For those of you who are curious about this laptop I’m (hopefully) getting, here’s a little more detail. It’s a Compaq, and it has:

• A widescreen lcd monitor
• A monster hard drive (I’m thinking 180 GB, but don’t quote me on that)
• A bunch of memory (1280 megs of RAM, I think)
• Windows Vista (not my first choice, but it seems to be handling it well)
• Built-in WiFi

That’s all I can remember right now. But it’s a very nice setup. I suppose I should stop counting my chickens, but it looks like it might actually happen this time. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Hubby and I spent the Fourth with some of his family. One of them refurbishes computers for a living, and we started talking to him about possibly getting him to fix me up a laptop. He showed us a brand new one that he had gotten a good deal on when he bought some parts, and before the night was up Hubby had talked him into letting him make payments on it for me.

I won’t be getting it until it’s paid off, but I’m cautiously excited. Of course anything could happen to cause me to end up not getting it, but maybe this time things will work out. I’ve been needing a laptop for ages. I’ve been searching and searching for the best buy I could find. But nothing has come close to this. I’ve found cheaper computers, but nothing that could handle the work I do quickly and efficiently. He said the computer retails for $750, but I’m getting it for $500. Awesome!

I just hope it all works out this time. Every other time I’ve gotten close to getting one, something has come up that we didn’t have the money to get it. I was thinking about using the dreaded plastic to get one once we paid our balance down to a more comfortable level, but that would be a long time from now. This way, if all goes as planned, I can have it sitting in front of me in a few months.

Hubby and I didn’t have the money to pay the electric bill in time to avoid disconnection. So I had to do something that I promised myself I wouldn’t do: Use the credit card to pay it.

Not a huge deal, but it was truly a last resort. Sure, we could have requested an extension, but then we would have had to pay an extra fee and possibly a deposit. I figured putting it on the credit card and paying at least that much toward the credit card bill this month would be the lesser of the two evils. It’s not like it’s going to be an every month thing, after all. Hubby started his new job this week, and he should be getting in 40 to 50 hours every week there. Maybe we’ll actually have enough money to pay the bills and buy necessities then.

Maybe we’ll be able to get the plastic paid off pretty soon as well. Then we won’t have to worry about using it when we need to. I just hate the thoughts of racking up a lot of debt. I’ve been there and done that, and it wasn’t pretty.

I was just thinking about how I’ve never had a housewarming party, or household shower, or any kind of gathering in which people bought me stuff for my house. I’ve only been to a couple of them, but it sure would be nice to have one. I guess my family doesn’t believe in them. And Hubby’s family doesn’t do showers of any kind that I’m aware of.

The only shower that’s been thrown for me was a baby shower when I was expecting Pumpkin, thrown by my mom and sister. I didn’t even get a wedding shower- no bridal lingerie for me! Not that I would have worn it- I was way too pregnant at the time.

I’m not bitter about not having a housewarming or anything. The economy is horrible right now, and I’d probably feel bad if people were spending money on stuff for me. Still, it would be nice to have some curtains, new dishes, and such. Maybe someday.

I’ve got some beautiful wild pink miniature rose bushes growing all around my house. I’ve been trying to take care of them, but I’m just not a green thumb. I’m surprised that my silk flowers haven’t wilted.

I’ve been pinching off dead blooms and trying to keep them watered. But the last few times I’ve checked them, they just haven’t looked very good. Maybe I need to put some Miracle Grow on them. I don’t suppose it could hurt.

We have some more flowers that I need to plant, but I haven’t gotten around to that either. I hope I can get them into the ground before it’s too late. I’ve just been so busy trying to write (and failing miserably at it) that I haven’t been able to do much else. But if I have my way, we’ll have some pretty flowers around here before too much longer.

One of the things I really liked about this place from the time we first looked at it was the chandelier in the kitchen. It’s not fancy by any means, but it’s pretty. Unfortunately, we have really low ceilings, so Hubby hits his head on it daily.

He has been cussing it every since we moved in. I tried to get him to remove the link between the fixture and the ceiling, but he says that wouldn’t work. I think it would, but I’d rather not do it myself. So it hasn’t been done.

A couple of days ago, I was in the living room and heard a crash. I knew what it was without even having to look. We had taken one of the light bulbs out of the chandelier to put somewhere else, and the globe covering that socket had fallen out when Hubby hit his head on it. Grrr.

So now I guess we’ll be looking at indoor lighting options. I’d love to have another chandelier, but I’m not even going to bother. It would probably get broken too, and even if it didn’t, I’m tired of hearing a bunch of griping about it.

I check my online banking regularly to make sure I’ve got the amount of money I think I have in my account. I rarely write stuff down since I use my debit card much more than I use my checks, but I’m never clueless about how much money I have. Especially not when we’re as low on cash as we are now.

So I checked in over the weekend, and much to my surprise, it was showing a negative amount. It was obvious that some of transactions were pending, because the account balance was positive, but the available amount was negative. I nearly had a panic attack. I went over everything in my head that I had put on the debit card, but according to my calculations, I should have been in the black.

I asked Hubby if he had used the debit card for anything, and he said he hadn’t. I couldn’t call the bank to find out what the deal was since it was on the weekend, and they never know anything about pending transactions anyway. So I worried myself half to death all weekend.

I had Hubby deposit enough money first thing this morning to cover the amount of the overdraft (using money that was supposed to go toward groceries) until we could figure out what was going on. The transactions didn’t post until this evening, and when I found out where they came from, I was livid.

The stupid insurance company went ahead and charged the full amount for my, Hubby’s and Pumpkin’s life insurance, even though I turned down mine and Hubby’s. But that’s not all. Since I didn’t have enough in the bank to cover the amount that they wrongfully charged, they charged a freaking $28 overdraft fee! I am beyond pissed right now.

They’re going to be hearing from me first thing in the morning. If they don’t credit my account for the amount of my and Hubby’s life insurance and the overdraft fee, I’m canceling Pumpkin’s and taking my business elsewhere. And they can forget about me switching our car insurance over, which I had planned to do next month. I’ll leave the homeowners’ policy with them for now since it’s paid in full until next year, but I might even switch that on down the road.

It seems like nothing like this ever happens until we truly can’t afford it. But I’m not taking it lying down. If I don’t get my money back, I’m going to be extremely vocal about my displeasure.

As you’ve read if you are a regular here, Hubby and I applied for some life insurance. We signed up for a policy for Pumpkin too. But money is very tight right now, and the future is uncertain, so we debated heavily on whether or not to keep it all.

We had to let them know about Pumpkin’s first, because hers was approved before ours was. My first thought was to drop hers and keep ours, but the insurance guy talked me into holding onto it. Not so much for the standard reasons people get life insurance, but because it would guarantee that she could get life insurance later on down the road, regardless of any health problems she might develop. I signed for it and deferred our decision on the rest of us until today.

We ultimately decided that we would have to let ours go. As much as we realize that we need it, we just don’t have the money to pay for it right now. Insurance Guy tried to change my mind, giving me some quotes on life insurance rates for lower amounts and all. But we can’t even afford the lowest thing they’ve got right now.

Now if we decide to get it later on, we’ll have to go through the physical and all again. I hate to do that, but if the money’s not there, it’s not there. I’m hoping that Hubby’s new job will offer good life insurance for us both. Then we won’t have to worry about it.

Hubby and I both need to lose some weight. The doctor says it would improve his health, and the doctor doesn’t have to tell me that it would improve mine. Knock on wood, I haven’t developed any serious problems as of yet, but I have very little energy. And I know that if I would start working out and slimming down, it would help.

I really wish I could find some diet pills that work. At least to get a head start on things. I find it very hard to stay motivated, and if my efforts don’t produce results in a reasonable amount of time, I tend to just give up. But I’ve got to at least try. I think if I would start losing weight, Hubby would try for the sake of competition if nothing else. And I’d be happy just to see him get down to a weight that would be more conducive to good health.

Another month, another struggle with juggling the bills. We’ll manage, somehow, but I might end up in an insane asylum in the process.

There is a glimmer of hope, but I’m afraid to get excited about it. Hubby is supposed to be starting a new job next month. He will be getting paid more per hour, and getting a lot more hours. And unless there’s something that we don’t know about it, it should be much easier on him. He’s been having a lot of trouble with his muscles, and the job he’s at now involves a lot of heavy lifting, so I’ll be glad for him to get out of that.

I’m very cautiously optimistic. It seems like every time I think we’re going to get out of a rut, we end up stuck right where we’re at. But if all is as it seems, things should improve. I sure hope so.