Roller Coaster
Jul 9, 2004

Nah, not of emotions, of decisions and paths not just my own but effecting me just the same. Remember that I’m moving right? I have to be out by the end of July, a day before the end of July I get a third paycheck (I was unable to save anything from the first one)—in this time I will have $400 (I normally get only 2 paychecks per month) and I have to spend about $110 out of that, leaving me with $290 for moving. This would be no problem if Nicki were staying, but now she needs to get away so she’s wondering if I can take over the lease for her, if I can afford it. So, now I’ve decided that whenever she moves (it sounds really soon after I get into the apt.), to be fair, she will not have to pay rent for that month (it’s only fair), even if she does stay a couple of days or about two weeks into the month—she’s helping to move out after all.

So, I’m to take over her lease and have the apt. all to myself—I’d get my own place! Just me and Michael. I am excited about that, but my budget would be really close. And in case you’re curious, this place does an income-debt ratio that I might pass but the also do a credit check that I will definitely fail (I even have a rental property on my credit most likely—and to be honest, I wasn’t the one who trashed the house, the big glue stain on the carpet was Jason’s, only two of the cats were mine, and I got rid of mine after awhile because it seemed no one else was going to and I knew mine would go to good homes because they were pure white cats (they kept their 4—two a piece; 6 cats, and some people still wonder if I determined never to have that many again—Never! Two at the most, anymore than that gives me an allergy attack a day), which means I also have to come up with another $100 for the once only pet deposit so I can keep Yin. Although my sister has a kitten that looks exactly like my beloved cat Cally, I will probably stick with Yin, I’m going to have a hard enough time keeping her heh. If I were to get this kitten, she would have to be front declawed and spaded when old enough, and her shots all caught up, just like Yin, so as much as it will hurt to see her go, I cannot take this kitten, after all, I’d probably end up loving on her more than Yin and that’s not fair to Yin, she was here first. And I definitely cannot afford the shots and operations.

Which reminds me that I’d wanted to dish out that $60 extra to get Yin caught up ^^” She has her regular check up to get for the year which is about $20-something and includes a practically free set of shots—distemper and leukemia, I need to buy that 24h pill that kills fleas in 24 hours—all fleas that ever touched the cat that took it, but only for 24 hours to give to her the day she’s moved over to the apt.—but that’s only $2, I need to get her rabies shot which is another $20-something complete with licensing or whatever they call it to put it on legal record, or maybe that was $40-something for the rabies shot...I know it is about $60 but no more to get her all caught up and I can’t think of where on earth the other $20 left was supposed to go...

*sigh* I would really like to do this, and I actually can, just moving is the problem, the first move, getting the money to pay Nicki my fair share, or the whole thing if she’s ready to go as soon as I move in. We reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally need to get together and talk so that I know exactly what I’m doing and more exactly how much money I’m going to need at first. The only problem with that is that Nicki works hours from hell and doesn’t have a life on the days she works (she gets two days off a week in which to cram the busy social life-style she was used to).

I can do this, but it will be close, very close, my financial situation will be very tight. I will need $305/mo for rent, she says her water is $7, I’m gonna hike it up to $10, I’ll be home more often, but if might even out because she takes a shower once a day and I don’t know how often she bathes Roman, but he’s probably about the same. I shower every other day, but sometimes once a day without washing my impossible hair (it takes about 30 mins to rinse conditioner from my long, thick hair), if I wash my hair every day, it gets to looking reeeeeeeeeeally crappy—Boy, that was a stupid section, like you really wanted to know the details of my water usage. My son gets a bath about three times a week though, sometimes a little more than that if he comes home dirty from wherever he’s/we’ve been that day. Anyway, it will probably even out, but I’m gonna say $10 for water anyway. As for electricity, I’m going to hike that up too, Nicki spends about $20/mo, I’ll have to get the electric in my name. Shit, pardon my French, I just realized that the water will probably want a damn deposit because of my sucky credit (later on my mom told me that the water company doesn't do deposits)—the electric is not a problem because my mom has been using my name with them for years and never once paid late. I wonder if they will want a deposit anyway for changing locations. I hope not. Well, that will be extra money I’ll have to come up with before I move. Anyway, I’m hoping my electric won’t be anymore than $30/mo, but as I said before, it may be a LOT more than Nicki’s, I definitely don’t plan on as much as $50 but $50 wouldn’t surprise me. Nicki is never home really to use the electric, and she doesn’t normally cook either—although it helps that the stove is electric and not gas, and once this starts, because I need Julie’s help with transportation to and from work and school and going with her to the grocery store, I will have no where to go but home because I will have no money to do anything else.

This is a really long entry and I definitely do not expect anyone to read the whole thing LOL, it’s mostly because I am trying to sort out what I need to do in writing, to think of all this in writing, and I cannot find my physical notebook journal to bore to tears, so I’m going to bore whatever readers are left on this line to tears hehe.

I’m not done yet, but you can leave if you want, I’m used to talking to myself, do it all the time. From then I need $60/mo for groceries until I can get food stamps (Please fates let me get food stamps without having to get another job), $16/mo for diapers, and then $15 every 5 mos or so for Yin’s food and litter—it taker her that long to finish a huge bad of Meow Mix and a 5 gallon container of litter, maybe less than that in the litter, actually I’m thinking it’s about 2 or 3 gallons (I know gallons measures liquid, I’m speaking of if you took and filled 2 or 3 milk gallons with litter you would have how much litter I buy for about $5, and it’s the good stuff too, not some cheap clay dusty crap (which you usually don’t save money on anyway when you only have one cat, because you have to dump that stuff once it’s full, but with Tidy Cats you can scoop it out and still have good litter that doesn’t stink. So you’re looking at about the same price when you only have 1 or 2 cats when comparing cheap to expensive litter). I would like to get her used to natural pine pellet litter that’s biodegradable and great for mulch/fertilizer in flower gardens when it’s ready to be dumped, but that’s another story entirely.

Then let’s not forget that soon I wanted to get internet at home so I can take that extra class to have enough credits to actually get on the President’s List this semester. A class I can handle (Windows XP online), it’s one more credit than I need and it will help me in this line of work (Receptionist office type work) to know it, but I need an XP internet capable computer for the tests—the one at work is NT capable. I should be able to do that once Jason gets a steady job (and I get child support). He’s working for ManPower right now, which is an employment company that doesn’t pay you, but they get you jobs at other places (usually for lower wages than what everyone hired directly there gets—which is all still usually above minimum wage, and it’s never below), he should be getting a check from them today, but the temp job for that check was only for five days because they were nearing the end of their busy cycle and when a business gets to that point, the manpower employees are the first to go. They should get him another job soon though, he’s refused one immediate replacement for MasterGuard because he’d be working with my brother-in-law at 5am and most importantly to him, it is a 45min. drive from Danville, and he doesn’t want anything nearly that far from Danville.

Anyway, once he gets a replacement that’s steady he can be hired on at the end of term by the actual company, which always includes a pay raise (manpower occasional gives you a raise, it depends on the company you are working for through them), when that happens, I will get 20% of each of his checks to support Michael, this check coming today he says he’s going to give almost all of it to me so I can move and take Yin with me, he says it’s because I have Michael, and Michael needs a home, he hasn’t been able to give me any kind of support for Michael since he lost his job, and he’s used to living with whoever he can right now anyway, which all makes sense and is logical—he’s by himself, it’s much easier for him to leave the bulk of his stuff in three different places (his mom’s, Dawn and Brian’s, and the room above The Broomcloset that is his while he provides services for the store like staying there to watch it while the owner goes and does something he wants to do—problem, he doesn’t really get paid at all in money and it is 45mins from Danville—at any rate, he’s by himself, I have Michael and all of me and Michael’s stuff and while I have plenty of family that would take me in if I had no other option, Michael and I would be cramped into one room, if any room at all, living in a mess (this place is not an option for me), or having to live secretly and hide most of my stuff (religious reasons)—it’s just harder to do that kind of thing when you’re the one with the child (and I want to stay the one with the child)—besides, he doesn’t have a steady job to even have the child anyway lol.

Anyway, my point is, that besides it being logical and all that, it is still very nice, because really all he has to do is give 20% of that check, but he’s talking about giving me the whole thing (although I won’t let him do that, he needs to quit borrowing money from whomever he is borrowing it from for gas money). Yikes O.o, I am sooooooooooooo full of run-ons today lol.

I hope I make alot at my yard sales (I have about 213 comics to sell WITH bags and boards) that I’m sure most will go for $1 a piece if I can get customers—I went to a yard sale once that was sellling a table full of comics for that price two years ago, they weren’t old, they weren’t special edition like some of mine were, they were just regular comics from well known series like X-men (as are mine) and they didn’t have bags or boards. We happened on that yard sale by accident and I bought 5 of them, my ex-boyfriend bought many more of them, and the table was surrounded by people who were buying still more of them.

I’m trying it this Saturday without the ad in the paper, then next week I’m going to put an add in the paper and have my sale Friday and Saturday with the add saying collector comics at yard sale prices (or maybe comics $1 each with bag and board!), toys, clothes, crib, cheap! Or something like that. Maybe my ex will come and buy them all if he sees the comic line lol.

I’m giving some stuff to the broomcloset to put on ebay (only stuff that I can see is selling well). They take 20% off the closing cost and give you the rest. It would be so wonderful if I could sell all 213 of my comics for $230 (there are a couple of special ones in there I want to try at $3-5 a piece (I’m keeping about 120 comics I just can’t part with right now). There’s about $50 alone in bags and boards on all those comics lol.

Anyway, the internet will cost me, for a cable modem from the cable company that’s mine to keep even if I cancel the service after the trial period, no deposit or credit check required, $20/mo for the first two months and then $44/mo after that. It will cost a heck of a lot more to get a phone put in (plus a deposit) and then count the half as good internet service at $20/mo, I will have a phone too but I don’t really need a phone anyway, if I have anywhere I have to call, I can do it at work. So you’re basically looking at either $44/mo for cable twice as fast no booting you off at bad times internet service or $90/mo slow DSL +deposit +local phone service +buying a phone to plug into the wall lol. One I can pull off if Jason gets a steady enough job to pay me child support and I get food stamps, the other there’s no way in hell at this time in my life.

I love my job at Lakeview and as long as I keep it for a year (it will be longer than a year actually by the time I have to find a new job), I should have very little problem finding a full time receptionist/office job around here at more than I am making now (and more hours), because I will have that experience all the other ones wanted me to have and I will not be going to school, which means I will have all day open still for work. Once I get to that point, being able to afford my own place will be easy, but I don’t want a second job because that wouldn’t be fair to Michael at all, I will be going to school, working at Lakeview, having to do homework and go to another job, it will be harder to do my homework when we’re together (he was stubborn about having my attention away from it last semester and I only had one job) and he’ll never get me totally to himself I’ll be so damn busy. I know that it’s out of love that other mothers get so damn busy and I think nothing wrong about them taking that path to care for their child, but my own parenting course is leading me to just make do for now rather than sacrifice all of my precious time with my son. To be there, but not be there when we’re together you know? I wonder if there is a place that would take on an employee for just one day a week, one SET day a week, a waitressing job, on Saturday night at the same time every Saturday, probably not. Oh well, I’d like to have Saturday to just michael—Sunday is laundry/family day in which my sister and I are going to our mom’s out of town where she moves to to visit, do our laundry, and eat dinner (and they go to church—I reeeeeeeeeeally hope I don’t get forced into church to get my laundry done)—we will no longer have family night on Tuesday.

Anyhow, I need to go get ready for work and eat something, I have only 10 minutes to do it in I spent so long writing this o.O 4 page entry! I think I’ve rambled enough, even though I still have things regarding this issue that I want to ramble about.

Ja ne!

--Saronai