And so it begins (again)

November first. Do you have a sugar hangover? Or just a hangover?

Me, I have a sleep hangover. You know, when you get too much sleep, and then it throws off the entire rest of your day? I can’t remember the last time I got more than 7 hours of sleep in a night, let alone 14 hours.  And it did throw off my entire day, because I’d been planning to take my kids down to Western Kentucky University, to see The Muckrakers play an afternoon show.  If the show starts at 1pm, I need to leave the house by, say, 9am in order to get there early enough to find my way around and deal with the homecoming weekend crowds.  Imagine my dismay when I woke up at 11:30am.

So it’s November 1st, the widely-acknowledged beginning of NaNoWriMo.  I’ve never written a novel in my life, and after discovering a stash of stories I wrote in high school and college and reading through them, I’ve pretty much vowed to never inflict my fiction skills on anyone else.  But I do like the idea of just sitting down and writing.  I’ve done this before via my LiveJournal, and not only in Novembers, where I pledged to myself to post something every day for the month.  And it really did help me become a better writer, at least for a time.  

So I’m going to post something here every day for the next thirty days.  Most of it probably won’t be very interesting, sometimes it might only be a picture to be posted. But I know from past experience that the in-the-back-of-my-head knowledge that I’ll need to come up with something to write about will cause me to look at my world in a slightly different way each day.

And isn’t that what writing, and new beginnings are about?

It seems somewhat appropriate-yet-ironic that, in this month of November when aspiring novelists are attacking their word processors with a vengeance, I admit that I have been avoiding words lately.  Actively avoiding posting, both here and to my personal journal.

A few of the things I have not written about in the past month:

• The chest pains that led my doctor to a diagnosis of re-asthma.  The good news is my lung-capacity test was “passed with flying colors.”  The bad news is that the “let’s just try this and see if it helps” medication didn’t help, and now I’m on a different medication as well as carrying an inhaler everywhere.  I’m not sure if either is helping yet, to a major extent.
• My current battle against depression.  I am handling emotions better than I had been, this medication is definitely helping.  But I continue to be apathetic toward my home environment.
• Financially, I was a loser this last month.  I completely slid back to the person I was 10 months ago, not opening bills when they arrived, not paying bills when I knew they were due.  And I overspent.  The cable was turned off at least once (although that was an issue of not paying enough when I did pay, which is automatically done, and I’ve fixed the amount issue), and the electric was turned off.  That one really sucked, since I didn’t get home til 8:20 and the customer service office closes at 8.  So I read a book by candlelight, set my cell phone’s alarm, and took a lukewarm shower (also by candlelight).  And called myself stupid every time I went to use the bathroom and automatically flipped the light switch.

Some good things did happen in the last month as well:

• I took my kids on a roadtrip to Washington DC for fall break.  We spent three wonderful days in the city, including a blissful and beautiful afternoon spent with an old college friend.  Maybe I’ll put together a travelogue of the whole thing.  The afternoon spent with Mike was definitely a highlight, as well as the dinner with Jess.  I also enjoyed the time spent with Kelly, and meeting her roommate Dave.  I renewed my ambition to move to Maryland/DC, which included meeting Kelly’s boss and co-workers.
• My anti-depressant continues to prove its worth (and expense).  When there have been issues at work, I’ve been able to calmly discuss them with supervisors.
• I interviewed for a promotion at work, which I think went well.  I haven’t heard anything back about it yet though, but neither has the position been filled yet.  Fingers remain crossed.
• Ginger has fully recovered from whatever was ailing her in September.  I think the switch in food made the biggest difference.  She has gained weight and regained energy and affection.
• Did I mention the wonderful vacation I took with my kids?  In which nobody felt the urge to throttle anyone else?  And lots of good memories were made?

There have been times over the past month that I’ve thought to myself, I need to write about this, I should post about that.  But I haven’t.  Then I figured, okay, in November I’ll post something every day (which has worked well in the past).  That obviously didn’t happen either.  But I’ll do better this month.  In everything.  Because if I don’t do it, nobody else will.  Just like the yardwork.

It is what it is

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, and I apologize to all three of you who read this blog.  I’ve been struggling with some things, working on improving some things, and just plain trying to tread water in some things.  The last few weeks have had some of the brightest moments I’ve experienced in a long time, and also some of the darkest.  It’s enough to say that I’m “living better through chemistry”, and thank God for SSRIs.

I wrote about my Boston adventure, chronicled in near-real time for the most part in my personal journal.   It appears I’ve forgotten to post about the Monday I spent there, but the meat and potatos are there.

I’ve been slacking somewhat on my finances, I think there are some bills that I’ve neglected to pay this month.  Not forgotten, neglected.  It’s hard keeping up on all this constantly as a single person, with nobody to account to.  I want to write a post about that, and how accountability is not just related to money, but I haven’t had the energy.

I worked all day today, I work all day tomorrow, and I’ll work all day on Monday.  It is what it is.

misc

My posts have been sparse because I don’t want this space to be a “this is what I did today, and here’s a picture of my cat” blog. I haven’t had the Available-Time-To-Write and Inclination axes line up correctly lately. But I’ve been making notes on possible posts (with a pen and paper! go figure!), and intend to use the in-the-air time on Friday to expand on some of them. Part of what’s held me back lately is that I’m not sure I want to write about work situations. I don’t want to get dooced.

Oh, the plane? Taking me to Boston for the weekend, where I’ll be skydiving for charity. Donations are still being accepted, email me for more details.  And I’ll be doing something I haven’t thought of doing once in the past 5 years – I’ll be packing my laptop in my luggage instead of taking it on the plane with me.  I’m going old-school with a ballpoint pen and legal pad!  And my Palm TX – hey, a girl’s gotta geek!

Also, an update.  My license is now 100% completely legal, and all it took was a few hours of mind-numbing time at the BMV and more than a few hundred dollars.  But it lifted such a weight off of me.  I still cringe when I’m being tailgated, and I still say a prayer when I speed (unknowingly) past a cop on the interstate, but at least now it’s for the same reasons everyone else does!
Oh, what the hell, here’s a cat picture:

(taken with my Motorola Q, all rights reserved)

Gmail hack

This isn’t really a hack, per se, but it’s something I’ve been trying to figure out, and today found a way to do it.

The situation I’ve been in is, I have several gmail accounts, some of which I rarely use, some of which I intend to use more, as well as the original main one that has all my email subscriptions on it. But google works like yahoo, in that it only allows one account to be signed in at a time. It’s a pain to keep signing out and logging in, just to find I have no mail in the other account. So here’s a way around that.

• Signed into your main Gmail account, go to Settings (upper right corner).
• Click on Accounts (second tab from left). The first section is “Send mail as”.
• Click on “Add another email address”
• Follow instructions, including verifying the add from the added account (so you’ll have to log out and sign into the second one. Make sure you have POP forwarding enabled on your secondary account, or it won’t work.

Now look at the second section, “Get mail from other accounts”.

• Click “Add another mail account”.
• Enter the complete address, click “Next step”.
• Follow prompts for username and password.
• Choose a label – the default is the entire address, but click the drop-down menu and select “New label”
• Enter your new label; I’d suggest a short word, as this is going to be at the beginning of the line for each email in your inbox.
• If you’re using a gmail account here, do not click “Leave a copy of retrieved mail” – if you do, it’ll give you an error message anyways. Do click “Always use secure connection”

You can repeat this for as many accounts as you want to; I have a secondary Gmail account and my Comcast account linked. You can specify to reply from that address or from your default (main) address. Your mileage may vary, but when I linked the accounts (especially Comcast, as it had more mail), it downloaded all the mail from my webmail inbox, which peppered it throughout my Gmail inbox.

This can be an efficient way to combine addresses into one operation, while retaining the benefits of Gmail (threaded conversations, archiving, web access). If you try it, let me know how it works for you, and how you like it.

Stages of De-Ostriching

I’ve debated with myself on whether or not to post about an issue I’ve had with my driver’s license.  The issue is, I’m a procrastinating ostrich who hadn’t dealt with the Big Main Issue, which is that my license was known to be expired and suspected to be suspended.  And that my tag was expired.  Altogether not a good situation in case of accident or being pulled over.  Neither of which has happened, thankfully.  I haven’t even talked to a cop since 2005, when I met the business end of Newton’s First Law.  And the last time before that was when I learned that Clark County cops mean it when they post a speed limit in a construction zone on the interstate, and they don’t care that it’s 6am on a Saturday.  This resulted in the ticket that started the whole thing rolling.  Well, not the expired part, that’s just me being a procrastinator.

So I finally got brave enough to go to the BMV and talk to them about the situation.  And get my tag renewed, so at least my car is legal.  Which it is now.  All I walked away with on Saturday was the tag sticker and a phone number to call.  And, amazingly, I actually did call the number, and obtained the court case and another phone number to call.  So that was Stage I, accomplished.

I called the court this morning, and found out to my near-delight that my only obligation toward that end was to pay a fine.  I happily wrote a check to take care of the fine, after being shuffled around from window to desk to another window to the right window.  I walked away with a printout to take to another branch of the BMV, which is closed on Mondays, so I’m glad I didn’t go there first.  Stage II accomplished.

On my lunch break I accomplished Stage II-1/2 by calling Progressive and getting a form faxed to the state, showing proof of insurance and start date and such.  I don’t know for certain if that was sufficient yet, thus the 1/2.

Tomorrow morning I shall be at the downtown branch of the BMV (that’s the DMV, only the state had to be fancy and call it a Bureau), clutching my piece of paper from the court and wielding another check with which to pay a reinstatement fee.

There was also something about having to retake the written test, but that was from the mean lady at the westside BMV branch I was at on Saturday, and nobody’s mentioned it since, so we’re just going to think good thoughts about that.  I also have to take a defensive driving course, which can be done online, and within 7-10 working days they’ll notify the BMV of such.  Which means I might actually have a valid driver’s license when I go to Boston in less than three weeks.

This is the second time since I started a savings account that I’ve had to dip in to cover legal issues that became unavoidable.  But I’m okay with the fact that my savings account will take a big hit because of this – because at least I have a savings account to dip into.  This is the definition of Emergency Fund, at its core.

The money that’s left

Apparently I have more learning and struggling to do regarding finances.

I’d been playing a bit fast and loose with the budget this past week – bought some new clothes and shoes at Target (terrific sales, but still), bought some new earrings at Kohls (again, great prices, but about $50 spent), some odds and ends for Juliana’s birthday (about $25 worth).  Nothing that on its own would destroy my week, but added all up and I knew I was playing with a live coal.  Not yet fire, but the potential was there.

So I threw my minor savings over to checking (the major savings was left alone).  This left me with $0.21 in my savings account, the one connected directly to the checking account.  This becomes important later.  Hell, it was probably pretty important at that moment too.

As it turns out, “pending” transactions don’t mean anything when it comes to an overdrawn account.  The penny-counting, quarter-scrounging I did on my lunch break in an attempt to avoid the overdraft fee was for nothing.  The overdraft fee will hit the account at midnight, at the same time as my paycheck.  I sincerely hope nothing happens to delay my direct deposit paycheck or the pooch shall be screwed.

The customer service rep tells me that if I call back tomorrow, they’ll be able to take the charge off the account.  But the eating-out I’ve done this week has definitely come back to bite me.  If I hadn’t stopped at Target for bagels and a frozen dinner (which I haven’t even eaten yet!), I would’ve been okay.  If I’d only gotten one less item, I would’ve been okay.

This is a hard lesson to learn, a hard one to remember, and a bitter pill to swallow.  I’m still struggling with some of the parts of this lesson.  But I will work on the concept that, just because the bills are all paid, does not mean I get to go have fun with the money that’s left.

I had a dream

I had a dream last night that my electricity was about to be shut off. Until recently, this would happen every few months, and I’d have to scramble to come up with whatever minimum amount (usually at least a couple hundred dollars) would get it turned back on, usually after 7pm. I would come home, the garage door wouldn’t open, and oh crap. Or the automatic-on lamp in the front room would be off. Oh crap.

But this hasn’t happened in several months now (I slipped up in April or May, but it’s been fixed). I put my recurring bills, mainly utilities, on automatic bill-pay through my bank. It was somewhat a pain to get set up, but I’m glad now that I did. Some bills are the same amount every month (cable, cell, biweekly rent checks), and those just drop automatically. The ones that vary (water, electric), I’m no longer procrastinating on opening the bill. It comes in the mail, I open it, I go directly to the computer, and tell the bank when to send what amount.

I do try to pay attention to:

• Lead time before due date. Try to make sure there are about 5 days between send date and due date.
• Payday cycle. I get paid every 2 weeks, so most of my bills get paid between Tuesday and Thursday the week following each paycheck.
• Biweekly and monthly budgets. More on this later, but it’s a simple spreadsheet with the names and due dates of the bills down the side, the months of the year across the top, and each column totals at the bottom.

The dream I had was frightening, because it took me back to that same scrambling place I’ve been too often over the past few years. In it, I was able to intercept the utility guy and convince him to wait on flipping the switch off until I could call and pay the bill. I think in the dream I had to scavenge my savings account to do it, but I remember being grateful for the savings account. My bank account may be scary-low right now, but I have nearly an entire paycheck’s amount in savings. It’s not enough, but it’s better than having a scary-low bank account and no savings. In the dream, I was able to get everything righted before it went (more) wrong.

I am still not financially perfect. I still screw up nearly monthly. I finally just now remembered to add my car insurance as a line item in that spreadsheet so it stops surprising me toward the end of every month (auto-withdrawal, no pun intended). For every two or three deposits into my savings account, there’s been one withdrawal, over the past few months. But I’m improving myself, little by little. I’m saving not spending a lot by avoiding the late fees and reconnect charges. One day I’ll get brave enough to check my credit report, but surely it’s improving, even if only by bits and pieces.

Now if only I could get more diligent about the housework.

At the Hazel Moon

The ancient Celts named each full moon, thirteen in all, after a tree. Each moon had a purpose.

At the Hazel Moon, Witches concentrate on the lore and wisdom of their elders, on nurturing and expanding their own inner wisdom, and on studying the wisest ways to deal with the situations of their own lives.

This resonates with me. I don’t believe it should be limited to one out of thirteen “months” of the year.

According to this lunar calendar,  we are in the waxing (growing) phase of the moon, “a good time for beginning new things.”  As found on another site,

you will know this moon as the one in which you may begin to turn your thoughts to personal ’seeds’ of development in your own life. This is the time to assess the growth and development of these ’seedlings’ to see if they are ready for a more personal harvest.

I’m not sure yet what my seedlings are or will grow to be, but I know they are within me.

I did not pick the name HazelMoon as a mystical Celtic reference, but for far more mundane earthbound reasons.  But from the moment I put it together and started using it, it felt right.  After doing this research (nothing more than googling “hazel moon”, frankly), it feels more right.

My personal seedlings won’t be nearly ready for harvest by the time the Hazel Moon comes around in a few weeks.  But it might be interesting to see how they grow.