I’m alive and kickin…I promise!
So, there’s been a lot going on here - and I just haven’t felt like blogging. To be honest, I am totally drained by the end of the day and in the morning, I spend so much time trying to talk myself into staying up rather than just going back to bed, that I don’t have time to blog then either.
Keeping with the random wonkiness that is my life, Jerrett developed a sudden and extreme allergy to cats. This has been pretty devastating for him because he loves his cats more than anything in the world (well, not more than XBox 360, his new Laptop or Ham & Cheese Hotpockets…but they come in a close fourth…). At any rate, he’s not happy. I, on the other hand, spent the entire weekend vacuuming the world, washing everything possible and scrubbing floors (did I mention laundry? Yeah, I did a lot of that too!). I am sad, of course, I love my kitties. They are like the answer to my secondary infertility (thirdary? Is that a word? What do you call it when you’ve had two, but can’t have another? Whatever.) Anyway, he puffed up like a bullfrog, so we put the cats outside - and until today, they’ve been ok. Those of you back home may not be aware, but here in Arizona, they don’t have actual ‘fences’ - they have cinder block walls all around the perimeter of the back yard. It was odd when I first saw it, but I am getting used to it now I guess. So, as I was saying, the cats had all stayed in the yard for the past three days…then today, Jerrett calls me at work, “JAXON IS MISSING!!!!” - apparently, Jax went off to do whatever it is that boy cats who have been fixed do…I am certain he’ll be back…but its sad, because I know he could really be gone and he’s the oldest of our lil guys.
Things are not looking up at John’s work. It seems that with the reduction in production, the need for a Six-Sigma Black Belt trained Process Improvement Engineer is…well…drying up with the production. I figured it’d eventually come to this, because the housing market out here is just awful. I admit I worry, because his line of work is so specialized…and coveted when the economy is slipping but recoverable - not so much when businesses are dropping like flies and they can barely afford to keep the production staff they need to continue to offer their product. It’s a double edged sword.
Oh! I randomly heard from the lady that lived next door to us when we lived in Malta…that was strange. We hadn’t talked in almost three years and then *BAM* - she calls. Apparently, the housing market isn’t as bad there as it is here…there is a new subdivision in town and they are building a new school to support the students. It’s odd to hear that, because there was talk of just shutting down the 5 room school in Malta and busing the kids to Dekalb, where the Jr. High and Sr. High school kids went. Anyway, that’s pretty cool I guess. I don’t know if I ever shared this with you guys back home, but Malta was smaller than Boyd. They didn’t have a single traffic light, nor did they have a store of any sort. The town was so small, in fact, that they didn’t offer mail delivery if you lived in Town. You had to have a PO Box and come pick up your mail (but only during business hours, because the place was locked up tighter than a drum at 5 PM). I wonder how all that’s working out for them now?
So, that’s basically it. We’re hanging in there, but things aren’t looking good. With John’s job and whatnot, we might be exploring our options…again. God I hate this.
Dear Pay At The Pump Gas Station
Newsflash: Gas is now $4.00 a gallon. Limiting my purchase at the pump to $50 is hardly helpful. In fact, it’s down right mean. Either raise the maximum allowed purchase to something reasonable, like $100, or don’t offer the service at all!
I realize you do this in an attempt to reduce the possible risk of loss, so I have a suggestion. Cut the price of Gas in half. The less something costs, the less likely you are to suffer a significant loss due to theft. It’s true, I read it on Wikipedia.
Seriously. The cost of gas is driving me crazy. I drive a mom-mobile. A mini-van. It should not cost $109 to fill up my van when I am sucking fumes, but it does. I think the price of gas really started to bother me once we moved into this house. It’s further from the office than the old house (which I <3′d) - and further from the school, which I drive Jerrett to every morning. What used to take me 15 minutes (don’t even get me started on the office move last Oct, which tripled my commute) now takes me more than 40 minutes. Plus, because I live so ‘nestled in suburbia’ - it’s just easier to take surface streets, rather than going down to get on the freeway.
Anyway - enough of that. I know we’re all being hit pretty hard with the rising costs of everything…
In other news: things are going pretty ok here. We’re finally getting stuff unpacked, no thanks to me. I’m irritated about the barky barky ankle bitting muts that live over the wall from us. They start their crap about 5:05 EVERY AM - even on weekends - and it’s just freaking annoying. These types of things should be required to be disclosed when house hunting. Seriously. Had I known, it mighta been a deal breaker. No lie.
The attack of the $4.00 Aluminum Foil…
Oh. My. Gosh. So Sunday is grocery store day around these parts. I usually try my darnedest to get my crap together and get it done on Saturday - but I am also pretty darn good and finding a random excuse not to, so Sunday it is.
I’m up at the butt crack of dawn, even though I’d gone to sleep like six hours past my bedtime last night - I feel like crap, I am clearly dehydrated and John and Jerrett are complaining, again, about having to eat Saltines for breakfast. *sigh* Off to the store I go.
I’m not a big store person…I don’t cook a lot…it’s just not my thing. It’s not that I can’t cook; I just hate doing it…so I do it as little as possible. It stands to reason that my trips to the store are few and far between (although, I will walk across broken glass to get coffee, creamer and sugar, for my morning addiction).
People that don’t cook don’t really keep tabs on the cost of anything beyond the staples. You know, bread, milk, coffee, sugar, cream, Doritos…you get the idea. I rarely find a good reason to go down the “Charcoal, Storage Containers, Napkins, Plastic Forks” aisle. As I’ve said, I don’t cook…therefore I have no use for any of that crap…
Until today.
I’ve decided I am going to try to start making sandwiches or something for lunch every day. Our new office location isn’t conducive to cheap lunch time jaunts and incase you missed it somehow above, I don’t cook.
Last week, a coworker showed up with this “wrap” that even as a non-cooker, I thought I could pull off fairly easily. So off I go to do my Sunday Grocery Shopping (for the first time in three months).
I should have known this was a bad idea when, in the parking lot walking up to the store, I started to get ideas of grandeur for dinner. I start my excursion in the Fresh Vegetables section and by this time, I’ve already talked myself into Chicken Tacos for dinner - and what goes better with chicken tacos than Guacamole? You get the idea. I’m walking out of this store with $200 worth of food that’ll sit in the refrigerator until someone gets sick of looking at the green fur that covers it or it just disintegrates into nothingness.
So, anyway, I’m nearing the end of my shopping excursion when I realize that, even if I do make this fantastic wrap for lunch, I’m gonna have to put it into something to get it from the house to the office. So, off to the Charcoal, Storage Containers, Napkins, Plastic Forks aisle I go.
Now, I should say in advance, there was a time, long before we moved to Arizona, that I did, in fact, cook. Nightly even. I was such a good wife…I bet John misses her a lot. So, it would stand to reason that, at some point in my married life, I did have a ‘thing’ (box?) of Aluminum Foil in the pantry - but, I don’t anymore and honestly, I can’t think of a more ecological and earth friendly way to get my wrap from point A to point B.
I pull my cart up to the ‘foil’ area and I literally start laughing. Like seriously laughing out loud. People must have thought I’d lost my freakin mind. I try to regain my composure because I am clearly making an ass of myself…but I am hysterical.
Please, tell me when Aluminum Foil started to come with this thin gold plating? I mean, it must be there…50 Sq. Ft. of generic aluminum foil cost…(wait for it)…$3.88.
FOUR DOLLARS!
Now, as I said above, it’s been a while since I’ve actually purchased aluminum foil (I don’t even call it that, I’m a throw back to the old school, I call it tin foil) - but I distinctly remember being able to buy a small thing (box?) of Diamond Aluminum Foil (generic) for under a buck.
I am so floored (remember the hysterical laughter from above) that I have to get my phone out, call my mother, and ask her about this $4.00 tin foil! Like me, she’s floored and urges me (the daughter who doesn’t cook, doesn’t like to get out much and damn sure won’t do in two trips what can be done in one, even if it’s gonna cost me a little more) to go to the Dollar Store.
Now, I’m all for the Dollar Store - but seriously…if the Dollar Store can sell it for a buck, why can’t Fry’s?
Please tell me that there is some crazy premium on tin foil due to the astronomical price of fuel…please tell me that there is a shortage of aluminum coming from the aluminum factory because all of the aluminum factory workers are on strike or something. It is not possible for the price of foil to be this high…
It’s un-American!
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Meet Brandy
Adoptee, Mom, First Mother and Wife, living, loving and writing about life as I see it.
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