Domestic Geek

It's been a Christmas movie marathon at my house today. I started off by watching The Polar Express, followed by A Christmas Story and finished up by Jim Carrey's How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

A heard something interesting on the radio the other day and as par for me, I don't believe anything I hear unless I research it for myself. I had always heard that denoting Christmas as Xmas was the way secular people tried to take away the religious aspects of the holiday. It turns out that Christmas has been denoted in this fashion for over a thousand years. If you're curious of the origins, read this wikipedia entry on Xmas.

WARNING: MAJOR WOE AHEAD! (You've been warned...)

Man, I got up this morning ready to tackle my problems head-on. That lasted about a half hour before the heavy weight of depression crushed my spirit. I absolutely hate it when I get like this, but it seems no amount of positive thinking can overcome it. I know it will pass. It just really sucks in the mean time.

No Christmas for me this year. I made up my mind this morning. This little Christmas design for my blog is about all I can muster this year. In fact, the design is a little representation of what I'm feeling this year. Cold. Lonely. One isolated little Christmas ornament. What is the point of stressing over where I'm going to get money for gifts when I'm not even covering my bills? I had hoped to sell some of my things on eBay to get some Xmas cash, but apparently I don't own anything that anybody else wants. So, that's it. I'm done worrying about it. I'm not getting gifts for anybody this year. I hope those people that I normally exchange gifts with understand. In fact, I'd appreciate it if you saved your money and didn't get me anything, either. It's not that I wouldn't have appreciated the gift, but I'm just not into this holiday this year. I feel like a total scrooge, but there's nothing I can do about it at this late date (unless somebody very close to me wins the lottery or something). There's only 13 days left. I've got over a grand in unpaid bills right now since I've been underemployed for over a month. One of those is my car payment. I've been ignoring phone calls from creditors all day. I should've declared bankruptcy before the law changed, but I was trying to protect my credit rating. Guess that's all shot to hell now. I knew I was going to be screwed once the student loans kicked in if anything bad ever happened. Now I am. Joy.

I also missed the annual tree-cutting expedition this year. I was stuck at that suck-ass pizza job. The heat has been out at work while we were in the midst of our subzero cold snap. I got to work in 40°F conditions with a wind blowing in the non-weather-stripped back door. I've also been sick all week. Being so cold at work that your back aches from just standing there doesn't help one get over being sick. I didn't need or want to be wandering around the cold forest looking for an elusive tree. Marcus brought one home, but I'm in no mood to decorate it. I'm not even sure if I can get to my decorations in storage since I haven't paid the bill. They've probably put a lock on our storage unit.

I have only had one day off from the pizza place in a long time and that was Thanksgiving. We don't have enough trays to do enough dough for me to take a day off and nobody there will make dough when I'm not there. They claim they don't know how, which is a crock. I didn't go in today, even though I couldn't get it all done yesterday. I used every tray we had and there was not enough. Sad thing is, we had enough at one point. A certain spoiled bitch manager (the one the manager that killed himself had a thing for) threw out every one of a certain kind because she didn't like them. There was nothing wrong with them other than they annoyed her. Stupid suicde manger let her do it. Now I don't have enough trays to do my job and get a day off.

To make matters even worse, that same spoiled, lazy, control-freak brat 3rd assistant manager has been fucking with me. I wish I could've just thrown the store key in her face yesterday and never came back. I can't deal with that place anymore. I have NEVER worked at a place that was so dysfunctional. I had hoped that after the manager's suicide that the crew would come together. HA! I forgot that he trained all of them. I get myself in so much trouble grasping onto what things could be instead of dealing with the reality of what is. The reality is that most of the crew there is mean. They get joy out of other's pain. They treat everybody, not just me, like dirt below their feet, including customers. I've never fit in there and I need to get away from there for good. Once I find a replacement job for the screen-printer gig, I've got to find something to do on the side to make up the pizza income. I'm being abused there and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Finally, I always get really sad about my mom's death this time of year, but I'm really missing her bad this year. Dad is, too. He sent me an email this morning telling me so. I called him right away and he came over to take me out to lunch. In case anyone reading this didn't know, my mom went into a diabetic coma between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 1996. They kept her alive so we wouldn't have to deal with her actual passing during the holidays. She passed on January 4, 1997--two days before her 52nd birthday. You'd think I'd be able to handle it better after 9 years, but I don't.

Great. My period just started. Early.

I'm really cold right now. I think I'm going to go take a long, hot shower.

Sorry about the lack of posts. I've been having a really bad bout of depression.

First, this area of the country is in an arctic cold air mass. It started coming in on Monday with almost 100mph winds. Now it's freakin' freezing! Right now it's -7°F. The weather has been yucky for days (it hasn't been great since before Thanksgiving, I don't think) and will continue to be for awhile.

I'm pretty sure I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. One day I'll have enough money to find out for sure. I've also had some bad insomnia. I had to resort to taking NyQuil again last week to get some sleep and to stifle the chronic flour-cough that's been made worse with the freezing, dry air.

I was really sick yesterday and am still not feeling so hot. I have a canker sore that always shows up when I am starting to fight something icky. It showed up yesterday morning. I started running a really high fever around 2pm. I crawled into bed and shivered uncontrollably until the fever broke about somewhat around 8pm. My tonsils are still a little sore and I'm a little feverish still. Ugh.

The pizza place is unbearable. I had hoped that the staff would come together after the manager's suicide. No such luck. There's more fighting and back-stabbing than ever. The karma is so bad. The aura of the place just weighs really heavy on me the minute I walk in the door. After I find a job to replace the screenprinting job, I need to find a way to replace the pizza income.

I came to the realization today at work that it's been a long time since I had a really good Christmas. I went through my old archives and sure enough, the last four Christmases I have been underemployed and in 2001 I was really sick. I can't remember what happened in Christmas 2000, but I clearly remember that 1999 sucked ass, too. WTF? I had hopes that this year would be different up until the day I was let go from the screen printer. I don't even want to celebrate Christmas this year.

One small bright note: The Office christmas show last night was really funny. It made me giggle.

So, that's what's been up.

I hope everyone out there had a marvelous Thanksgiving. I did. The weather today was beautiful, I got my leaves raked before the weather turns this weekend, changed the oil in my car, my turkey was excellent, I got to have my once a year treat of shrimp stuffing, I spent an entire day with the love of my life, my dad came over to feast and to watch the Broncos beat the Dallas Cowboys 24-21 in OT. A wonderful day, indeed.

I know I complain alot, but I also know that I am blessed in many ways and am truly thankful for that. I'm partially employed, I have a roof over my head, food to eat, a great dad, a soul mate of 13 years, a cool car. So, I'm going to go enjoy the rest of this day watching CSI and Without A Trace and then off to slumberland on freshly laudered sheets.

*Thanksgiving bears courtesy of Graphic Garden

The other day, Laura posted a pic of her shopping list for a meme she was doing. I'm rather proud of my Thanksgiving list, so I figured I'd share (click on image for bigger). Graphics used on the list were found at Graphic Garden. The great thing about keeping this list on my ol' computer is I don't have to strain the brain every year trying to remember what I need to get. I print it out, check my cupboards for stuff I already have, stick it on a clipboard and off to the store we go.

This year's shopping trek only took two hours and three stores. That even included walking around most the the new Walmart at I-70 and Tower Road to help Dad find a squeegee. It could've been done with two stores if either King Soopers or Walmart carried Kellogg's Stuffing. The only place that seems to carry that anymore are Super K. I hate shopping at Kmart with a passion, especially the one on Colfax/Chambers. There were some King Soopers listed on the product finder list. Last year I drove around to all of them hoping to find my elusive stuffing, but to no avail. I ended up at the Super K over on south Broadway. This year I wasn't going to drag Dad all around town and waste gas, so I suffered the Super K closest to my home. I thought I was screwed when I couldn't find it anywhere, nor could I find an employee to ask for assistance. As I was giving up and heading for the door, I found a small display in an aisle! Victory!

See, I make this really good shrimp stuffing that I think I found on the back of a stuffing box one year. I tried it one year with a different brand of stuffing and it just wasn't the same. It's got to be the seasonings they use or something. Thus the special trip every year. Anyway, I put the recipe in the extended just in case it every disappears from their web site. It is SO GOOD!

Well, I guess I better wrap this up and get going to the pizza job. I said I was going to make a pumpkin pie from scratch this year and I mean it! I've got a couple of pumpkins sitting on my dining room table that need to be cooked today so that I'll be ready to bake the pies tomorrow night. I'm going all Martha and even bought a tiny leaf cookie cutter to decorate the edge of the pie. If it turns out decent, I'll post pics.