Its Been a Long Week..

This week started great. The Super Bowl weekend provided some fantastic sales for food and we stocked up for a few weeks.. I was even able to get some microwaveable dinners for my lunch at work.. The Super Bowl itself was an amazing game (even though I was rooting for the Bears) and ended the weekend on a good note. Monday morning I was up about an hour earlier than normal and felt refreshed (a first in a very long time) enough to fix myself a breakfast before work. Work itself was hectic, but nothing I wasn't able to handle. It felt good.

The week progressed much like this all the way through Thursday. It was wonderful..

About Tuesday evening though, Celeste and I had a problem.. we can barely afford the car payment monthly and her parents were covering her insurance for her, until recently.. Now we have to find a cheap, full coverage provider fast. One option was presented to us and that was to transfer the car to her brother as he is getting married soon and would like a newer car and we would get his older Explorer. Despite accruing traveling costs and all fees to have the car transferred, the insurance, and the repairs to the truck, I was ok with this.. on the condition that we do it in a weekend and I get to stop by and surprise the hell out of the Grandmother (as the big day is around the corner). So on Thursday I talk to the boss and have Friday off as a paid vacation day before she turned in her payroll, the plan being we take off Thursday night.

Doesn't work.. requested the day off, payroll was submitted, and then I get a call at work from Celeste saying her brother changed his mind and we were out of a trip. Great. OK, so we will use Friday to either car shop and/or shop for insurance.. that also was an utter failure.. I was soo worried about our situation that I stayed up later than normal (about 1am) and CANNOT get up in the morning..I mean I did get up at 10, but my body refused to let me get out of bed and had me take 6 power naps..you know, where you sleep and it feels like you partially awake and a few hours go by, but when you wake up again, it was only 10 or 30 minutes.

Today though.. we decided we were going to keep paying the car and just get new insurance.. I'll find a way to manage. Although any help in suggesting which insurance company is both cheap and good would be greatly appreciated!

Saturdays..

It's amazing how uneventful Saturdays can be in a big city.. Living on the edge of Dallas means 30 minutes of driving to get downtown in light traffic and spending twice as long on something you expected to do in a short time, so much of what needs to be taken care of there is done in the morning. I'm just glad I leave early enough in the weekday mornings to avoid heavy traffic.

So saturdays are the days i get to do my laundry at a laundromat (the one in the complex has never been fixed) which means a stop at the bank for quarters.. 3 hours are spent washing, drying, and folding clothes while other people get to peek at your undergarments.
Then there is grocery shopping.. I've learned not everything is a bargain and that not ONE location houses the cheapest products.. I have to shop around between the Sac N' Sav, Krogers, Tom Thumb, and Albertsons. Luckily the local postman throws circulars for these stores every saturday in my mailbox and I no longer throw them away. My diet consists of Chicken and rice with a random can of vegetables.. I have not mastered cooking pork and beef is now 2 bucks a pound.

Then there is the event that happens once every four saturdays.. the dreaded day of paying all my bills.. my poorest of weekends.. its amazing how quickly money can leave you and how hard it is to save it. Rent is the worse though. Every time I go down to the office, I loath the fact I am giving them money for a room I can do nothing with. The money is better spent on a house where I can be USEFUL.. do some gardening, paint a room, fix the plumbing.. I don't feel like a man unless I am being helpful and productive in my own home.

Oh well.. that time will come eventually. In the mean time, I am happy I feel like an adult. This blog entry may sound like I am upset at life and saddened by the burdens of the world.. well, maybe I am a little.. but I am HAPPY I have these experiences because it means I am no longer a child or just some dumb kid who dropped out of college...

Now I am "just some dumb bloke trying to earn a living for his family."

: D