Ok, so I’m blogging from my new HP Netbook and I have to say it’s proving to be a little bit more difficult than I thought it would. See, I’m used to having larger keypads and while the screen size is actually pretty decent for me, it’s going to take a little while to get used to the keyboard. While it’s a standard full-sized keyboard, for me it feels a little ultra small so once I’ve retrained myself, I think I’ll do pretty well.

I picked it up from Microcenter, it was $299 and with the $175 worth of gift certificates that I had to work with, it really didn’t cost me very much at all. Of course I picked up a few extra things being as we made a few changes in the house. We signed up for Optimum voice so we could get rid of our Verizon land line, considering the phone was hardly ever used there was really no point in spending $60 a month on a phone that only had unlimited local and long distance. The biggest issue was the fact that we had absolutely nothing else other than caller ID. With Optimum we get just about everything but we also wanted to clean things up in the house as well so we just purchased a new phone system where we have the main base in the living room with the router and the expansions in other areas of the house. There’s finally a phone in my bedroom again and while I don’t really need it, it’s good to have.

Sean was able to figure out that there is an intercom system with the phone, and Maureen was able to figure out that the phone had a spoken caller ID option as well. When we called the new phone line with our old phone line it clearly noted my fathers name after two rings and then his name also popped up on every single TV in the house (as is offered by Optimum voice). So essentially it was a major upgrade day for just about everyone in the house.

With the laptop I even picked up a cute little mouse to have for when I don’t feel like doing anything. Unfortunately I think it’s going to be too small as it’s about the size of a mouse you’d give a cat, for the sake of travel it will certainly get the job done and I think that’s all that matters.

In a few days I’m going to head over to CVS and pick up a side table for my bed. It’s one of those carts that you’d see in a hospital that you can pull right up to you. It’s only like $25 and it’s specifically for laptop usage. You can adjust the table top to different angles depending on how you feel c omfortable and a small section off to the side will stay flat so you can put your mouse there. I figure that since I’m going to be purchasing a larger bed soon and I’m going to have to downsize things a bit, I can’t afford to lose the ability to be comfortable when attempting to do homework so I’m going to make it a point to pick that up as soon as possible.

I didn’t even realize that it was WAY past my bedtime. Usually I’m asleep by midnight (at the latest) on Saturdays, being as it’s about 2am I think it’s safe to say it’s time for bed for me! I figure sometime over the course of the next few days I’ll take a picture of all the new toys. Not to mention the mouse, it’s smaller than the palm of my hand.  Overtime it’ll probably just be a mistake on my part but for the time being I’m 100% happy with everything.  So for now I’m going to head to bed but I’m going to experiment with the camera thing that’s on here first… haven’t figured out which program to boot that up with yet.

I have to say that minus the fact of my being under the weather – as usual lately – it’s been a really interesting week and luckily I’ve been attentive enough to remember just about everything that’s gone on.

A big congrats goes out to my friend Alicia as she had her first baby, Jaymie Lynn, on Sunday and I have to say that this kid is absolutely adorable. She’s a really cool baby too, I saw her for the first time on Tuesday night and even at two days old she was very alert and responsive to just about everything going on in the room. She knows when you’re talking about her cause her eyebrows raise up a little, and anytime someone curses around her she smiles. I also told her “give daddy the finger” and she just kind of waved at him. In my book, she’s bound to be an awesome kid. I’ll try not to corrupt her too much but isn’t that what aunts are for? Seriously now.

On Monday we had a pretty nasty storm roll through here. Approximately five minutes after I left for work on Monday morning a very strong gust of wind wound up taking the roof off of my patio, now this wasn’t a small roof it was approximately 10ft by 30ft and it’s been attached to the house for god knows how many years. It always rattles and bounces around when we have heavy wind but the wind just happen to have enough force and it was blowing in the right direction for it to completely detach itself from the back of the second story of the house, fly over the main roof and land across the street. Of course I have a few pictures of the aftermath because its a pretty BIG occurance.

You can tell by the pictures that not only was it a very LARGE awning, it also took four 3 foot cement blocks with it when it lifted off of the porch. There are three blocks still on the porch that were just knocked off of the ledge, which is now a major hazard because there was some structural damage where the blocks were ripped off of, meaning the dog isn’t even allowed outside because I think the pressure from her trying to just look over the ledge would cause it to collapse completely. On the other side of the porch (closest to my apartment) there is a block of cement completely missing where our connection to the roof once was. The interesting thing about it is that it landed right where my car would have been if I’d taken the few extra minutes to warm up the car before heading to work that morning. Even though it was a relatively warm day (for winter at least) the car instantly started up and it didn’t feel sluggish for the first time all season. With this I had the “get in and go” mentality and left as soon as possible. Thank goodness for my doing that because a 100lb 3foot cement block would have come flying through the windsheild… I certainly think that someone was looking over me on Monday – there’s no question about that.

As far as work is concerned, we’ve been pretty slow for the past few days. So much so that I haven’t had to work any major overtime hours like I’d been doing in the past because I’ve been getting out of the office as 6:30 as I’m supposed to. I’m not too sure as to why it’s been so slow but for the sake of being on a decent schedule when it comes to having dinner, relaxing and being able to sleep through the night… I’m certainly NOT complaining!

I have to say that it’s been a pretty productive week for me. I’m surprised at how much has been accomplished and how absolutely nothing has gone wrong. As you know, on Sunday I got all of the FAFSA stuff taken care of and on Monday I submitted a request to speak with a representative at Phoenix. By Tuesday evening I was on the phone with Dan S., and I have to say he’s answered every single one of my questions and addressed every single one of my concerns. As of right now I’m about 78% complete with my application. There’s the matter of asking a few questions in regard to previous schools and finances that I need to get in touch with my representative about but for the most part everything should be squared away by Monday afternoon. Since I’m unable to get in touch with him during the day I’ve had to stay in contact with him through Email as I can not access any Educational websites through the servers at work (stupid blocks on just about EVERYTHING!). Either way it will all work out for the best and that’s all I care about right now.

So school is pretty much squared away, Sean is doing well with multiple clients right now and I’ve managed to complete all make-up time on the two days that I missed last week and right now I’m only 2 hours short of doing that and I know I’ll breeze through that by the time I punch out on Sunday. I know Sunday is going to be pretty busy because I’m going to go back for a few weeks through archived emails and make sure everything was handled and with the new system we use at work it’s really more of an “easier said than done” kind of thing considering it takes an average of 30+ seconds to search for a file in the system and I know there’s about 2000 or so claims to go through. This should certainly be interesting.

Tonight I’m hopefully getting out of here at a reasonable hour so I can get some light packing done. I’m going to be staying at my aunts tonight and then tomorrow it is my ultimate goal to clear out my bedroom and give it the deep-down clean that it’s needed for a few weeks now. I can only deal with the chaos for so much longer and considering I received my course breakdown last night I’m going to need to do a major overhaul on the room so I have an area where I can fully concentrate on everything.

I’m working on getting myself a smaller laptop to use temporarily so I can get a decent amount of homework done while I’m on my 1-hour break at work. I refuse to pick up a netbook because I’m sure that with some of my courses I’m going to have to load something off of a disk and as far as the design aspect of things are concerned I’m still going to use the Mac that I have at home so I’ve been poking around TigerDirect for a small laptop but the prices really aren’t that great. I will consider looking into one at Microcenter only because the bulk of them are on sale right now AND I have about $125 worth of gift certificates that can be used towards it and with the sales, rebates, coupons and gift certificates – I think I can get a half-way decent one that one cost me very much money at all.

:: crosses fingers ::

I meant to do it much, much sooner but it’s been one hell of a year so-far. I’ve finally gotten my FAFSA submitted so I can work on getting myself enrolled into the University of Phoenix. It took about 15 minutes to do, and the bulk of it was spent trying to figure out what my damn PIN was considering I’d already attempted to apply in April 2008 but by then I’d LONG passed the deadline. Hopefully my doing it towards the beginning of the year will have a decent turn around.

I’m taking a break from floating around the internet in search of grant and scholarship information to kind of clear my head a bit. It really does turn into quite a job just trying to figure out a less expensive way to walk away with your Bachelors. It’s my ultimate goal to work towards a Masters degree but for now I’ll get the Bachelors taken care of and maybe I’ll be lucky enough to get myself into a position where I can utilize what I already know, and be accepted without the degree with the understanding that I’m currently working towards one. It’s really annoying when you go in for an interview and you’re rejected on the spot due to a lack of degree when the person giving the interview doesn’t even have one themselves! The standards of people these days really has gotten to the point of being totally obnoxious. Considering the economy is as screwed up as it is, you would think that people would be more understanding to the fact that not everyone can afford to go after the minimum of a Bachelors as noted on numerous applications as a requirement. I personally think if you have 12 years of experience, that well exceeds a Masters and that should just be good enough.

But anyway, it’s been one hell of a week. I stayed home for two days due to a few medical issues and for some reason I just couldn’t really get into the flow of production for Thursday and Friday so I honestly just feel like I’m lagging. I’ve noticed that I’ve been sleeping a lot lately too. While I do know that sleep is really good for you, when you’re trying to not be a lazy ass and be more productive with your time – the fact that I’ve popped in a DVD and just lay down in bed has really proven that I’m that lazy ass of the day. Hell, Sean did more today than I did and he just sat at the computer for the past 10 hours or so. Granted, he was working, but he got up long enough to cash a check at the bank and do the dishes to get the sink cleared out. I think all I’ve really done is had a couple of cigs and got through the first two disks of the “Are you being served?” box set that Sean bought me for Christmas. hah.

In any event, it’s knocking on 11:30, I didn’t feel like plugging in my laptop so of course that pesky “Low Battery” message keeps flashing across the screen. I think it’s time to shut down and go back to doing nothing. I’m gonna have to organize the crap out of all of my new bookmarks first though. I found some really cool information, most of which was in the middle of applying for things so I’ll come up with a bunch of links at some point in case anyone else is interested.

Also – At some point when I’ve got some spare time I do intend to get back into the wonderful world of sponsored blogging again. It’s not going to be to the extreme that it was in the past, but every little bit helps when you need it.

Ok, so I’m 13 days late in wishing everyone a Happy New Year but that’s also based on the fact that I really don’t get to spend much time in front of the computer for personal things anymore. I just pulled my laptop out of the closet today because I had to take two days off from work and I decided to help out the girls considering my department gets pretty backed up during the day, it’s even worse when we’re down a person so I logged in and assigned some claims so everyone could at least get out of there close to on-time. Oddly enough it worked out pretty well. If we could only figure out a way to do it when all three of us our there it would be a pretty cool deal hah.

So yea, this year hasn’t really gone too well but I’ve pretty much been under the weather since it started so of course I can’t say that there’s anything interesting going on. I’m waiting very patiently for my paycheck on Friday so I can punch all of the numbers into the FAFSA website and hopefully get a decent amount of coverage so I can get myself back into school. The University of Phoenix is pretty expensive so I really have to figure out how to get myself fully covered so I can complete a Bachelors degree. If I really wanted to stretch a penny I’d figure out a way to get my Masters but for now the Bachelors will suffice. I know I’ve been talking about going back to school for a very long time but I’m finally able to do it without having to worry about being under my fathers income. Essentially.. waiting until you’re 25 is a good thing when it comes to trying to get as much help as you can. It also mentally prepaired me to learn how to buckle down and get myself organized.

I’m working some pretty long hours lately, it’s not working out too well for me (mental health wise) but at least the overtime is paying the bills. It sucks that I’m averaging over 20 hours of overtime each paycheck but I’m also working six days a week and typically doing 10-11 hour days from Mon-Fri, that’s more than enough to say “I no longer have a social life”. Granted, my social life kind of died off when Lucy passed away last year but I’ve been making up for it by surrounding myself with people who are actually worth an ounce of my time and writing off the ones who aren’t. It may sound cruel but it’s just the way life goes. I know what I need and what I don’t need and having enough strength within myself to cut any ties with the people who just weren’t really worth it to begin with is more than enough of a reason for me to do what I need to do to get by. I’m lucky enough to be graced with the good people instead of the bad and that certainly works for me!

Sean and I are doing OK – yes, we’re still together. We had a bit of a rocky-point last year but I want to assume that everyone was smacked in the face with their mistakes. In July it’ll be four years, and while I know that’s still six months away, it’s still a shock that I’ve been able to stay with the same person for as long as I have. With him it’s really not an issue though. We get along, we’re living in a semi-tight bedroom but we manage to make due. Financial matters have kept us from getting a bigger place but for the time being we’re content with what we have. It gets a little stuffy when you throw Bella into the mix (who’s also doing very well now that the Tumor has been removed from her stomach) but we make due and that’s all that matters.

I’ve been home for the past two days and the only thing I’ve managed to accomplish is the laundry. I know I’m sick and should really just be resting but I hate just laying down and doing nothing, I need to do SOMETHING productive or I wind up going crazy. It was my ultimate goal to just clean up the bedroom today and that just didn’t happen. Maybe when I’m done here I’ll just get up for the sake of organizing a few things to make me feel better about the mess in here. I desperately need to organize my closet, it’s a terrible mess right now. Instead of hanging things up I tend to just fold them and stack them. I’ve had to keep shifting the stack around so I can get to the clothes that I’m wearing that day. It’s been pretty annoying.

As far as “resolutions” are concerned, it’s my ultimate goal to get myself back into school and finish what I’ve started. It’s also my goal within the next six months to come up with enough money for the down payment on the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox because that has been my final choice in a new car and the one I know I’ll stick with. I bounced around for a little while but after reading the reviews, doing the research and really just learning everything I can about the Equinox, the 2010 is the most well designed and fuel efficient model that they have. The older models had a lot of design flaws, one of which I saw as a safety issue and the gas mileage just wasn’t worth the price tag. Everything that’s offered with them now is everything I could ever need and I know that I’ll have it for at least 10-15 years so it’ll certainly hold up well for me.

So yea, School, Car, find a better job that pays at least double what I’m making and it’ll wind up being a good year for me. I just need to keep myself on track.

:: crosses fingers ::