On Wednesday night, we had eighteen people (I think) in the office, with about sixty issues total to be worked on. That's a really low number for that amount of people, and the night remained really quiet for the most part. All of us, of course, had Thursday off, as our company closes on holidays. The only people on site on Thursday were the on-duty managers, four of them -- one for each eight hours of the day -- and only one at a time. Everyone, even our overnight staff (including my wife) got off at midnight on Wednesday night.
On Thanksgiving Day, I slept until around noon, Daisy until around 3. The parents went out of town to Daisy's sister's place for Thanksgiving, so we had nowhere to go. We instead stayed home in our pajamas, and Daisy cooked us a vegan Thanksgiving dinner. The only quasi-nonvegan food was the box of Stove Top stuffing I made, and even that (after extensive research) we couldn't find out whether it was actually vegan or not, so Daisy didn't have any.
Our dinner?
- Vegan chicken tenders (y'know, to simulate the "turkey" part of Thanksgiving)
- Corn
- Homemade mashed potatoes
- Green bean casserole made from scratch with onions that Daisy battered and fried herself
- Daisy's homemade vegan gravy (it's to die for)
- My aforementioned stuffing
- Steamed carrots
- And finally, a homemade-from-scratch vegan pecan pie -- which is possibly the best pie I've had in my entire life.
We're seriously considering making most of these foods again about once a month. Daisy is a wonderful cook.
After we ate/digested while watching Gilmore Girls (because, yes, I love the show as much as my wife does), Daisy turned to me and asked "So do you want to go out Black Friday shopping?"
I'd like to pause for a moment and state that if you've been reading this blog since its inception in 2007, you'll know that I've gone Black Friday shopping before -- I did light shopping in 2006, and went full bore in 2007 and 2008 with the mother of my then-girlfriend. It is not an experience for the faint of heart, nor is it an experience that I want to repeat any time soon, if ever.
So, we decided against it. Daisy ended up getting several different gifts online over the course of the weekend, as Black Friday was also our payday. After paying our bills/rent and doing said shopping, we don't have much left now to last us the next week and a half or so, and will have to budget accordingly. December is going to be a slim month for us, as the paydays in it are poorly timed considering the due dates of bills and the like, and the added cost of Christmas presents is a burden we don't usually have as well. I've never had to worry about the burden of Christmas presents for more than, say, two or three people at the most. Also keep in mind that up until this year, I've never been married at Christmas, so I've never had a ton of nieces and nephews to get stuff for. My Christmases in the past several years have been pretty hermit-like and quiet, for the most part. Plus, December is usually a really bad month financially for me as not only does my car insurance come due, but when I was teaching it meant that I wouldn't get paid for a month due to the holiday break. This year it's just as bad, though due to different circumstances. Yeah, we're both getting paid, but we also have many more financial responsibilities now as well. Daisy has very different views on money and on Christmas than I do, obviously, and it's not like I can make her change her views on either one.
Of course, there's still the issue with my car and the insurance for said car, as well. My car insurance comes due on December 12. The car is, of course, undriveable. I've put in a request for a quote from the U Pull It people here in town, but have yet to hear back from them on it; if I hear nothing back from them by tomorrow night I will call them and ask if they even received my request. I'm doing this because I can't afford to get the car fixed and keep it insured right now. I just can't; Daisy and I do make decent money, but as soon as our paychecks come in, it all disappears to the bills we have to pay and the necessities we have to purchase in order to, y'know, eat. Therefore my only real option right now is to sell it before the insurance comes due on it in a week and a half, and be done with it. I don't want to do this, obviously, but there's really nothing else I can do with the car as-is. And the money I get out of it will have to be immediately socked away and untouched so that I can put it towards a new vehicle, no matter how much we may need to use that money for other things.
Also, to add insult to injury, my student loans are now coming due as my forbearance has ended. While I still technically qualify for forbearance (I checked, and I baaaaarely still qualify) their website is doing the same bullshit it did last year, where it tells me I have a payment due and gives me the date for it/the option to pay it, but won't let me change the payment plan/schedule because it says the loans themselves are still in forbearance. Well yes, I suppose they are...until 11:59PM on the night before the payment due date. Which is a really, really sneaky/underhanded thing to do. At this point I have two choices -- send off the forbearance form to them again with my updated information, via fax, and hope it's accepted (but will probably be denied since the loans are still showing as in forbearance even though they're asking me to pay on them) or cut our savings account in half to pay the full bill and then change the payment plan after this month. Or change it on the due date and pay what the new, lower amount would be. If it'll even let me do that. I don't know what the hell else to do here.
Daisy is in the same boat as well, as her own loans are coming due again. She does, however, have much, much less than I do, and her projected payments are actually pretty reasonable (all things considered, of course).
However, all of this coming together all at once just makes me nothing but one huge ball of stress, ready to snap/yell/scream at basically anyone or anything that inconveniences me or makes my life harder than it already is. Daisy does her best to help me feel better, but these are problems she can't fix. Nobody can fix them, really; to fix most of these problems would require a winning lottery ticket to solve -- short of that, not much else can be done. It's all so tiring and depressing, and it makes me feel worse to even attempt to write about it here. Perhaps that's because I know that writing about it won't fix anything; it won't magically pay my loans/bills, it won't magically double or triple my paycheck (or make more money appear in our bank accounts), it won't magically make a new car appear for me in the driveway or fix the steering column and ignition of the existing one. I'm upset, I'm floundering, and everything keeps going wrong -- I wanted, I needed all of this bullshit to end when I left Kansas and got married, and none of it ever just stops or goes away. It's still there, and old problems are replaced with new ones, sometimes worse than the old ones were. When do I get to the point where I just get to live, the point where I just get to be, and come to some sort of semi-permanent contentment? I look around and see so many people -- so many people -- happy, content, and mostly carefree, living their lives on their own terms.
When do Daisy and I get to do that? Do we ever?
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