Someone, please give me work or send me pocket cash

I need money now for this:

 - Groceries when I want to do something creative in the kitchen on empty days.
 - Continuing my online education.
 - Taking some local studio classes to feed my head and heart.
 - Automobile Insurance policy payments. 
 - New prescription glasses.


I need money in the near future for this: 
 - Dental hygiene appointment and x-rays (maintenance). 
 - New MacBook Pro.
 - Software updates (another part of my ongoing education). 

If I had a job, I would have money. While I would like to work in my field (Graphic Design) or something related to it, I would  be happy to take a retail, general office, or customer service job. I would not have to make that much money - I would work at nearly any rate if it was close enough to home not to cost too much in wear on my car, fuel, or hours of my life lost in travel.

PayPal donations are perfectly acceptable.

This is not to say I am at all ungrateful for what I have - a place to live, online access, a car that works, my health, etc. but I need to do so much more. This would be a huge relief for MonsterMustDie, also, if I could contribute to the household or at least be more independent.

Home improvement

Pizza for dinner and a new toilet paper holder. 

MonsterMustDie is quite proud of his new Arne Jacobsen chrome toilet paper holder and we tried Lubrano's Pizza delivery for the first time tonight. 

 

They managed to fill the entire box with a square thick crusted pizza. 

 

Behold the new mid-century designer tp holder.  

Snow

Lots of white outside this morning.

Winter flowers

lost week

Between cold temps, icey driveways, icey streets and lack of work or money, I spent most of the week after my niece's wedding indoors doing nothing. The weekend that was supposed to be filled with working on the house was instead spent with one grumpy old Dutchman sitting at his computer twittering on facebook and pinterest.  The house stayed stagnant. I still have no full bathroom or large mirror for dressing in this house. Valentines day was spent with MonsterMustDie watching TV or staying on facebook. That's another week of my life I'll never get back.

This week, I had one day of temp work and one day of volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. I had two calls from companies out of town asking if I would drive 30 minutes or more to work for $10 an hour at industrial sites. One was at a place that required me to regularly lift 50 lbs or "just a case of paper" on a regular basis. I have tried to raise my base salary requirements for something not so pathetic when I am required to drive more than 30 minutes and do physical labor that I am too small to do. I am not an athlete. I will do anything within my physical capacity even if it is outside my job description with no worries. If I am adequately compensated, I will drive any reasonable distance to work anywhere in this area. Otherwise, I actually lose money on fuel and wear on my car at the end of the day. Every job and location has a negotiable payscale.

It looks like I'll be doing the one-day volunteer and one-day work schedule for a while but I could always be wrong and pleasantly surprised by an opportunity close to home doing what I do best.

Some progress on the house was made this weekend. Yesterday was dedicated to painting one wall of the den.



Also, as a make-up for last weekend, MonsterMustDie bought flowers - something he never does - and made a nice arrangement for the mantel in the living room, which has an overall Japanese modern theme.

Frozen

We had our first "winter storm " here last night.  I appear to to stuck at home for a couple of days until things melt.

System is down

It is hard to break out of a powerful funk some times, rather than savoring it as long as possible.  I came back to North Carolina sad to leave Atlanta.

I dealt with one angry person raging against the machine last night keeping the entire household up until 1:00 a.m. Someone had hacked MonsterMustDie's website and he and Fun Lisa were working remotely to try to fix the problem, which probably elimated what was left of his online followers & customers. That, and he could not log onto his email from his computer because now iCloud did not recognize his password from that machine.  Then he could not remember any of his passwords for any of his accounts to reset them - and he still has accounts that list his email address as the outdated one (closed account) so the option of having sites email his login and password was not available.

... Fortunately, I was not the one who had to wake up for work at 6:00 a.m. this morning. One advantage to being unemployed is sleeping in every day. 

By lunch today, Fun Lisa had the site back up and functioning as it should. 

Even the cat was angry when we got home yesterday. She wanted nothing to do with us and was overly aggressive when we came near. I think the cat sitter might have been playing too rough with her of some other dysfunction was caused by the lack of our presence. Today, she spent most of the late morning and afternoon under the covers on the bed. However, she is now sitting and purring in my lap as I type this.

Rachael married Bobby

We are now  heading back home from Atlanta after my niece 's wedding.

 

 

back problems

I've got a soar back again today. I don't know what's up with my constantly hurting my back this week. It was just starting to get better from whatever I did to it last Saturday and now I've messed myself up again, probably trying to help lift bookshelves yesterday before I was completely recovered.
Or maybe there is something completely different going on with my back. I did have a doctor at an urgent care clinic look at it and he said it was a muscular injury involving an area that is a common problem for people with scoliosis like myself.

Yesterday, we spent the earlier part of the day at various antique malls before going to IKEA to buy two more bookshelves. A lot of walking around was involved, like last weekend, but trying to wrestle the boxed shelves into the car might have caused me to over-extend something. The boxes weren't even THAT heavy but they were long and awkward and had to be puzzled into place.

in gratitude

My mother is out of the hospital now and back to her normal routines. My sister-in-law and uncle did a great job, I am told, cleaning and organizing her entire home. All clothes were washed, folded or hung, and organized in her closets and dressers. Beds were made. Everything in the kitchen was cleaned and put away. Both refrigerator-freezers were completely cleaned out, washed out, and slightly restocked. Her rugs were professionally steam cleaned. Only one rug, in the office, had to be thrown away because it was too far gone. Her floors were cleaned. The door that had to be broken into was replaced. Now, I hope things stay a bit in order for as long as possible. It took her completely losing control for a while for things to get better.

I still don't know what became of the mother of my nephew's girlfriend but I assume that nothing has gone further downhill since no one has said anything about it to me.

Another day when everything is broken

I have been on the phone all day with various tech support from my website hosting service and Time Warner Cable.  MonsterMustDie is mad at me every time I try to move or set up anything here. I put a couple of stereo components on the cart purchased for the TV and cable modem, carefully as I could, and he blew up over the possibility of me scratching the finish, exclaiming “Oh, I'll just buy ANOTHER one!” 

I got a phone call from my mother between tech calls to tell me she is back in the hospital again in  Urgent Care.  She is having fainting spells because of her anemia. She stopped taking her blood medication, despite her doctor saying she should stay on it, because of the blood clots she developed. She is still on blood thinners for the clots. My guess is she will stay on blood thinners from now on. She is also actively having dialysis three times a week now. All of this has left her very weak. This time EMCs had to break down her door to get her out. 

The mother of my nephew’s girlfriend is in the same hospital now in ICU in a medically induced coma for a mystery illness. She is in the same building, on a different floor from my mother. This came out of the blue, from what I am told, to a presumably very healthy middle-aged woman.  

Soul in my mailbox

I've gotten three (3) packages from friends this week. Must be something in the air. Just when I'm feeling my lowest, friends have sent me love in a box.

The first was a couple of very hard-to-come-by jars of Korean honey tea from our friends and former neighbors Rick and Amanda. I am now supplied with hot tea (or hot toddies) for the rest of this winter.

Then, I got a cookbook of Vietnamese and Asian-fusion food from Ferne. The book is a hard cover with beautiful photography that looks like a good “Cook The Book” project - if I can just find ingredients or suitable substitutes here. Both of these gifts are reminding me of living in the culturally diverse neighborhood of el Rancho de WereMonster. I'm kinda in, to quote Mr. Nick, Whitey McWhiteville now. There are some interesting places in nearby cities but this place is like a WASP retirement home.

The latest, biggest box came today. It was a home-made care package from Gillian and Meg, filled with home-made treats (like Gilli’s famous holiday bourbon balls) and craft supplies and puzzles to try to keep my brain from going to mush here, along with a few other girlie treats - which is something I really needed in this dry place.

Foggy morning

The house is dark still.  MonsterMustDie has already gone to work.

Life at Casa de WereMonster

MonsterMustDie has cut/killed all the phone outlets in the house except for the ugly, outdated one in the kitchen that is not close enough to an electrical outlet to attach a new cordless phone base to.

We now have no hardwired phone connection to the house, even though he pays for a phone line in his ISO-Cable communications package, by his choice.

I think this is both incredibly stupid and annoying. It remove any easy option I have for sending faxes or putting an auxiliary cell phone in the basement or the back porch that could be an emergency (locked out of the house, etc.) phone or in-house intercom. Yes, I will be unhappy about his action/decision for a long time.

I still spend most of my day pacing around boxes.

Tomorrow, I have an interview for a part-time graphic design job that includes small things like email generation, brochure design, etc. for a hair care company. Not something I am extremely excited about because it is very part-time hours a week but I do like the fact that it is close to home and, really, any sort of work is good. I'm kinda going batty here with no friends, no money, and no activity other than pacing around boxes I can't unpack yet in an unfinished house.

Mother is home from the hospital now, and is getting regular dialysis treatment close to her home. I spoke to her today on the phone and she was in somehwhat better spirit now. She is still recovering from the ordeals of the past week. I truly wish we could have someone come in to clean her house and walk her dogs. I can't do it and neither can she but I am accepting the fact that I can not do anything about it from here at this time.