I needed this. Badly.

So, I made a few extra bucks at work, today. God only knows how as it was a ghost town in the diner due to Yom Kippur and I was less than personality plus after arriving half an hour late then spilling not one but two soda glasses of ice water down the front of myself.
I left work, today, and decided I deserved a little indulgence. Ran to the local drugstore and bought myself some badly needed beauty necessities, stopped off at the liquor store for some tawny port, then slipped into my jammies and just vegged. How is this different than my daily routine, you ask? Really, it's not. I usually go straight from work uniform to jammies and the boob tube, but tonight I added a few little things I've been depriving myself of and it felt like a whole new experience.
The vino was a small splurge, as I've been trying my damndest to not spend an extra dime. So that was (and is still currently) very nice. Also broke out this amazingly wonderful candle a girlfriend of mine gave me for my bday that I'd been saving for a special occasion. This candle - OH EM GEE! - is just the most heavenly scented high end boutique too-rich-for-my-blood candle ever and I've been stashing it away as long as humanly possible because just opening the canister to catch a small whiff is to die for. It smells like a sexy hippie (I know to some that's an oxymoron, but just IMAGINE with me, will you?), that's the only way to describe it. If my entire world could smell like this one burmese rosewood candle I'd be a happy happy lady.

Anyway, yeah. So I broke out the candle, filled my special occasion crystal goblet with my moderately priced wine, and watched me some Project Runway season finale (part one). Add some double chocolate chunk cookies and I was happier than a pound of bacon in shit. Or...err...something like that. Ew.

Mmhmm yeah, that's right. I'm drunk. Too drunk to reflect on the goings on in my life, right now, so take a deep sigh of relief. All I can say, at the moment, is my living situation needs to change soonish and I'm pretty damn sure I'll be at least leaving the state if not the country after the new year. Food for thought.

Also: Fuck. I've had Rilo Kiley stuck in my head for days.



And I must see this.

If you ever see me on the 6'o clock news going on a murderous rampage through a New Jersey diner, don't say I didn't warn you. I'd really like to bludgeon a few of the people I've had the extreme displeasure to wait on the last few days to death with a tray. Seriously, there is absolutely no excuse for leaving your server less than enough tip to pay for her gas to get home. Does no one realize most waitresses make $1.25 per hour after taxes?!?!?
I'd almost forgotten how much this industry makes me depise people. I'm still better off doing this than nothing at all, and still grateful to just be employed at this point, but damn. I can fucking do better than this. Paying the bare minimum of my bills and dragging myself to an all but thankless crappy job every day is just not gonna cut it for very long with me. I aspire to be and do more with my damn life.

I know, all that is a "same shit, different day" rant for me, anymore. But constantly reminding myself it's time to grow the hell up, be and do better, may sooner or later stick. So I will continue to bitch at myself (and about my job) til I've gotten where I feel I need to be.

Ok, so I was dying for something different to listen to in my car so I dug through some old mixed CDs I made. Found an awesome Veruca Salt/Shins/Raincoats mix I'd burned forever ago. But there are these two or three tracks I threw on at the end who I have NO FUCKING IDEA what band it is. What sucks about that is they're beautiful tracks, I keep them on repeat, they're that good. So I thought maybe my computer would be able to read the track list for me, easy right? Not so, I removed about 80% of my downloaded music earlier this year to make much needed room in my memory. So, no go.
I'm at my wit's end trying to figure out even the titles of the tracks. I've exhausted pretty much every avenue - I've put possible titles in search engines, on every music site I know of, even on freaking youtube. I am now a woman on a mission, I think on my day off I'm going to jot down the lyrics and see if I can come up with anything. Damn me for being disorganized.

Also: using my downtime at work to read The Portable Rollins makes me feel better. Gotta love a cynical bastard.♥

That's it and that's all. Yeah no, I'm still not terribly exciting. Suck it.

So things are marginally better with me.

I got myself a job at a little dirty spoon of a diner owned by the former chef of the restaurant I worked at for 7 years. It's monotonous, simple, and not nearly as fast paced as what I'm used to, but it's a job. Cash in hand daily is what I sorely needed, so I'm trying my hardest to at least be grateful I am employed. Whether or not I've started contributing to the household bills soon enough to save us from losing our home remains to be seen, but I'm fairly certain we'll manage.

Breaking free from the past and that needling little pest known as regret is still a challenge, but I'm getting there, too. I need to get to a point where I feel I am somehow bettering myself rather than backtracking in order to completely be satisfied. But, as always, baby steps...

My body has been feeling a bit abused due to lack of physical activity for entirely too long. Waitressing is nothing if not stressful on the mind and body. Gotta get used to that shit again. Once I do I plan on reinstating some sort of diet and exercise regimen. I've gotten a bit tubby and I'm pretty sure my blood pressure is still sky high. I'm thinking my health needs to be focused on a tad, as well as giving myself a wee confidence boost.

Nothing else really going on with me. I'm still being a bit of a hermit, and fight teh lonely off with a hearty dose of televised escapism. I'm currently having a love affair with both Arrested Develpoment (SO many lulz, oh so many) and Heroes. Thank you Surf the Channel, for being my salvation.

Good lord do I need to get me either a hobby or a social life again. My updates are a fricken snore fest anymore.

Smooches.

Guess I'm a tad overdue for an update, huh?

First off, apologies for being MIA for pretty much the entire summer and a big thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes at the beginning of the month.

I've been a bit of a wreck for a good while, now. All self inflicted - I just got me a case of severe hopeless/listless/hibernation syndrome. I've spent my summer mourning memories of when I had a direction and was actually acheieving some real goals in life. I pretty much just need to get back there and have been struggling to screw my head back on in order to do this.
I have no paitience, you see. I want to wake up and be back where I was, in my happy place, being self sufficient, having a life, job, etc. But in reality, I've been so lackadaisical for so fucking long that's it's just not going to be that easy. I am slowly getting back to a place where I have the will to fight again, and it's been one of the hardest challenges I've ever faced.

My largest obstacle atm is finding full time employment. I haven't worked a steady job in six months, and the facts that I never furthered my education and have been something of a career waitress have painted me in a bit of a corner. I'm left with few options other than restaurant work or menial minimum wage slaving, which is a bit embarrassing and at times hard to swallow. But I need to find something sooner than later, as I've dodged my responsibility to pay my share of the family mortgage payment for so long that we're coming very close to losing our home. It's bad enough I've allowed myself to fall victim to my own procrastination, but my family? That's just no good.

Bottom line is I have a long, hard road ahead of me, within myself and out there in the real world, due to many poor decisions I've made along the way. I need to put my head down and charge at life before it's too late.

So that's where I'm at and pretty much why I've been completely inactive in SG land. Still baby stepping, still battling with myself, still struggling to get my footing back. I WILL get there. I have to.

I'm going to try my best to catch up with everyone, read some blogs, yadda yadda. Love and kisses to you all.

I'm getting there. Baby steps of the teeny tiniest proportions is how.

Each and every person who left me kind words on my last entry gave me food for thought. Thank you all so much for being there and for humoring my little pity party. I needed an outlet and to know I'm not the only one who deals with this quarter life crisis bs. I have some truly wonderful internoodle friends.♥

Still going strong with the nannying. It's definitely not the cakewalk I thought it would be. In fact, it's one of the toughest ways I've ever earned a dime. But it's something, and it's helping me make a bit of progress with the overwhelming amounts of bills I have to rid myself of. The hours this week were a tad sporadic, so I have yet to start the hunt for a second money maker, but I now have at least a short term gameplan to see myself out of this mess.

One thing I need to learn is how not to let envy overwhelm my happiness for the people in my life who are moving on to bigger and better things. I see those I love prospering, getting good jobs, achieving their dreams and often feel left behind. It lately inspires more jealousy than anything else, and that's a bit unsettling. These things are not happening to my loved ones, they are making them happen. Which is precisely what I need to do - stop thinking mine or others' happiness relies on luck and get out there and EARN it.

I've taken to trying some daily affirmations again. I find a quote or two that inspire me and let em play on repeat inner monologue style anytime I need a boost. My favorite quote of the week I borrowed from an episode of Scrubs (which I've not only been watching daily but have been kicking myself for taking so long to catch on to the hilarity that is that show) -

Not really rocket science, but keeping things such as this in mind are what will help me get my fight back.

On a side note, I really didn't forget about the rest of our trip/gala pics, I swear. SOMEONE needs a friendly reminder to make with the resizing so that one or both of us can share them.

Have a good weekend, loves.

So I'm home and just returned from dropping off Bill_the_Cat at Philly International. What a crazy three weeks this has been - we've been all over the damn place, met some more amazing SG folk, driven hundreds and hundreds of miles, and paid visits to a good deal of his family.

Evidence in picture form I only have up to the halfway point of our journey, but we'll pick up where I left off once we have all the rest uploaded & what not -

Journey intermission til my next update, which will hopefully include Gala pics of all the sexy people we had the chance to party with.

Annnnd fast forward to the present.
I came home to a mess. I had been so involved in my social & love life for so many months that I really let things go. And I'm talking worse than it was. The pile of mail I sifted through upon returning home was just bad news after bad news. Long story short, I owe alot of people alot of money and am still crazily broke. And I can no longer ignore any of it if I want any chance of making a better life for myself.
The next week or so will be spent avoiding car repossession, lawsuits, and suspension of license. Yeah, it's like that.

Good news is I think I found a job as a nanny for a friend of my family. She has two little girls who I've heard are quite a handful, but the money's right and it's an immediate start, so I need to do this. My first day is tomorrow, send me some good mojo that this works.

Tonight I'm going to relax, breathe, & try my hardest not to worry. I need to clear my head and get out of gypsy wanna be mode.

Awesome. I just spent an hour updating and posting trip pics thus far, and our lovely hotel internet connection decided me hitting the post button meant I needed to put the access code back in. So much for that.

Between that and the fact that I'm daft when it comes to using Mr. Mayun's Macbook, I give up. Expect a tonnes of pics three week update upon my return home next week.

Off I go to make myself all fancy & what not for the SG Gala this evening. Whoo hoooooooo!

Did you know in the land of Canadia you can wash your dog & car at the very same time?



I like it here. They're fricken weird.

My only complaint is that the mosquitos are slowly eating me alive. I've never seen so many mini vampires in one place before. And they pick just the right spots to bite, too. Center of my scalp and left ass cheek. Awesome.

I'll have a proper udate within the next few days (filled with lovey dovey picture goodness) to mark the halfway point of our road trip adventures, I'm just too tired to think straight right now.

Smooch

I've been blissfully busy lounging about with my honey since Saturday night. Yup, I've got it bad.

Update will come shortly.......maybe.

Just know I'm a happy, happy, happy lady.

Today, we're starting the first leg of our road trip. We're heading up to MA to visit thefreak for some din-din, gaming, and shennanigans. And tomorrow we're off to Ontario to see his father.

We came out of our love coma long enough to receive a (much anticipated) visit from the adorably adorable Miss Charlielove, last night. I will elaborate on that, as well, later. I put this off only because we're keeping our fingers crossed that she'll decide to stay in Jersey long enough for us to catch her again once we return from our adventure.

I don't expect to be on terribly much for the next week or so, but I'll do my best to keep up with everybody.

Time for me to go prepare. We're coming to get you, Tommy...