It's 9:15am and I'm learning lessons like a Mofo

This is classic me - and I should rename this whole thing Idiot Savant. I mean really.

Here's the thing:

Funds right now, as for most people, are tight. They were really bad last month when I was actually hired on as a permanent employee. Which - hardly makes any sense I know, but trust me. It's completely no fun be getting paid every week and then suddenly have to wait almost an entire month, with only half a paycheck, to be paid again, to get you on the "regular" schedule.

Well I don't like "regular".

Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT (emphasis on the NOT) complaining about being employed and (eventually) having money, but the transition has been a shock.

Due to the realllly tight fundage, I've had to make some adjustments. Mainly in the food area of my life. Mainly in that, I don't get to buy any.

Obviously I just can't not eat (if you don't believe me ask the Best Friend, trust me. Hungry and me? DO NOT WORK) so I bought the two things that seem to have some staying power: eggs and potatoes.

Do you have any idea the power of those two foods?

Amazing is what it is.

I believe that after this whole crazy time is over, I'll write a cookbook using pretty much just eggs and potatoes. However, lesson one will have to be how to cook those potatoes in oil and not burn the ever-loving crud out of them. I have quite a lovely picture on my phone actually.

So I was getting along - eggs, potatoes and me. Then, of course, "your car registration is due" What?? Of COURSE IT IS. This is me we're talking about here.

Well, being stretched as I already was, parting with another completely unplanned $76was, to say the least, like trying to take candy from a toddler - I put up a good fight but in the end was too weak to shield my money from the powers that be at the DMV.

SO!

Once again I found myself with all my bills paid - yay! - but now with a whole host of new problems. The dog has no food, and I have no gas.

Dilemmas.

Back in the day when I was housing my two completely insane cats, I would have fed them soup and/or cereal for a few days and they would have LIKED it until I could get some funds and buy them proper food.

Not so much with dogs. Also - I'm slightly unwilling to share my potatoes and eggs with him.

Dog food is expensive when it's a choice between a $7 bag of food for your DOG...and getting gas money to drive to your JOB for MONEY for food for your dog.

I briefly considered buying high end treats ($3!!) and cutting them up.

I took the high road - and Mr. Fairfield (that's what I call my dog), got food and I was left with $8 for gas to drive 20 minutes to work (40 round trip) for three days.

Since I've found myself in this same position last month I knew that ain't no $8 gonna get me to work for three days. Not unless it turns into that magic oil that could last for 8 days. No way.

Lucky me I had to work at the PT job and - voila! I got a tip! Now I had $9!!

So I found myself at the gas station before work, and put my whopping $9 of gas in my dead-empty tank. Which, not surprisingly, did not go that far. Not far at all. Not even a true 1/2 tank.

At this point I completely lose my mind and all my hard-earned poor people lessons and basically throw in the towel. Which leads me to writing the most ridiculous e-mail to my manager about possibly working from home, which I know she doesn't like in the first place. Just - I mean - really? Who does this stuff happen to?

I finally get my manager's response approving it - yay? Which is when I finally remember the most important lesson I've ever been told:

Kwik Trip still takes checks - good 'ole checks, not run electronically. Like - they take them to the bank to be deposited and it takes a good two days.

What's wrong with me? I guess instead of writing this I should be writing post-its to place around my car reminding me about Kwik Trip. It might look a little schizophrenic - SURE! At least I wouldn't have to write crazy - poor-house e-mails anymore.

I've also decided while I'm writing my eggs and potatoes cookbook, I'll set to write another book - a guide if you will - on how to be poor. I'll probably make it pocket sized for easy reference while on the go.

Lesson One: Kwik Trip takes checks for gas - so stop writing the humiliating e-mail to your manager!

The Secret comedy of errors

You know how some people are just naturally really lucky? Like they embody all the practices that the book/movie “The Secret” preaches, but without even really trying? That’s my boyfriend.

For instance: the other day he just casually mentions that he’s sure he can find us a house to rent he’ll just have to look around and he’s sure that something will come. Of course I am immediately assuming we’ll end up living back in the ghetto part of town in some crumbling little house that’s about to wash away in the river. This is why “The Secret” is not working for me.

So the very next day he makes one phone call, we do a quick drive-by, and the landlord, who also happens to live next door wonders over. Much discussion ensues about how we all look so familiar to each other, when we finally realize that 6 months straight of drinking every single day in the very bar our landlord used to own apparently paid off. Well now, I mean not then so much, since I was spending all the money I was making on completely intangible items. That’s neither here nor there now….so anyway the landlord loves us and tells us on the spot that the place is ours.

That’s how we ended up with our super cute, two bedroom home near the river, outside the city limits so we can burn stuff. Oh and did I mention that our landlord is letting us use a washer and dryer she already has for our laundry room, we get an entire shed for storage and she taking money off our rent since the boyfriend is pretty handy and will be doing some work around the house/yard? Yeah.

On an every day level this works for the boyfriend too. He can pretty much be just sitting there and suddenly say he needs something like a black belt or a brown hoodie or whatever and **bam** the very next day he’ll go to Goodwill and it’ll just be sitting there like he personally ordered it. Which, according to “The Secret” he pretty much did.

On the other hand, I’m that girl in the office who always seems to have some sort of crisis or drama going on. For instance: I may spend weeks searching for the perfect black cardigan, only to finally give up and settle on one that I only kinda like and is only kinda what I’m looking for just because I’m so sick of looking. Or when I ended up signing a lease with a slum lord who still owes me $1,200.

Or, this just this morning, I was trying to fix a bracelet that broke some time ago. All it really needed was the clasp glued back onto its end so it wouldn’t go flying off randomly when I wear it. With 10 minutes before I had to leave for work, I break out the Super Glue and gently try and put just a liiiiitle bit on the end of the clasp. Nothing was coming out. I squeeze a bit harder. Still nothing. Squeeze a bit harder still…and *whoosh* it spills out everywhere – including the counter and all over my hands.

I desperately want this bracelet fixed so I keep struggling to attach the end of the clasp to the end of the bracelet and while keeping my fingers in constant motion because I have to be at work in 10 minutes and I’ll be useless if I have to go in there with my hands glued together like Barbie’s unbalanced cousin Frontal Lobe Lobotomy Lisa.

I finally get the clasp all glued on there – and when I say all glued I mean that. When I checked on the bracelet a bit later, the clasp was so covered with glue that now I couldn’t actually get it open to attach it to the bit of chain at the other end and then put it on my wrist. Of course. Then in a flash of desperation, I try and force the clasp open like maybe Super Glue really isn’t that great of a bonding agent after all and, of course, the little lever you pull own to make the claw open…snaps off.

Bracelet set aside I now have to go about trying to get the now dry Super Glue off of my hands. A quick Google search tells me that I need to locate some nail polish with acetone. Super! I’m a girl and I do my nails so I have nail polish remover!

Yeah I have nail polish remover alright. Acetone free nail polish remover. I double check with Google and there are no other options unless I have time to sit and soak my hands in soapy hot water, which I don’t.

Eventually when I stop dinkin around and get my ass to work I locate some nail polish remover with acetone in the bathroom and that seems to do a fairly decent job. Of course the bottle only had like maybe an 1/8 of it left. I couldn’t really be much of a chooser at that point so I worked with it.

Basically while my boyfriend walks around like he wrote “The Secret” my life is a constant comedy of errors. I guess that pretty much mean we balance each other out….right?

Okay okay...NOW I get it!

I love going to open houses. When I was younger my mom used to drag me to a million of them every Sunday. Allegedly we were thinking of moving, but I’m not sure that that was the entire motivation. Really, open houses are just an excuse to be nosey and poke around other people’s houses. One thing I never understood was why there was always this emphasis on having a super luxurious bathroom and a master bedroom the size of a football stadium. I mean, of course it’s nice to have a large bathroom, and who wouldn’t want nice travertine tiled shower rather than a fiberglass enclosure? Yet I just didn’t get it. It all just seemed like stuff that, while aesthetically pleasing, what more were all these perks doing?

Yet bathrooms with whirlpool tubs the size of small wading pools seemed to make more sense than ginormous master bedrooms. Like who needs an entire separate sitting area? Or what’s with the fireplace? Who’s spending all this time in the bedroom? So much so that it’s more like a studio apartment than it is simply a bedroom. I simply: Did. Not. Get. It.

Then – about a month ago I suddenly got it. The light bulb went off and it was bright. Basically I went from about six years of living alone to being constantly surrounded by people. Constantly. Essentially the only time I’d be alone is when I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed or getting ready in the morning or in the bedroom folding clothes or getting dressed. I’d be standing in which ever room and suddenly realize it was quiet and I was alone. It was NICE. Usually it meant it was the only time during the day that I wasn’t having to talk to, entertain, smile at, yell at, or be talked to, entertained, smiled at or yelled at.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m getting more used to being in constant contact with people, especially since at el banco I now have my own office so that’s become like a little get away too. Sometimes though, you like hearing your own thoughts and just decompressing. Alone.

So that’s it – I just wanted to say that I get it. I get spending tens of thousands of dollars on remodeling what was once a closet of a bathroom or a boring, 4-walled master bedroom. Even though your inner voice can be annoying – it’s nice to be able to at least hear it once in a while.