I’ve been mulling over the idea of a 101 Things in 1001 Days list since I first heard about them, but I’m not one for jumping on a bandwagon simply for the sake of being on the bandwagon. So I just let it pass me by… it’s been awhile though, and I’m finding I like the idea more than I did when I first heard about it. My 25th birthday is in about a month and a half, and yesterday I decided that it would probably a good time to start on a list of goals, some silly, some serious.

I think the main reason I’ve put off choosing to write such a list is that I don’t like to fail, and I’ve always felt that writing out a list of 101 goals seemed like setting myself up for failure. I’ve decided now, though, that maybe it doesn’t have to be a failure, even if I don’t check off all 101 items in 2.75 years. Maybe it will have been just enough to have made an effort on them, to have checked a few things off the list. I’m trying to keep that in mind as I’m putting the list together too… there have been a few things I’ve thought of, and hesitated to put on the list, or didn’t write down because in the back of my mind I’m thinking, “Hmm… that might be difficult to accomplish in the next 3ish years.” So there are plenty of things on the list that should be easy to tick off, but I want to put some items on there that will be a stretch too. That is, after all, the whole point.

One thing I want to put on there is to find some cheap hotels and get out of here for awhile, on a girls weekend maybe. Don’t worry, I’ll share the whole list with you when I get it finished. Project begins August 18, 2008 with a 1001-day end date in May of 2011!

That’s the ad I wanted to take out today. I am so mad at a certain little orange cat, I could have choked her. I don’t remember having ever been so mad at her, including the time she looked me right in the eye and peed on the bathroom floor a foot in front of me, so that’s saying quite a bit.

Things had been accumulating on the bathroom counter all week, so Saturday being the day I usually catch up on the clutter, I started to put things back where they belong. And then I picked up a piece of paper and discovered something.

SHE PISSED ON MY BATHROOM COUNTER.

Not in the sink, where it could at least go down the drain… no, she peed ON THE COUNTER so it would pool under my bottles of lotion and mouthwash. I was seeing red, and I probably scared the neighbor with the curse words I was yelling. I tell you what, she’s probably really lucky that I couldn’t find her after that particular discovery.

Are you reading this, mother? Innocent, good little kitties don’t PEE ON COUNTERS!

Thank goodness for another Friday. I finally have some good news to report on the work front too– they started pouring concrete this morning. YAY! When I left this afternoon, they were working on laying down the forms for the rest of the sidewalk. Don’t know how long the rest of it is going to take, but it is finally looking like there is an end in sight. Hallelujah!

I’m so ready to move everyone out of my lobby and get my peace and quiet back… The other day someone found a quarter on the floor and placed it on the ledge and called it my tip. Personally, I think freshwater pearls would probably be more appropriate tip, but that didn’t stop me from pocketing the quarter. Hey, that’s 1/10th of the way to washing and drying a load of laundry! Hard telling when I’ll get around to that though.

Today felt like the longest Friday in history. The last hour especially… the clock just simply refused to move forward. I just put in a movie, but I honestly doubt I’ll be able to stay awake long enough to watch it. I’ve been in bed at this time the rest of the week, and I’m already yawning tonight.

Yesterday I went to Walmart and bought myself a pair of jeans, and a pair of shorts. I didn’t have any shorts that fit, and my only pair of blue jeans developed a big hole and were not fit for wearing in public anymore. I didn’t buy any patch panels, but I did buy all sorts of other things that I didn’t need. Like what I’m wearing in the above picture. I bought it to wear as a cover-up for the pool or the beach. Or just around the house, apparently LOL

A word of caution to any of you who is attacking debt… if you stop using your credit cards entirely, and then 4 months later, you suddenly make a purchase, then you go to another store to make another purchase? The kind folks at your credit card company will think you are not you, and they will freeze your account for “suspicious activity.” Your card will get declined, and you will feel very, very idiotic, even though you know there is no good reason for your card to be declined. Because the cashier doesn’t know that, and they will look at you like you are a deadbeat. I should be grateful that they are that watchful of my account, but I was annoyed.

The rest of my weekend has been fairly uneventful. I made some chicken salad this morning, so hopefully I’ll be getting a post up on Jenn Cooks tomorrow or so. Right now I’m watching Fools Gold, which I rented from RedBox, and I’m going to head over to Midlife Musings to see who else has participated in SPS today.

I tell you, when the work week started, it’s like an HDMI switch was flipped in my brain and I completely forgot that I had anything to tell you guys! Last Saturday, we took Killian to the zoo. He enjoyed chasing the goats around the petting zoo, but for the most part he was more interested in the other kids or the plants (or the mulch) than in the animals.

You can see his little leash and harness… the monkey looks over his shoulder, and the handle is the monkey’s tail. Hence the title of 2 monkeys at the zoo. About halfway through, he decided that he wasn’t going to cooperate, and that he’d show off that little temper his mommy has been telling us about. We left the butterfly enclosure, and he decided he wasn’t going any further. He didn’t want to walk, he didn’t want to ride in the wagon. He wanted to stand in the middle of the sidewalk and eat his little yogurt bites. Eventually he had to be picked up and carried away from that spot.

And I can’t forget when I was literally holding him horizontally above the sidewalk because he wouldn’t stand up– he was too mad that I wouldn’t let him try and get under the fence and into the alligator pond!! Look how pitiful he was by the time we left:

I’ve now been unwinding from the work week for 29 or so hours, so I think I’m ready for a little bit of human interaction again. LOL! The sidewalk project at work was finally making progress yesterday… and then they hit snag. To be more specific, they hit a gas line. *headdesk* I’m starting to think these “temporary” arrangements might last all summer long! If things aren’t headed back towards normal soon, I told my coworkers I might mysteriously “come down with something” that will conveniently leave me at home (or maybe I’ll head off to the Outer Banks) to miraculously “get better” as soon as the work is done. Really, it’s not THAT bad. It’s kind of convenient having the guards in the lobby, at least as far as potty breaks go! That one little convenience is all I’m willing to concede though. Just watch– by the time everything gets back to normal, I’ll be whining because I’m bored… I’m getting pretty used to having people to talk to!

I mentioned in my post yesterday that I would address why I hadn’t blogged in almost a week. It really is rather simple… it has everything to do with the too much company I wrote about here. I am not the type of person who constantly needs to be surrounded people. You could probably say I’m rather antisocial. I’m introverted, and I’m okay with that. The way it works out with all the extra foot traffic past my desk at work, it means that I get more than my fill of human interaction and small talk throughout the day. By the time 4 o’clock rolls around, I don’t want to come home and write on my blog and talk to people on the internet. I’m done chatting, I just want to disconnect. So that’s exactly what I’ve done. Sure, I could’ve taken 5 minutes and put up a post about lipovox, but realistically, I’d have come and written about how much I want things at work to get back to normal. I chose to spare you my whining… cause trust me, I have definitely been whining.

If I’d REALLY been planning ahead, I’d have taken my camera with me to my dad’s and made him take a picture with me. As it was, I left the camera sitting on my desk, so I snapped a picture of myself when I got home. I left the apartment about 7am this morning to get my dad’s Father’s Day present (Krispy Kreme donuts) and went over to his house. I hung out over there for a few hours just talking until I finally drug myself away to go grocery shopping.

Just a note… you’re not going to come home and say you got a “best buy” if you don’t go grocery shopping for a month or so. I spent a FORTUNE at the store this afternoon. It definitely doesn’t hurt as much when you go every week or every two weeks and gradually stock up on the necessities. For now though, I’m no longer at the risk of starvation, I won’t have to scrounge for breakfast in the morning, and hopefully I can get back to buying the general merchandise/health and beauty stuff a little bit at a time so I don’t have to gasp out loud and clutch at my chest when the cashier tells me the total!

And yes, I realize I haven’t posted in almost a week… hopefully I’ll address that in another post.

I am the type of person who definitely enjoys her personal space. Since I am the receptionist, my desk is in the lobby, and the only person up here with any regularity is my boss. It’s nice and quiet most of the day and I like it that way. So the arrangements this week are going to try my patience.

They are doing redoing the floors in the guardhouse, and it involves pouring concrete, so security had to move out. They got moved into the lobby, so there are two more people and four extra computers in here. The sidewalk going up to the employee entrance is being redone at the same time, so ALL the traffic in the entire building is passing through the lobby.

Shift change was a few minutes ago, and I kind of felt like I was going insane. I’m the type of person who gets claustrophobic in large crowds, so all the extra people passing through are making me lose my mind (no comments on that!)

I thought I would give you a little update on operation pay-down-debt, since it’s been a little while. I’ve been plugging away at it. I’m not making quite as much progress as I would’ve hoped, but I’m still moving forwards instead of backwards, so that’s always a good thing. June is turning out to be an expensive month for me, so I’m really feeling like I’m not getting anywhere this month. I’m still waiting for my stimulus check to arrive so I can replenish my emergency fund. Then I’ve had 2 baby showers, Father’s Day is next week, and there are 3 birthdays this month. Ouch! I’m just grateful that I’ll have the money and be able to pay cash for all the gifts and keep moving forward rather than needing to add to the credit card debt.

I have thought for awhile though that it would be easier to make progress if I could consolidate everything and make ONE payment for everything rather than making 4 or 5 different payments and trying to decide which one to pay off first. I thought about trying to get a balance transfer credit card, but the last time I tried that, they gave me a $500 credit limit and wouldn’t raise the limit until after the 0% offer had expired. Yeah, that was almost helpful!

So yesterday I applied for a personal loan, just enough to pay off all the credit cards and get them under one payment, and at a lower interest rate to boot. Honestly, I have no idea whether or not I’ll even be approved. I hope I will because I breathe a little easier just thinking about being able to make those changes. But if I don’t, it’s not the end of the world… I’ll just keep plodding along with what I’m doing. Forward motion is better than no motion at all!