Yet another long-winded update...!
So everything, in my personal experience, always happens in 3s. My kidney infection and my back problems were the first two, and I was expecting a piano to fall on my head to top it all off. But it's okay, no string instruments are looming, because Brandon got fired.
Yeah, fired. From his full-time job making slightly more than me. Half of our income, poof! Gone! And why, you ask? Because he was listening to his iPod at work even after his boss had told him time and time again not to. Even after he was suspended without pay for 3 days last week because his boss caught him listening to it again. I TOLD HIM. Ugh. He's one of those people who doesn't listen until something REALLY bad happens.
But is this really all that bad? Well, financially, yes. But he's over at labor ready and he can make the minimum at least to pay the bills. We're just going to kind of have to put the brakes on paying back my mom for the deposits to move into our townhouse for a little while (I still owe her $700... but at one point I owed her $1100 so I'm really not that concerned!). Someday I'd like to actually put enough in my savings so that we won't have to go through this again. I was actually starting to be able to do that! That whole entire $130 chilling in my savings looks pretty laughable right now though.
But in all honesty, that job SUCKED for him. He HATED it. He had a job in white sand over at Rodgers Instruments, fine-sanding wooden consoles for pianos and organs before they were sprayed. Kind of sounds neat, until you think about it. He was in a very loud room all day, covered in dust, doing repetitive work that was starting to tear up his shoulder (!), and he wasn't even allowed to listen to Harry Potter audio books on his iPod to break the monotony. Everyone there had a habit of leaving at least 5 minutes early every day, but NOT BRANDON, OH NO. If he left even one minute before 2:30, he got "talked to" for it. He'd gotten promoted over to the other side of the plant for a bit with a $1/hour raise. But they decided he was really better over in sanding so they moved him back, but they let him keep his pay on condition he didn't disclose to anyone what he was making. So of course one of his coworkers looks in his garbage and finds his paystub and complains to the boss, so they docked his pay back down. They punished HIM for someone ELSE going through his garbage.
Karl gave me a fortune cookie the other night, and my fortune was something along the lines of, look in favor to bold beginnings. I hate it when fortune cookies are clairvoyant like that. It's really creepy. But I think that cookie had something there. We were going to get Brandon into the Steamfitters Union in a few months and he was going to quit Rodgers anyway. But I really think the timing here was sudden yet fortunate. I don't think he could have stood another day there, let alone a few months. It was like a big dusty weight came off both of our shoulders. And I know we're going to make it, we're just not going to be able to decorate as extensively as I'd hoped for Halloween. To being broke, but not poor!!
Sigh...
But my lower back is really bothering me. To suddenly not be able to move is extremely unnerving. If I'd gotten in a car wreck or something that would be at least an expected unfortunate consequence. But we didn't. NOTHING happened to me. It just started being stiff, and then it hit my sciatic in my right leg, so I went to the chiropractor. Then it hit my sciatic in my LEFT leg, so I went back to the same chiropractor. And then just the middle of my lower back hurt, right in my spine, and it was stiff and I couldn't quite dance around or bend over too well. So I did some stretching and it was getting a little better... and then BAM! Crippled. Couldn't even get myself up from the toilet! And now, I can bend forward but I can't... curve myself backward at all. If that makes sense. It looks like a board has been strapped to my back. I walk around like this girl Brooke we used to make fun of in like Jr. High. She kind of tucked her behind in when she walked, maybe to make it look less big, but I mean she was like 13 it was tiny anyway and it looked ridiculous.
And of course the part that makes me most upset about the whole thing is that I can't walk straight up, so I don't flex my stomach when I walk like normal, and I've probably gained about 5 pounds straight to my gut. And I'm pretty inactive now anyway. So Brandon gets me chocolate to make me feel better...! My once small-normal frame with a little padding where it looks good is now getting more just flat-out squishy. I'm only 22. I should not be walking around like an old lady and I should not "need rest" all the time.
And even when I can move around, if I'm standing or walking for more than 5 minutes, my whole back starts to seize up and I get "stuck" again, and I have to sit down right then before I fall over writhing in pain and screaming. I have to walk perfectly straight, no "natural curve" to my spine. It's like the little muscles around my spine are just unable to hold ANY weight. It's so frustrating, I just want to scream and run around and go crazy, but I CAN'T BECAUSE IT HURTS!!! It's not even a little backache! I can't take advil and make it go away! My SPINE is STUCK, it's STIFF, it does not FLEX like a normal spine is supposed to! What the hell is wrong with me??!!?!?!!?!?!
AAAAAUUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!!!
At least I don't need to move around to sing. I love singing.