It has been a tough couple of weeks for me, mainly because I haven’t had a beer in over two weeks (16 days to be exact – not that I’m counting). Last week was especially difficult because the little grocery store in the village had my brand on sale for $12.99 a 12-pack, which is a very good price. It was depressing to pass that up. In fact, this whole experience has been extremely depressing – not quite as bad as when your dog dies, but pretty close. I’d like to say that I’m doing this for health reasons (which for most people would probably be the prime motivator), but, frankly, it’s financial. I had a look at last years expenses vs. income, and my 2014 cashflow was most decidedly negative. A lot of that was automobile related – between the efforts to fix my aging Hyundai (I really regret fixing that exhaust leak) and then putting a fairly substantial down payment on my new car, I was in the hole. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of areas where I can trim expenses. I’ve already scaled back my Satellite TV to (almost) as far as I can go, in anticipation of dropping it altogether when my 24-month commitment is up in November. Of course, you’ve gotta spend money to save money (or something like that), so I’ve invested some of those monthly savings into a few one-time expenses (basically, an OTA antenna, network DLNA tuner, a much needed upgrade to my router and network infrastructure – switches and cables – and I’ve built a couple of little media computers based on the Raspberry Pi – which if you’re not familiar with is a little thing that fits in the palm of your hand and sells for $30-35 plus $10-20 for a case). <\/p>\n
Other than that, though, there’s not much else I can do. I can’t exactly stop paying the mortgage or the property taxes (or the car payments, gas, and insurance), and I have to keep feeding the dogs (they’re pretty much the only friends I have). I’m also kind of partial to heat and hot water (not that it’s exactly toasty around here most of the time). Basically, the only thing left to cut back on is beer, which has been very depressing for me, though I think I’m starting to get over it. In fact, yesterday, I packed away all the beer mugs I’ve been keeping in my freezer, and converted my office refrigerator into a food refrigerator (I took out the six-pack that’s been sitting idle in there, put the shelf back in, and filled it up with food).<\/p>\n
Back when I quit smoking (not that I’m saying I’ve quit drinking – I know myself better than that), it was actually easier because I had, shall we say, other things to smoke to fill the empty spaces. Now, I don’t have that to fall back on (if anybody in Colorado or Washington State wants to send me a care package, let me know), so I’ve had no idea what the fuck to do with myself after work, and I feel as though there’s nothing to look forward to. <\/p>\n
End of the work day? Big deal, go home and not drink beer. Friday? A whole weekend without beer. Whoopdie-freakin’-doo. It’s not so much missing being a little wasted (though there is that, I cannot lie), it’s not knowing what the fuck to do with myself. Hopefully in time I’ll direct that into doing something productive. <\/p>\n
On the bright side, while the nights kinda suck, the mornings are a lot less painful. I don’t really sleep, but then I never really slept before. Curiously, I still have to get up to take a leak just as often I used to, so what’s up with that?<\/p>\n
Fortunately, we’ve had enough snow the past few days to keep me busy, and it looks as though there’s more to come. They say a storm will settle in here late tonight dropping an inch an hour at its peak and continue through Monday morning – the absolute worst time for anybody who has to go to work. The plows really can’t keep up with that (hopefully the ones we sent downstate are back now). They’re talking about 10 inches or so in Syracuse, which generally means a lot more than that out here in God’s country. <\/p>\n
I only hope that it’s either not as bad as they seem to be saying it’ll be, or that it’s so bad that nobody will expect me to go anywhere. Either way, I reckon I’ll be out on the tractor tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n
I guess there’s a football game going on later today between the Seattle Seahawks, and the cheating Bastards from Boston. Not that I think the cheating part actually won the game for them, but, hey. It’s kinda like the steroid\/HGH thing. I don’t actually give a shit if they do it, but if it’s against the rules, it’s cheating (I think that’s actually the definition of cheating), whether “everybody” does it or not. Try telling the IRS that “everybody” cheats on their taxes and see how far that gets you.<\/p>\n
Speaking of taxes, I guess I should go and finish mine. I’m actually done, but I’m always afraid to pull the trigger on filing, lest I’ve made a mistake. <\/p>\n
Oh well, if not taxes, I guess I should at least do some laundry, just in case we don’t get snowed in tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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