Sweet Catastrophe

So Tuesday I got a late start. Really late. My alarm failed me, so I woke up about two hours after I should’ve been on the road so instead of going to Katie’s, I drove straight to Best Buy in Alpharetta.

The drive was pretty uneventful. I didn’t miss any turns or anything and made really good time with one stop for gas. If it hadn’t been so damn hot I wouldn’t have needed to stop for gas, but my air conditioner had to go full blast since there’s a little issue with that.

We had no problem at Best Buy walking down and aisle to make it front row. You can read a quick bit about the show here.

We left there to go to Ruby Tuesday for the worst service, but the best food. They had it way too dark with the blinds drawn and the lights way too low. If I hadn’t been so hungry I could’ve slept. Our waitress pretty much forgot all about us after she brought our appetizer so we stopped her and pointed out that we’d been there for like 15 minutes since she’d brought out the appetizer and she hadn’t taken our order yet. From then on she tried to make us feel guilty and instead just made herself look like a bitch who shouldn’t be in food service. Come to think of it, I really shouldn’t have left a tip and I don’t know why I did….I don’t care what the situation is, you should never make your guests feel guilty….She even came back and said something about not wanting to make us feel guilty and when we said we didn’t she said something along the lines of, “well I just feel like you guys are being all nice now,” REALLY? Sorry we were assholes before for asking you to take our order when we’d already been in the restaurant for almost 30 minutes…

Tangent, sorry! Anyway after that Kristi rode with me back to Katie’s and we got stuck in a parking lot forever when we missed a turn and tried to turn around…it was pretty crazy. We got all settled and sat around talking for a while and promptly passed out ’cause we were all pretty tired.

And I need to play some Super Paper Mario right now so the rest of my oh-so-exciting trip will come later

Andrew and Keri are coming this weekend! I’m excited to hang out with them–I just hope I’m not too exhausted! We’ll be driving through the night on Friday so I imagine I’ll be sleeping a good bit on Saturday, unless I somehow manage to sleep well in the car.

We need to round up some more cardboard boxes so Andrew can take the rest of his stuff with him. I’m sure William would like to get all his stuff out of his room and I’d like to get rid of the stack in the kitchen.

There will definitely be some Wii time needed, though we’re gonna have to get controllers from somewhere…hmmm…I wish you could rent controllers when you rent games; I’d love to play Mario Party this weekend!

Ryan’s supposed to be going out to find a new car today. Sunday night we talked about all his options and some of the places he can go in town. He’s determined to have a car today, or next week as soon as he gets back into town. I don’t blame him for being so eager. He hates needing to rely on someone else for rides and I totally understand that. I mean, he’s even having to travel more than necessary just to make sure he can be somewhere on time, ya know?

I just really hope he doesn’t end up with another car that just falls apart. If he goes with what he can most afford, that’s a problem I really fear, but if he shoots for something that he’s gonna have to work to pay for, I think he’ll be okay. If he gets something closer to new, he’s probably gonna have to do some car insurance comparison before he changes his plan, which he just paid….*sigh* We need a money tree. A big one.

I really hope he can find what he needs…I know I’ll rest easier knowing he’s got reliable transportation. Even when he just drives it across town I worry about it falling out on him in the middle of bad traffic or something…that’d be an accident waiting to happen, ya know?

Aside from the amazingly horrible cramps, my pal still didn’t drop by this month. I’m taking suggestions now on everything I need to bring up as possibilities on what’s wrong and what we can try to sort this out when I go back.

I talked to Momma on Sunday and we started my list. I’ve got to find out for sure exactly what all they tested when I went in originally because we didn’t really discuss it thoroughly. I know they checked my thyroid, and she said something about still sending all the correct signals, but I don’t really remember what she said about my hormones. I don’t know if maybe I’ve got some whacked levels of progesterone, or what……I guess I’m gonna have to scrounge up some money for a specialist. We need to make sure there aren’t cysts or anything like that.

It’s also been suggested to me to use a morning after pill, sort of as a ’soft reset’ to see if that could get things going again, so I need to ask about that.

I really wanna go in with like, a note pad and just make sure I get out all my thoughts on it because this is seriously driving me crazy. I mean, to have this going on and the pains I’ve been having–and no idea whether or not the two are connected in any way!

So tomorrow I’m heading out for the week. As stands, Tuesday I’m heading to Katie’s to meet up with her and Kristi so we can head to Alpharetta for a Lifehouse in-store performance at Best Buy there. On Wednesday we’re going to Atlanta for their full concert at the Tabernacle. It’s been decided that we’re just gonna hang out in the back for this one so we can actually go talk to Matt Nathanson after his set since no one has been coming out after shows this tour.

If everything works out, Thursday I’ll leave and head to Alabama to meet up with Ryan there. He really wants me to see one of his shows and was talking about how he wished I could come with him one of these weekends so he could see me between all the work–well, I had taken off extra time this week so I could have a few days of nothingness when I got back from Atlanta, so this is probably the only shot I’ll have at going with him. It’s not set in stone yet since it depends on some of the final arrangements Kenn will be making for the weekend (there’s been talk of flying instead of driving) but I’m cool either way.

So yeah, that’s why I’ve been doing all this running around. I just didn’t realize how much I still needed to do in preparation for being gone for a week. I’ve gotten used to the stuff that needs to get done before Ryan leaves, so I kind of forgot that I needed to do some things for myself as well!! That’s why I had to rush to Douglas yesterday–to borrow the Garmin. Now I’m going nuts trying to do the little things around here that I’ve been putting off on top of laundry for both Ryan and myself and video conversions for both Ryan and myself and trying to remember everything I need to pack! I need to go over my list again…I know I forgot to write down usb flash drives so I can empty my camera memory onto one so it’ll be open for tons of new pictures this week….

Honestly, my vacation may end up being more of a hassle than anything…we’ll see!

Does anyone know where I can get just some basic flip flops? I’ve been looking all over the place and I just can’t find any! I’ve found one or two pair at the mall, but they were, of course, ridiculously expensive. I just need a cheap pair of black ones and a cheap pair of brown ones!

Maybe I can look around in Atlanta….or Alabama this week…

Yesterday was so packed I really feel like it spanned two days, not one. Ever have those days?

I was up at 6:30 getting ready for work, having breakfast and all that jazz. I only worked until 1, but it was a pretty packed few hours. There was a lot going on to keep me busy.

After I left work I had to rush through Target to pick up some things that had to be bought before I left town and then I sprinted through a quick meal at home and hit the road.

Joshua (my nephew–almost 1 yr) was at Mom’s so I went straight there. I had meant to visit everyone yesterday, but I ended up at Mom’s until 11. We had Joshua and one of Roger’s grandchildren for a few hours. I wore Joshua out and then he napped on me for a while. Not too long after, Jessica and Rocky Joe brought Jessalyn over so I was dirty, soaked, and exhausted pretty quickly. If I spent like three days a week with the babies I’d never have a need for diet pills. Jessalyn is almost two now, so of course she’s into running back and forth into everything and testing limits. She’s still a little sweetie though!

We almost had Joshua really walking! He walked a respectable little bit on his own, but we didn’t have room to get him to really walk far. I think he’ll walk within the next week or so if they keep trying.

I miss the babies already, but my back certainly doesn’t!

Heh. It’s nice when I can procrastinate because I’m waiting on someone else! I haven’t filled out Financial Aid yet because Daddy hasn’t sent me his info yet.

I haven’t put my cards up for sale because Ryan keeps forgetting to bring me the custom boxes to put them in…sure I could go ahead and put them up, but I’d like to have pictures of them boxed rather than the current state they’re in. As is they probably won’t look like they’ve been cared for–but they have!

I haven’t signed up for the insurance yet because HR hasn’t been able to answer my questions yet. I need some time-frames and I need to know whether or not certain professionals are included and I haven’t gotten those answers.

Of course, I’ve got a ton to get done today that I’m putting off all on my own as well

If you’re gonna skip out of work after your break, how about you refrain from getting on Myspace and posting bulletins and crap, making it obvious that you were lying about why you couldn’t come back…

They’ve added to the workload down in Lumber–it’s not actually my job, but I end up doing a lot of it because it’s really too much for the guys to get done in the time frame they have so I help out with the stuff I’m capable of. Gone are the evenings of me zoning out until it’s time to go.

I wish all the extra work and sweating meant I’d be seeing some weight loss, but it just means my back aches more.

There’s a guy in Lumber with a crazy little temper. He just lets stuff get to him a little too much and all of a sudden he lashes out at the wrong people–his superiors. Of course, he’s got a right to be annoyed, and he’s not saying anything that isn’t true, but he vents it in the wrong way and it just makes him look bad. He knows it too. I think we need to bring Jack Nicholson into the store and they can sing “I Feel Pretty” together and things will be alright.

So Open Enrollment for part-time insurance benefits at work is about to begin. I’d already decided to enroll for the dental at the very least so I’m now trying to decipher what it all means. It can be really confusing to someone who’s never really dealt with insurance before, ya know?

I’m wondering though, if this might be that step that insures I’ll quit. You know how that goes, you wanna do something and keep giving yourself reasons not to and then when you’ve finally got a solid reason, you end up doing it anyway now that it really makes no sense!

I dunno. Things have been changing a little though. My new manager is pretty awesome. She’s a really logical person and doesn’t seem to have a lot of tolerance for things that just don’t make sense…she’s really understanding when it comes to how we deal with a lot of things.

We’ve gotten some new equipment too, but it’s been stuff like used cisco routers for their offices and new registers–same kind, just new–not the stuff we need like new credit machines and new deactivators. Actually, I guess they did replace a few of the credit machines, but they didn’t replace two of the ones that absolutely needed it and well, they’re not good machines to begin with; we really needed to be able to move to a different kind or something. These are horrible at reading cards and they don’t even tell you that it didn’t read your card until after you’ve put in your pin, chosen cash back and approved the sale, so of course, people tend to worry they’ll be charged twice–they’re not. In two years I’ve never known anyone to be, but it’s annoying to deal with on top of the other general things that put customers on edge with you.

I’m starting to realize it’s just not Lowe’s that bothers me anymore. As far as jobs go, it’s fine now. There was a lot of stupid stuff going on for a long time and well, there are still some stupid things, but for what I actually deal with, it’s not horrible. I think I’m just really sick of retail in general. I want a desk job so badly, but I just don’t know how to have one while I’m still working on school. I think the closest I could get would be working at a hotel, but really, that’s not much of a step away from retail when you think of what I’d be dealing with there.

I’ll get my insurance–that means I have to stay on for at least another 6 months or so–it’ll be that long before some of the dental benefits I need will kick in. Maybe by then I’ll have my retail second wind and I’ll be able to keep on. Or maybe by then Publisher’s Clearing House will have given me ten million or $5,000 a week for life…..::dreams::