Weird isn’t the issue. I usually see that in their profile lol Consistency is the issue! Will they flake? Will they keep making plans? Will they invest? this guy seemed to… but got all confused about what he wanted supposedly

We met IRL not through a site. I thought we were fairly compatible… he just pulled away. I dunno.

No he didn’t ghost but I had to pry for closure. He canceled on me Friday night because he was sick. Texted me happy new year (presumably still home sick but not my business I guess) but then I found out he’d gone out NYE as he mentioned it in our convo when I asked if he wanted to still see me. Then I got the cliché friendship offer. He may sincerely be confused but that’s the same end result. If you’re confused about me, you don’t want me.

So I met this guy. We had a lot in common. I wasn’t like “oh my gosh, he’s hot” but he was ok and grew more on me. A little nerdy. Non smoker (seems so hard to find here). He invested… he texted (not every single day), we got to know each other over a few weeks. He even bought some small stuff for me and my kids at Christmas. Then I was rejected out of the blue. He says he wants to stay friends (they always say that bs. Like even if they mean it how do you go about that? Seems like reliving rejection). Whyyyyyy is everything so hard?! Why lead me on? This is rhetorical. And no it wasn’t about $ex. That never happened. I’m so frustrated. And yes I know it’s probably dumb to care when you’ve barely known each other but I’m so sick of starting from square 1.

Tello says pending port call original carrier. Original carrier said it didn’t work because I was supposed to receive and respond to a text from cspire. Ummm so you mean after I popped my cspire SIM card out they sent a text? Because this sounds like the most inefficient way to do anything. Now I can’t authorize it over the phone. They must send a code to my original number. And the porting office hours end when I get off work so tomorrow I’ll have to pop my cspire sim in, call them and receive the text and read the code over the phone. 😒 I saw some fireworks with a new friend on NYE.

I went out tonight to a goth night. My friend was sick so didn’t come. But if I canceled my outings every time my friends bailed I’d never go anywhere! I didn’t talk to anyone but I did dance to a few songs and the parking nearby was free and no cover to get in. 🙂 I got a carload of stuff after work Thursday night. Slowly getting more and more settled in.

1-5 business days for my phone number to be ported successfully. But I think other iPhone messages still go through normally. However if someone texts my original number I won’t see it. This process should be faster. Who wants to lose their number that many hours. At least the data is working.

Thank you, ladies ds ate some food before he left town but it wasn’t practical to send him the sweet potato casserole so he just ate some and I have a lot left. I shared some with a friend last night at dinner. I’ll bring some cookies to the office today. I sent the kids home with several. Ds ate a few macadamia nut cookies back to back so I think they were well received. I encouraged him to come back another weekend but I know it’s possible I won’t see him again until it’s mandated.

My motto is better late than never. I made the frosting for the sugar cookies today along with the macadamia nut cookies. I started the sweet potato casserole last night and just need to add some stuff and heat up. But none of us are hungry now. We had breakfast and sweets. Finished my wreath last night lol.

The street car was more complicated than I anticipated. If we got on and stayed on til it took us all the way around, it’d be a long ride. You can get off sooner and catch one going the other way but the lady on the phone said it’s probably really busy now and would be best to wait til after the holidays. One purchase method requires you to wait for cards in the mail and I asked if there’s a way to get a digital ticket. She said the ones on the app are digital and I said but they say ID required for youth — what can I show?? She said you’ll be with them and know their ages, it’s no problem. I think the website and app are too vague. Dd really didn’t want to leave the house yesterday and ds took a late nap so I don’t think anyone was devastated lol I actually offered to take them to putt putt golf but dd has no interest. I wrapped all the gifts and dd thought there was a lot under the tree. I said nothing high value and she said she didn’t care. I got the second set of bed risers and ds helped me lift the couch up high enough to set it up. It’s a very tight clearance to slide the wheels past the risers. He said sleeping on top is more comfortable when the trundle is underneath but dd has been using it. Baked off choc chip and mint choc chip cookies yesterday. We have plenty of food here and it’s raining so we may just stay in today. Unless we could find a movie or something. I was able to explore the outside shed finally and it’s a wreck. My duplex neighbors had never been in it. We might work as a team to clean it out so we can use it for storage.

Yesterday we did the zoo trip and ran into more library staff lol I introduced the kids to this super adorable older couple that I briefly worked with. I made the kids eat before we went but dd got hungry and insisted she needed food before we left so we stopped to eat. The original plan was to eat after the zoo. My guy friend insisted on paying. Since we stopped to eat it cut into our exploring time but I told the kids we can always go back (we didn’t see the bobcats or sea lions… some exhibits were closed too like giraffes). When we got to the car dd realized she lost her phone and I said there was really no reason to bring it to begin with so next time we won’t do that. Luckily a visitor had returned it to staff and I got it right away. Ds said he only has 2 pairs of pants that currently fit so I put laundry in the car and we stopped at the laundromat after the zoo. I found my garland last night in Dollar Tree while the washer ran. Today I’ll try to complete my wreath. Dd was ready to go so after I moved everything to the dryer I dropped the kids off then ran back out and bought a few things the kids can’t see. I bought ds a pair of jeans at a nearby store and will put those under the tree. His Orgain protein drinks were accidentally shipped to my dad’s house so I bought a couple single size drinks to wrap up. The store didn’t have the right flavor of Orgain. My dad insinuated he wanted me to drive to him this weekend but I’m not doing it. I am meeting xh halfway on Monday night (he requested I don’t feed the kids dinner so he can do Christmas dinner. I said that was fine). I’m done jumping through hoops for everyone else at the holidays. I will jump through hoops for the kids but the adults need to plan ahead. My other sister sent me some money and said to use on whatever, maybe a trip to the movies with the kids. You can’t tell in the video, but I have my wooden Advent calendar on display and the kids take a candy out each day. We read the Sweet Smell of Christmas the other day (childhood favorite of mine - with scratch and sniff stickers) and dd was intrigued about the orange in the stocking and wanted one. I bought an orange last night lol

I just got off the phone with both Cspire & my new internet provider. Cspire removed the block and gave me info to port my number so if Tello asks for that info it will be ready. Cable internet provider successfully removed the tech service fee (and admitted I never should have been charged) and I asked them if they could adjust the bill for the several days of no service. They brought the bill down $18. And they cleared up the confusion of whether or not their modem requires a rental fee (since I still haven’t found mine in storage). They said my particular plan includes a free modem. Higher plans charge a $14/mo rental fee. So I lucked out.

Kids had a good time at Christmasfest. Ice skating was a bit of a flop but I saw how they were when I took them roller skating in the past so I was semi prepared. A staff member did try to work with dd and encourage her but it was very hard for my kids to move on the ice and they pretty much used the wall to make the circle. I wasn’t great but I could skate without holding the wall. We did the innertube slide down the ice. They had 3 rows so we all went down simultaneously. I saw a ride that looked super mellow. We got on and then realized it did much more. Dd gets motion sickness so I felt bad. She loved it!! So I felt like that was a big win. We never found Mrs Claus’ Sweets. None of the staff could help and it wasn’t on the map, just in the directory. We did find a place that had sundaes — dd really wanted dippin dots but that vendor had closed. She enjoyed her dessert and I told her I can find Dippin’ Dots another day. I loved getting roasted nuts in the mall years ago so I made sure we went to the vendor that had those. The parking situation was ridiculous. I had the impression from the website that parking was free but it was not. My sis paid for our entry fee. I got another blessing from a hive member last night which helped a lot as I spent a small fortune on dinner & parking. So thank you. You guys have helped me more than you’ll know. Today is zoo day. A colleague/friend is joining us. I started making cookies but ran out of vanilla extract so I got some yesterday on my lunch break — the store on the “bad side” of town feels perfectly safe and nice during the day. Sat the plan is street car/park/beignets. Sunday is supposed to have rain and we’ll probably just stay home.

Got an error message when I tried to activate the Tello sim card. I guess I'll call Cspire tomorrow. "Here’s a quick list of some of the most common SIM Card errors you may run into: "sim not supported" "network lock," "network unlock pin," "unsupported sim" "SIM Lock" "SIM Invalid" "Network Lock" "SIM Not Supported" If you receive any of these error messages, your previous carrier may have enabled a lock or restriction to your phone and you will have to reach out to them to remove this lock."

I have limited time but I wanted a few more things for dd to open so I did pick up a few small items on my break I’ll wrap (sketch pad, stickers, bracket kit, Roblox gift card and the Wendy’s keychain good for free frosties in 2024). Ds’ expensive protein drinks arrive in the mail tomorrow. I’ll give him some and put the rest under the tree lol Tomorrow is my last working day before the holiday. I started to make a wreath days ago but ran out of garland and apparently dollar tree no longer sells the strands of it! I’ve been to a few locations. That project might just not get completed! oh well.

I told the kids one night we were doing the lights in the park thing and ds wanted to go last night after I picked them up so we did that. It was pretty cool. You can park and walk too but dd had refused to wear pants so when I picked her up she was in shorts. We just did the drive thru tour. I plan to take them to this (most of this is being paid for by my sis as her Christmas gift to them): nolachristmasfest.com And we’ll also be eating out and visiting the zoo this week. First thing ds said to me when he got in my car was, “sorry I didn’t come last weekend. I helped move. I didn’t know we were moving that fast.” I told him I wasn’t mad, had only been disappointed because I was planning to see him but it was fine. We’ll try to fit the streetcar ride in this week, too. Some colleagues gave me ideas on what stops I could park at (free) and catch it.

Here’s my new living room — semi chaotic as I still unpack. Sunday I convinced my dad to help me get my small couch on my car roof so I could get it here without having a trailer to return. It worked!! And I had a new friend help me bring it in the house. Even with the risers I barely got the trundle closed. But it works as a couch/bed I think. I am running out of time to shop. Don’t know what else to put under the tree. Told the kids there won’t be much tangible stuff… we will mostly go out and do things. Plus I have no space for toys. Santa got something for dd here. Both kids will get stockings. I’m gonna bake macadamia nut cookies especially for ds. Had most of the supplies already.

I don’t think the withholdings are necessarily too high. I went through all the things and I think it sounds normal? But I need to be very mindful on monthly spending. Also my cc was asking me to make a min payment that’s higher than the one I budgeted. Probably will not require that once I get the balance down more. I don’t think I can budget to live on the 24 vs 26 paychecks.

I called my dad to get his feedback and he pointed out to me I was adding up 2 weeks of pay (14 days) so that only accounts for 28 days/month not 30-31 days. After figuring out what I make per day I was able to tack on 2-3 more days of pay and the monthly take home pay is better. Ins hasn’t started yet so I left that in expenses as a separate fee. I’m still in the negative some months so I’ll probably need to adjust the categories that have leeway. Side note - a colleague with the same brand car (different model but also an old vehicle) did successfully have her transmission replaced so told me not to outrule that as a possibility for my car. She told me where she went.

Snap sent me a letter in Nov saying I’ll lose those benefits in Dec but can reapply. Apparently it cuts off each calendar year. I won’t qualify though based on my gross income. Something doesn’t add up right to me. Appears my net is like 28% less than gross per month. That may be right, though. Landlord was here with cable tech so I could get permission on running thing through the house a certain way and he told me he will have to remove the door jam just to get the washer/dryer out!! And a repairman probably can’t even assess it. He estimates it’s not worth repairing after parts & labor.

I’m looking at my first check. It appears to be a full pay period (bi weekly). And it’s lower than I budgeted. Even if I adjust the cell phone bill rate (down to $25 for Tello) and remove the car note (which I allotted like $350) I’m in the negative. I can bring the grocery budget down and possibly fuel because I made those categories kinda forgiving. Hmm

I suspect most modern ones close just fine. The ones at the laundry mat that lock (not stackable) have a giant handle you turn to lock them. Mine is just a terrible design imo. The guy from work was unable to get in touch with the repairman so far. The internet person should be coming this morning. It says if it’s something on my end I’ll owe a $75 fee. I don’t think I did anything wrong.

Just got a text from xh with his new address. I asked dd when they moved and she said, “you know about that?” I know he is always making them keep secrets 🙄 They are still in the process of moving in and he’s now a homeowner I guess. It’s not far from the previous home. Just funny to me I get a “here’s our new address text” every Dec now.

Ds didn’t come but I saw him at the drop off. He took his last exam today and wants to spend his days off “with his family” according to him. Dd describes ds’ description of his last visit with me to paint me in a negative light (my interaction with an arcade employee when the machine didn’t work). I promise, that boy will twist anything. So then it fuels xh’s narrative that I’m a difficult, mean person or whatever. Ds is one of the most two-faced people I have ever met. I’m not mad. He’s influenced and has his own perspective. Everyone is entitled to that I guess. But it’s disheartening.

I get the kids tonight so last night I went to a laundromat. I liked the laundromat better than the other location but they required a laundry card and min loading fee was $20 🙄 I washed the sheets and tried to put up the twin I inside the trundle. It would not close!! The mattress is too thick. So plan B - I ordered some furniture risers. They are wooden (I’ve had plastic before and after time they can’t handle the weight). That should solve that issue. I got short ones. I don’t want the couch way up high. It’s already tall. I’m going to see that the repairman says before looking for a new set. the door literally will not stay closed unless the lock is engaged and it is very difficult for the lock engage. I lean my full weight on it and it still won’t lock so I don’t think a prop will help much.