(copy from journal - christmas recap & week review)
Overdue Christmas Recap And Week-In-Review
(This got longer then I thought, so I'm going to give sub-headings to the assorted topics I ramble about in the entry.)
Eye Trouble
This could get long, but I'm going to try my best to keep it from being lengthy since I'm mainly typing this with my eyes closed. I was going to write a nice recap entry today but for some unknown reason, my eyes are killing me. They hurt; they ache; and I'm having an almost impossible time focusing/seeing/reading anything right now. I have no idea what's causing it and I've tried putting tea bags on them but it didn't help. Love says they look normal - not puffy or anything - but gods, they hurt. The last time I can recall them hurting like this is when I had an allergic reaction to numbing drops after an eye exam. (They normally numb you for the glaucoma test so they can puff you with air and you not flinch. But I discovered I'm allergic to those things because they made my eyes ooze yellow gunk, burn and ache for about 36 straight hours so I can't use them.) I have no idea what is causing it, but it really sucks because it really hurts.
Christmas
So, in brief, Love and I had a nice Christmas. The weather was terrible though. Severe thunderstorms, flooding, and even an F2 tornado in Pasco county. (North of me.) Something like a hundred homes were damaged and many were totaled. Miserable. We had to run to Love's Aunt's house for 11am breakfast and then to my Mom's for afternoon dinner. Our friend Rand was heading with his family to a family friend's house, and the timing worked out so we got up, opened our gifts, snagged his four-wheel drive Jeep, got to Love's Aunts, came back and took Rand to his mom's and then went to my mom's. Rand's place and ours is in the middle of Love's Aunt's and my mom's so the timing worked out perfectly.
Gifts
I updated the photo page with pics of giftage. You can find the presents gallery here. Love got me a brand new brown leather computer chair. Mine was in bad shape and I really needed a new one. He also got me a couple shirts, a Boyd's Charming Angel, and Lost (season 2) on dvd. My friend Rand and I went in halves on a Canon PowerShot SD600 digital camera for Love. He was thrilled. I also picked up the Nintendo DS game, Brain Age for him as a little something extra. He's been playing it like crazy. Rand got me a dvd burner and a JBL On Stage II portable iPod speaker. He also got Love a memory card for the camera and an artist easel set that was more fun then serious, but still neat. Oh and I got a canned penguin. Literally a penguin plush in a regular can that I had to open with a can opener! My mom and I went in halves on a pair of Shure E2c headphones for Love and he was again thrilled. He's been wanting them for months and months and wouldn't shut up about them. *laughs* He had no idea they were coming. My mom got me four shirts and a nice zipper fleece hoodie from The Animal Rescue Site. My sister and Nanny got us Target gift cards. We're hoping to put it towards something like a new tv stand/entertainment center since ours has been broken for about two years and our tv doesn't fit properly in it. They're so expensive though, it might still be out of reach even with the gift cards. We'll see how it goes. Love's parents got him a shirt and me a raspberry vanilla bath set. His aunt got us a hot cocoa set.
Everyone really liked what we got for them so that was good. My sister really loved the framed beach photo which was nice. Love also drew a picture of his cousin's new baby and she really liked that too.
It was a busy day because it started early and finished late. We finished up over at Rand's Christmas night. We had to return his vehicle anyway so might as well do gift exchange too. Love made out like a bandit and I did pretty darn good myself.
Weather
The day after Christmas the weather cleared up and it got cold. But only for a day and a half. It's now back in the mid-70's but that's still better then it's been. We've been near record highs since Thanksgiving. It's been unbroken 80's for a month now. I wish the cold front would have lasted longer, but that's how it is here. One day, two at most and it's over. Sadly, the next couple days are warm again (once again in the 80's) before heading back to mid/upper 70's. It's been a miserably hot winter so far.
Temp Job
Found out that K2 is going to be on vacation January 12th, plus 15th-19th, so I'll be back at the temp job covering for her. This is a Very Good Thing because we are ungodly broke and it's going to be a hard couple weeks. I'm hoping that I can take some of the pay from that and put it towards the rest of what my glasses will cost as well. It'd be so nice to be able to see properly again! With the gift cards from my anonymous Santa, it's really closely in reach.
Rent Woes
Out lease expires Sunday and we're stuck signing a new lease. Rent's going up another $50/month. *sigh* That means in two years, our rent has gone up $120 a month. Guess how much our income has gone up? Yup, nothing. Wonder why we're so damned stuck in the never-ending paycheck-to-paycheck cycle? It's damned hard to break even, let alone get ahead and the longer you're stuck in the cycle, the harder it is to get out of it. Higher rent means it's even less possible for us to afford other things like another car. (Forgetting of course that we can't even get a loan.) Rent sadly isn't the only thing going up. Our 11 year old car with two over 25 drivers, neither with points, tickets nor accidents, without comp and collision costs us $120/month these days. It went up $20/month this year for the new policy. Why I ask you?? I've shopped around too and sad to say, this is still the cheapest I can find. Things are getting so expensive and hard in Florida. We're seeing a massive growth in homelessness in the area and it's because of rising home costs and costs of living. It's really frightening some days, I tell you.
Closing
I'm sorry. I didn't intend for this to get so serious. Nor so long. I've just got a lot on my mind and I can type pretty well with my eyes closed so I guess I just got going and didn't stop. My friend Rand was off this week so we ran some errands most days and this is my first chance to write an entry. It just all kinda came out in one, messy post.
I hope everyone had a nice holiday and has a safe New Year. We won't be doing anything. Besides being broke, Love really hates NYE (expensive, crowded, drunk people, forced, overhyped holiday.) We'll probably just stay home like we do most years.
And now I really must stop with the screen. These damned eyes hurt and aren't letting up and the monitor is quite evil right now because of it. Ta.
(This got longer then I thought, so I'm going to give sub-headings to the assorted topics I ramble about in the entry.)
Eye Trouble
This could get long, but I'm going to try my best to keep it from being lengthy since I'm mainly typing this with my eyes closed. I was going to write a nice recap entry today but for some unknown reason, my eyes are killing me. They hurt; they ache; and I'm having an almost impossible time focusing/seeing/reading anything right now. I have no idea what's causing it and I've tried putting tea bags on them but it didn't help. Love says they look normal - not puffy or anything - but gods, they hurt. The last time I can recall them hurting like this is when I had an allergic reaction to numbing drops after an eye exam. (They normally numb you for the glaucoma test so they can puff you with air and you not flinch. But I discovered I'm allergic to those things because they made my eyes ooze yellow gunk, burn and ache for about 36 straight hours so I can't use them.) I have no idea what is causing it, but it really sucks because it really hurts.
Christmas
So, in brief, Love and I had a nice Christmas. The weather was terrible though. Severe thunderstorms, flooding, and even an F2 tornado in Pasco county. (North of me.) Something like a hundred homes were damaged and many were totaled. Miserable. We had to run to Love's Aunt's house for 11am breakfast and then to my Mom's for afternoon dinner. Our friend Rand was heading with his family to a family friend's house, and the timing worked out so we got up, opened our gifts, snagged his four-wheel drive Jeep, got to Love's Aunts, came back and took Rand to his mom's and then went to my mom's. Rand's place and ours is in the middle of Love's Aunt's and my mom's so the timing worked out perfectly.
Gifts
I updated the photo page with pics of giftage. You can find the presents gallery here. Love got me a brand new brown leather computer chair. Mine was in bad shape and I really needed a new one. He also got me a couple shirts, a Boyd's Charming Angel, and Lost (season 2) on dvd. My friend Rand and I went in halves on a Canon PowerShot SD600 digital camera for Love. He was thrilled. I also picked up the Nintendo DS game, Brain Age for him as a little something extra. He's been playing it like crazy. Rand got me a dvd burner and a JBL On Stage II portable iPod speaker. He also got Love a memory card for the camera and an artist easel set that was more fun then serious, but still neat. Oh and I got a canned penguin. Literally a penguin plush in a regular can that I had to open with a can opener! My mom and I went in halves on a pair of Shure E2c headphones for Love and he was again thrilled. He's been wanting them for months and months and wouldn't shut up about them. *laughs* He had no idea they were coming. My mom got me four shirts and a nice zipper fleece hoodie from The Animal Rescue Site. My sister and Nanny got us Target gift cards. We're hoping to put it towards something like a new tv stand/entertainment center since ours has been broken for about two years and our tv doesn't fit properly in it. They're so expensive though, it might still be out of reach even with the gift cards. We'll see how it goes. Love's parents got him a shirt and me a raspberry vanilla bath set. His aunt got us a hot cocoa set.
Everyone really liked what we got for them so that was good. My sister really loved the framed beach photo which was nice. Love also drew a picture of his cousin's new baby and she really liked that too.
It was a busy day because it started early and finished late. We finished up over at Rand's Christmas night. We had to return his vehicle anyway so might as well do gift exchange too. Love made out like a bandit and I did pretty darn good myself.
Weather
The day after Christmas the weather cleared up and it got cold. But only for a day and a half. It's now back in the mid-70's but that's still better then it's been. We've been near record highs since Thanksgiving. It's been unbroken 80's for a month now. I wish the cold front would have lasted longer, but that's how it is here. One day, two at most and it's over. Sadly, the next couple days are warm again (once again in the 80's) before heading back to mid/upper 70's. It's been a miserably hot winter so far.
Temp Job
Found out that K2 is going to be on vacation January 12th, plus 15th-19th, so I'll be back at the temp job covering for her. This is a Very Good Thing because we are ungodly broke and it's going to be a hard couple weeks. I'm hoping that I can take some of the pay from that and put it towards the rest of what my glasses will cost as well. It'd be so nice to be able to see properly again! With the gift cards from my anonymous Santa, it's really closely in reach.
Rent Woes
Out lease expires Sunday and we're stuck signing a new lease. Rent's going up another $50/month. *sigh* That means in two years, our rent has gone up $120 a month. Guess how much our income has gone up? Yup, nothing. Wonder why we're so damned stuck in the never-ending paycheck-to-paycheck cycle? It's damned hard to break even, let alone get ahead and the longer you're stuck in the cycle, the harder it is to get out of it. Higher rent means it's even less possible for us to afford other things like another car. (Forgetting of course that we can't even get a loan.) Rent sadly isn't the only thing going up. Our 11 year old car with two over 25 drivers, neither with points, tickets nor accidents, without comp and collision costs us $120/month these days. It went up $20/month this year for the new policy. Why I ask you?? I've shopped around too and sad to say, this is still the cheapest I can find. Things are getting so expensive and hard in Florida. We're seeing a massive growth in homelessness in the area and it's because of rising home costs and costs of living. It's really frightening some days, I tell you.
Closing
I'm sorry. I didn't intend for this to get so serious. Nor so long. I've just got a lot on my mind and I can type pretty well with my eyes closed so I guess I just got going and didn't stop. My friend Rand was off this week so we ran some errands most days and this is my first chance to write an entry. It just all kinda came out in one, messy post.
I hope everyone had a nice holiday and has a safe New Year. We won't be doing anything. Besides being broke, Love really hates NYE (expensive, crowded, drunk people, forced, overhyped holiday.) We'll probably just stay home like we do most years.
And now I really must stop with the screen. These damned eyes hurt and aren't letting up and the monitor is quite evil right now because of it. Ta.