It Is Never a Good Time To. . .

Well, pollen rose up and kicked my ass for a while. At the height I sounded like a frog. Fortunately, I managed not to get a sinus infection from it like in the past. So, that is something. Still, it wasn't a good time to have it hit when I was dealing with a gazillion things the last month and a half.

I didn't write sooner about the health stuff because I had to be retested. My labs came back normal so Gaye (nurse practitioner) was skeptical about the accuracy of the December tests saying that my thyroid was off. So, I tested again and it came back high again so, yeah, something wonky. Are we surprised? She now has me on a very low dose for that and also for cholesterol. I gave up fried foods and pizza for Lent (just because) and my cholesterol level actually went UP! I can't win.

I got myself a pair of those new Reeboks. Let me tell ya, they do work the leg muscles. I just have to remember to stretch. Our kitchen looks like a gym because we have everything cleared away so we can use the treadmill and elliptical. Michael has been doing that for about three weeks and lost a couple of pounds. Now that I am out of school and no longer walking on campus, I will start up some kind of routine. All of that should help.

Today is reading day and finals start tomorrow. I have my two summer classes if they make. I really hope so because, well, this summer is going to be tighter than last year. See, two Thursdays ago (the 15th), Michael was laid off from work. The company let him and another guy go. Now, you have to understand that the company isn't that big to begin with but by letting him go, they lost the one tech who knows computers and remembers all the training like it was yesterday. The irony, of course, is that Michael had just done three service calls that day. But that has been rare since the new year started. Printing is very much affected by the economy. The timing sucks because of summer coming up and my not having as much work.

The only good news out of it is that he got a severance package -- one weeks pay for every year there (5). That also means that health insurance is still in effect for a little bit.

The first thing we did on the 16th after turning in his truck and cell phone (both company owned) is get him a new cell. Fortunately, I had kept my LG ENV from when I did my new every two a while back. Wanted it in case something should happen to my phone. So, we were able to get him hooked up with my plan with no fuss. AND we learned that because I work for USC, I get a discount so it all ended up just being $20 extra month. The connection fee is going to be waived, probably because no one had ever mentioned the discount.

Then we went car hunting.

The cracked out thing is that you have to have a job in order to get a car and in order to get a job you have to have some way to get there. We tried Carmax and Michael was not impressed. Neither was I but for the reason that no one approached us. Since all of the cars Michael has ever owned were way less than $2000, he figured that was the way we could go. Yeah, right, not happening when we don't have the ready cash for that. I suggested we go to the Nissan dealership just to look. Michael didn't like dealerships but we went.

Ended up being met by a really nice guy right off the bat. After looking around at a bunch of used cars, DJ had a good feel for what Michael wanted besides "it has wheels and will get me from point A to point B." We left the lot thinking about a few that were there though at the high end of our range when, as luck would have it, three possible cars came in after we left the lot. One was a Camry and the other two were 2007 Versas. We went back on Saturday after my class to see them. Neither Michael or I were enamored of the Camry, basically a smaller tan version of my Maxima. But he really fell for one of the Versas. See, this elderly couple had come in to trade them for just one car because the husband (a minister) is in the early stages of dementia. There was a white one (hers) and a silver one (his). I joked that we could trade mine in and having matching cars. Michael really liked the silver one and loved how it drove. In the end, we managed to get the car at wholesale cost (I had a coupon from the dealership that essentially balanced out the taxes). Our monthly payment is not outrageous and we can always pay more when get things worked out. So Michael has a way to get around AND we have a more fuel efficient vehicle for long hauls (like the one we did this weekend to Charlotte to see his mom).

We were very pleased. Michael came away with a better view of dealerships because they didn't try and screw us over with pricing (I had checked the Kelly price the night before). We are doing an extended warranty on the car (our choice) because with something like this (and 87000 miles on it), you want that extra protection.

This past week, Michael has been trying to figure out what he wants to do now. He's been considering a career change (getting out of printing) but, really, I think it's going to come down to what he can find. There are jobs to be found. I just hope that we can find him one he will like.