Shallow Materialism FTW.
I'm heading straight for the "oh yeah I still need to pack, hurr." phase of vacation preparation. So what am I doing? Wasting time. It's all part of the "I haven't been able to focus for the last 8-10 months" shtick. The next two days will be packing since we leave on Monday morning. I'm going to check out for those two weeks save for a journal entry if something weird happens (which is pretty inevitable given my past trip history... who knows, maybe Peter Pan Guy and his fairy wife will show up again) and the occasional tweet of something interesting. I'm thinking about un-watching some of the LJ snark comms I'm on as well since I don't need any other needless depressing things in my life right now, and not having that stuff on my flist page will further help me in the whole "checking out" thing while in WDW. I seriously want to forget everything outside the mouse house exists if just for a week or two.
Thins are going... okay... as far as my mental state. Thursday sucked really, really bad though and was one of the worst days I've had in a long time. More small mental/emotional stressors got added to my load and I had a breakdown. I don't know if it was a delayed reaction from Wednesday or what, but it was awful. (Wednesday was the one year anniversary of Angeline passing... I kind of hid myself away for that day.) My parents already understood that I was in a bad place, but I think they understand just how bad a little better now. They've been doing their best to accommodate me and help me however they can, although admittedly there's not a whole lot they can do. They've already said they'll gladly pay for the acupuncture treatments, so that's awesome. They just want me to get better.
I've been treated with some shallow material happies in the last few days. I call them shallow and material because they totally are, but the smallest things can help in stupid ways. The big thing: I got a new phone. I wasn't planning on getting a new phone and was satisfied with my G1, but then that changed when my mom finally joined the 21st century and got a smart phone this week. All of us had been hounding her to update her damn phone because it didn't have a keyboard. She was still texting with a number pad which took for freaking-EVER and she would always get flubbed up if the person she was talking to sent another text before she had finished her first reply, or she'd accidentally send an unfinished text with type-os in it from hitting the wrong button, it was far more tedious and time consuming than it needed to be, etc. The thing is, though, is that once my mom is in a comfort zone with something she WILL NOT LEAVE IT. Ever. Not without harassment. It didn't matter that we told her getting a smart phone would make texting IMMENSELY easier for her and the different apps would be really convenient, she didn't want to change. Those phones are too big. Those phones are too heavy. Those phones don't have a place for phone charms. Those phones are too complicated for me to use. I like my little red phone. I don't do enough on the internet to have a smart phone. We'd answer okay, they have normal bar phones with keyboards in them. Her answer was no, the keys are too small and if I'm going to get a new phone it mind as well have internet on it.
Going around in circles is great, isn't it?
Anyway, my dad finally convinced her to get a new phone on Wednesday. While setting up her new phone (which is a G2) it made me realize just how much they had improved the interface, touch sensitivity, screen brightness/sharpness/size, and speed over the G1. These were all vast improvements to the elements of my G1 that I use the most, particularly in using it to show potential clients my portfolio when I'm out and conversation happens to lead in that direction. So I decided I wanted/needed/could really really use this new phone. Mine has been jamming up quite a bit lately (I could no longer update my apps because the downloads would freeze if they even started at all), the screen resolution and size wasn't nearly as good as what's available out there right now, and the interface/3G was slow as molasses which really stalled me in loading images to show clients as well as being slow and jamming while trying to send e-mails. Triple-sending e-mails to clients isn't a good thing. It was also not notifying me of new e-mails and was hit-and-miss in even receiving them which is really bad when I'm away from my computer and have urgent business e-mails to take care of.
So we go down to the new T-Mobile store that just opened down the street from our house, and I get lovely news confirmed: we didn't have any phone upgrades available even though there should have been some there but they were magically gone, so I was stuck. Our next phone upgrade wouldn't come up for a full 12 months, and I couldn't really wait that long now that I realized just how gummed up my phone had gotten. The last phone upgrade on our account was used by my mom at Christmas to get Bree a new phone, and the rest of them were magically gone. I had an upgrade on my business phone line since it's a separate account, but if I used the upgrade to get the phone and just put my personal phone's sim card in it, I'd still have to pay an extra $180 a year on my business line for the required data plan to purchase the phone. There was no way in hell I was going to tack an extra $180 to my business expenses every year just because our phone upgrades (including mine) had been used by other people.
Even though I was prepared to pay for the phone (although not without a fair amount of bitching about our upgrades being gone), my parents ended up coming through for me on that and paid for the phone since 1) they never gave me the money for the copic markers I got for my birthday which means my business ended up buying them outright anyway and 2) it wasn't really fair that I was going to have to pay out the nose for a phone I actually needed just because my upgrade had been used by somebody who isn't ME. I am eternally grateful for that and as shallow and materialistic as it is, it's helped brighten my mood quite a bit. My portfolio looks beautiful on this new phone's screen (which is also anti-glare/anti-smudge which is a VAST improvement over my G1 for view-ability), it has multi-touch that lets me easily zoom in on the details in my work, and the interface is fast enough that the images load almost instantly instead of making the client wait. It's also on the 4G network which makes e-mailing things much more convenient and reliable which is important since I've lost jobs before from being away from my e-mail for a couple days when we travel.
The other really nice but shallow materialistic thing I've gotten in the last few days was a nice new sheet set for my bed. Again, that was more of a need... the quality was the want. My sheets have been wearing pretty thin on the fitted sheet since they're the only set I've ever had for my bed and they're going on six years old. This morning I noticed that there was finally a hole worn in them and from past experience I knew from that point onward the hole was going to expand exponentially every time I slept on it. Verdict: new sheets. I got a Target gift card in my stocking this year at Christmas so I was going to apply it toward a really really nice 600 thread count sheet set for my bed since I've been sleeping so much... but before I could dig my wallet out of my purse at the check out stand my mom had already swiped her debit card and bought them for me. Again, I didn't ask for it, but I appreciated it a lot. She said it she hoped it would help me a little more in the happy department, which it did.
So... yeah. That's all. I'm consciously making an effort to write in this thing more this year, but I can't promise it will be interesting. >_>
Thins are going... okay... as far as my mental state. Thursday sucked really, really bad though and was one of the worst days I've had in a long time. More small mental/emotional stressors got added to my load and I had a breakdown. I don't know if it was a delayed reaction from Wednesday or what, but it was awful. (Wednesday was the one year anniversary of Angeline passing... I kind of hid myself away for that day.) My parents already understood that I was in a bad place, but I think they understand just how bad a little better now. They've been doing their best to accommodate me and help me however they can, although admittedly there's not a whole lot they can do. They've already said they'll gladly pay for the acupuncture treatments, so that's awesome. They just want me to get better.
I've been treated with some shallow material happies in the last few days. I call them shallow and material because they totally are, but the smallest things can help in stupid ways. The big thing: I got a new phone. I wasn't planning on getting a new phone and was satisfied with my G1, but then that changed when my mom finally joined the 21st century and got a smart phone this week. All of us had been hounding her to update her damn phone because it didn't have a keyboard. She was still texting with a number pad which took for freaking-EVER and she would always get flubbed up if the person she was talking to sent another text before she had finished her first reply, or she'd accidentally send an unfinished text with type-os in it from hitting the wrong button, it was far more tedious and time consuming than it needed to be, etc. The thing is, though, is that once my mom is in a comfort zone with something she WILL NOT LEAVE IT. Ever. Not without harassment. It didn't matter that we told her getting a smart phone would make texting IMMENSELY easier for her and the different apps would be really convenient, she didn't want to change. Those phones are too big. Those phones are too heavy. Those phones don't have a place for phone charms. Those phones are too complicated for me to use. I like my little red phone. I don't do enough on the internet to have a smart phone. We'd answer okay, they have normal bar phones with keyboards in them. Her answer was no, the keys are too small and if I'm going to get a new phone it mind as well have internet on it.
Going around in circles is great, isn't it?
Anyway, my dad finally convinced her to get a new phone on Wednesday. While setting up her new phone (which is a G2) it made me realize just how much they had improved the interface, touch sensitivity, screen brightness/sharpness/size, and speed over the G1. These were all vast improvements to the elements of my G1 that I use the most, particularly in using it to show potential clients my portfolio when I'm out and conversation happens to lead in that direction. So I decided I wanted/needed/could really really use this new phone. Mine has been jamming up quite a bit lately (I could no longer update my apps because the downloads would freeze if they even started at all), the screen resolution and size wasn't nearly as good as what's available out there right now, and the interface/3G was slow as molasses which really stalled me in loading images to show clients as well as being slow and jamming while trying to send e-mails. Triple-sending e-mails to clients isn't a good thing. It was also not notifying me of new e-mails and was hit-and-miss in even receiving them which is really bad when I'm away from my computer and have urgent business e-mails to take care of.
So we go down to the new T-Mobile store that just opened down the street from our house, and I get lovely news confirmed: we didn't have any phone upgrades available even though there should have been some there but they were magically gone, so I was stuck. Our next phone upgrade wouldn't come up for a full 12 months, and I couldn't really wait that long now that I realized just how gummed up my phone had gotten. The last phone upgrade on our account was used by my mom at Christmas to get Bree a new phone, and the rest of them were magically gone. I had an upgrade on my business phone line since it's a separate account, but if I used the upgrade to get the phone and just put my personal phone's sim card in it, I'd still have to pay an extra $180 a year on my business line for the required data plan to purchase the phone. There was no way in hell I was going to tack an extra $180 to my business expenses every year just because our phone upgrades (including mine) had been used by other people.
Even though I was prepared to pay for the phone (although not without a fair amount of bitching about our upgrades being gone), my parents ended up coming through for me on that and paid for the phone since 1) they never gave me the money for the copic markers I got for my birthday which means my business ended up buying them outright anyway and 2) it wasn't really fair that I was going to have to pay out the nose for a phone I actually needed just because my upgrade had been used by somebody who isn't ME. I am eternally grateful for that and as shallow and materialistic as it is, it's helped brighten my mood quite a bit. My portfolio looks beautiful on this new phone's screen (which is also anti-glare/anti-smudge which is a VAST improvement over my G1 for view-ability), it has multi-touch that lets me easily zoom in on the details in my work, and the interface is fast enough that the images load almost instantly instead of making the client wait. It's also on the 4G network which makes e-mailing things much more convenient and reliable which is important since I've lost jobs before from being away from my e-mail for a couple days when we travel.
The other really nice but shallow materialistic thing I've gotten in the last few days was a nice new sheet set for my bed. Again, that was more of a need... the quality was the want. My sheets have been wearing pretty thin on the fitted sheet since they're the only set I've ever had for my bed and they're going on six years old. This morning I noticed that there was finally a hole worn in them and from past experience I knew from that point onward the hole was going to expand exponentially every time I slept on it. Verdict: new sheets. I got a Target gift card in my stocking this year at Christmas so I was going to apply it toward a really really nice 600 thread count sheet set for my bed since I've been sleeping so much... but before I could dig my wallet out of my purse at the check out stand my mom had already swiped her debit card and bought them for me. Again, I didn't ask for it, but I appreciated it a lot. She said it she hoped it would help me a little more in the happy department, which it did.
So... yeah. That's all. I'm consciously making an effort to write in this thing more this year, but I can't promise it will be interesting. >_>