I am chatty, have been all my life, to the point where my mom once said she prayed I'd get laryngitis as a kid. 'Momma, let me tell you one more thing...' was my refrain, she said. Still, I do try to tone it down in the morning around YKWIA, because he's nowhere near toleration of it until he's finished with his second giant mug of coffee if that. Today he's been especially testy about it. Also, the person we picked up to take to the appointment is a very chatty, narcissistic person. Two of us together made him rather want to curl up into a ball, I suspect. So he's planning to have a quiet day, and I'll do stuff as needed out of his way. I respect his need for privacy. We're both introverts, really, although I've become more able to deal with people as I've gotten older, especially working in customer service. But still, time to dial down the chattiness, stop filling the silence and focus on other things.
I brought the "A" is for Alibi book with me today and read a few more chapters. I'm enjoying it; it's not a style I particularly care for, but it's nice to be reading again, and it's going pretty quickly. I did just realise I've left it out in the car, which, since it's raining and I have houseshoes on, means putting at least my sandals on to go briefly out into the wet. Oh, well. I think I'll do that in a bit. YKWIA did splurge a little by taking me out to Captain D's after we dropped the other person off, which was good because when I checked my blood sugar, it was 58. Remarkably, I didn't feel shaky. But I was finding it harder to think.
For now, I'm going to work on some things on the computer and maybe listen to some music. My laptop can play music through the speaker tower so I can stream some music through that. Later I may work on the game notes for a while. We're not playing the game tomorrow since I'm under doctor's orders to rest and apparently have some sort of infection, which I don't want to pass on to anyone, especially since the other player is about to take a trip to visit an elderly mother. So we decided to err on the side of caution. But if I get the notes finished this weekend, and then she's gone the next, I won't have to do them later when my memory's fuzzier about what we did. We're on the third leg of the book Ripples from Carcosa, set in the future this time (we've done ancient Rome and Norman England already). I am beginning to hate the Yellow Sign and the machinations of Hastur. I didn't really engage much last Sunday, as apparently not only was I tired, but coming down with the flu, but I did enjoy the story. Hopefully, by next time we play, I'll be more involved.
I watered all the plants before we left this morning. They're doing well. The ones in YKWIA's bedroom are really flourishing. I think they like him. They're in a window seat in a southerly exposure. The ones in my room are easterly to southeasterly, the couple of African violets in the bathroom (on the back of the toilet) get western light, and then there's his plant in the kitchen (a combination of Christmas cactus and some opportunistic wood sorrel that he likes), again, a western exposure. The living room gets very early morning light but is fairly dark the rest of the day, which is why I was surprised my plants survived in there on the bed and nightstands for so long.
I would love to really garden this year, now that I have a yard to play with, but neither of us has the money to invest in plants right now. Also, the best place for a vegetable garden would be out back behind the shed, and I found a really nice plan that would work, but there are the dogs to consider and whether they would damage the plants. Perhaps a raised bed near the fence would work. But that costs money to get landscaping materials like retaining wall products and mulch. We'll see. In the meantime, I've been looking through catalogues I found online (and one I requested from Burpee's) and have been dreaming of future gardens. I prefer heirlooms over hybrids, and several of the catalogues are full of those.
I do like my present job, but if I could find one in my field (librarianship) which paid more money, that would be great. I made more last year, due to the severance and contract work, than I had before, and I was pretty comfortable. But I've taken a $5/hour hit since October and have really struggled with paying my bills. I still am waiting for my 1099, so I can't file my taxes quite yet. I may wind up paying, although I hope the severance taxes (which was a whopping 41%) will offset no tax withholding for the time I was doing the contract work, as the car repairs back in October took the last of my savings. I'm going to have to have them prepared professionally this year, due to the severance, unemployment, and most importantly the 'self-employed' contract work. Hopefully, I will get a 1099 form soon. I talked to our chief financial officer yesterday and he said they had gone out but some of them were incorrect and they may need to be corrected, so that could be the holdup. But also, since I moved, it may be going through the forwarding process. He did say that he'd drop a line to headquarters about it. In the meantime, I'll give it till the end of the month and hope I get it soon. No sense in panicking until April. Still, I'd like to know if I owe anything. The first tax-related item I got this year was a form to be sent to the Fayette County school system for their share of the taxes. That's why I need an accounting/tax preparing firm, as there are different forms for that contract work, and while they would have them all, I would not.
We do have the prospect of some overtime coming up because we have to 'shuffle' all the appointments out there into new grids, and that should involve some weekend work. But the grids aren't ready yet, and I couldn't have worked this weekend anyway per doctor's orders.
Tomorrow I'm going to do some chores around the house, like laundry, sweeping, and the cat box--things I normally do before the game. But I'll try to make sure I get some rest, too. Monday I have no real plans. I guess I'll just relax. At some point, we have a small grocery run to make, just a few items. Other than that, I'll have some time to rest and recuperate. I'm taking my medicine as I should (I have to for nine more days). I wish I knew what the problem was--I know it's not a UTI, and I don't think he'd have prescribed an antibiotic if it were residual from the flu. It could be a sinus infection, as I have chronic ones, I guess, and I am having some sinus pain. I really was surprised he wanted me home for four days. And I'm a little concerned because I don't have enough PTO to cover last week. If they add the long-term sick time (which only kicks in after three days of personal time off), then I'll be about 3 hours short. Otherwise, it'll be more like 12 hours. That'll make for a small cheque. This Monday is covered because of a new pay period, but then we're off the Monday after that due to President's Day, and that's on the same cheque so I won't have enough to cover that. I get something like four weeks of vacation time a year, so it accrues quickly--but not that quickly. I actually was on track to have a week's worth of time built up before my birthday, but this has wiped out my hours completely. I asked the payroll clerk to just do what she could. I'm not sure I can touch the EIB because of the three-day rule. I worked Monday half a day, and Friday half a day, so I'm not sure how that works. I would think the PTO would kick in Monday, go through half of Thursday, and then the EIB would cover half of Thursday and part of the time I missed on Friday. But I have 21 hours of PTO and I need 24. I don't know if the EIB will kick in if I don't have enough PTO to cover those three days. Sigh.
It's depressing to think about. Oh, well.
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