New Ventures and Difficulties with Stupidity

I've wanted to post and had the bullet points all lined up of what I wanted to talk about for weeks now.  Let's try and belt this thing out.  Sorry this is so text intensive with so few pix!  I'll add color for subject headers.  :P

My new job is going well.  The first couple weeks were pretty frustrating trying to figure out how to effectively do my job with little guidance and with too few desks/computers/phones.  They hired too many to fit into the allotted space and didn't rearrange til we 3 new case managers were 2 weeks in.  Now I have a desk that's mine.  I feel pretty grown up.  Unfortunately, the part time case manager still has no working computer so I still bounce out to let her use mine sometimes.

I only have 1 PSR client so I haven't really been able to get my feet much more than dabbed in that avenue, but I'm fully immersed with a full caseload in SUD case management and loving it.  I have received praise from bosses on my success at catching on and being a "natural."  I think I may have actually found my niche!

Jed quit his job!  This was a long time coming and since I'm working full time now he finally has the opportunity to focus solely on school instead of trying to split his time between full time work and full time school.  His schedule this semester was this: class from 745-9am or 8-1115am, walk to work and then work til 6pm or usually later, come home and try to study/do homework but be too exhausted to focus, try to spend time with his needy wife, go to bed, get up and do it again.  He wasn't able to excel like I know he can because he was exhausted and frustrated from work and now that he's into his major courses, he can't really afford to just scrape by.  So a full time student only he shall be until he graduates!  He also took over the cooking and cleaning which I am so grateful for; he cooks so much better than me anyway!  He also got on the Diablo 3 Beta team so he gets to enjoy playing that with his newly acquired free time.  ^^

I, on the other hand, am choosing to do exactly what we got Jed out of, lol!  I'm applying for grad school that will start in August if I get in slash decide that that's what I want to do.  I'm pretty scared since it's pretty intense and pretty pricey, but I know I'm going to get my graduate degree at some point and my not having it is just holding me back now, so sooner is better anyway.

We are gearing up to move apartments at the end of the semester.  We are crossing our fingers for a certain 2-bedroom for $650 nice new complex with washer/dryer/independent water heater/dish washer in town but we are waiting for word on openings for April.  We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket, but it's really a pretty nice place and everything else is either too dumpy or too expensive.  We've also picked out the furniture we want from Ikea when we move so we can budget for the spendage.  I cannot tell you how excited I am to have a sofa that's comfortable (our current one is the pits).

So my student loans are now requiring payments.  So I planned to pay about 2.5x the minimum this month just because I can and I wanted to get 'em toast asap, but then decided to just pay 1.5x the minimum instead.  So I canceled my original scheduled payment and plugged in the second.  But then when the payment day came I checked my bank account and they had taken both payments!!  So I ended up paying 4x and won't have to make a payment til June or so, but that kinda hits hard right now!  ><

To makes things even more complicated financially, I managed to break our Envoy.  Soooo what happened was I needed to jump the battery at like 7pm (read: super dark) after work in Idaho Falls.  So I get a coworker with cables to jump it and a doctor from an adjoining suite comes out to help as well.  So there's this plastic covered box with a bar across it that looks the right size to be a battery, but I can't figure out how we're supposed to get into it..  Then I see another plastic covered box with a battery symbol (rectangle with a lightening bolt with 2 little rectangles sitting on top - battery, right?) and assume that that must be the battery, judging by its symbol.  So I uncover it and see negative and positive terminals that look a little funny, but still clamp-able.  The other 2 adults agree so we shock those.  Nothing from the engine.  Okay, so we look around some more and somehow eventually (in the dark and with no flashlight) find that the originally scrutinized box has terminals on the side of the box facing the body of the car.  So we go ahead and jump those and the car starts, yay.

click to see a bigger picture of what i'm talking about

I thank everyone and get in my car and notice that the dash lights and taillights are out.  Headlights and break lights work though.  Must have blown a fuse.  Then I notice the automatic windows, radio, heater, and car seat are all stuck in whatever position they were in when I jumped it.  So I call Jed and Daniel and Maddy were already at our apartment (excellent story on Maddy's blog), so they all come down and try and replace fuses but oddly nothing is blown.  Whatever, so we go back (after a dive-of-a-Mexican-restaurant stop) and then have Daniel jump my Neon so I can drive it the next day.  No go.  He comes back the next morning and takes me to get a new battery (only $50, score!) and then replaces the thing for me.  So now we have one working car at least.  I wait for Jed to get out of class and then we drive down together.  Jed drives the Envoy (cramped in the seat and melting from the heaters) back to Rexburg and drops it off at the shop.

Diagnosis?  I jumped the alternator and fried the main computer.  Luckily, with a replaced vacuum line as well, it only cost $368.  But that's still a lot to pay for stupidity.  :S

Additionally, my monitor broke.  Just died.  Luckily Jed had an extra from his last build.  Cute little 17" square.  But he'll do for now.

Oh yea, and I got my diploma.  Woot.

ooooooo aaaahhhh