Cha-ching, Part I

Spring semester: day fifty-six

My federal tax refund posted to my bank account last night while I was asleep, thereby increasing the amount of money I had in there by 4X or so. This is good for multiple reasons, obviously, the least of which being that I just got my Chase (Amazon) card bill last night before I went to bed. One of my first duties will be to pay that card off completely and zero out its balance. That's the card I use, primarily anyway, for gas in the car.

About half of the rest will go to other bills and the like, and then the remainder will go to Daisy. I'll also remind you once more that I get paid again in three days, so this isn't the only money I have coming to me. Finally I feel like I have a little breathing space again, and enough actual money to get some things taken care of both for now and in the future. The federal return alone is more than a month's worth of my normal pay deposited into my account all at once, for reference there.

Now to wait on the state of Kansas return, which has to be a paper check for me as I didn't file it online (and there's no direct-deposit option on the paper forms). If I've already gotten the federal return, the state return can't be far behind.

If I were a wealthier man, I'd put the tax refunds into professional car maintenance or repairs, or get another vehicle. I'm not a wealthier man. I have bills to pay and a wedding/living situation to help fund coming up in the next few months.

I slept relatively well last night, for once; I didn't use my standard sleeping pills, but took melatonin instead. Three melatonin pills (not even 1mg total) may be what does the trick for me from this point forward. The problem with melatonin is that sometimes it works really well for me, and sometimes it doesn't work at all -- and I never know which time will be which. Overall, I'm fine with this; I only have about another month (almost exactly another month, actually) of teaching and needing to keep a teaching sleeping schedule during the week anyhow. After that, all of my focus goes to sleeping when and how I can or need to as I ready for the move, packing and cleaning everything possible, etc, and the wedding following that, until I secure another job in Omaha.

Daisy has taken an interim supervisor position at her job, which puts her in direct charge of several of her fellow employees, but not on a permanent basis, and with no apparent other changes to her actual duties (or pay raise, as of right now). It will also change her shifts from Friday-through-Monday nights to Wednesday-through-Saturday, and doesn't affect the time she has on the docket to take off for moving or for the wedding. To be blunt about it, it's probably worth it just to be able to get off the godawful weekend shifts, though the new hours for her aren't much better -- 6PM to 5AM. Right now she works 8:30PM to 7:30AM. She doesn't know when it's going to start yet, either.

"It means I wouldn't get to see you for a good period of time," she said, in reference to after the move and the wedding.

That really depends on when and where I'm working once I get up there and once we're married. As you may recall, I've applied for several positions within said company as well. I've not been contacted about any of them yet, but I have applied for them. Working similar shifts, or staggered shifts even would make it much easier. Otherwise she's right -- if I'm working a daytime job someplace, teaching or otherwise, I'd more than likely be getting home at the time she was getting ready for work, and vice-versa. Half the week we'd be on opposite schedules again. This isn't a huge problem now, as we make it work when I'm here in Kansas and she's there in Omaha, but once we're married it may be a much more stressful issue if we're still barely getting any time together even though we live together.

Of course, I've done this before -- I worked nights in the grocery store many years ago while my ex worked and went to class during the day. It's not exactly pleasant or convenient for anyone involved. If I worked a Monday-through-Friday daytime schedule of 8AM to 5PM, Daisy would be sleeping in the daytime the latter half of the week, and I'd be working on two of her three days off. We'd only have Sunday together when neither of us had to work, and with her working until 5AM Sunday morning, she'd be sleeping all day when I wasn't. If I worked nights somewhere, I'd more than likely have a similar schedule to hers (four days instead of five, probably) but unless our schedules matched up pretty closely, we'd still have trouble getting time together. No, obviously, it's not ideal no matter which way you slice it.

We'll just have to play it by ear and figure it out as it happens, I suppose. Because of my applications to her company, there is a good chance that for at least part of the week, I would or could be working with her if I'm hired on there. I have, though, applied for many other different jobs with different hours and locations -- something that I shall keep doing over the course of the next two or three months until I can get some interviews and the like set up, and possibly get hired on someplace.

The rain and storms that were supposed to happen yesterday never came; it sprinkled for a few minutes yesterday afternoon, and that was about it. It would be nice to get a torrential downpour for about half an hour or so one day I was out and about so that my car could get all the dust rinsed off of it while in one of the parking lots at school. I need to take it over to the car wash at some point soon, once the weather gets into the mid-to-high 70s every day and stays there, but I'm not going to do that while it's still relatively chilly outside and when highs/lows are still in the 30s-50s. Plus, I have to have quarters for that, and I don't have those right now. I never have, nor do I carry, any cash on me. Ever. The car looks so good when it's been freshly-washed, even though a fair amount of its paint is chipped and faded (mostly on the hood; the black paint on the hood has faded so much that it's almost grey). I take the car over to the car wash about twice a year, roughly.

Today it's only supposed to reach the mid-60s, but I'm still wearing shorts because fuck it, I want to wear shorts.

Daisy and I have scheduled for her to come down here for her days off next week; she can't do it this week because she's doing the walk-through of the apartment on Friday morning, and has plans with her friends for tomorrow and for Friday night. This also allows me to give her whatever tax money is left over in person instead of needing to mail the check to her, and gives me time between now and then to use the refund money for the stuff I need to use it for beforehand, such as paying bills and the like. We originally weren't planning on her to come down here again until around the end of the semester, when we'd be doing the bulk of the packing/moving work -- but I'd rather not have to wait more than another month to see her again, obviously. I desperately need some decompression time -- time where, just for a few days, I don't have to be stressed about the packing and moving and wedding, time where Daisy and I can relax together, cook some actual meals, go out to a movie, and just be comfortable around each other -- shutting the rest of the world out. No, my responsibilities don't stop; I'll still have papers to grade next week and lesson planning to do, but I can shuffle that around when necessary (especially as she'd have to leave on Friday morning at the latest) to deal with it when she's not here. We don't like to go any longer than possible without seeing each other, obviously -- long-distance relationships, even long-term ones that will end in marriage in a few months -- can be really stressful and taxing if you don't at least get some time together fairly often. That's why she always comes down here, or I've gone up there, about once a month or so for a few days at a time.

Today, as you probably know, is my long day -- and most of it will be spent holed up in my office on main campus, working on things that need to be done while I'm there. I long for a Tuesday where I don't have a ton of things to do on campus, but those days are done now -- it's basically all business for the hours I'm stuck there from this point forward, and today I have the bonus task of making sure the application and info for the apartment, along with a copy of my driver's license, are faxed to the apartment manager in Omaha for everything to progress smoothly. I need to call said manager once the documents are faxed to make sure she gets them, as well. Then, of course, I have to teach my 011 class tonight, which will run longer than usual as I have a lot to cover in there. I just know that by the time I get home tonight, I will be looking forward to going back to bed -- even though I did sleep well last night. It'll probably be mental exhaustion more than physical, and I'll probably be able to sleep quite well again tonight after getting home -- especially as I won't have to get up early and do anything tomorrow but, well, pay bills with the money I have now.