Note: For those of you reading through a feed reader, I have a new design that nice and fresh and clean with updated content.  And I did a massive update to my Delicious links, which comes through the feedreader as well, so yea, sorry about that!  I also preemptively thank you for reading this because it’s a long post! *grins*

Today has been one of those crappy, cold and rainy days here in the Lowcountry.  In Yankee times, I would have hoped for snow and truthfully, with as cold and bitter as it has been the past few days, I wouldn’t have been surprised.  No lie, we were downtown last night and there was a fountain in the garden of a hotel that was FROZEN! It was a sight to see.  Regardless, this is South Carolina and snow is pretty much non-existent so we just have to be accepting of gray skies, crisp air and puddles and puddles of rain.

But dreary, rainy days give me the perfect excuse to do absolutely nothing but surf the Internet, watch TV and wear my pajamas all day.  Steve hates this! He tries to act like he is all good with having a relaxing weekend where we have no obligations, no errands and spend nothing but after a few hours of doing nothing, he is as antsy as a five year old.  Whereas I, on the other hand, relish days where I can veg out and do nothing and not feel guilty about what needs to be done and hasn’t or what rooms I could be cleaning.  Sometimes I feel bad about him being bored – like maybe we should use the free time to go out as a couple and enjoy something and just get to know each other again.  Or something like that.  Other times, when he whines that he’s bored, I want to whack him in the face with his XBox controller, just to get the point across that he’s a grown man with hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars of fancy toys and tools and he STILL can’t find something to entertain himself.

Meanwhile, I never have enough time to fit in all the things that entertain me.

The greatest accomplishment for me in the past few weeks have been achieving a balance of some sort.  After all the chaos of the holidays and my sickness, things just started to settle once the New Year rolled in and I was finally able to feel like life had started back up and that it was a bit more organized and on track than I had felt in a long time.  I don’t know if I really was doing something differently or if I just wasn’t caring so much about the little things.  Regardless, it’s a nice change from the normal chaos and upset that generally clouded my everyday mood and being.

Work, as always, is crazy and mind-numbing and lately, I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s always going to be like that.  Because of the field I work in, we are always going to be implementing something new, we are never going to have an install or new programs go smoothly and I am always going to spend my days answering stupid questions and reiterating points that I KNOW I had made three or four months before.  Lately, I’ve even gotten caught up with work tasks, completing things many days ahead as opposed to a few hours before they were required to be done (I have been, and always will be, a gold medal procrastinator – comes with the territory of being lazy, I guess).  I’m still overwhelmed and overburdened but I am busy and am getting things accomplished.  There has also been flutters in my brain of whether or not I should start looking for a new job or maybe even *gasp* a new career because I am fed up with the whole tech support part of my job but that is a whole lot of change and decisions that I just don’t know if I am ready for yet.

I have always been a creature of habit, particularly when that habit supports my family and when the economy is in such a shit hole that I don’t know if I’d be able to find another comparable habit.

Speaking of the economy, or rather, my own personal economy.  I just filed my taxes and damn!  This is the first year I was able to claim the mortgage interest from the house and well, everyone said the first year was going to surprise me and they were right!  It really, really helped and it’s one of the only tax benefits that I’m able to take advantage of as a single person with a decent income, no dependents, no investments and no other write-offs.  So with my refund, I’ll be paying off our furniture and paying down some debts in order to prepare for paying off my car in the summer and another loan left over from college so that I can get a new car (the Hyundai is going downhill and I’m ready for a change – my vehicle is the one thing I’m ok with changing!).  I’m thinking maybe I could sell our couches too and get some nice leather ones – the ones we have are adequated microfiber ones with recliners but we were too hasty in the decision and are not overly satisfied with their quality and workmanship.

So many things I want to do, so little time and money.

We have been enjoying a rather active social life these days and that is one of the things that has made me really happy.  For the longest time, it really felt like we were never going to have a group of friends down here that we could go out with and have fun, like we did when we lived up North.  But that has changed.  I get along really well with a coworker of mine (let’s call him R) and we just started hanging out with him and his girlfriend (call her M) as a couple and sort of becoming integrated into his group and they are fabulous people.  We have spent the past few weekends actually going out to dinner, seeing shows and just having small get togethers and enjoying the company of friends.

New Year’s Eve was a small party at a friends new house.  I didn’t have to host it, so that made me happy.  And I was completely sober so that made it all the more memorable as I watched everyone else play beer pong, do keg stands and pass out.  R’s girlfriend doesn’t drink so I had someone to commiserate and chat with and overall, it was a very nice night.  The next morning, we did our recap, a la The Hills, at the Golden Corral! We were originally going to do Denny’s but R remembered that the good ol’ GC was opening that day so we all jumped into our cars and skidded into the parking lot on two wheels.  I don’t know if I can begin to tell you how excited we all were – we knew they had been building it and were anticipating it’s opening because, unlike other buffets (huh, who knew they were owned by the same company), the GC actually has fairly decent food and we’ve never had a bad experience when we’ve been to one.  Plus, on Saturdays, they have the grill going and you can pretty much have all you can eat sirloin steak, and it’s good quality steak (that’s toally what we did last night, btw).  Judging from the fact that it’s been nothing but packed since it’s open, I’d say we weren’t the only ones feeling the same way.  No lie, the line was out the building last night!  So check it out if you’re in the Lowcountry area because for $10.50 or so, it’s totally worth it, if you’re willing to wait, that is!

That Saturday, we all met for dinner at a Thai/fusion restaurant downtown called Fused (formerly Little Thai Too) for M’s birthday celebration.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how the food was because I was suffering from a major sinus headache/migraine that was making me thoroughly sick to my stomach.  The strong smell from the food didn’t help either and I ended up getting sick in the bathroom twice (just a drawback to being prone to migraines, I guess, except now I can’t take medicine to get rid of them).  Steve said his was good though a tad on the spicy side.  Then again, he thinks pepper is spicy so go figure.  But overall, it was nice to be out and about downtown, particularly since downtown Charleston has a much better vibe than downtown Philadelphia.  Later, we went back to R & M’s place, where my headache started to subside and I was able to enjoy watching a bit of SNL and playing some board games.

The following weekend we had some things on the schedule again.  I was jonesing for some Hibachi so we met R&M at Yokosos and enjoyed the show then chowed down on some hibachi.  I almost cleaned my plate because I love their rice and steak and chicken.  Steve and I have tried to recreate it at home and while Steve has come close (I am awful at it – talk about overload on the soy sauce – like eating a salt lick!), it’s no cigar.  The next night we stayed in and went back to our hibernating ways – eating treats, watching movies and going to bed at 11:30pm on a Saturday night.  But in my defense, I had spent all day cleaning (I love when Steve has to work on Saturdays because it gives me time to do a nice clean sweep of the house) and didn’t feel like going anywhere.  Plus, we were meeting on Sunday night at Manny’s in West Ashley to do team trivia.  That was a new experience for us as well and it was fun.  Just some drinks (bottomless sweet tea! lol), some good food and some friendly competition.

We were going to jam pack this weekend as well, with plans to see My Bloody Valentine and have all you can eat pancakes on Friday night (movie was my idea, pancakes were Steve’s – dude poked me awake on Thursday night to let me know IHOP was doing all you can eat pancakes) then to dinner at the GC and the comedy festival last night.  We ended up canceling Friday night’s plans in the interest of our finances but we headed out last night with R & M to the GC and then downtown to see the finale of the Charleston Comedy Festival.

I think we made a great decision going to see the finale.  We were originally going to pick two of the acts and see their full shows.  We hashed it out though and decided at $4 cheaper ($20) for the finale over $12.50 a ticket for two shows, it would work out perfectly because it was cheaper and we’d get to a smattering of everyone.  And damn, it was hysterical!!  The comedy festival is sponsored by Theatre 99, the same place we went to see the Have Nots perform back in September, and it is basically a gathering of different comedy acts from across the country.  The finale went for a full two and a half hours and I’m not kidding you, I was laughing pretty much the whole way through – like tears in my eyes laughing.  The lineup can be seen here (towards the bottom) and to be truthfully honest, there was not a dead moment in the show.  They almost lost me with the Roseville Here Kitty, Kitty skit but I think had I seen it in the context of their larger show, it would have been much better.  But standouts were J. Reid and Jon Steinberg’s stand-up, I Eat Pandas and FUCT.  I’m going to have to see their full shows next year if they come back.  We didn’t get home until 2am and it was well worth a night out.  Definitely wished we had more time to plan to see more acts.  Ah well, there’s always next year.

Beyond the comedy festival, we did absolutely nothing.  I had made a point to clean the house and keep it clean so that I wouldn’t feel obligated to do it when we were home.  Unfortunately, I don’t seem to know what to do with myself when I don’t have to clean the house or maintain it.  The whole feeling of being organized and balanced is kind of throwing me off because I now have to learn to enjoy myself without worrying about whether there is something I should be doing.

But literally, our days this weekend consisted of getting up and surfing the net for awhile while sitting in front of the TV.  At some point yesterday, I put some real pants on, instead of the pajama pants I rocked all day today.  I lit a fire and snacked on some Public banana pudding.  Watched some of the Tivoed shows that have been piling up.  Watched the Eagles blow their Superbowl chances out of the water (yea, you guys suck! Why oh why do you always have to choke!!!).  Spent some time with Sammy, who has turned into a lapdog and can’t seem to just let me sit and chill without being all up on me, adding fifteen extra pounds to my lap.  It’s sweet, it really is because he wasn’t like that before, but damn dog, let me get up occasionally.

I am still maintaining my sickness.  It’s still a pain to have to watch what I eat (no garlic!) and not to be able to take any OTC medicines for anything.  Come to find out today, I can’t even take pepto-bismol because it has aspirin in it.  WTF?!  So Steve adding some baking soda to some water and had me sip it.  It was so gross, I almost threw up right there but settled with gagging violently.  It did, however, work!  I had a follow up appointment last Friday and the doctor just explained things I already knew – levels had to be regulated, watch what I ate, take only the blood thinner, keep the leg elevated and get up and move around.  I’m on about 8mg a day and don’t have to go back to get my blood drawn until Tuesday (last time was last Tuesday so I’m on a week long basis now).  My leg is still swollen a bit and it tingles and hurts sometimes. My feet are cold, cold, cold all the time though and that makes me feel like I’m freezing all of the time.  I just have to deal with that part though.  But once they get the levels regulated and the clot has dispersed and I’m off the medicine, they want me to visit a hematologist to be tested for anything genetic that might warrant me being on the medicine for longer than six months.  That could very well happen since my grandpa had clots when he was in his early 30s so we shall see.  It’s all one day a time but I’m maintaining.

Other than that (I say that like it’s been a short post), I’m just living, still trying to maintain that balance and worry less about stuff that needs to get done and stuff I want to do.  I’ve been trying to just relax and have fun, taking full advantage of my Netflix queue (there are some good movies out right now), re-reading the Twilight series (which I don’t hate as much this time around), anticipating some new books coming out and some that I need to start reading! I’m off tomorrow for MLK Jr. day (the joys of working for a place regulated by the FED) and I plan on doing the same thing I did this weekend – surfing the net, catching up on Tivo, picking up the house and cooking dinner, probably in the form of the pizza delivery guy.  I have no qualms about just being lazy!

Other than that, I’m just looking forward to catching up at work and the upcoming Spring and Summer, which I’m going to make a point to enjoy this year and not run myself ragged.  On Tuesday, we get a new President, and I’m really excited about that.  And we are planning a trip to Charlotte in April to see Pinks! All Out at Lowe’s Motor Speedway and celebrate my birthday.  We plan on going to the new Ikea as well and maybe having dinner with some of my family.  Anybody got any other ideas as to what we can do in Charlotte, as I’ve never been?  It would be appreciated!

So for those of you who read this far, congrats and thank you!  I’m just happy to have to so much stuff to write about this time.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, no matter what you did!