Domestic Geek

Does anybody actually read this thing besides my Dad and Marcus...or am I totally wasting my time with this?

Marcus just posted a pretty funny account of Skippy's Skunk Encounter from last week, including a couple of pictures of him during his tomato juice bath. Go check it out.

So, after burying my head in the sand for the last three months, I finally sat down and figured out how much money I make per month and compared it to the amount of money I need. The picture is not good.

Now that my final student loan has kicked in, I have a whopping $30.75 left after bills to buy food and fuel for the whole month. Since it takes $35 alone to fill up my gas tank once, I'm totally fucked. I can't afford clothes, toiletries, cleaning supplies, oil changes, crafts, books, Starbucks...nothing extra at all. Let's also not forget that I have a $550 Federal tax bill looming that I can't pay. I still have no health benefits and if I have an emergency or an illness of any kind, I'm screwed. I guess when my boss gets back from his business trip, I'll have to tell him I either need to make more money or I've got to find a higher paying job. This is why it is so hard to break away from the pizza business. I keep having that nagging thought in the back of my head that I should go back for just a little bit to catch up. I don't want to be sucked back in.

Add to the problem that Marcus' overtime was cut and we're in a bad place. He was the one providing food.

This was the kick in the pants I need. I really need to do some freelance work and get my own business going.

Once again: I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!

I'm having a hard time believing that 2006 is already a quarter finished.

I've written on here before about how I'm getting rid of the clutter in my life. Today I tackled a couple of boxes in the craft room. In one of those, I found a baby afghan I started when I found out my supposed "best friend" from school was pregnant...in 1984! It's been sitting in a box that I've been lugging around for almost 22 years. It struck me how that was a symbol of my whole life. I have these dreams, I have all of these plans, yet I never attain them. I never really finish anything. My whole life has been filled with "I should have," "I wish I had done," etc. I put tons of energy into getting started on something (buying supplies, making the plan), but never really getting anything out of it. My whole life is cluttered with unfulfilled ambitions and meaningless junk.

I'm reading a book that my old friend from college got me about 2 years ago. It's called 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace. She saw in me that I struggle with who I am and what I really want to be doing in my life. When she got it for me, I wasn't ready to read it and put in in a drawer. I found it the other day and started reading it. He quoted Tolstoy's character Ivan Ilyich, who said, "What if my whole life has been wrong?" That quote really got me thinking. I'm going to be 40 in a little over five months. I don't want to waste any more time thinking "I wish I could've..." or "Why did I never..." and just make my dreams happen. I'm tired of the excuses I feed myself about why my life is the way it is.

Anyway, I can't remember exactly where I was going with all of this. I guess just that I'm still not in a good place yet. While the job I have now is closer than anything I've ever had to want I want to be doing, it's still not a great fit. I don't have any benefits, the personalities there clash really bad and I'm not making enough money to pay my bills, let alone have any extra to do anything for myself. I'm keeping an eye out for another job while I start freelancing. I'm the most skilled employee and the least paid. Not cool. I just can't let myself stay there because I'm afraid or too lazy to get what I really want. I don't want to make another long-term mistake like pizza was.

I wish I had another day off. I have so much I need to do and work is just getting in the way. I spent a good portion of this weekend shaving the skunk-infused fur off of my dog. I still have some really matted stuff around his neck to get, but he's almost done. Hopefully that incident will never repeat. My house still smells. Ewwww.

Well, I guess I'd better head off to bed. Even though it doesn't feel like 11;20, the clock says it is. Getting up tomorrow is going to be a bitch.

So, guess what Marcus and I have been dealing with the last hour and a half? Bathing the dog. Yep, Skippy managed to encounter a skunk outside. He was in and running around like crazy (like the toe bleeding episode) before Marcus realized what had happened. Now my whole frickin' house reeks. I went to the store for tomato juice and I guess the dog rubbed against me because I stunk up King Soopers. Oh, well. When I got home, Marcus had read on the Internet that tomato juice doesn't work. Yay. You're supposed to bathe them with a mixture of peroxide, baking soda and dish soap. I scrounged what little I had of those ingredients and we went to work. Poor dog is exhausted. Looks like this weekend he gets shaved. He was shedding really bad and now all that hair matted in the tub. What a mess!