of me. Maybe if I get it out of the mini tornado that my brain has become, and write some shit down, I can start organizing it into some semblance of sanity.

First of all, I finally got my mail today after almost a week of ignoring it. I only ever get bills which depresses the hell out of me so I've been simply overlooking the fact that I even own a mailbox. Turns out good things can come in the mail too! Both JBB and El sent me some 'food' for Lulubell. How freakin' adorable is that?! I actually laughed. I haven't laughed in forever. It felt good. Thank you guys. Very sweet. And Lulubell appreciates it too. I told her she wasn't allowed to spend it on any more tattoos though. I think the plaid heart on her butt is enough bling for a princess/ballerina pig.

I can tell that I must be snapping out of my funk because for the first time in over a week, I'm back to enjoying cooking. Not that I stopped cooking. Baby doll still needs to be fed no matter what my mood, but I definitely was resenting the fact that I had to expend energy on cooking. Very unlike me. I think it helps that he has posed a new challenge for me. He bought the P90X-3 system. He's VERY unhappy with his weight. It is my job to start cooking low cal meals for him. Needless to say, he's been eating a lot of chicken. I've been doing low cal, chicken meals since around 2/24, I think. The X-3 arrived last Friday. I read the nutritional guide over the weekend. I can't say I learned anything new. I've been chubby chick most of my life, I know the basics of low cal cooking. Last night we watched the pep talk video on what the X-3 is all about. Today, my plan is to get the family room cleaned up which is where he's going to set up all his weights and mats and things, and do his video workouts. Unfortunately, even if I get it all sparkly for him in there today, I'm not sure when he's going to actually start the workouts. My poor boo came home with a cold last night. I plan on making him chicken stew with mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. Somewhat low cal but also a comfort food. I might bake him a brownie too. I told him no more baked goods unless it's a special occasion but I figure I can cut them up and freeze the rest so that he doesn't over indulge as he is wont to do when I bake. I will simply leave one brownie out, unfrozen, to cheer up my sick man.

Since I'm going to be cleaning up the family room for his use, I decided that I can probably steal a corner of it for my use as well. I think a large part of the darkness going on in my brain has to do with the continuous bad weather. Yes, it's snowing again today. Will it ever end?? I have it highlighted on my calendar that we turn the clocks ahead this Sunday. Thank god. That will give us an hour more of daylight each day. And I put a big star on 3/20 on the calendar because that's the first day of Spring. Finally. So, back to the corner I'm stealing. I had talked last fall about starting a vegetable garden this year. Now that I'm out of a job, free vegetables sound even better! So, I went and spent a little money yesterday and I'm about to start some seedlings. I did a bunch of calculations and dedicated a little pocket calendar to my garden mission and it looks like this week is when I need to start the onions and the eggplant that I want to grow. Then I'm all set until the very end of March when I will need to start tomatoes and green peppers. I have it all mapped out when seedlings should be started so that everything should be ready to go into the ground Memorial Day weekend. I bought some seed starter bins and I have the perfect rack to put in front of the sliding glass door in the family room so that the seedlings will get as much sunlight as possible. Plus, with the gas heater running in that room 24/7, it should be warm enough out there as well.

Did I mention how handy my man has become now that he pays rent? Crap. Which reminds me I need to go deposit his first month's rent check in the bank. I should walk over and get that done today. Anyway, I told him that the change in his attitude about my house now that he pays to live here is almost comical. The little gas heater in the family room died a couple of weeks ago. Just stopped working. He got out the user manual for it. Spent a couple of hours cleaning it. And voila, the thing has been back to working like a champ for over a week now! I had also ordered myself some matching tables for the living room before I became jobless. Two end tables, a coffee table, and a console. Baby doll spent half a day putting them all together for me and getting the living room set up all nicey-nice. He's quite the happy little homemaker all of a sudden. And we were watching HGTV the other night (of course) and I asked him if he thought we should paint the living room a light blue color this spring because I feel like the entire room is nothing but shades of brown right now. He gave the paint color a thumb's down. Normally he'd say something to the effect of "whatever you think is best" but he actually expressed an opinion about something! I'm really liking this entire attitude change. I told him he should have started paying rent sooner. :-)

So being out of a job is totally flipping me out. I keep picturing myself being booted out of my house and living on the street. I told baby doll that I know it's a ridiculous thought. Stuff like this must happen all the time to people and you don't hear about people being tossed onto the street on a daily basis, but still, I'm totally spazzing. The thought of being poor has totally changed my personality in the blink of an eye. I was at Wegman's yesterday picking up a few dinner enhancements for my man which is when I saw the display for the vegetable seeds and decided to follow through with my garden plan. When I got to the register, I noticed that the girl was counting how many yellow packets I had and how many green packets I had so that she didn't have to ring up each individual packet. At first I couldn't figure out what she was doing but then I was like oh wait, I should tell her that every seed packet has a different price point. And then I was like, well wait, maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. VERY unlike me. I hate being dishonest like that. And then I thought well it will serve me right if the one packet of seeds that she decided to ring in is one that costs $2.50 - $2.75 and I end up overpaying for the other 14 packets. Turns out the one packet she rang in was the cheapest seed packet I picked out for $1.19. So yep, I stole. My integrity is in the shitter. And in for a penny, in for a pound. A friend of mine said that he has some new releases on flash drives that he can drop off to me on Friday. I actually said okay. I am NOT a fan of stealing movies. I'm always happy to pay to see them at a theater or pay to rent them once they're released. I feel the moviemakers deserve my $10 to entertain me for a couple of hours. But now I'm suddenly broke, jobless girl and it would seem all bets are off. It's not quite on the level of cooking and selling meth like in Breaking Bad but it would seem that I'm on my way to wearing the black hat instead of the white hat. <sigh)

So, I'm unemployed as of Saturday. Some people are very angry about this and I'm not sure why. I haven't worked since August. They can't simply continue to employ me and have me not do any work. It makes logical sense to me that it's time to let me go. The only part of the whole thing that rubs me the wrong way is that they totally ignored my query about working part time. I asked HR if my boss would be interested in employing me part time, she said that she would check with him, and the next thing I know I get a letter stating that I'm being terminated. If my boss doesn't feel that I have any value as a part time employee to the company, that's fine, but at least tell me that. I feel that should have been part of the termination letter. "We reviewed your request to become a part time employee but feel that it would not be an effective move for the company at this time.". Or something to that effect. Don't simply ignore the fact that I asked. I understand they're in business to make money and need to do what's best for them. It just seems like such a lack of integrity, which is kind of par for the course for them, to decide to simply ignore a question rather than give an answer that they think is going to make them 'look bad'. But whatever. I swing by tomorrow to drop off the dinosaur of a laptop that I was using over a year ago when I worked at home for a week. The IT guy is probably going to turn around and dump the poor thing straight into the recycling bin. And I get to pick up whatever HR decided to pack up from my desk and the bathroom. I hope HR is at least smart enough to get our Office Administrator involved in packing me up. I think Lisa has more of a clue of what stuff is mine than HR does.

So now the questions about income and not landing on the street begin. As well as how the hell do I pay for my medical care. I mentioned to Janice at my HBO appointment today that I had lost my job. She immediately started making phone calls for me. Talk about a woman who gets stuff done! She gave me a Charity Care application to fill out. I have no idea what it's for but I'll go ahead and complete it. She also set me up with an appointment to see the social worker after my palliative care appointment tomorrow to talk to me about disability and getting on Medicaid/Medicare. I'm glad I felt the need to mention the loss of my job to Janice, she seems to know who I should talk to and about what! I think that's another good reason for shooting the shit in my blog more often too. To document exactly what hoops I need to jump through to get money to work in my life. Maybe I can write a book about THAT afterwards. If I'm so lost and clueless, there must be a lot of other people who are as well.

So when I woke up feeling crummy this morning I found a somewhat happy thought to fasten on for the day. At least I'm not stuck in the hospital. If I'm going to be bummed out and miserable, better that I can mope on my couch in the comfort of my own home than be stuck in the freezing cold, unfriendly hospital with limitations on my every action!!

And now I'm off to plant some eggplant seeds. Wish me some green thumb's because I'm not sure I own them for growing something that will actually be edible!