Unemployed Husbands

Priorities: Computer games, sleep, hold contempt for wife who makes you drive her to work in the morning. Drive slowly so that she'll be late, and drive so fast she drops her stomach when she asks to speed up. Stay mature. Allow laundry pile to rise as far as the ceiling until doing laundry. Avoid filling out anymore job applications or applying for better jobs than the one you might have in two weeks.

Okay, I understand that he needs a vacation, and this is it for him. I just need a place to vent so that I don't spend my day fretting over pissing him off b/c I woke him up at 7am to drive me to work b/c I would be late if I had to do it and deal w/the parking garage people who still haven't issued me a parking pass. And it's gonna be a little difficult tomorrow when I won't have any clean drawers to wear. Sigh. It's also no fun when I come home from work and my quality time is watching him play a computer game. And people wonder why I haven't gotten him a Playstation2? We'd never be able to have a decent conversation ever again!

Bible Study is tonight. I need it to calm down and relax and remember to tell my DH that I still love him and still think he's the greatest. We're studying A Purpose Driven Life. So far I'm really enjoying it. But honestly it wouldn't matter what they studied, I'd still go b/c I like spending time w/the people there. It's fun and a great way to get rid of the week's anxieties. Too bad they're all at least 20 years older than Pete and I.

Why hasn't anybody connected it?

One reason that Louisiana just amuses me:

Yesterday the entire downtown area smelled so strongly of natural gas that I could smell it in my 7th floor office and was dizzy and nauseous the entire day from it. According to this news article, they decided it wasn't dangerous and that they couldn't find out where the heck it was coming from:

The problem is that nobody can seem to find the gas leak. DEQ officials combed through the Capitol area this morning with air monitors looking for the leak's orgin. Entergy crews were also on hand tapping their lines but found no signs of a leak. Police then turned to the river. They checked barges for any evidence of a strong odor there but again found nothing.

So, today is another day at work. Smell isn't as strong but people who live on the other side of the Mississippi say that it's over there now (my office overlooks the river on the other side of them). So then this came out in the newsbreak:

That smell has now been traced to a leaking barge. Authorities tell 9 News that the chemical is called Sodium Hydrosulfide solution. It is toxic if it is inhaled, ingested or touches the skin but authorities say the children are in no danger.

I'm no science genius but um, couldn't these two be related? And if the smell is so dadgum strong, doesn't that mean that it's in the air and could harm us?

And they wonder why they call Baton Rouge - New Orleans along the Mississippi "Cancer Alley".

So what is it all about?

I've been contemplating many things lately, and since I never seem to have an organized point anywhere in this blog anyway, I'm going to share it with you:

1. This blog. Why is it still named this? It needs a new name. Voluptuous is just a fancy word for "fat", and the only thing I'm Losing is my mind. I'm a failed dieter. I've gotta face it. I can't do it. Of course I'll try and try again, but God made me this way, and He seems to like me this way.

2. My career. Or really, WHAT career? Even when I was a freshman in college (here), I imagined myself as a journalist for The Washington Post, or some artsy fartsy literary genius that my Mom would brag about to the grocery store clerk. Now I'm going on the third year after graduating college (I just have to take a second to pause and scream oh my god...three years... what the heck happened?). I'm nowhere near the career I imagined. I work for the State of Louisiana pushing paper so that troubled Foster kids can go from one troubled home to another because nobody can afford to give them the care they really need. Why am I not living the dream of writing that I wanted to do?

3. This is really a continuation of 2. I am living some sort of dream that I write about all the time and you probably just want to gag from all this mushy talk, but of course, I did find something that I never thought I'd get - my husband. I didn't go to college thinking I'd spend my life married, it wouldn't be a wise choice to go to an all women's college to do that anyway. I didn't even want to go to England my junior year, and no way did I think I'd date over there and find someone. I don't know how it happened, but it did, and that year in England was the best year of my life so far. Still doesn't help me feel as though my college was instrumental in my career. I don't want a career with the State. I work with people who have worked with the State for 30 years and all they want is their retirement so that they can go poor and not have to push paper or make an act of Congress to get a new pen.

4. I'm reading The Purpose Driven Life right now, for Pete and I's Thursday night homechurch. I started reading it with the knowledge that some of my friends haven't heard great things about it and so I thought I would hate it. In fact I love it. It takes my worries and jumbles of thoughts and straightens everything out so that I can finally see it all in a straight line. It's amazing. It's a fresh new perspective on life and I love it. Thanks to Mum-in-law for sending the book over. We couldn't have afforded it otherwise.

5. Why can't I understand that I'm now an old person who needs to go to bed early? I think I'm stuck in a college sophomore's body who thinks she can stay up until 4am and still make it to work at 7:00am and class at 9. I don't know how I did it. They must have put speed in the dining hall food, that's all I can say. I feel old when that alarm rings at 6am and I have to wake up.

6. I want to go back to school. I miss it. I miss learning, I even miss the pedantic professors and the tiresome papers and the lectures that put me to sleep. But when I look at what I want to do, there's about four Master's programs I want to do, and none of them are remotely alike. Can I do it? Can I be a student forever? Then I have conflicting feelings telling me to go to seminary. Three years ago I wouldn't have even considered it. Now I'm pretending that I have a budget for this. What's going on with me? I just want to go back to school.

7. Life. It's expensive and I don't know how people afford it. After paying health insurance, car insurance, car note, prescription, chiropractor and gas money, there isn't any way that Pete and I can make Rent and Utilities. Thank God for our parents. It's humiliating, humbling and demeaning to have to live with parents at the age of 25 and being married, but there isn't any way that we could do this without them. How do young couples like us make it? And with kids?!?!? Are they NUTS? Ugh. I wasn't taught this stuff in college.

Baby Fever

The ladies at work got me today.

One of them has a sister who just had a baby. In fact, my mom was the baby's NICU nurse at the hospital and was the nurse who delivered the baby to the mother's room when it was ready to leave the NICU. Co-worker and sister brought the baby in today and took pictures of everyone holding it. I tried to hide in the background and was able to ooh and aah from a distance.

Until everyone noticed. They ganged up on me and made me hold this 8 pound month old baby. A little girl who smelled so precious of baby powder and yummy baby smells, sat in my arms and looked at me with her baby eyelashes, blonde-red hair and blue eyes. She had fingernails so tiny that Barbie couldn't wear them. She stretched and smiled (where they told me it was just gas) and slept in my arms.

I'm hooked. I want a baby.

The highlight of the meeting was when she stretched and smiled in another woman's arms and another co-worker said "oh look she's probably having a little poo."

Minutes later her diaper was changed.

Inspirational

This just might get me to start dieting again. And this chick doesn't even know I exist. Same goes for this one. I found them on another blog. Am I addicted?

Did I just say "chick"? Ew.

I'm dying to go to grad school. Why can't LSU be free? I put up with their traffic every morning on the way to work, shouldn't that count for something?

Gmail

I opted to try out the beta testing for Google's new email service, gmail.

Is anyone else excited about this, or am I a googlaholic?

How Honest Should we be?

Since I fried our router last night, Pete and I went to Circuit City to get another one. We had gift certificates and with the extra money we picked up a DVD of Coupling, season 2. When we got to the counter, the price seemed really cheap, as if they forgot to scan the DVD. So I asked, "Is this the total amount for both the router AND the DVD?"

The guy said yes.

So, Pete picked up a game, SimCity, which was on sale by the counter and it happened to be half price. So we left with Coupling, the router, and SimCity, with a few dollars left to spare on our gift cards.

I got back in the truck and noticed on the receipt that they in fact did NOT charge me for the Coupling DVD.

So what would you do? Take it back and pay for it or return it? Keep it and figure you gave them their chance?

What I've Learned Today

I've learned that, I can sit in my office with the door closed and not be bothered for hours but until I get an itch on my butt and pull down my pants to scratch it, someone will knock on the door.

Relax y'all, it's just a mosquito bite that is VERY hard to reach.

Lesson learned

Tried to fix the router today, it hooks two computers up to a modem. Lesson learned today folks, is that the ac adapter plug for your router should be the only one you ever stick in your router. I got mixed up today and stuck another one, the one from my modem, into my router and it started smoking.

Ooooops.

Lesson learned. Have to get a new router now.

A Real Date

Hubby took me on a real date tonight. Not that he paid, we got gift certificates from the Easter Bunny (you're never too old for easter pressies) to Olive Garden. Mmmm... Olive Garden. Pete has lasagna and I had the seafood alfredo. So good and filling that I could only eat about a quarter of it and boxed up the rest for lunch tomorrow. I've decided that I plan my meals with the next day's lunch in mind. I'm sick of waking up late and not having lunch already packed and ready to go to work w/me, then I'll be starving all day and have to resort to the snack machine before my blood sugar gets so low that I feel crappy and get dizzy. So tomorrow is a good lunch, yippee!

I decided tonight that we gotta get our boys out of Iraq. I just can't imagine having a husband over there for over a year, and being told that he'll be there another 120 days. We need to band together as a country, get our own asses over there, and nip this in the bud. Think about it. We have 290,342,554 +/- a few, people. Send all of us to take on the 24,683,313 people of Iraq. A few of us can take a person at a time and sort them out. Sorted.

Now that I've sorted out our world peace problem, I'll bid y'all goodnight. Work has been exhausting emotionally and physically, and I've barely had much time to myself in the past few weeks due to all that Pete and I do at our church. Not that I'm complaining, the church work is the most fulfilling. I just wish I didn't have that nasty little job to do from 8:00-4:30 every weekday. Pete has been exhausted as well with his job, he came home after dropping me off at work, and instead of napping for an hour before going to his job, he slept until 2pm. He must have needed it, so I'm glad he got his sleepeye.

Take care everyone, and pack your bags and AquaNet, b/c we're gonna nip this whole Iraq thing in a bud and get our boys home.

Dreams come true

I've been an avid viewer of The Apprentice where I watched Troy talk about his dream coming true because he met Donald Trump. I was wondering just what would it be like to have a huge dream come true?

DUH! That's already happened to me and I've already forgotten it.

The day I first saw my husband, he was working at a place next to my house. I visited daily, sometimes just to get a glimpse of this anonymous worker on whom I had a crush, but he probably never really noticed me. Then a few months later I got a job working with him, and all that changed.

The day I was introduced to Pete, my first reaction was "I want to marry someone just like him." I knew that I would never actually get him, but I might be able to someday in the far future marry someone kinda like him. I was hoping, at least. Then Pete and I became pretty good friends, hanging out at work, after work, and after about six months we took a trip together with a couple of my friends to Amsterdam. During the entire friendship I fell in love with Pete, but denied it to the end. I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment, so I tried very hard to keep my feelings for him to come up on the surface.

Finally, one night in Amsterdam Pete and I found that our feelings for each other were mutual, and my dream came true. Not only did I get to kiss my best friend, then date my huge crush, but two and a half years later we married and have been married for two years. Every single day I live out my dream come true. I can look at him and still feel what I did the day I met him, except that feeling is magnified now that I've gotten to know him even more.
I apologize for rambling, but I just can't believe how lucky I've been. I've grown up thinking that I'd never have the prince charming husband, especially so early in life; and even at 21 years old and about to board the airplane for England when my mom said "You're going to meet your husband over there." I rolled my eyes and decided to commit her to a sanatorium when I returned. I didn't know it would be true, and I certainly didn't believe that I deserved this.

But last night I went back 4 and a half years of the day I met Pete, and realized just how far my dream has gone to come true for me, and it's inspiring. It's as inspiring as it is to the answered prayer that I prayed for two years for him to become a Christian, and now each Sunday morning I get to see him praise God when he plays guitar for our service. Prayers do get answered, and dreams do come true. It's mind-boggling, but the best thing I can say about it is, YAY ME!

Again?

I really hate to put off this blog b/c of crap going on in my life, but I have to face it- I've got crap going on in my life. Some things aren't too cool, but it's personal stuff that I'm not even sharing w/my own Mom. Other stuff is work stuff and I'd rather not bore you with the details. I just wish I were a better person.

I have to pretend to be sociable and outgoing tomorrow as my cousin comes into town to interview with LSU for their postgraduate chemical engineering program.

Yeah... and I'm a secretary...

I should've saved the four years of college and gotten a mail order degree instead.

I dunno what to say

I'm just posting for the sake of posting. Not really anything to say other than gripes. My boss, after begging me to stay, is now back into criticism 401. She loves to criticise and she loves to do it in her condescending manner. It doesn't help that everything that happens this week is against me. I try harder and the harder I fall. Where oh where is my last job with that promise of coming back to life? I can't be a secretary, it's just not in my blood. Not that I'm too proud to do chores for people, it's that I'm too lazy. Secretaries work harder than the bosses. Their job is easier b/c they have "admin assistants" to do the dirty work for them. My boss is the type who, when she learns of a new skill I have, decides to bring me yet another task that she used to do on her own, and let me have it. And because she is the boss of all the little departments within our big department, I get to do the stuff that the secretaries under the managers under my boss are unqualified to do. Next time I'll just work slower and keep my mouth shut. The higher my tasks go, the more difficult it gets to swallow the low salary.

Speaking of low salary, it looks like hubby and I will be living with the parents for a long time. We looked at apartment prices in Baton Rouge. Not pretty. I don't understand how couples with jobs like my hubby and I can live on their own. After paying for all types of insurance, car note, health bills and groceries, there isn't anything left for rent, much less utilities. How do people do it? How do they do it AND have kids? I just don't get it.

To sum up my week without getting into gory details - overwhelming. That's all I can say. I hope everyone is having a better week than me.

You want some random thoughts?

The Brits get Easter Monday off work. Why can't we? Are we too proud of running ourselves into the ground by working that we can't give ourselves a deserved holiday? I need it, especially this one. I need the holiday.

I think I got a call tonight (not on the phone you sillies) to work for the church. As in, "Ashley, you're going to be poor, you're going to be tired, but you're going to be filled with joy because you're going to do my work." It was God. I don't know what it means, but it was an overwhelming feeling of decision. I am to work for the church, somehow, some way. I think my husband Pete got a similar call, but perhaps not as strong.

I'm a jealous wife. It's difficult. It's not that I don't trust the VERY loyal and loving husband, it's that I don't trust the American ladies who hit on him and pretend to want guitar lessons and let him know that they're willing to take him out since "your wife doesn't like to go out, still?". Look honey, he's mine and he will always be mine. That's what marriage means. Stop interfering and allow him to respect me and our marriage by not having your number in his cell phone. You never wanted to play the guitar until you met him and heard his accent. You want an English man? Go to England and find one yourself, but don't take his brother. Their mum would kill me.

I love my brats.

New Look

I loved the way it used to look but it took forever to load. Here is a temporary solution. Is it okay? Thoughts?

TGI..T?

It feels like Friday, since no work tomorrow. I can't wait to sleep in. It's the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. I think about the next time I get to lie down and go to sleep. It's all I think about on the car ride to work, all I think about while I'm at work, and all I think about on the way home. Then I take a nap and wake up at 8pm, drowsy, crabby, and with a huge sinus headache. Why do naps do that?

Tomorrow I can sleep in. Woohoo!

When will it be over?

Bankruptcy court was today. I thought we'd get everything sorted, I'd cry, and I'd have everything handled when it ended. Turns out all they wanted to do was have me repeat the things I said on paper (I'm poor and have nothing to give up) under oath. Oath under God. Where is the church/state separation here? It's federal court.

Nothing was accomplished except I lost a few years off my life stressing over today, and I got no closure. Haven't found out if I keep truck, computer (although I foudn out it's a good possibility I will lose the computer) or if it they will try to drag my husband into this. When will this nightmare end? I just want to know.

I also didn't realize how much stress can exhaust a person. I could sleep for a week now. I hate how afternoon naps give me such sinus headaches. Why? Why can't I enjoy the afternoon nap? Why?

Back to work and the world that ignores me tomorrow...

When Real Life Kicks In

Bankruptcy court tomorrow. I filed Chapter 7, and tomorrow they tell whether or not I keep my truck, computer, used tv, hair dryer, husband, etc. We'll see what I'll have to sell on ebay.

I've been pretty calm and somewhat ecstatic about this bankruptcy progress, because it gets the collectors off of my back, and it means that all of my paychecks will no longer go to paying off high interest rates on loans my parents got in my name (long story, conclusion is that we all learned a lesson here). However, yesterday the panic set in. What if I did something wrong? What if I've left something off that I've forgotten about? What if they find out some vague immigration law that means they can deport my husband? What if they'll interrogate me about the time I sold girl scout cookies in '84 and forgot to deliver some of them?

I tossed and turned all night, called my lawyer this morning and she was the epitome of calm. She was the Dali Llama. Breathe. Be calm. It will be all right. You're okay. I'll take care of it.

Breathe....

I calm down and come into work, three hours late (I called in about 8 to warn them, it's ok)... and my boss is on fire (not about me, about other stuff). I let loose a fire extinguisher on her and the office is in a strange quiet about now... wondering how the heck I calmed boss down, and probably taking notes (that's a joke there, folks).

Now it's crunch time and I'm panicky again. I just signed up for a health plan, Hubby and I now have health insurance. It's weird. I dunno how to feel. It's an HMO, but a good one, which was so odd that I took forever in researching it and deciding. Hubby has never had to deal with insurance (paying a doctor is foreign to him, literally, in England it's all free, different kind of healthcare, but free). Now I get to worry about what if the plan I chose is all wrong?

Speaking of, there's an interesting article on CNN.com about cash-only doctors. I think it's a great idea. I've been paying cash only for the past two years... not good for prescriptions or emergencies, but it's hassle free. Read about it here.

Also, I get to vote today for delegates to the Democratic National Convention. My lawyer is on the ballot. I'm scared to mention it to my boss though, to take time off to vote. Then she'll know what party I am. I work for the govt, I'm supposed to be non-partisan. Ugh.

Have a good day.

Sick Day off Work

I highly recommend these.

More later..