blindsided by a Disney movie??

Last night my sister treated me to the new Disney Pixar movie Up. We've been joking about the previews for weeks looking at each other at random and hollering 'Squirrel!' My niece asked to see it for her birthday so that's what we did.

I'll admit that I really didn't know what the movie was about, exactly. The previews didn't really give away the plot. Right before we left for the theater I read the synopsis online. It seemed harmless enough.

It was a very cute movie but, holy hell, the first 20 minutes of the movie had me bawling. And it was hard to discretely wipe my eyes with 3D glasses on. Damnit! Even the little Pixar 'short' that they played before the movie made me teary. Curse you Pixar! But, seriously, the movie was good. And I think plenty of my IFer friends will appreciate the sentiment the movie expressed.

I was retelling some of the plot to my mom this afternoon and couldn't even get all the way through it without bawling again. Meh.

Errgh. Only 42 more days until we go up north. While I'm thoroughly excited, I am worried that we won't have the money. I am really praying that The Monkey gets a bonus. We have to renew our tags in July. I think I am going to have to take my sister's advice and call in and ask our bank about foregoing our car payment for July. Surely they will oblige? I mean, I only have six payments left (I financed the car for five years) and I've never missed a payment in that entire time. The same thing goes for The Monkey's car. If we are able to do that for the month of July we'll have an extra $400 for the month which we can put toward our tags and we won't be so strapped for money.

I want to cry

I should be a couple months shy of graduating. Instead, I keep getting calls from my school about re-enrolling. Each time I have to explain that they let me down by not informing me my Stafford loans had reached their maximum and that no one would approve me for a private loan and I simply can't afford to return just now. Don't they realize that I would have much rather FINISHED my last three classes than basically drop out so close to graduating?! Morons. I am very upset with DeVry.

The girl I started school with in January 2007 is graduating this weekend. I feel like crap.

crap crap crap!

I guess I tempted fate one too many times last week. I went to bed last night with a slight pain in my right ear. I woke up at 4:00 AM with my ear swollen shut. It hurts but it's not unbearable just yet. Since our insurance hasn't kicked in just yet (at least I don't think it has... plus we haven't received our cards in the mail), I'm going to try my best to treat this at home. I've read about home remedies of equal parts vinegar and water. :-/ I've never tried it, though. But it may just work seeing as how the infection is still very mild.

One thing is for sure -- no more swimming without ear plugs! I'm going to do some research and find the best ones for swimming. I have moldable plugs but they aren't very good. I've used them in the shower and they seem to want to fall out when they get wet. Kind of defeats the purpose, dontcha think?

UGH. So much for getting through 2009 without another ear infection. I was doing so well, too! [sigh]

seriously??

For the past week I've been losing a straining battle with my skin. I am most certainly experiencing one of the worst breakouts that I can remember. Certainly one of the worst since I stopped Lithium (which is known to cause skin issues). I chocked it up to being hormonal because it started just before AF made a grand entrance. But instead of steadily getting better it has steadily gotten worse.

I hate when my skin breaks out even a little bit. This is atrocious. I look like I have a freakish bumpy skin rash. (These aren't the kind of pimples that come to a head and can be easily disposed of with a warm wash cloth. These are horrible, painful cyst-like bumps that take FOREVER to go away!)

Perplexed and frustrated, I went to Walgreens to pick up something, anything that might help end the breakout that is making me feel like an overly hormonal teenager. I found a system that looked promising and as I was examining active ingredients I thought about the new Clean & Clear cleanser that I'd bought a couple of weeks ago when I ran out of my other cleanser. (Stupid me, I'm always looking for a skin-miracle-in-a-bottle and try new things every now and again.) When I looked back at the timing of the breakout the only thing that had really changed was my switching to this cleanser. So while I was still looking in Walgreens I picked up the very same cleanser and checked the ingredients...

Can someone please give me a logical explanation as to why Clean & Clear decided to put MINERAL OIL and PETROLATUM (aka Vasoline) into an acne treatment?!? Since when does slathering your face with additional OIL help clear up acne??? I am SO furious. Because a) I was stupid enough to buy the cleanser without checking the ingredient list and b) Clean & Clear was stupid enough to put OIL in their acne wash!

From here on out, I am a Neutrogena girl. I will never, ever again buy another Clean & Clear product. In the mean time, I am covered in pimples. My face looks awful and I have these terribly painful bumps behind my ears. I even found a pimple on my earlobe. WTF?? Hopefully the stuff I bought today will help clear it up in a few days or, at most, a week.

In other news, I picked up my car from Expert Tire this afternoon. The final bill came to $654. It went on credit. UGH. The bright side of this is that my car has all new quality brakes, my 'change oil' light is no longer on, and it no longer veers slightly to the left. And, though I can't really tell right now because I don't drive long distances anymore, the 'shakes' associated with unbalanced tires are no more. So, am I glad I did it? Absolutely. Am I glad it set us back $654 and change? HELL NO! But, that's life, eh?

I guess that's what I get...

Note to self: When car starts making bad noises, do not put off getting it looked and/or fixed for several MONTHS.

[sigh]

For the past couple of months my car has been making a scraping/grinding sound. I knew where it was coming from: the front brake on the driver's side. It was a distinct noise -- one of metal scraping against metal. But it wasn't an every-time-I-braked thing. It was intermittent. Sometimes I went for weeks at a time without hearing the noise at all. I knew what it was because a couple of years ago I had the same problem on the passenger side. But, the idiot mechanics I took it to replaced ONE caliper instead of both. It's safe to say that if they'd replaced both (like the mechanics are doing today) I wouldn't be having this issue. I guess it says something that the place I took it to last time went out of business weeks after I took my car there. Figures.

Then a few days ago it got significantly worse. The blood curdling scraping sounds were happening every time I braked no matter how ginger I tried to be. So this morning I took it over to Expert Tire. Normally I give all mechanical issues over to my dad because, well, he's a mechanic. But when I told him about the scraping noises when they first started he brushed me off about fixing it. So I put it off. And then I didn't have money for parts so there wasn't much point in bugging him about it anyway. So a $600 bill is what I get for putting it off. [sigh] They replaced both front calipers, both rotors, and the pads (of course). Then they adjusted and cleaned the rear brakes which, thankfully, were not in any need of being replaced. (Dodged THAT bullet considering they haven't been touched since I bought the car almost five years ago.) Since I was spending a small fortune on car maintenance I told them to throw in an oil change, to balance and rotate my tires, and to do a front-end alignment. (The alignment is free, though, thanks to our purchasing life time alignments on both cars shortly after we bought them.)

I am really horrible at maintenance. The only thing I'm diligent about are oil changes. I really have to start taking better of this car. Especially considering that it's no longer under warranty AND it's about to be paid for. (After July's payment, I'll be in the triple digits! Holy crap!)

The Monkey's car is in need of some TLC, too. His brakes act funny. We are fairly certain that the rotors are warped. We've only replaced the pads one time on his car (versus the four times we've replaced mine due to faulty calipers). He also needs an alignment (again, free) and an oil change. He also needs new tires. The set he's riding around on now are terribly bald. But we don't have the money for tires just now. Thank goodness he works about two miles from home, eh?

So now it's time to go pick up my car. I'm interested to see how much different it performs after being serviced. It's probably psychosomatic but I always feel like my car runs better when it's just been serviced or washed and detailed. :P

momentary FREAK out

The Monkey got his very first VZW paystub today. We haven't actually gotten paid -- that'll happen on Friday, or tomorrow if we're lucky -- but they set up payroll on Wednesdays and paychecks can be viewed (along with TONS of other stuff) online. One of my biggest concerns about this paycheck was whether or not it was going to be a half (one week) paycheck or a full (two weeks) paycheck. The Monkey insisted that he asked this question of HR and everyone else in every way imaginable and they'd all replied that he would get a full paycheck. Despite his vehemence, I remained skeptical. After all, how was it that he was supposed to be paid in the same week that he was being paid for? It didn't make sense to me. He went back to HR in an effort to ease my mind and, again, he was assured that he would be getting a full two week's pay. Color me the pessimist -- I was still convinced that we were going to get one week's pay. [shrug] Much to my relief, however, The Monkey sent me a text message this afternoon that said to take a look at his paycheck online. He also said that HR (a nice lady that says hi to me, still, every time she sees me) said to tell me 'I told you so!' Hah! So, naturally I was feeling pretty elated. That was until I noticed they hadn't taken any deductions out of this check. That wasn't really a big deal until I thought hard about the amount he was paid. It was right on track with my estimates AFTER deductions. I started panicking and noticed that my brilliant husband decided to claim SINGLE on his W-4s! They took 22% of his pay in taxes! If they keep that up we'll be making about $300 less than I'd anticipated a month! Basically his take-home pay would increase by $100 a month vs. the $400 I'd been so looking forward to.

So, naturally, I freaked. I sent him a frantic text message and asked him what on earth possessed him to claim single?? I mean, for crying out loud, at least claim MARRIED! I understand not wanting to put any exemptions down in fear of owing the IRS money at the end of the year but 22% of his pay is DEFINITE over kill.

Like I said before, though, they have lots of stuff available on this website that has to do with The Monkey. Including a way to electronically update W-4s. HUGE sigh of relief when I was able to change it to Married with one exemption. (Which is still playing it safe as IRS.gov said we could easily claim three exemptions on top of the married status.) So we'll see the changes reflected in his next paycheck, I hope. If not, definitely the following paycheck.

We spent a couple of hours the other night pouring over benefit elections. There were three medical plans to choose from. A PPO option, an HMO option (Blue Cross Blue Shield of AL), and a high end, open access plan. We compared the three and eliminated the PPO plan right off the bat. High deductibles, higher copays...blah. The HMO plan seemed reasonable enough but I would have to go through my family doctor for EVERYTHING. Which, okay, wasn't a big deal, until I saw that the mental health coverage was quite limited. I imagine they probably had the EPS (Expanded Psychiatric Services) option like my previous plan with BCBS of AL had but they didn't give me the option to check the benefits manual and I didn't want to risk it. Everything 'infertility' related under the HMO plan was listed as "check benefits" with nowhere to go to actually check the benefits. So, we wound up going with the open access plan. Which clearly stated that mental health coverage is UNLIMITED and covered 100% after the $20 copay. Infertility services for treating the 'underlying cause' was 100% covered also. To my dismay, IVF and IUI were not covered under any of the plans. And I'm not really sure what the coverage entails, exactly, until I can get my mitts on a benefits booklet. But the mental health coverage outweighed the infertility coverage at this point. After all, we can change plans at open enrollment next year if needs be. We also picked up dental coverage and, to my delight, VZW automatically covers vision! So I can go back to my eye doctor and update my current prescription. Hoorah! We also picked up life insurance (on just The Monkey for now, since we didn't have to pay extra for it) and started up a 401(k). I'm most excited about the medical benefits, of course. No more worrying about jumping through hoops to get my prescriptions filled. No more worrying about The Monkey having a kidney stone and being slapped with thousands of dollars in ER fees.

The medical insurance we chose came out to be just over $2,000 a year. However, since The Monkey and I both quit smoking in February we got to put on our policy that we are NON-smokers which saved us a whopping $660 a year! $600 for the medical benefits and $60 for our dental! It works out to be about $62 a paycheck for both medical and dental benefits. I am quite pleased, to say the least.

So things are looking pretty good at the moment. The Monkey is enjoying his new position even if he does come home fairly exhausted. (He's actually already snoozing on the couch -- he just walked in the door 20 minutes ago. :P) My sister and I took the kids to her friend's pool the past two days. The first day we got there late so neither of us got any sun. Yesterday, though, we were out there ALL day. I got a little pink despite wearing sunscreen. Thankfully, though, I am already mostly brown everywhere that was pink yesterday so I think I avoided a nasty sunburn and I don't think I'll wind up peeling. The pool we've been going to is an in-ground pool which is a nice contrast to my parents' above ground pool. The nicest thing, though, is my sister's friend's pool is SALTWATER instead of chlorine. SOOOOOOO much nicer! We're trying desperately to talk my dad into converting but he won't budge. Even though we've told him how much cheaper it will be in the long run when he doesn't have to buy 8000 different chemicals to put in it! Oh well. Such is life.

Now I think I'm going to give into my horrible craving for Chinese take-out. Cream cheese wontons, here I come!

proof positive

No matter how you slice it, treating and loving someone else's kids like they are your own is never the same. The bond isn't the same. The love isn't the same.

Lately my niece has been acting super bratty towards me. Whenever I so much as talk to her she starts crying or acts plain ugly to me. I can't really fault her for it, she's only 18 months old after all, but it still hurts my heart. It hurts my heart because no matter how much I want to pretend that my nieces and nephews are enough for me it simply isn't. I want a child of my own. I want that bond that doesn't compare to any other bond. I want the smile that lights up a room when I walk in.

I guess I'm just selfish. And maybe hypersensitive today.

I let myself run out of meds like a dumbass and now I'm paying for it. Hopefully I'll be back to normal in a few days. In the meantime I am going to drown myself in too much Guitar Hero Metallica. I'm currently downloading the entire Death Magnetic album. Maybe my husband will spend some time playing it with me instead of spending much of his off time on the computer playing Diablo. I shudder to think how little time he's going to spend with me when he gets a new card for WoW. Some days I'm just more needy than others.

Completely random and off topic: The Monkey won tickets to Bama Jam today. It's just too bad I'm NOT a country music fan. Not even a little bit. The only band that's playing that even remotely interests me is the Black Crowes. And maybe Kid Rock. Though Kid Rock is favoring towards country lately and, again, I am NOT a country music fan. And, honestly, have never been that big on Kid Rock, either. We discussed selling the tickets. They're going for $180 a piece right now. We could always knock off some of that and have a better chance at getting rid of them. However, we don't know if we could get into trouble for selling tickets that he won. Our second option would be to just say screw it and use the tickets. The third, and probably best option, would be to give the tickets to my sister and BIL. Since they both LOVE country music and they have friends that are going. WWYD?