spooky day at the office

And so January draws to a close. How did you spend the last day of January 2004? I decided to go into work so I could get some research done without the normal interruptions. It was amazingly quiet, almost spooky actually. I am so used to people just appearing in at my side to get their work questions answered, I spent most of the morning wondering when someone was going to interrupt me... very strange.

computer woes

If your computer ever just freezes or locks up for no apparent reason, do yourself the favor of checking to see if all the fans in your tower are working properly. I spent almost 8 hours in safe mode running scan disks and defragging my hard drive just to have my computer essentially stop just after booting in normal mode. It wasn't until I touched my tower that I discovered that there may be a problem with one of the fans because my tower was hot enough to burn my arm! No wonder the cat avoided my tower all day, opting for the cooler monitor to lay on instead. Anyway, it turns out that it was a problem with my power supply fan.

So, the month is half over ... do you know where your tree is?

The month is slipping away, isn't it. Already the middle of January and my Christmas tree is still up, gifts received are still in boxes under the tree and thank you cards are still waiting for me to write them up. Why is it that I never feel like doing anything about it until I'm either in bed or at work? 'Tis a puzzlement.

Oh, something interesting I read yesterday... there was a study done somewhere about weight loss and exercise. Did you know that most men can lose weight just by exercising, but women can't? Most women have to cut their caloric intake plus exercise to lose weight. On top of all that, when women are stressed their bodies are programmed to retain fat around the mid section and butt. All this focus on weight and why I'm having such a hard time with it is just adding to the stress, so I wonder how to get out of this trap... ARGH!!! It's not fair I tell you, just not fair!

a tinsy financial rant

Why is it, the harder I try to get out of debt the more debt I seem to be in? Is it just a totally vicious never ending cycle? I had such great expectations to be debt free (excluding mortgage) by 2005, but seriously, the harder I try the worse it gets. On top of all that I keep getting mailings from lenders and credit card companies asking me to dig myself deeper in the whole by borrowing even more money. Borrowing money to get out of debt caused more of a problem than just struggling through it would have been in the first place (this started in 2001). Things have only gotten worse, especially when I listened to that same lender who talked me into refinancing the loan again in 2003. Sure, the rate was much better, but adding the credit card debt I had accrued between 2001 & 2003, the loan payments are much higher than they had been and I find myself asking (over and over) why, oh why, didn't I just refinance what I still owed on the original loan at the lower interest rate and get that paid off??? I've been kicking myself in the rear-end ever since. Bottom line is, there is no easy way out of debt. Once you are in past your eyeballs it's time to get a second/third job (but that's not so easy either since everyone around here seems to be in a similar situation. Time to rethink my entire life strategy.

Oh, and since I'm talking about money I might as well crab about how expensive healthy food is. I'm trying to lose weight and every time I compare prices pasta is much cheaper and has a much longer shelf life than fresh vegetables and fruits. Face it, it is more expensive to eat healthy than to eat less healthy. All of this seems to just compound what I perceive to be problems right now. It's more practical to buy the 5/$1.00 boxes of Mac & Cheese or the &5/1.00 packages of Top Romain than it is to buy a head of lettuce for $1.59 and only get 2 meals out of it. The whole thing is depressing and, like I said before, never-ending.

Life sure seems bleak when you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know that things will work out, they always have, but that doesn't mean that it's easy to deal or cope with. Lately I've not been coping with things at all, instead I sleep. Sleep has always been my great escape. My mom and dad got into a fight, I'd go take a nap. Little sister got yelled at, I'd go take a nap. On the weekends I have great intentions of cleaning out a couple of boxes, but when I go to do it, I suddenly feel extremely fatigued and sit down for just a couple minutes and wake up 2 hours later. Some of my friends and family are afraid that all my sleeping and lack of energy is the result of depression, and I guess that's possible given all the financial stress that seems to be taking over my life... I just really don't want to go to a doctor just to have him/her tell me that I need to de-stress my life and give me no practical tools with which to do it.

WOW, I think this is the most I have typed in a long time. Maybe it will help to get it all written down?

New Year's resolution

What can I say. I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a safe New Year's Day. I didn't make any resolutions this year. I know myself all too well and know that I set too lofty and unattainable goals, so I countered this year by not setting any goals at all... How's that for logic?

Hope it's not too early for a Valentine's Day type theme... guess it's never to early to spread the love!