Treading Water?

Ever feel like your not getting anywhere financially? Ever feel like you work for nothing? Let me tell you about my weekend.

Saturday night I made $131, which is a bit low, but I'll take it.
The babysitter (Debi who I work with watched them) cost me $25.
Spent $20 bringing the staff doughnuts and berries when I picked up the kids (she brought them to the restaurant so I didn't have to go all the way to her house.)
$20 went to the offering plate.
$53 for the kids a new Wii game (Doug gets some credit for helping the kids convince me this morning that they needed it and that it was an active game.)
$57 ticket for expired plates (apparently the renewal went to Tracy, but I should have noticed anyway, dang it.)
That means right now, I am at $-44 for the day and still need gas.

I am thankful that I have a job that gives me a bit of financial freedom. There have been times in my life where a day like today would have destroyed me. Today it is merely a setback. I will probably make enough to pay the ticket and get new plates tomorrow and then can move on to the other bills with the rest of the week.

Mice, again

Two mice issues.
One dead, one living.

We happily housed Speedy and Aisha for quite some time and then Aisha passed to the next realm, as mice, and all things do. After a couple of weeks, we decided to replace her with a new tenant, Azul (apparently her favorite color was blue.) Speedy became very territorial and mercilessly attacked poor little Azul. We started by interrupting them each time Speedy attacked, then moved Azul to her own box for a night and tried again. More attacks ensued, so Speedy got her night in the new box and Azul got a night in the cage. Tried again and the attacks became less frequent, so we decided to just let them fight it out. Well, two days later Azul joined Aisha at the giant cheese wheel.

That same day, a short time after tossing Azul outside, I see a brown mouse, that I did not pay money for, scurrying across my kitchen floor. So now my dilemma is that I like living mice, just not outside of my cage. I don't want to kill this new addition, but I prefer her to not be in my home running free. Off to the hardware store I go to get live traps. An hour or so after placing them, I catch her. Yea! I decide to put her in Azul's box. Turns out, wild mice are WAY faster than tame mice. She jumped out of the trap the second I opened it and out of the box before I could slam the lid on. A couple hours later, I caught her again. Yea! Take two ends much the same way, I am much more careful and put the lid on as fast as humanly possible - mousely possibly is apparently quite a bit faster. So I re-set the traps and go to bed. About 6:00 am I hear rustling in the trap. This time, I have gotten a bit smarter, and put the unopened trap in the box and take it to the back porch before opening it. I manage to get the mouse out of the trap and the lid on with no mishap. I tell the kids about the cute little mouse I found and as soon as we get to the house, they go to look. They find an empty box. I don't know how, but that little mouse is quite an escape artist! The good news is that she escaped outside and I have not seen her since (I did re-set the traps just in case.)

Realizations

I have been thinking lately about how my mind works. Let me start by saying that my mind is a frightening and confusing place, much like a labyrinth built by drunken clowns. So generally, I prefer to sail on blissfully oblivious about how I manage to get through each day relatively unscathed. So why have I been thinking about it? Well, two things happened.

One, I went to the FoMM retreat (which was amazing!) and took part in Molly Remer's session on Birth Art. I have had moments of artistic capability that I am proud of, but I can not harness that creativity at will. I only create art that I would show to anyone else when I am depressed. Unfortunately/fortunately I have been quite stable for several years and have not been able to create anything worthwhile. Molly guided us in decorating a birth goddess that should have been wonderfully stimulating, particularly considering the fantastically rejuvenating environment. It was disappointing for me though as I couldn't get a feel for how my goddess should look. So I have this feeling of duality where I want to be creative, but not at the cost of my stable mental health.

The other thing was much different. I was at work and quite busy. I needed about five things from the cooler and liquor room. I knew exactly what I needed, but when Doug asked for my list, I went blank (annoying him terribly) and couldn't tell him. It bothered me a little after work when I had time to think about why. It turns out that, as far as I can tell, I think in pictures, not words. I had in my mind what supplies I needed to pick up, but hadn't bothered to put words to the pictures. This explains why when I need something, I usually hold up the empty bottle instead of asking for it by name, I subconsciously assume that everyone thinks my way. There are benefits to this style; it makes me a great editor, for instance. When I open a page of a book or website, typos jump off the page at me before I even start to read because they don't look like any picture of a word I have ever seen. Also, when I am transferring new contacts to the FoMM database I frequently type without really reading the words, my fingers just type how the words look and know if they are wrong without ever having to know what they say. This comes in handy too when playing the shower game or taking parts of IQ tests where it is necessary to memorize objects and then recall them as long as I just look at the items and don't try to put words to them.

So, what does this all mean? Not a thing really, but it is interesting sometimes to get to know myself better.