Corner of Bourbon & Division

Oh my GOD moving companies are expensive.

I think I will resort to begging and bribing people with excessive amounts of pizza and beer...

Dear banking website,

I have several inter-connected complaints to make. First off, if I click on "Pay A Bill," I do not, in fact, really mean "Log Me Out Successfully." Second, if I click "View My Transactions," I still do not, in fact, really mean "Log Me Out Successfully."

Related to this, given that there is a SERIOUS bug in your programming that logs me out every time I click on a link, forcing me to re-enter all my information over and over again, I would very much appreciate there being a section somewhere, ANYWHERE, on your site that would allow me to report the bug and open a trouble ticket.

Is there such a section? NO. I had to resort to your "customer feedback" section, and I am not optimistic about your promise to get back to me within 24 hours. I fully expect, given my previous experience with you, that your "response" will be an automated email thanking me for my patronage.

For the love of all that's good and holy, would you just fix your damned website?

No love,

Me

My mother lost her Cartier Trinity ring when she was over at my place feeding the cats while I was in Ottawa. I thought I would try to replace it for her for Christmas, since she's had this ring for something like forty years, but a quick search on the internet has revealed it to be waaaaaay out of my financial league.

Curse my mother and her expensive taste. :P


If anyone out there wants to send us ring-finding vibes, they'd be much appreciated.

My Québec Government tax refund just arrived! Woohoohoo!

Now I don't have to worry about how much I'm going to spend on groceries today. One down, one to go! :D

A quick glance at my bank balance has convinced me that I should wait until tomorrow to do my grocery shopping. Anytime that tax refund wants to come would be fine by me. :P

I am discovering that my world is smaller than I thought. Turns out luvenditti also knows Aaron, my trainer, from when the MSTC comes to her school every year. Very small world.

I went to the dentist this morning, and am still partially frozen. This is not helping my mood.

What I really want this morning is to go back to bed. In fact, I may have a nap before going to work. My trip to the dentists interrupted some very nice dreams about exploring ancient ruins and picnics with friends. I remember driving in a big pick-up truck with bodhifox, among other things. Turns out he's a pretty reckless driver. ;)

The little hamster on the wheel in the back of my head is SCREAMING at the amount of money I spent today, even though it was in the budget and I planned for it and I know it's okay.

SCREAMING.

Oy.

You'd think I'd be over these little neuroses by now. :P



Anyway, I ended up not getting anything other than the sofa-bed, because the little hamster was screaming too loudly. (Sorry, ankhorite: my hamster appears to be more neurotic than average)

So I'll probably head back to IKEA next week, or maybe even someday this week, to get the bookcases and TV stand. Is anyone out there interested in coming with me? That way I can enlist help in schlepping the stuff (it's too heavy for me on my own), thus saving me a whackload of money for delivery services, and offer a car ride to IKEA in exchange.

Anyone interested? Bear in mind I'd be going on a weekday, although an evening trip could probably be arranged, even this week.

I'm overtired and haven't had enough sunlight lately. Part of this is my own fault. Part of this is working night shift.

In spite of my efforts to keep my posts light-hearted and positive, I've been dealing with a good dose of low-level anxiety of late. Part of this is seasonal, part of it is due to what's going on politically (nothing like having the government disintegrate during a time of economic crisis, and having there be a good chance of the whole separatism thing starting up again: 'cause what we really need is to beat that dead horse in order to make sure it's really dead).

And part of it is my own damned fault. I kind of ran into some minor financial snags lately. This is nothing, I hasten to add. It's just some poor planning on my part, and is nowhere near doing anything but causing me some mild inconvenience for the next few weeks. My reaction, on the other hand, has been nothing short of breathtakingly over the top about this.

For those of you who are new to this LJ (two years or less), the thing you have to understand is that this whole "financial stability" thing is still pretty new to me. I used to live paycheque to paycheque, and for a very long time there was always a lot of month left at the end of the money. I wrecked my credit during that time, partly because I had no money and partly because I was incapable of managing what little money I did have. This created constant, gut-ripping anxiety on my part (spiced up with the occasional panic attack).

So this latest snag? Objectively, I know I'll be fine. I need to be a bit careful for the next thirty days, but it's not going to prevent me from paying my bills or eating. It means that it's a damned good thing I decided not to buy Christmas presents for anyone except my parents and BorderCrossing this year, and it also means that I'm likely not going to buy any more Christmas decorations than the ones I already have.

Emotionally, it's doing a number on my headspace. The irrational part of me is suddenly convinced that I'm back on the slippery slope to being constantly in the red, to having to watch my bank balance like a hawk and sending up a prayer every time I buy groceries so that my transaction doesn't get refused.

So, anyway, no happy-fluffy entry from me right now. I'm okay, but I've been better. Knowing that probably 95% of everyone else out there has it worse than me is somehow not a comfort.

My mother has officially forbidden me to ever shave my head again, although she admits it suits me.

I lost my bus pas sometime last night. No idea when or where, but I am peeved. Luckily it's not as huge a loss because I'll be out of town for all of next week, and I'll have several days off work when I get back, so it won't cost me a fortune in bus tickets. Also: receipts for the win! I can now claim bus tickets on my taxes, which is all to the good.

Unfortunately, it also meant that I was 10 minutes late to work. I'm very fortunate that they're lenient about that here. It also helps that I'm almost always invariably early to work, due to the wonky bus schedule near my home. It builds up in my favour: fifteen minutes early almost every day totally outweighs the occasional lapse.

Half the computer system is down at work. Boo. On the plus side, the internet still works, so yay!

Also, getting up this morning was just brutal. I have no idea why it was so hard to drag my unwilling self out of bed, but damn.

Okay. Duty calls.

Had a lovely time at sandman7 and pdaughter's birthday party yesterday. Caught up with a ton of people I hadn't seen in way too long, had M&Ms and chips and dip in industrial quantities, and generally had a great time.

toughlovemuse got me the bestest present! An autographed copy of Lynn Flewelling's newest book, Shadows Return! She got it specially signed, and told Lynn that it was for the person who had introduced her to the novels. Lynn's response? "I'm always happy to sign for my crack dealers." I love her with much love. :)

The unpacking has unfortunately stalled now that I've gone back to work. With any luck I'll get more of it done this week in the mornings when I'm not at work. I also need to screw up all my courage and hook up my washing machine, because I'm going to run out of clean clothes soon. I also have to check my bank account (to make sure I have enough money in there for both food *and* rent until my next paycheque after last week's spending extravaganza: been a while since I've actually had a legitimate reason to worry about my bank balance, and I'm not enjoying the déjà vu, let me tell you), and get some food in my new fridge so that I'm not just cooling off empty space.

I have a ton of paperwork to catch up on at work. I don't feel like doing it in the slightest, let me tell you. :P

Okay, back to work.

Epic, weapons-grade fail, as fearsclave would say.

1- They open only at 09:00 on Sundays. This would be fine on most days, except that I finished work at 06:30 and had to be back for 16:00, which meant that I got home at 10:00 and thus only got about 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Not Good.

2- The rental ended up costing about $30 more than the original estimate. Not the end of the world, but having the cost underestimated by about 35% was a bit of a shock.

3- I paid Interac, because I hate using my credit card. The net result? The $350 they froze on my credit card "for security only" will continue to be frozen for five fucking business days. What for? No one could tell me. I returned the car, after all, so as far as I'm concerned they no longer need my security deposit. Nope. If I had paid with my credit card, the freeze would have magically gone away "automatically." Not so if I pay my bill in any other way.

I also asked for a written confirmation that my funds would be unfrozen, and the guy refused, stating it would be done "automatically." Unfortunately, I was so tired I could barely see straight, and I didn't put up the fuss I normally would have. I should have done.

I hate society.