Three Weeks on LDN
Most of my body aches are gone. I was having pain all down my neck and back, felt like I desperately needed to see Dr. B. I couldn’t afford it so I didn’t go. Now I could still use a visit but I don’t feel like everything is so far out of whack that I’m walking crooked.
Had a very bizarre dream sleeping on the couch last night. Sk8er Boi and I bought a house and were discovering all kinds of things that needed repaired or changed. For example, there was no window at all in the kitchen–there was a huge space for one, just no window.
There were stray cats everywhere; 20 or 30 of them in all kinds of strange colours. I remember purple ones with black leopard spots and ones that were navy, red and purple with black spots. Half of them were kittens and I wanted to keep them all!!!
Then there were all these neighbors having a party in our front yard and being very loud. Their kids were running around screaming and wearing costumes. I went out and said that this was my yard and to get out. They just laughed and went on partying.
Then Sk8er Boi asked me if I was happy and I said, “yes, why?” He replied, “because I don’t want any of this.” and went to bed. He meant me, the relationship, etc. I remember thinking that I would go spend the night at my mom and dad’s but then thought what’s the point, he won’t come after me anyway.
Then some weird guy whom I knew was some evil magical creature I needed to protect my house from showed up and we had a “battle” which consisted of flying across a long room that was empty except for unlit Christmas lights at each other.
Throughout the entire dream, I couldn’t speak (except for when Sk8er Boi asked me about my being happy). It was as if I had laryngitis; my mouth would move but no sound, or very little, came out.
It was just weird!!
Hair:
Lately I have been feeling like I just have too much hair. It’s in the way unless I have it up but there are only two way I can get it to stay up: a French braid or my messy knot bun. Thinking about cutting (yes, again) starting with mid-back but then I look at my profile pic and wonder if I would miss my length.
Maybe a hiatus from LHC would break that cycle, like Amoretti did. But then I would miss everyone’s blogs and I like keeping up with everyone’s lives and how they are doing.
Well, it’s only hair, it will grow back and my hair seems to grow faster than I thought. I’m already back to my pre-trim length from my last trim of 2.5″.
Houses:
I’m going to look into housing grants. Maybe enough just for a decent down-payment. More would be great but I don’t need more. Well, it would make going back to school easier if we didn’t have to worry about a house payment but there are people who could use more money more than me.
If anyone has any ideas about grant sites, I could use the help. I’ve looked and looked and all I can find are sites that want you to pay a monthly fee for their “assistance” which doesn’t consist of much but showing you were to look for available grants.
Work:
I have to work with The Boy’s GF tomorrow, just the two of us for four hours. I’m not looking forward to it.
She had to try to prove me wrong about a price in front of a customer the other day. It pissed me off but it doesn’t matter. If JP won’t do anything about the “firing offenses” she has committed, he would look at me like I was an idiot if I mentioned this.
I tell you what though, if she calls to say she is going to be late, I’m going to tell her not to bother showing up at all. I’ll work her shift and she can just be out the money. I don’t care if it pisses JP off.
Conversation between me and JP when AG and I worked day shift and The Boy and GF worked evening shift.
ME: I’m just wondering why it’s AG’s fault the cooler wasn’t done right when second shift is supposed to do it too.
JP: I expect more from you guys because you’re managers.
ME: if I’m a manager then so is [The Boy], he should have the same responsibilities as me.
JP: Yes, but AG is my assistant.
I left it alone from there. It doesn’t matter that AG could have stocked that cooler to the hilt, perfectly the was JP would have wanted it but customers bought it out and The Boy didn’t stock it or stock it well. To JP, it would be AG’s (an my) fault because The Boy can do no wrong.
I cut my finger–on a PLASTIC HANGER!!!!
You know those seams in plastic combs that will make most LHCer run screaming into the night? Same kind of seam only this one was sharp enough to slice my finger right open!!! I was hastily pulling my shirt from the hanger, my finger slid along the underside and sliiiice!! Only I could cut myself on a plastic hanger…. 
One week on LDN:
some things I’ve noticed so far:
*These last couple of days at work, I’m not walking out the door at the end of the shift feeling like I was run over by a freight train.
*mild…ah…digestive issues. This, however, is nothing new. I’ve had bouts with IBS since I was diagnosed with FMS in ’98.
*I’m not sleeping. I’ve been waking up in the wee hours of the morning and not being able to do much more than doze until the alarm goes off. This is not something new either. I go through phases like this often.
*no vivid dreams which is a noted side affect. I have weird and vivid dreams anyway but I can’t remember having one at all in the last week.
Hair:
Something needs to change. My bangs are to my chin which means that they go up in any updo and don’t casually and artfully work themselves loose. This is good for work, I hate having my hair in my face there, but it basically means that the current cut is a PITA because of all the different lengths. That’s it, no benefits to it at all.
I don’t know what to change. Cutting comes to mind, of course. But then, so does growing the front out again.
I’ve been spending less time at LHC lately and I don’t have that, “Oh (insert deity[s]), I just can’t cut my hair” feeling. I don’t know if I would be happier with it shorter. If I go much shorter, I wouldn’t be able to put it up in my favorite knot bun, but anything past armpit length, IMO, is too long for just a pony tail. The pony just gets all messy and I might as well be wearing it down for all the protection it provides. And I don’t want to French braid it every. single. day!
Work Stupidness:
We have an associate who is now dating The Boy. I don’t know if they started dating before or after she got hired but they certainly knew 
each other before that.
Anyway, it turns out she is a pathological liar, probably a thief, a manipulator and just a plane old skank. I could regale you with stories about her but I won’t. suffice it to say that even JP suspects her of thievery, so much so that he spent the better part of one day watching camera footage trying to catch her at it. She’s apparently very good at hiding it.
However, JP will not fire her!!! 
He says it’s nearly impossible to run the store with one fewer person. We have enough on her to fire her without catching her stealing but he won’t do it. He says he’d get “crucified” if he did because he’d then need to give the rest of us overtime.
Tell me, if you were in charge, would you rather have your manager keep an employee who is regularly late to her shift–usually over an hour late with lame or no excuse–and you suspect of stealing what adds up to large amount of cash, cigarettes and other items. Or would you prefer he give his good employees overtime whilst he looks for a replacement?
It doesn’t matter, if JP had been on the ball about hiring someone earlier–he really needs three more if he’s going to get rid of her–we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.
(topic change but still about work)
I love our deli manager. She’s blast and we have a lot of fun but sometimes she can be so closed minded she pisses me off. One day, a regular customer said something about not being Christian so Dec 25th really didn’t mean much to him. He had celebrated Winter Solstice. After he left she made a comment to me about it. This guy was also her neighbor and she really liked him but the fact that he was not Christian totally change her opinion of him as a person! He stopped coming in shortly after that.
The other day we were horsing around and the conversation turned to hom*se*ual relations.
Me: don’t knock it till you try it!
PM: I don’t think so!
Me (still joking around): Aw, come on PM, why not?
PM (perfectly serious): Because I’m sane!!
Um, excuse me but what does sanity have to do with se*ual preferences???
Yeah, closed minded much?
Check This Out
This is a possibility…. We saw it on this website and went to look without an appointment. There was a lady showing it and was nice enough to let B and I quickly walk through whist Sk8er Boi checked out the outside. By the time he was done, she was leaving so he hasn’t seen the inside yet.
Obviously it needs work but it’s live-in-able whilst the work is being done. The other houses Sk8er Boi was looking at as fixer-uppers were barely habitable.
It’s 6 miles closer to the town proper than the house I mentioned the other day. A fact Sk8er Boi gleefully pointed out. We went to look at the other house since we hadn’t seen it in the daylight and as we drive those 6 miles, I got more and more uncomfortable. It just felt like I was being cut off…. I say that and then, watch, I’ll end up in that blasted thing.
The other house is nice. We couldn’t see much because all the windows are covered but the basement is huge!!! It would need no work other than putting in stairs to the basement from the inside of the house.
I’m off to bed now, just wanted to post this for myself mainly….
I remembered what I wanted to say
It’s been over a week since I got more than 5 hours sleep ans some of those nights were disrupted by tossing, turning, waking and dosing rather than actually sleeping.
I’m so tired I fell asleep sitting up in a chair at Sk8er Boi’s co-worker’s house whilst co-worker, wife, DD, DD’s, BF, Sk8er Boi and B were all playing pool and wii. It was kinda loud and I fell asleep!! We got back at 2:00 AM and I was only able to sleep ’till 7:00!!! 
Today I work ’till 6:00 and then we have to go to my parents house and pick Sk8er Boi’s jeep up from the yard on the way home. I expect it will be another short night as I have to be back at work at 6:00 AM tomorrow.
The Girls and Christmas:
Sk8er Boi left our house at 2:15 AM Christmas day and arrived at the girls’ house at about 9:00 AM. He walked into J’s room and it took her three times of asking why Dad was there and being told to look out the window before she actually woke up enough to look. Sk8er Boi says she jumped at him and cried when she saw her car sitting there.
Apparently there’s been a lot of “you can’t go ____ because it’s my car,” from the BM!!! This is, J says, why she can’t find a job: every where she’s allowed to go with BM’s car is not hiring. However, the BGM confirmed what J is just being lazy about it. BGM says she sees “help wanted” signs all over and tells J about it but nothing ever comes of it…..
The UGG boots I scored off eBay for a ridiculously low price never arrived. They were won and paid for on 12/10 and the 
didn’t even generate a tracking number until 12/16 and according to the tracking number, they are still in Istanbul, Turkey. Now, in the US, you can go to numerous shipping sites and generate a tracking number without ever setting foot in a post office. But this tracking number says Foreign Arrival at Outward Office and Foreign Acceptance so I don’t know what to think. The tracking information hasn’t changed since the 16th.
Strange things about whole thing: A) The listing said the boots would be shipped DHL but the tracking number is USPS. When I went to look at the eBay listing to confirm the shipping method I discovered B) the seller has removed the listing. Not only that, C) the seller has also removed themselves as registered eBay members. 
Before you ask, I did email PTT (thank you melikai for the info) to inquire about the package status. I have not heard back. Also, I did pay through PayPal and have already filed a claim for my money back.
Anyway, that meant that Sk8er Boi and I were at the freaking mall on Christmas Eve buying UGG boots at full price!!!
There was more I was going to write but I’m tired and can’t remember. Plus, I need to go get ready for work….
And once again my body betrays me
As mentioned, my cycle is not regular. Sometimes I can predict when I’m going to start and sometimes it surprises me.
I scheduled a well-woman exam for tomorrow. When I scheduled it I had no idea I was going to start—THREE FREAKING DAYS BEFORE THE APPOINTMENT!!!! SURPRISE!!! I will not be done by 9:15 tomorrow so I had to reschedule. Her next available appointment is not until 12/29.
Before you start thinking I’m a freak and actually like having that stupid girlie exam, that’s not it. I was going to talk to her about low-dose naltrexone for my FMS whilst I was there. TessieAnn, although her issue is not FMS, has had great success on it so I wanted to try it. I’ve tried everything else out there that is the standard for FMS and my symptoms are easier to deal with than the side affects of the damn drugs. I definitely have the FMS symptom of drug/side-affect hyper sensitivity!! Low-dose naltrexone is supposed to have virtually no side-affects.
I’m a little apprehensive about talking to her. I don’t know how she feels about experimental treatments. Naltrexone is FDA approved but using it for FMS and other auto-immune disorders os still experimental. I don’t want her to try to prescribe something else instead. If she won’t prescribe the naltrexone, I don’t want anything. How do you tell a doc that you’re asking for help with these symptoms and then turn around and refuse it unless it’s what you–a non-medically trained person–wants?
Work:
We have a second shift leader now. He’s a (barely) 21 year old boy. And I mean boy. He is not mature. At. All. Yet he is JP’s new prodigy. JP is now trying to get him promoted to Assistant Manager. This time last year it was me he was trying to get promoted. However, somewhere along the way, I said to JP that I was not thrilled about working evening shift which is what Asst. Mgrs. work and JP told Mr. Head-Honcho and his A$$ that I didn’t want to work nights at all. Well, there went my promotion. I just found that out last week, BTW.
So, JP’s spending all this time with Boy, teaching him how to do the managerial paperwork and otherwise grooming him for the promotion and it just makes me want to throttle them both.
Boy has been working midnight shift because we just fired the person who was working that shift. I have come in day after day to find all kinds of things not done that he should have gotten done overnight. Things that are supposed to be done at night because we are too busy during the day to do them. I told AG about it but Boy is also her drinking/partying buddy so, of course nothing is going to happen and he is still going to be promoted.
To top it off Boy just got his shift leader raise on this last check. His raise was $0.75 more per hour. Mine was $0.50. Boy is now making more than me even though I have worked there two years longer than him!!!!!
Aside from the money issue I don’t know why it bothers me; I wouldn’t take a promotion now if it was offered. Not out of spite mind you, not because I didn’t get it back then, but because the closer I get into that world, the more I see how much of a tyrant Mr. HH and his A$$ are. As useless as JP is in personnel matters, he make a nice buffer between me and them.
Working for that company at all might not be an issue at all come April anyway because….
Houses:
We are in a lease-purchase agreement in the house we are in. The lease is up in April and we either need to purchase it or move out. I’d much rather move out. This place needs way to much work and with the amount of time Sk8er Boi spends at his job, we’d need to hire somebody to get it done in any reasonable amount of time. We can’t afford to hire somebody. Besides, I hate the area for a multitude of reasons.
So we got online last weekend and went looking for foreclosed on houses. We looked at five houses, the next one and even bigger $h!t hole than the last. They looked great in the pics…. I was resigned to stay here by the time we got home.
Sk8er Boi has been talking to the brother of the owner of his company, RB. The owner has the company Sk8er Boi works for “for fun.” He makes his real money in real estate–and he’s made a lot of money!!! Anyway, RB says the agreed upon price for this house is much more than it’s worth–something I said all along but, at the time we moved, we really didn’t have any other choice.
RB thinks that we have a lot more options than we thought we did. He has offered to help us look for a house and maybe even get in to one. He seems confident that we can get into a house that won’t need major updating too but suggested we didn’t start looking until February though.
If we move, we both would like to move closer to his work. It would be closer to the more urban areas that would make it easier to find a job that would be worth driving to but still be in a rural enough area that Sk8er Boi could bring his truck home without the neighbors complaining.
If we move out in the area we are talking about, I will spend more in gas getting back and fourth from the seventh circle of hell that I will make in working there. I will look for a gas-station type job closer to that area for the time being but I’m not giving up on a better job than that!
Hair–since this is a hair board:
I finally got some new camellia oil as my last batch went bad. I have been remembering to oil heavily once a week and it’s made a big difference in the tangle factor!!! I must have forgotten that since it’s been so long since I oiled at all.
That’s pretty much it on the hair front. No more plans to cut for now.
ETA:
I was surfing eBay and came across this shirt. I think I need it.
I also found these for B for Christmas. That’s less than half the retail price!! Score!!!
