A very early Tuesday morning..

I’m still up… I really need to go to bed. I was only supposed to work for 4 1/2 hours.. (until 7.30pm). Well, that 7.30p turned into an 8.45p clock out time. I then went to the grocery store & by the time I got home it was after 10. Dinner and balancing the checkbook and watching DVR episodes of tonight’s House and 24….and BAM… it’s after Midnight.

I saw Matai tonight as I was finishing up. We talked for all of 5 minutes..which is a long time in the hospital world… there is ALWAYS something to grab our attention away. I work a lot..but he works a ton… He only has 4 days off/month & works 16 hour days… He gets there usually at 6am and is still there when I come in for a night shift at 6.30.. tonight he left around 8.15p. I know he chose to do this…but I’m sure it’s not always fun for him to work 14 days in a row without a day off to himself. Enough about him.

Looking forward to Philly next weekend…I want to see so many people, but there is definitely not enough time for all of them. It will be fun to play tourist in my former city.

Other randomness… Excited about the Colts in the SB. Very sad about the Vikings…although I know that they had many chances of winning it…  that last interception was a sharp stab in the stomach… I couldn’t watch the rest of the game after that because I knew how it was going to end… and it ended exactly as I thought it would.

That’s about it. it’s 1.22 and I’m actually getting a little sleepy.

Toots for now.

Rainy Thursday.

It’s a rainy day here in Indianapolis. I’m gearing up to work the next three nights. I also picked up an extra 8 hours yesterday. I’m still freaking out about my finances. Currently, I have $27.79 in my checking account. Payday is tomorrow… so, I think I can refrain myself from spending almost $30 at work tonight!

I just got off the phone with Great Lakes regarding my 2nd private loan. I received a letter at the end of the year telling me that I could do a graduated repayment schedule. Two years of lesser payments followed by 20,000 years of a little higher than normal payments. Well, I called today with the intent of doing that…just to give myself some cushion. The first asshole I got on the phone (excuse my language… not very ladylike, nor Christian…but it is a very accurate description) told me that my loan didn’t qualify.. that only Federal loans did. I read him the letter word for word and again he said that it was a mistake. I said that I wanted to speak to his supervisor. He said that there was no one available.. I said I didn’t believe him and that I would hold. Well, he played the hold game with me. I have 1000 cell phone minutes… so, I can hold for a long time. I put my phone on speaker mode and sat at my desk waiting. TWENTY MINUTES later the phone automatically transferred me to a “pay off specialist” …a person dealing with people who are in default of their loans. After trying not to get mad at him… he transferred me back. I got a woman who then finally transferred me to a supervisor and rightly told me that the letter was correct and that I COULD choose the graduated schedule….which, I clearly chose.

A good thing I learned was that with my flex spending account..I can use it all at once even if it isn’t fully funded. Next year I will place more into that account (since it will help me at tax time)….but this year I only placed $550… but I can use that $550 all in April for my deductable, so.. I will only need an add’l $1000 (+ my lab fees which is another $400).

I’m bringing home almost $3000 a month…. I have nothing to show for it.

I am allowing some fun stuff… not a lot …but a little fun spending wise. Five of us are going to Indy’s Devour Downtown next weekend. It’s the same as Philly’s Restaurant Week. $30 for 3 courses at all the nice places where the dinner entree alone is $30. Definitely looking forward to a good meal. We are going to Scholar’s Inn on Mass Ave. Mass Ave is the artsy place in Indy… reminds me of a very SMALL version of Manyunk (spelling?).

I’m headed to Philly in two weeks for a wedding on 2/6 in NJ. I’ll actually be in town from the 2/4-2/8. I’m hoping to watch a Colts-Vikings Superbowl… How cool would it be to see Payton & Brett against each other… I wouldn’t really care who won…but it will be awesome watching two amazing quarterbacks.

I like a doctor here. His name is Matai. He’s Canadian (and I think Romanian…hence his name). He’s only here until June. He had had one year fellowship in urology oncology. Anyways, a perky 22 year old nurse is in love with him and tells me everyday about what they did together…  so, I suffer in silence as usual.

That’s about all for now… Need to jump into the shower and get ready for work.

Bye for now. Hopefully, I’ll be better in the future about posting… life really isn’t all that exciting.

Hello 2010

Scared that this is the year that I declare bankruptcy. The first two days of 2010 I’ve been scared out of my mind about spending any money whatsoever. For this reason… I have health insurance payments to make… LARGE health insurance payments to make. I got lab tests done last week instead of this week so I wouldn’t have to pay an additional $500. I take home almost $3300/month and I’m scared that I don’t have enough. It seems like so much money for a single person… My work mates who have no health problems, student loans, rent, etc… complain about blowing “literally half their checks on alcohol”…(which, for one person… I do not doubt in the least).

I really need a financial person to tell me where everything is going.

Anyway, I’m in “Loser-ville” tonight… Stayed in my PJs all day long…  I didn’t have anywhere to go. I only have one friend that I hang out with (which I did last night)… It’s so hard to meet people here. I thought by now I would have a decent group of people to do things with. I am thankful for my one friend because we do have a blast when we get together…  but, that’s it. No group of people to call to do stuff with. No one from work to hang out with..everybody is 1o years younger and cares about stuff that I really don’t… and,when I tried to ask someone from work to hang out… everyone thought it was because I had a crush…

I’m going to a new church tomorrow.

We’ll see what happens.

Has it really been 20 days???

Wow… I knew it had been awhile…but 20 DAYS??? That’s crazy.

It’s been a little busy in my world. I went to Canada on 12/10. Came back on 12/14. and then proceeded to work four 12-hour shifts in a row. Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat. I go back tonight & then work tomorrow night and on Christmas Eve. Working the holidays (I’m also working NYE) sucks…but the money is totally worth it. I’m more bummed about Christmas Eve than NYE… Never really did a whole heck of a lot for the New Year.

Canada was good. Very wintry and cold. We took the snow mobiles and cut down fresh Christmas Trees… We went to a hockey game that was announced all in French.. so, I really had no clue what was happening… Ate lots of good food…

Nothing else exciting to report…  Just working. Working. Working.

An Expensive Bookmark

I decided to not drive to Ann Arbor today. I’m pretty bummed about it, but definitely made the right decision. I think I would just be miserable because of my stupid head cold. My nose is as red as Rudolph’s & my head feels as big as Stewie’s from Family Guy. Plus, darn it… I need a new box of Kleenex.

So, my unused concert ticket will be placed inside a book…

On the plus side.. I fly to Burlington, VT in 8 days!!!

Toots… I’m going out in the rain (to Costco!).

Happy Find..

Update on the lost ring… I found it when I wasn’t looking for it. Very happy about it.

That’s it.. I’m off to work again. Yea! Money is good. (*** please note that the author doesn’t think that money is the only reason she goes to work.. although some nights that is all that is motivating her…. not ALL nights… just some-like last night).

Toots for now.

Canceled.

I was supposed to work tonight, but they called at 5.15p to tell me that I was canceled. This is the first time I’ve ever been canceled. I worked last night and there was only 13 patients on the floor and I know that they discharged a few today …  I’m betting that they only have 3 nurses on the floor and 1 charge nurse. It was my turn to get canceled so that’s only fair. I’m only upset that I’ll have to use my PTO time to make up for the 12 hours I got called off. We do get a lot of PTO time so it will build back up pretty quickly. But, what sucks is that the PTO time is paid on my straight hourly rate. I’m going to miss the night shift differential and also the weekend bonus pay (which, adds up to about $35/hour). I am working tomorrow night. I won’t get canceled two nights in a row.

Tonight I’m having an exciting Friday night alone. Watching “Elf” (which, I watch WHENEVER it’s on… I LOVE that movie!) & writing out my Christmas cards.

I talked to Kevin tonight (yes, the divorced dad of 3 has a name). On. The. Phone. Novel concept… right? Anyway, he has a date tomorrow night. I’m soo not even on his radar screen as a potential girlfriend. Oh well, my life story.

My Thanksgiving was good even with the work part thrown in. I spent the day at the parents’ house of my friend Heather from church. It was a way traditional Thanksgiving dinner and I loved it. The food was amazing. The house was warm and cozy. The people were all friendly. Work was good also… since we had so few patients.. everybody was a little more laid back than usual.

I’m supposed to drive to Ann Arbor, MI on Wednesday to see The Swell Season that night. I’m still not sure if I’m going to do it. I still need to get a hotel room and then the cost of gas. I might just eat the cost of the ticket ($45). I really want to see them… but, need to be more responsible with my limited income now. I’m thankful for my student loans…but now I getting anal about paying them back fast.

***What I really want to say on this Friday night… but I know you’ll all (well, the 9 of you) will get mad…  I’m 38 now… I’m sure I only have until 50 and then my heart/health will start declining. No one will want someone for such a short period of time. I just need to give up hoping for a husband. It must be easier that way.***

Anyway, that’s it from my little piece of Indianapolis. Have a nice night.

Update at 9.09pm: I got a call about an hour ago… They want me to come in from 11-0730. Which is better than staying home all night. I get the weekend & shift differential pay for 8 hours. Yea.

 

Tuesday night

I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is almost upon us. Tomorow I’m going to get out all the Christmas decorations and hopefully after that I won’t be lazy and I’ll actually put up the Christmas tree, etc.

I’ve been off from work since Friday night. I work again this Thur, Fri, & Sat. Yep… the night of Thanksgiving I’m working (if we are keeping track… I’m also working Christmas Eve & New Year’s Eve). I’m ok with working all the these holidays…. at least I have Christmas Day actually off and then I can drive home and be there in time for Christmas dinner. And, well.. NYE… don’t really care about. I’ve never had a boyfriend to kiss… and I think the high point (err… I mean LOW point ) of NYE’s parties was when I was in Chicago a few years ago and was in a room of 30 gay male couples kissing at Midnight (seriously… a really long story how that came about). The upside… I’ll be getting lots and lots and lots of extra holiday pay.

Still no answer from the guy. It’s like he has dropped off the face of the earth when it comes to me. Bummer. But, again…nothing new there.

Nothing else really exciting to report. Two other things that I’m kinda bummed about: 1) I’ve misplaced (I’m not ready to say it’s gone…but it might be gone) my oldest ring. It was the first piece of somewhat expensive jewelry that I bought myself. I actually had a dream about this ring before I bought it. It’s a little white gold ring with a “X” made out of diamonds on it. I have NO IDEA where I placed it. It’s been missing for almost 10 days now. 2) My 6-CD player in my Mazda is on the fritz. I’m going to have to call tomorrow….  It’s saying “read error” & “check CD”…but then it won’t let me pop out the CD….  UGH. I can’t live without my CD player…

Ok.. that’s it in my little life for now.

I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving. Even though I’ll be working, I’m very thankful that I am not a patient in the hospital over the holidays. I’m thankful that I can go home after my shift.

Toots for now.

ps.. for Scott… I’m curious… did you ever give that ring to another nice Jewish girl???

Disappointment around every bend.

So, I never counted out the divorced guy with three kids. We were still talking…Mind you, nothing serious.. funny texts & Facebook comments..

Well, I somehow got more bold than usual last night. I texted him & said “Seriously, it would be nice to see you again.” That was it.

The response I got back was…

….

….

…

…

….

nothing.

 

Rainy Indianapolis Morning

Dear Peyton Manning and fellow Colts…

Thank you for almost giving me a heart attack last night. It was a great, great game. That 4th & 2 gamble… so, so, so glad it didn’t pay off for the Pats…  You were on top when it came to that call and then end of the game. Although, for future games.. please, please, please.. no interceptions & a lot fewer dropped passes…

Ok… now that I got that off my chest… First, I was cleared this morning to go back to work tomorrow night. Thank goodness… I don’t know what I would do with myself if I had to stay home any longer. I was still feeling crappy on Friday when my parents arrived for the weekend. During the afternoon, my parents forced me to get dressed and take a ride around town with them. I was actually feeling better enough to go to Costco that afternoon. Well, Friday night sucked rocks big time. I threw up 2x and basically didn’t fall asleep until 5am Saturday morning. I slept until 9am Saturday & then we took another drive around town and stopped somewhere for lunch…. my dad also convinced me to take a swig of Pepto-Bismol (UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YUCK). I’m not sure if that helped or not…but I started to feel better for good on Saturday afternoon. Saturday night I slept a good 6 hours straight… which was amazing.

My weekend was good. Saturday night were the marching band finals here at Lucas Oil. The bad part of the weekend was at 4pm on Saturday afternoon I went to find the tickets for Saturday night. They WERE on my coffee table in an envelope. Well, my mom was cleaning my table and threw the tickets away. They were GONE. GONE. GONE. I couldn’t believe it. Over $100 GONE. Anyway, long story short… we went to the stadium and bought 3 tickets for $60 off a band parent whose kid didn’t make the finals. I think from now on I’ll just do that… there are always people selling their tickets the night of the Finals for various reasons… as long as we are high up it really doesn’t matter what yard line we sit at. The competition was great. My old HS placed 3rd. It was a good show. The funny thing.. I basically commented on Facebook the whole night long. I commented on the bands, etc… I gave live updates regarding scores, etc… I had people (alumni) from all across the country reading my posts… it was hilarious..and cool that the Internet & my Blackberry allowed me to give people a sense of what was happening without paying to see the performances via webcast. But, by the end of the evening… I was sure that I was going to have Blackberry Thumb again.

Nothing else too exciting to report. My first day back is tomorrow night… I might venture out today just to do something. I do need to make a stop at the post office for stamps.

Toots for now.