I understand where you're coming from with the whole x,y,z stuff...still it's super easy to get caught in the 'victim mentality'. The Ex is notorious for doing that...And building her alternate realities.

Ohhhh peanut butter cookies!!

I had a decent day. Feel exhausted/drained. Had some really bizarre issues...some were very emotionally charged, too. Well OK one. The other people were pretty even keel.

All in all, I didn't have a bad day. I do need to somehow get caught up on my work hours, or I'll just leave it be. I haven't decided. I'm not sure it's worth the $370-ish I've lost to go through yet another weekend of, "Oh god, I have this and this and this and this to do." I may just cut my losses. Saturday will be mostly spoken for as there's a family reunion to go to. I need to cook something, but I'm not sure what right now. I was going to do fried chicken, but I'm tired enough that I don't think I have it in me.

I'll wrack my brain...

Meh...work is overrated. I'm enjoying being at 35 hours. It's 5 hours less, but I feel more balanced. I'm wondering if that's really what's putting me in a good mood. I may need to ask my boss if they can permanently keep me at 35. It just feels like a healthy amount.

I'm just kinda vegging for the night with Aaron. Pam had to go to band practice this evening and went to bed rather early. They had to practice in the pouring rain and I think she's pretty pooped.

Two more days...Two more days, and then a couple days off work. Whew.

I'm giving high consideration to going to part-time after the credit card is paid off. We'll see. It depends on when I pass my NCE. I am going to take an actual vacation before I work as a therapist, at any rate. If I go down to part-time work, that will be my vacation. Two days here, two days there... that kind of thing. If I could pull off 24 hours a week (3 days), I would be happy with that. IF the credit card is gone. If not, can't do it.

I don't honestly think that we were meant to work 40 hour weeks. It's tough enough to do that and keep up a house, then you throw a kid on top of that...I can totally understand why people feel burnt. I think with the 35 hours I have that 'illusion' of being part time. I guess technically it is part time, but it's only 5 hours worth of pay. It's still $100+ a paycheck...but for my sanity, it's worth it.

Depending on the employer, 30 hours is considered full-time. If you want your own medical benefits (and I'm assuming they have over 50 employees?) it's probably good you at least keep 30 hours if they have to offer health coverage.

Sanity does go a long way. I think I can hold out as I am until Christmas. Once that's come and gone, we'll have a general idea of what money we need.

We're looking at life insurance too. Fun fun! :P

Oh Christ, Chi...my work has workers in the thousands, I'm sure. When I questioned why my hours were dropped I was told that 30 was considered full time. I was thinking "Really?", but you know 30-35 sounds just perfect for me. Not as great of a paycheck, but like I said I'd keep my sanity over the extra hours. :P

Aaron's insurance kicks in at the end of December, otherwise I would of taken a look at my company. They typically do open enrollment this time of year. The thing is what I've been told our benefits are pretty crappy...and I really don't want to take out family coverage on what I have. Not to mention, I think it may need to be in Aaron's name to have his kids on it...as legally he's required to by the courts and well I don't know if they would even let me as I've I'm not legally tied to them...I don't know.

Anyways, it's weird as we've gotten both the dental and medical cards, but nowhere on the card itself does it state when it's effective to/from...It seems awfully early. I need to also double check his stack of papers and see if eye care is covered. I didn't see anything...we'll see. I could use to get my eyes checked and a new pair of glasses. I've had these for 5 years nearly and they're pretty worn in. Not a major need, but eventually...on that long laundry list of mine.

We don't have dental insurance. Cole's going for a cleaning and a comprehensive exam, which will give him an estimate for his "repairs" (lol). If it's huge, which I think it will be, he'll sign up for dental insurance January 1st, as that's when his benefits allow for change again.

Oh, with eyecare, have you seen zennioptical? If you get your exam and ask for the prescription and your PPD, you can order your own glasses. I got sunglasses that way for $30. Cole got his actual "real" glasses for $15, and I would have as well if I hadn't already paid up the rear for the pair I have.

Ugh, I need to get to bed. Do not want.

Ohhh I may need to take a look. That's super cheap. I found a really cute plastic frames for like $80 at Walmart. I thought that wasn't too bad as the ones I have if bought out of pocket would of costed about $500 out of pocket. I think with both my husband and I it was around $120 in total. They are more than I really need as they have the light sensitive tint to them so they darken. In all honesty they don't darken very dark unless out in direct sunlight, so when in the car they're still way too light. I think I would stick to just a normal scratch resistant coating and maybe anti-glare if it is covered...If I could get the glasses that cheap I would opt in to get a pair of prescription sunglasses, too.

---------- Post added 10-15-2013 at 10:10 PM ----------

I need to get to bed, too, but like you I'm kinda dragging my feet. >_>;

The ones on zenni range $5-30ish, and that's frames and lenses included. Give it a peek! :)

I wonder what an exam without insurance runs...I may need to do some investigating soon.

I think mine was under $100, but we live in such different areas that who knows. xD

You know you may find this cute but I nearly said to a customer the other day something about having friends in Maine as one of her numbers was a family member who she said lived out in the 'back woods of Maine', but thought nah...The thing is if you can find something in common with someone, sometimes that builds that instant rapport and gets them talking about it. That was what had me a bit worried though is then they'd start asking me questions about where and what it's like and I wouldn't be able to respond...I'd have to make something up.

I'm also using the stepkids as rapport, as I speak to a lot of mothers or fathers and if you hear a crying child in the background of they say the line belongs to a son or daughter...it's an open window for you to make small talk about kids. Most people are pretty passionate about their kids, and quite frankly are hard to get them to stop talking about their kids. Especially mothers with small kids...I guess that sometimes someone on the phone is maybe their only real communication with an adult throughout the day and it feels good. (Assuming they're stay at home moms, and they're at home just them and small child -- they really can't have a conversation with them when they're under a year old...)

Ahhhh one and a half more days before the weekend....I'm so excited. Nothing planned, other than Pam's homecoming game. She's playing at half time. Other than that, I'm wide open. How about you?

I agree that everyone has something in common. It makes for interesting conversation! XD

I don't work Friday because the car is in the shop, so I guess my weekend starts tomorrow night. I've been obsessing so hard about the finances and realized, what for? I don't want to grind myself dead over the weekend to make up lost money, plain and simple. So I'm going to make sure we take better care of the miscellaneous stuff to account for the lost money (no takeout, no extra Amazon junk beyond the necessities). Right? Right.

My paternal family reunion is Saturday, which will make for a busy day. I need to figure out what to cook for it and get the week's shopping done tomorrow, seeing as I won't have a car Friday. xD

I will unfortunately need to do more training. I'm sure I'll be doing some Windwaker in between, as well as cleaning the closet out and preparing to get extra junk on eBay, like our DS Lite, PS2, and Cole's old Gameboy Advance SP.

Sounds like you've got a laundry list of stuff going on for the weekend! Awesome that it starts a day early, too! I know this will be rich coming from me (the master of all worry warts), but yeah park the whole worry about finances to the curb, plus sticking with being good with not over indulging and I think you should be fine. I know you're playing catch up, but it sounds like you're not in crisis mode or anything...besides working an extra couple of hours may net you an extra $50 -- but I bet you could quadruple the worth of just having time away from it. I know I could....it's just finding that happy balance. I'm trying to find it again...with Aaron ping ponging between jobs it was me who was bringing home the primary income...and it was scary as hell. With him now making more than me (before child support and medical insurance...*big sigh*...it is what it is) I can finally stop putting such an urgency on the amount of hours I'm working and just quite frankly my job security. It would SUCK big time if I lost my job, but I'll figure it out...That's what I've been doing for the past 10 years is just rolling with the punches.

I think the thing that sucks is not seeing signs of really pulling ahead. I'd think at 30 I'd be farther than I am now. *shrugs*

Is Cole auctioning off any games? I'm just curious what kind of stuff you guys get. I would imagine RPGs? I know you were talking about Eternal Sonata eons ago...I'm still curious, but honestly with my (self-diagnosed ) ADD trying to get me to really get into an RPG is tough.

I've been making huge headway with my to-do list the past few days. I'm almost to the point where I literally have nothing more to do in the evenings other than what I want to do. I'd say by the end of this weekend I'll be satisfied with the amount of "stuff" I've done.

I know you're right about the money, but you and I both don't do what we know is best. I had a moment of frustration at work today when I take note the other family members get sick pay and I... well, don't. I'm going to ask Mom if I can get the same pay she does the week I do her job. She's going to FL, which means the phones are forwarded to me even when I'm at home. I'm certainly not just sticking to the 40 hours that week regardless.

I've debated talking to my grandmother about it tomorrow morning to see what she thinks. I basically did my aunt's entire week's worth of work in one day because I can get stuff done when I put my nose to the proverbial grindstone. I expect tomorrow will be just as busy.

Oh, I love Eternal Sonata still. I play it at LEAST once a year if not twice. It is so, so, so good.

If you want to peek at the auctions, my eBay user ID is k(mylastname). You know my last name from FB, so... xD Just put a "k" in front of that. At some point the DS Lite, Gameboy Advance SP, and PS2 will be going on eBay... but I gotta get the PS2 from storage at Mom's first.

I'm not sure if we'll sell any games. I need Cole to look over his and see what he thinks, and also see if we have any doubles of games. There was a time before Terra where we'd both be playing the same game at the same time on our own DS. :p I sold my DS a long while back.

Maybe that alone is the balance. Sell a bunch of extra shit and break even on my paycheck. As it is I'll get 16 hours regardless. I need to keep the big picture in my mind, and everything else will fall into place.

I may ask if Cole can take Terra to daycare on Friday. I keep teetering between wanting her with me and wanting her in daycare. We did manage to make a deal with the local furniture shop, and we're swapping bed sets. They'll deliver her twin bed tomorrow and take our queen, and there's enough money leftover to get her a sheet set and a mattress pad. I'll go order those from Amazon after posting.

Ergh... sounds like she's giving Cole a hard time tonight with the bedtime routine--another reason why I feel I need to cut back on working anyway... I think I'll talk to both my mother and grandmother tomorrow and say I'd like to cut my hours to 32, and then Terra will just be in daycare four days a week. I don't even mind if I pay our provider for the full week, but from a behavioral perspective Terra's grasping at control everywhere she can get it, which means we're putting too much authority over her. And it's over little stuff. Mostly because I'm impatient, cranky, and no fun. I need to change my perspective, and I needed to do it yesterday, as the saying goes.

What do you mean by grasping at control? She's trying to be controlling? I think that's what you mean...not sure.

It's tough trying to balance everything...I feel like I probably don't give Pam enough attention, but then at the same time I don't want to be in her face all the time. She's older, and as she continues to get older she will end up probably being too busy and hardly around the house. It's that pre-driving stage in her life...She's been talking A LOT about wanting to get her license at 16. I'm OK with her driving, as long as she's working part time to pay for gas and insurance, so she can keep up with her own car. I had this whole talk with Aaron that I really don't want a teenager driving the only car in the household...so help she gets in an accident, even a minor one, it could be bad on the car and all the sudden we're scrambling to find alternate transportation for Aaron. Not only that...but then I guess it requires Pam to be responsible with working and keeping up with school work. I'm kind of hoping she just keeps more up with the homework, and lets the driving come maybe Senior year...We'll see. Aaron's already made promises he's going half way on a car for her...I asked him where is he getting the money. (Of course he shrugged his shoulders on that one...) Pam on the other hand apparently thinks she's getting half from dad, and then her mom said she would 'help'. I told her that since she moved she may find her mother retracting that promise, and telling her it's now 'dad's responsibility'. Eh, I have at least 2 more years.... >_<

I've been feeling a bit dizzy and urpy the last couple of days. I'm trying to figure out what's causing it...Something in my diet, or a lack of something. I'm fine other than that. Maybe a bit run down, but I'm still maintaining a pretty good mood. I did have two pleasant surprises -- I got one of my makeup subscriptions in the mail and the Pokemon guide came in stock. I've been just relaxing and playing Pokemon. :3 Aaron has been as well.

---------- Post added 10-16-2013 at 09:18 PM ----------

Also, that sucks about having to be on call even at home. I need a disconnect between work and home. It also sounds like your family really aren't giving you equal benefits/pay, which kinda is shitty too. I would think they would since it is family and you're really trying to help out and fill holes for them...

Kids are the epitome of being controlled by adults. We dictate when and what they eat, when they sleep, what they're essentially allowed to do. Sometimes when there's too much coming at them, they start "rebelling" by controlling what they can. They control IF they eat, they control IF they sleep, you know? It's little stuff like that. I've been observing her oddities and I do feel like she feels she needs more control, which probably means we're being overbearing, and I can guarantee it's because we're tired. "No, stop, no, no, no no." I know I'm so tired lately that I'm not even meeting her halfway, which I've been working on. I used to be an epic mother. I'm not a shitty mother, but I'm not what I used to be.

At least there's two years before you need to really worry about a car, hey? xD

Eh, the family business is pretty much why I decided to go to college. I knew I couldn't do it long term. I'm going to wait and see how the air feels tomorrow and discuss sick pay within reason. No, I can't just take days off whenever. But there should be some form of safety net. There's reasons more why it's getting stupid sticky too, but it's long and I'd have to get into the SQF stuff. tl;dr my grandmother is worried SQF won't get done, therefore doesn't view my doing everything else as important. The truth is I won't get the SQF stuff done if my aunt doesn't get back to work and actually work. Nor will I likely get it done before I leave for a therapy-based job either. We'll see. I'm not going to stress either way. I'll wait until the first week of November--after Mom gets back from Florida--and then discuss moving back to 32 hours in efforts to recharge myself before getting a full time job with benefits (another disconnect my grandmother doesn't see).

It's been a great filler job, I will say that much. The pay is great, too. It's just made me realize that when it's snowing and I'm not going to drive the 30ish miles roundtrip, I'll be out that money too.

Ahhh I gotcha. Yeah, and it's probably her way of trying to feel like she has some control over the situation, albeit very small.

Working with/for family is tough. I worked at the same company my dad did throughout high school, and I can GUARANTEE you he was much harder on me than anyone else there. If there was a snow day, I was dragged in...if I didn't feel well, my dad would force me to go in and literally the only sick days I have were probably 2 or 3 in the 4 years I worked there. I remember one day breaking down in tears because I had completely lost my voice and was feeling pretty icky. He finally caved that day. I know he was trying to teach me discipline, but at the same time it just felt kind of cold and uncaring the way he went about it. I remember he would sit and complain if people called in for toothaches, or other reasons he thought weren't legitimate. I think part of it is if they couldn't call in someone to work last minute, he has had to sit in the office and take calls to fill in before. He also had to be on call 24/7 and I remember more than one time he was called in for something really easily fixed, but because the employees there were typically fairly computer challenged it didn't take much before they felt over there head. The awesome thing is they let me do just about anything I wanted to with my money...and it was only when I was in college that they made me start paying bills like the car, cellphone, and car insurance. I kind of wish I was given more guidance on being more money savvy...but I was pretty stubborn, and I think my parents are probably not the best people to talk to about money issues...heh.

Anyways, I'm feeling pretty pooped. I think I'm going to go call it a night. One more day and then the weekend. Hooray!!

There are definite ups and downs to working with family, for sure. xD

Sleep tight! I'm headed there soon. I really do need to go to bed earlier, but I just enjoy the few hours in the evening after the baby's to bed. It's nice having that "me" time.

Looks like I'm missing more 08 CIs than I'd thought. Will do some quick calculating and figure things out as soon as I get home from work. Sorry about the delay, I've been hella busy lately.

Random semi-related question - would you happen to have a Fleet Commander in your arsenal?

I understand the 'me' time...That's why I'm up usually late after Aaron leaves. I guess I could have 'me' time after I wake up and before work...but it just doesn't feel the same, I swear.

Seridano:
I think I do. I'll check my mule when you get me your full list. Chances are I have it. :)

@Izumi
I hear ya. >>

You're lookin' very ethereal, Chi. ;D

You're lookin' adorbs as usual, Howdy!