Hey guys,

I did a friends cut because I couldn't read everything, I won't post anything locked, so please, if you like my stuff, stay my friend, I will add you guys back later when I have more time to read.

I got a new job, I love it. I work for a bankruptcy trustee.

I love you guys!

Hey!

Thanks luzclarita for making a lj rss-feed of my blog: Here it is http://syndicated.livejournal.com/childfreelife/profile anyone who wants can add my blog to their friends page now.

I am an overpaid data entry technician. I get paid 5 dollars too much an hour to click a check box all day long. My boss knows I am looking for another job and there has been very little work to do here for months, and so I have nothing interesting to do all week long.

I have applied to four jobs, and I have had 3 interviews scheduled. It makes me feel better to know I am actually qualified for something better than what I am doing. Basically in the mornings and evenings all I can think about is how I wish I didn't work here.

Anyways, please wish me luck on my interviews, lets really cross our fingers for one of the jobs in Vancouver, so I don't have to cross the river. Though at this point, the commute would be worth it, I hate this so much. Both of the Portland Jobs are only one bus transfer to get to, not so bad.

Hello Friends,

I am writing a new blog for those in a childfree lifestyle. It is not really a ranty blog like some of those out there. This one is supposed to be more of an encouraging blog with articles about life issues that matter to childfree folks single or in partnerships. Some things that are different for childfree folks are: cooking, financial planning, planning for old age. If these issues were often incorporated in blogs about these subjects in general I would feel no need to write my own. But I read some personal finance blogs and I rarely see any articles focused on what a childfree single or partnership might need in the way of personal finance.

If anyone takes offense to my first two posts, please let me know here so I can make a few changes to my attitude and get it on the right track before I go more public with it. However, I will not be taking an apologetic tone or always making explanations for being childfree and why it is not a threat to childed people. I want this blog to be attractive to militant childfreebies and for the for personal reasons childfreebies alike, while still not offending childed people right off the bat.

Also if one of my friends with a paid membership would be so kind to create an lj feed for me and post it in the comments, I can post it here so ljers can have it feed to their friends page.

http://childfreelife.wordpress.com/

Thanks!

So last month I transferred all of my debt off of Danny's credit card. And today I paid all my credit card debt off with our stimulus check! Yay! It feels so good to have that off my back now.

So,

I went and got a new phone. It took an hour to get it all set up. Once everything was lined up, I called my voicemail to get all my messages. So a week ago, my mother calls and leaves a message, on my missing cell phone, to say, that C-tran has my missing cellphone!

UGH!!!!!!!

wow.

I found this article very useful.

http://www.gnomestew.com/gming-advice/the-backup-game

There are plenty of times when one player can't make it to a game, or even a couple can't come. This is a good guideline for saving those days and still letting game happen. But it requires some prep time. And players that are flexible and willing to play pre-gens.

Do you guys have any strategies? Or do you just call game off?

I really appreciated this interview, so I thought I would share it with everyone.
http://www.wildhunt.org/2008/05/interview-with-brendan-cathbad-myers.html

I am very interested in what is described as Heroic virtues: honesty, loyalty, justice, love, passion, cleverness, and beauty for example that I find in the stories of Finn and the Fenians, Cuchullian, and Pwyll, Arthur, and Taliesin for example.

The ancients were most certainly not focused on Harm None alone, although it is found in the Hippocratic oath and may have long been the geisa of healers. The heroes of the ancient stories had many virtues to look up to. And I am inspired by these stories.

I bought http://www.o-books.com/product_info.php?products_id=504 The Other Side of Virtue by Brendan Cathbad Myers with gift certificate my boss gave me to borders. Oh and I also bought Fang and Fur http://www.amazon.com/Fang-Fur-Blood-Bone-Primal/dp/1905713010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211324960&sr=1-1 by Lupa

Yay! New books make me happy.

So, I lost my cellphone, and it is just too important that I have it since I am tutoring these days. So, I am going to go get a new one, I have a $150 credit towards one, so I guess I will just be getting the cheapest one they have and hoping the credit fully covers it. Then I will be back in action. I am going to go during break today.

So JR and I are getting a roommate. I am moving my art studio into a nook downstairs and some of my other stuff into the garage or the gaming room. And our friend Alex is moving into the spare room. He is a good guy going to school full time and needs a cheap low drama place to stay.

I like him, he is pretty zen. So I think it is going to work out fine. By the time he is ready to move out on his own, I will be out of school and not doing the tutoring anymore and I will have time to really use my art studio again. It will also help to have the extra money every month in the meantime while things are lean.

So I bought horehound, valarian, sage, lemon balm, basil, chamomile, and ditany of crete and planted them in plastic pots. I am short a little bit on dirt, so I will have to buy some more, but I gave them lots of water and they all look like they will be okay until I can fill in the dirt on the sides more.

I will still be on the hunt for more interesting herbs, but this is a good start. I only spent 17 dollars, and my friends gave me old plastic pots and compost to get started.

So

I started tutoring, I have several students making appointments already so things are good. My nights are all full up now, no free time for me. But more money, so I can save up for retirement, shoes, clothes and other goodies.

I keep picking JR up from a friends house, and there are these girls making out there. It is pretty hot. Um yeah.

One of my friends deadahead was dressed up as Dr. Frankenfurter with the whole nine yards, a corset, garter belt, fish nets, and a cape. It was awesome. The whole household was doing a caberet performance of rocky horror picture show in their living room. I really regret that I was too tired and sick to stay and watch. JR could've been Rocky ;)

This weekend I am going to an herb festival and I am going to buy some herbs to start a container garden. I had planned to have a regular garden, but the weekends I was ready, JR lost his job, and then the weather kept changing its mind, Am I winter? or summer? or winter? huh? So now I just wanna plant in pots and whatever containers I can come up with. I asked the secretaries at work to keep the coffee cans for me, those should be good planters, especially if I paint them to keep them from rusting.

So, here you can see my coven's maypole. It is really fun, and some of the kids even got involved.



This is one of my favorite holidays. We had a great feast afterwards. I only got a little sunburnt :)

Well I called my teacher, he called me back and spoke to me. I feel better about things now.

I went ahead while I had a chance to and saved all his lessons he had given me so far in one folder where I can get to them anytime I need to so I can at least keep going on what I have learned so far and apply it to things I need to still figure out.

I am tired now, I wish JR was at home.

So, my magic correspondence teacher resigned from teaching the class today. I had been looking ever forward to each new lesson, I was really excited about creating tools. And now I am just very sad.

I doubt I will find another teacher in the same tradition, and I will likely have to learn everything over again if I start in something different. I feel worried about it, because some things were really jelling for me and some of the mysteries he exposed me too were pretty mind opening about magic, and I feel a great sense of loss right now.

What do you do when you have a blow like that?

A very kind creature put my glasses lens back into my purse!

YAY for a full pair of glasses.

Also my doctor's office gave me free samples of my meds.

Today is a very good day.

Lost a lens to my glasses somewhere in an elementary school.

Well, good thing I found some anti-glare sunglasses at the grocery store that keep me from getting headaches, but seeing far away, is now impeded.

More money saving ideas, ignore if you don't care:

And I would like to say upfront, I do not qualify for any public benefits, I looked, its because I make well above the poverty level for two people.

Reducing my insurance:

I started taking the bus on a cheap pass from the College fifteen bucks a term! woot. And JR is not driving his car since his tire popped and we can't afford a new one. So, we just drive my car for errands. I called progressive and told them this and they are sending me a refund for 97 bucks, they also asked me my highest level of schooling, I told them a BA and they gave me an extra 15 bucks back! JR and I pay our insurance in six month terms to save an extra hundred dollars, and so if any changes are made during the six months we can get a refund. That extra 97 will help a lot. When JR is working again, we can pay to have the insurance raised again.

Canadian meds:
Buying meds from Canada. An unexpected expenses is my Elmiron for curing my Interstatial Cystis. Since I no longer have prescription coverage, I thought the Elmiron would be like $100 a month, actually it is $450!!! If I order it from Canada, it is $150, That is a savings of $300 dollars.

Second Job:
And I am taking a second job, I am going to work 8-10 hours a week as a paralegal tutor at Clark College. It will suck, but it will bring in more money, and with my medicine costs and other little unexpected expenses that will make a big difference.

Extra Blanket a sweater and less heat:
We turned off the heater, and put extra blankets on the bed, I am expecting it to save us 60 dollars a month on electricity and natural gas. Along these same lines I need to put more appliances and things on powerbars and turn them off when not in use. The little bits of electricity these things suck up just to stay on could really add up, without me realizing it.

Coupons:

I have been looking for coupons for items I already buy online. Most of them will save you a dollar on a product. And I have been getting most of my food at Grocery Outlet, and most products there are a dollar cheaper than at Winco where we usually shop.

These are things that are a good return on time. The drugs will take longer to get, and are a little more trouble upfront, having to get a new prescription, send photocopies of my id to Canada, but the 300 dollars saved and the amount the meds raise my quality of life are worth it.

The extra time put into tutoring will earn a few hundred extra a month to sit around and help other students, something I tend to do anyways to some extent. I think that is a good return on time spent.

And I don't think I could run all over town to many different stores or compare all the sales from the newspaper and cook all my food based on what is on sale, but adding one extra stop to my shopping trips, and getting coupons for food I already buy, that is a pretty good return on time, since the extra trip probably takes 20 minutes and saves me over 20 bucks most of the time.

JR is helping us with money too, by selling his magic cards and dnd 3.5 books to friends. That will be a big help.

Happy Walpurgis Eve!