How .75 cents Made Me Cry.

My plan:

Go home. Do the laundry. Decide on delicious dinner. Greet boyfriend as he walks in the door, make him sit down and relax because he was super stressed out earlier. Present with delicious dinner and silly movie. Cuddle. Relax.

What happened:

Get home. Start laundry. Go back upstairs, snack for a bit, relax, go downstairs to continue laundry, more clothes in hand. When I get down, I find every single washer has been taken, except the two I had used earlier. ..Okay, not a problem, but a bitch for drying. I foresee a problem but shrug and accept it.

I transfer my clothes to the two remaining driers open, start them up, put the rest of my dirty clothes in the now-empty washers, start those up, and head back upstairs.

*inhale*

Relax for a bit, read. Head back downstairs to move now-clean-but-wet clothes to drier. Eeeexcept every drier is taken and running. ...Poo. Again I shrug and note the remaining time on my driers, go back upstairs and wait.

Chris gets home as soon as I head back downstairs. I will note that I still have no idea what I'm making for dinner, nothing is thawed, and I have no brilliant plan. *sigh* Oh well.

We head to the laundry room, hand in hand, so I can finish it up and get it done. He empties one drier, grabs clothes from the second one.

"Uhh.. these are wet."
"...What?"
"They're really wet."
"Well god dammit.. I guess we'll have to run them again."

Annoying, but manageable. I insert the laundry card, select the cycle, hit go, remove card, wait... ...wait... ....waaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiishit.

C: "Derp."
A: *blank stare*
C: "Piece of shit.."
A: *continued blank stare*

...

And then I snap. See, I only had .75 cents left on the little laundry card. Enough for one more load of laundry. ONE. I now have THREE loads of wet clothes that need to be dried.

Except the machine to load the card doesn't accept cash. Plastic only.

Not only is it JUST plastic, but it only allows increments of $10 to be put onto it at a time.

...

My electric, water, and internet bills are doubled because they're past due. I have $20 in my bank account, $13 on my credit card, and a shitload of change in a jar taunting me with it's precise amount of uselessness in this situation. I need to pay for gas, and food, for another two days before I get a smaller-than-usual paycheck, which will be going entirely to past-due bills.

And now I have to put $10 on this little fucking laundry card so I don't have 3 loads of wet clothes growing mildew in my bathtub until I can deposit all those jar-coins into my account at the bank tomorrow like the poor son-of-a-bitch that I am.

I managed to hold myself together while paying to dry the clothes that were supposed to be dry already. Again. Meanwhile my clean-but-wet clothes continue to lurk in their washer-based dens of mildew growing wonder for another hour.

I managed to grab the hamper with the dry clothes in it, storm out, stomp home, throw the bag down in disgust and sit on the bed for a full two minutes before angry bitter ashamed tears started (against my strict orders that they discontinue) while Chris sat next to me apologizing for not having any money of his own to help me do the laundry.

I even managed to completely deny that I was crying for another five full minutes until it got to be too much and I clung to Chris sobbing about how idiotic it was that the money machine didn't take cash and how that would have solved so many problems.

I finished crying, Chris made me giggle against my stubborn I'm-still-sad-so-there mentality.

C: "We'll be okay. We always pull through bad times."
A: *sniff* "Times have been bad?" *weak smile*
C: *blink* "Pffft! No. What bad times. None." *too big smile*
A: *giggle and hug*
C: "What's for dinner?"


***

*blink* Oh crap, I have a blog, don't I. ...huh.

Well. ...This place is dusty. Internet... dusty.

What would count as dust on the internet? God knows. ANYWAY.

Let's pretend I've been a good little girl and have actually been posting on here. So it will totally not be awkward for me to pick up this poor thing and pretend it's not rusty and dusty and disused and start using it.

Shabby chiq is in right now, right?

---

So Chris challenged* me to start cooking more! Our culinary experiences lately have roamed all over the fast food spectrum, and frankly we're both tired of it. He suggested that instead of grocery shopping every week, we go every day. That way, we would eventually build up enough in the fridge and the pantry to have a lazy day and make something from strictly on-hand items.

At first, my old argument of "But I only buy things that are on sale and it's cheaper that way" sprang into mind. ...But then I also remembered exactly how God-awfully expensive fast food is and, in the end, we would probably end up spending around the same amount of money.. if not less by doing it his way.

Before I agreed, I reminded him that in able to do this sort of shopping schedule properly, we would have to create a menu a week or so in advance to prevent too many headaches. He nodded absently. *sigh* I don't think he really understands what goes into planning a menu.

BUT. He's also promised to start helping with dinner, especially on nights when I'm closing (9pm) and coming home dead tired and stinky. It's like he's challenged himself to start cooking and has finally taken what I've told him COUNTLESS times to heart: You have to actually cook to figure out how to cook. You won't learn if you don't screw up a few times.

He made us hamburgers and french fries the other night from scratch... I don't think he really realized all the little steps involved in it. Perhaps he even has a little bit of an idea what I get to do from now on.

I'm very proud of him, but at the same time I have a little 10 year old girl in the back of my head, covered in flour, pointing and laughing full out in his face.

..*cough*

Tonight was Beef Stroganoff, a dish that I have never ever had, cooked, tasted, or even knew what went into it before I looked the recipe up. Chris requested it, so of course I said "Okay!!" totally not knowing what it was.

I was pretty sure pasta went into it at some point.

I surfed AllRecipes for awhile before I found a fairly simple recipe (Butter, beef, onion, sour cream). Of course, I have learned to cruise the comments on AllRecipes, because there's always little helpful tidbits in there. The comment area is actually where I found my recipe for the evening. *laughs*

My simple four ingredient recipe had dry sherry, mushrooms, beef stock, salt, pepper, and paprika heaped on top of it with absolutely no measurements except to only use 8oz of sour cream.

Chris assures me it was wonderful, and while I did enjoy the taste a whole buncha lots, I still have no freaking clue whether I got it right. As it is, I think I got the sauce a little thin.

---

On top of Chris' challenge, I added a little a few of my own on top of it:

-I'm going to try to cook as many of the (hundreds) of recipes in my bookmarks folder as possible. All my favorite blogs will be scoured for recipes, keeping in mind the Chris will be cooking at least once a week.

-I'm going to write about my successes and failures on here (or have a minor tissy on facebook), and if you're really lucky, I'll even post pictures.

-I'm going to clean as I go. ie: Put dishes in the dishwasher after I use them, clean up my pans after I use them... You get it. This one will probably be the hardest, but I'm hoping it will become a habit.

It's a little early for a New Years resolution, and as a rule I normally don't have them... but I think I'll make an exception this year.