Ch-ch-ch-changes
My lease here in Columbus is almost up. I was going to find another apartment anyway, because with the poor maintenance on this one (when I called them about problems, they did the least work possible to fix them, resulting in unsolved problems) and with neighborhood problems becoming worse, this place has become well-nigh uninhabitable. But my grandmother got sick with pneumonia and has congestive heart failure on top of that and my mother, pretty much her sole caretaker aside from whatever visiting healthcare they get, is becoming overwhelmed. And I was more or less cheated out of a real relationship with my mom as a child, and my daughter needs to be around more people than just me and her father, so we’re moving down there again. How long we’ll be in Louisiana is anyone’s guess but as my little girl’s dad wants to relocate down there to be near us, that gives us one less reason to come back here. I hate to say it, because I love Columbus, but there it is.
In other news, for the first time in almost ten years I’m getting a side of the story with a certain group of people I know that I never got before: an outsider’s perspective. Very interesting. I’ve heard enough to convince me that I don’t care about one of my personal debts which was incurred with that group of people. I cannot put a price tag on how much they’ve hurt me and I could drive them into bankruptcy and still it wouldn’t be enough. So I am merely going to dismiss what I perceived as $3000 worth of debt and leave it at that. And I am going to make plans to hire someone to look for my son in another almost six years. Short of committing Social Security fraud or killing my son, there is nothing his dad’s family is going to be able to do to put off that day. Let’s hope they prepare for it in honorable rather than dishonorable ways for the first time in their miserable lives.
For those of you facing difficult decisions having to do with a child in your life, let me make it easy for you: It’s not about you. The relationship between a child and his birth mother is a primal one, and short of abuse or orphaning there is NO excuse for severing it. Anyone who lets their ego or bad morals get in the way of preserving that relationship is a scumbag, pure and simple, no matter how infertile they are or how much the birth mother’s hurt their feelings or whatever the lame excuse might be. And no, turning the birth mother into a pen pal does not constitute “trying to preserve the mother-child relationship.” Unless you think you would be content with writing letters to your child after someone takes him away from you. Somehow I doubt it.
(I know some adoption rights advocates don’t like the use of the term “birth mother,” but it’s a term a lot of people understand, and some folks like to get into stupid semantics arguments about the definition of “natural,” so there you go. I considered “genetic mother” as a possible term, but what about certain types of surrogate situations? The baby is going to be emotionally attached to the woman who carried her, plain and simple, regardless of genetic origin. Which is why I’m not crazy about surrogate motherhood either, but that’s another topic.)
Too many people let their egos get in the way of doing the right thing. I could have done that. I could have said, “Wait… it would be too hard to turn my husband in for breaking the law. And what about his pay? What about our house? What will the neighbors think when they see him arrested?” Some of us are capable of making the right decisions even when it’s hard. I used to feel guilty about having done that. I don’t anymore. Not when I look at what I could have become. It makes me feel a lot better.
Weigh-in Wednesday, one day late
I actually did this yesterday but neglected to write about it, so here you go:
237 | 226.5 | 140
A certain unwelcome auntie is visiting, so this might be because I’ve been eating like crap, or it might be hormones. Can’t tell.
I picked up the latest Body For LIFE book from the library yesterday. It’s had me thinking…
Various and sundry or, An Update
I apologize profusely that I have not been writing regularly. I’ve been feeling very blocked lately and it’s been something of an effort to even write in my personal blog and I’m not doing very well with that either. This represents me making a conscious effort to put something here today that is more substantive than bragging about my Google ranking or reporting how much I weigh. Hopefully the logjam will be removed soon.
Site design and content issues
I really, really need to work on these. The logo looks amateurish and the pages are outdated and the latter don’t really say what I want them to say at this point, either. I am not sure when I will be able to concentrate on working on this stuff so if the appearance of this blog annoys you, your patience will be greatly appreciated. I haven’t gotten any complaints yet, including links from other blogs saying stuff like “Wow, get a load of how much this blog sucks,” but maybe my readers are just polite.
Health issues
I still have no self-control about what I eat. OK, that’s not entirely true. I have some control, but not enough. Some days I keep my eating fairly low-carb, and others I don’t. It doesn’t help that I feel like I’m being sort of swept along with someone else’s day, like I live only to wait until they get off work and then according to their dictates. Even my grocery shopping hinges entirely on them and I’m kind of sick of it. But this is one of those aggravations I just have to live with for now, and I don’t think it entirely explains why I can’t seem to stay on plan, even a half-assed plan.
Housing issues
Still sort of apartment-hunting, although I feel as blocked about that as I do about blogging. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get a place, which makes it really dumb that I’m not trying hard enough, which guarantees I won’t get a place. However, rumors that landlords are tightening their standards around here are not helping my mood any. Yet one more reason to roll my eyes every time I hear someone complaining because they bought too much house and now they have to rent because the bank foreclosed. You’re taking my potential home, dude–I can’t buy a house at all. Cry me a river.
Money issues
I have at least caught up my cell phone bill and still have $300 in the account of the $400 I got last Wednesday, and most of the $100 decrease was due to catching up the cell phone*. I need to plow through and catch up as much else as I possibly can today, and somehow manage it without spending all my laundry money. Sigh.
I just checked out a whole bunch of library books about starting and running a home-based business. I remarked to my little girl’s dad that I don’t know why anyone buys chintzy e-books off the Internet that tell them maybe one-millionth of what they need to know for a tenth of their rent money when they can just go to the library for free. He reminded me that our library system probably ranks in the top ten of United States public libraries and maybe even in the top five. Still, there’s interlibrary loan. And of course, just because we check out books doesn’t mean we’ll learn from them. It’ll be interesting to see if I find the time to glean anything useful from these books before I have to return them.
Meanwhile I also job-hunt but… yeah. Still hung up about putting my daughter in preschool. I think at this point that if I do it, it’ll be Waldorf because at least they won’t treat her like a miniature computer on legs. And the only reason I’d do it is at least she could be around kids and get a lot of playtime in, and not be hung up on the TV all day. It wouldn’t be because I thought it was her only option for getting an education, like so many parents seem to think. But it’s my absolute last option, and I’ll hold out as long as I can. I’m also hung up about not being employable. It doesn’t really matter at this point whose fault it is; I’d be just as unemployable after four years’ unemployment due to disability as I am after four years opting to stay out after years of job-hopping and impulsive behavior. (I.e., quitting at the drop of a hat because I didn’t like working somewhere.) What matters is whether I’d be able to pick up the slack if something happened to my little girl’s dad. Yes, she’d be entitled to Social Security**, but it wouldn’t kick in immediately and we could be evicted in the meantime.
There’s also the point that I still need to pay off my debt and start working feverishly to ensure that I’m not destitute in retirement. Hello? McFly? *knocks own head*
Relationship issues
Something… interesting is happening. I do not wish to label it for fear that all is not as it seems, but there’s also the point that the last time I was this mistrustful about this particular person, I lost him for thirteen and a half years. So I’m trying to be patient and hang loose and just wait to see what happens. I’m better at this than I was even five years ago, so I suppose there is something to be said for extreme relationship adversity when it forges you and makes you stronger. But I’m still not totally OK with the way things are going. We’ll just have to see how they play out.
I do know that he called a week or two ago and my little girl’s dad was here and didn’t even tell me the phone rang (it was one call out of many, so ultimately it didn’t hurt anything, but still), and my little girl’s dad has said a few other things that make me wonder what his take is on this whole situation. So I may get to deal with ugliness soon. On top of that I had a mean jealous streak about five miles wide in the immediate aftermath of his and my breakup, exacerbated by post-partum depression and worry that he was going to abandon our daughter like he abandoned me. It meant that every time I saw a woman being friendly to him online, I got snarly at him about it. I’m pretty sure I’m going to hear about this any day now, even though the situation is different. (And it really is. That’s the sad part.)
It makes me think there is some wisdom after all to setting up a certain distance between unmarried parents so that each can have their own life. Although if things had gone sanely and smoothly during the pregnancy and after, even if they had still resulted in him and me not being together, I think I would feel a lot better about the traditional visitation routine. But my daughter was too young for that kind of thing anyway. Babies and toddlers need to be with their mothers, assuming no abuse or neglect is going on. They’re not ready to visit with an absent dad for more than a few hours here and there until they’re at least three years old. Still, she’s three now.
And yet I hate it when she’s not here. I feel completely wrong and lost and don’t know what to do with myself. I mean, I do find things to do, like clean house, but the place is empty and I feel empty too. And I’m hardly going to send her off just so I can date or whatever. So it’ll be interesting figuring this out.
OK, I guess I had more to say than I thought. Let’s hope it is not another week before I post again. 
—–
*My cell phone is my primary phone and I have no landline. In fact I had my original landline number ported to my cell phone and completely switched over back in 2006. It would be a better deal to have a bare-bones landline and DSL rather than a cell phone and cable Internet–assuming I didn’t use much long distance. These days, unfortunately, I have to use long distance if I want to talk to anyone besides my little girl’s dad, because most of my loved ones and some of my best friends are not online regularly or don’t write well. So as long as most of my conversations take place on nights and weekends, I think I’m still saving money.
**Oh, but Social Security is just a failed retirement program and we should replace it with the stock market. Whatevs. *eyeroll*
I’m on page one!
I just checked to see where I was in Google search rankings and I’m at the bottom of page one now! I’m so stoked! This is awesome!
Of course that just means I’ll have to hold my own feet to the fire and make this blog something worth looking at, eh? 
Weigh-in Wednesday
237 | 225 | 140
Oh gee, a whole half-pound lost. Yay? But I didn’t stay low-carb the whole time either. Although… come to think of it… that’s actually kind of funny.
I decided to be more strict-Atkins and to use SparkPeople again. It feels obsessive but whatever; at least this way I can perhaps dissuade myself and others from eating out so much!
Being a thirtysomething
I recently joined a Flickr community for thirtysomething-aged women. I found a nifty little message thread there: Things I did after I was thirty that I didn’t do when I was twenty. Something like that. (I’m not reading the page as I write this, and my memory retention isn’t the best lately.)
Reading all those accomplishment lists makes me think of why I started this blog in the first place, and what it is supposed to be about. I am both envious and hopeful, even as I am almost halfway through my thirties now.
Of course I also think “getting a life”, like “personal finance”, must be defined by each individual undergoing it–there is no one overarching set of definitions for what constitutes accomplishment. So it’s interesting to see how other women define it, especially as I haven’t worked out all the angles of what it means in my own life.
Another nifty little source of pocket change
Well, a certain search engine’s ad program has started revving up for me oh so slightly. And I mean slightly, I’m about 1/20th away from them cutting me a check. But considering I need to update this blog more often than I do, and work harder at commenting on other people’s blogs as well (and not just when I’m outraged about something, ha ha), I guess I’m doing pretty well on that as things stand now.
I’ve earned little bits here and there otherwise, but I’m always looking for more sources, just because life would be easier for me if I had more money coming in. Wouldn’t anyone’s?
Someone had a link to InBoxDollars on their blog, so I clicked on it. Easy five bucks just for signing up to read a couple of email ads a day. As far as I can tell, each email read (you have to click on a link to acknowledge) pays two cents. They have the occasional free offer that pays a dollar or more, and they have occasional surveys that pay fifty cents each. They also have several free-trial offers which, if I cancel in the time allotted, are also easy money, but I have to double-check and make sure I would still get paid even if I canceled during the free trial. I also have to make sure it is easy to cancel the trial without someone trying to hook me into staying a customer for longer.
But, if you’re curious and want to try it, here you go:
Bear in mind you have to have a $30 balance before you can request payout, so clicking on the banner without the intent to follow through won’t do you much good. Have fun.
Site updates
I really, really, really need to fix some of the pages I have on this blog. I’ve been needing to do that for a while. What I’ve got right now makes the website look very poorly put together.
I’m also not 100 percent sure I will continue with the present blog layout. I may adopt the one I’m using for my homepage. We’ll see.
So anyway, if you’ve come here and thought, “What in the world…?” when you read my pages, be of good cheer. It’ll all be fixed soonish.
Working with Quicken again
So I’ve played around with Quicken again and am happy to note that I can use their credit card category for any debt, not just a credit card. It’s very flexible that way, and each “credit card account” has a negative balance just like the Liability section in GnuCash. Good, because I’m tired of not being able to split transactions properly–it just messed me up trying to check my work.
I’m not even going to bother bringing my spending up to date in GC. I know I spent more last month than I brought in. That’s very easy to do: all you need is to spend whatever you had in savings brought over from the previous month. And I didn’t have much; there isn’t much difference between my income (just over $900) and my outlay (somewhere around $980), the difference just happens to be a negative number.
But I updated my miniature Wall Chart, which is actually a Binder Chart, with what I do have, because it is close enough. However, this month I intend to be a lot more accurate about it. No more fudging.
OK, let’s fill out NetWorthIQ and then to bed.
Wednesday Weigh-in
237 | 225.5 | 140
Not only am I not following strict Atkins, I’m eating things that would have given him conniptions, like the bun I left on my burger yesterday or the Starbucks drink I got for my daughter (the smallest size) and helped her drink last night. But–and here’s the crazy part–I must be staying within my personal carb allowance limits because I’m still in ketosis.
Nevertheless, both not losing weight and gaining half a pound are kind of bummers for me, so obviously going more by the book is called for now.
I still suspect something’s going on hormonally, mind you, but until a certain monthly visitor shows up to shed (ahem) some light (I wish) on the situation, I won’t know for sure. Of course, if that’s what it is, I’m going to feel very, very silly.
Not that I’m not silly anyway. 
