Ugh...
This morning was quite the ordeal.
It started out at 4:45, which is about 45 minutes before I'm supposed to gain consciousness. I was laying in bed, pretty much immobilized since Juneau* was laying against my left side, Mike was laying against my right side, and Rusty was laying on my chest. There wasn't a bit of wiggle room, and I tried to get back to sleep flat on my back with my arms straight down at my sides.
After the alarm woke me from my dozing I ran into the bathroom and got dressed. I shivered the entire time because we turned down the heat. Yesterday we got our gas and electric bill, and it was painful. Our electric company has this deal where they estimate your engergy use at the beginning of the year and you pay that estimate in installments so each bill is the same instead of having small bills some months and large bills in other months. At the end of the year you pay the difference if you used more than what they estimated, and you get credited if you use less. Well, the energy company's estimate was low, so we have to pay the difference. That difference is over $400. So the heat has been dialed down and my goosebumps have been popping up.
While I was getting dressed I managed to break my glasses. The screw that holds on the left arm fell out. I abandoned the glasses and blessed the instinct that told me to hang onto my disposable contacts. I put the contacts in, and while I was rummaging around looking for an old pair of glasses I found my eyeglass repair kit. Since I was now running late I grabbed the pieces of my glasses and the kit and dashed out the door.
It was freezing outside. I had to scrape the frost off my car, which made me even later. As I drove I tried to remember how my insurace works with glasses. It covers new glasses or contacts every two years, and the last time I got glasses it was in April 2005. I wondered if I had to wait until April 2007, or if I could get new glasses as soon as the year turned over. I also tried to remember what my deductible was...pretty soon Mike will have to go in to the pulmonologist for some tests and I might have to go see a doctor as well, so medical bills have been looming pretty large in my mind lately.
I thought all my bad luck was over, but then this afternoon something happened that made me realize how petty all that complaining was. I found out that another one of our students died. I think it was suicide. If so, that makes the third suicide and the fourth death this year, and it's only October. Some days it just doesn't pay to get up.
* I'm not sure if I ever really mentioned it, but we wound up keeping Dreamer, and we re-named her Juneau.
It started out at 4:45, which is about 45 minutes before I'm supposed to gain consciousness. I was laying in bed, pretty much immobilized since Juneau* was laying against my left side, Mike was laying against my right side, and Rusty was laying on my chest. There wasn't a bit of wiggle room, and I tried to get back to sleep flat on my back with my arms straight down at my sides.
After the alarm woke me from my dozing I ran into the bathroom and got dressed. I shivered the entire time because we turned down the heat. Yesterday we got our gas and electric bill, and it was painful. Our electric company has this deal where they estimate your engergy use at the beginning of the year and you pay that estimate in installments so each bill is the same instead of having small bills some months and large bills in other months. At the end of the year you pay the difference if you used more than what they estimated, and you get credited if you use less. Well, the energy company's estimate was low, so we have to pay the difference. That difference is over $400. So the heat has been dialed down and my goosebumps have been popping up.
While I was getting dressed I managed to break my glasses. The screw that holds on the left arm fell out. I abandoned the glasses and blessed the instinct that told me to hang onto my disposable contacts. I put the contacts in, and while I was rummaging around looking for an old pair of glasses I found my eyeglass repair kit. Since I was now running late I grabbed the pieces of my glasses and the kit and dashed out the door.
It was freezing outside. I had to scrape the frost off my car, which made me even later. As I drove I tried to remember how my insurace works with glasses. It covers new glasses or contacts every two years, and the last time I got glasses it was in April 2005. I wondered if I had to wait until April 2007, or if I could get new glasses as soon as the year turned over. I also tried to remember what my deductible was...pretty soon Mike will have to go in to the pulmonologist for some tests and I might have to go see a doctor as well, so medical bills have been looming pretty large in my mind lately.
I thought all my bad luck was over, but then this afternoon something happened that made me realize how petty all that complaining was. I found out that another one of our students died. I think it was suicide. If so, that makes the third suicide and the fourth death this year, and it's only October. Some days it just doesn't pay to get up.
* I'm not sure if I ever really mentioned it, but we wound up keeping Dreamer, and we re-named her Juneau.
posted by Danulai at
5:24 PM
.jpg)
3 Comments:
I hope that your week only gets better from here on out!
By
Anonymous, At
7:22 AM
That's how our gas got shut off. They 'underestimated' how much gas we used, and one month the gas bill would shoot up to $800 or more. Which is ridiculous, considering it's an old, drafty house and we were still freezing. We switched over to an electric water heater and now we no longer have a gas bill. We use plug-in electric heaters and kerosene heaters now (not the safest I know). The house is still cold, but at least we don't have $800 gas bills on top of that.
What kind of school do you work for? High school or an alternate-type of school?
By
Anonymous, At
8:54 AM
+2d20 suck.
I'm really sorry.
Look at it this way...the only way it can go is up!
I do the budget billing thing now. I spent a year going month-to-month so I could figure out what my actual usage is. With my house less drafty and leaky than it was, the bills will be roughly the same next year as this year (sealing the house offset the utility increase) and hopefully NiCor won't screw me on the gas bill. I wish ComEd would do the same kind of thing for me....that's the one I could really use some evenening out on. Ouch.
By
dpaton, At
9:26 AM
Post a Comment
<$I18N$LinksToThisPost>:
Create a Link
<< Home