$1 = $1

That is all.

I am sick.
Damn it.

I hate being sick in general. I really hate being sick when I have lots to do. I have to get ready for The Clothing Show next weekend.

Working 10 days in a row, including a 12 hour day and always getting up at 5 (which is earlier than normal) kicked my ass, and now I’m sick. Unproductive cough, runny/stuffy nose, sinus pressure, body aches and pains, fever of 100.3. Groovy.

I have a NeoCitrin cooling on my night stand now. Extra Strength, so I sweetened it with honey. That makes it not taste like ass.
My back is killing me, so I have one of those little heat-packs on it. That makes my back hurt less, but it’s making me really hot so now I’m even more gross feeling. My hair is sweaty and stringy. I R Teh Sex.

Josh is not here to take care of me, because he’s in Texas on a business trip.

It’s my 1st anniversary this Sunday. I bought him a mushy card, but nothing else yet. Odds are we’ll promise each other nice presents, but really we’ll spend the money on regular bills.

My NeoCitrin is cool enough to drink now. It should knock me out and hopfully I’ll sleep through until morning. Until then, I’ll be watching medical drama shows on TLC.

It’s almost August!
In August, Josh should be able to get his G2 licence. Yay! At least in theory.

I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to not having to drive to and from Waterloo every single evening. Such as this week, when he works until 12am, which is quite past my bedtime because I work early days.

The snag is that we haven’t really had much time for driving practise, so after not driving for about 6 years I’m not sure he can just waltz in and pass his driving test and start driving himself to work right away. Boo. So we need to get out lots more in the next couple weeks.

Anyway.

I’m wondering what we should do once Josh takes the car to work. I can walk to and from work, since it’s only about a 15 minute walk. The only reason I started driving to work in the first place is that Josh has many shifts where I have to leave right from work in order to get him on time, and then it just evolved into a bitterness and unwillingness to “waste” any more of my time walking, when I already waste so much time every day driving to Waterloo. Also driving lets me get a few minute more sleep, which is in quite short supply lately. I don’t spend time travelling for fun; to me it’s a necessary evil needed to get from Point A to Point B.

Obviously, the most economical idea is to buy a bicycle. I’m probably going to do that anyway. There’s a used bicycle place near me, since I’m still pissed off about my bike being stolen and don’t really have the cash to spare to buy a fancy new one when I’m not really an avid cyclist. All I need is one that works (and a new lock). And I’ll put the dorkiest back basket or saddlebags I can find on it. Both to help carry things and to maybe make it too lame to steal.

But beyond that, we’ll eventually need two vehicles. I can walk/bike to work, but the bus system here is ass and sometimes I need to go places and buy things that I can’t carry on a bike. Like heavy groceries or large fabric or supplies too unwieldy to carry on a bike.

I’m somewhat attracted to the idea of something like a Vespa. Cute and cheap (like me, oh snap!). For less than the amount I could afford* for a crappy used car, I could get a shiny new Vespa (or other brand). Why get a whole car to schlep myself around the city when something small, lightweight and easy on gas could do it?

The pros:
1. Cheap. Cheap initial cost, at least. I haven’t done much research on repairs or fuel consumption, but the thing is small and rumours say they’re economical with fuel (the vespacanada site says 3.8 L/100 km which sounds good). Some other brands cheaper than Vespa even.
2. Sheer adorableness.
3. I’d be able to get around to where I need to go, when I needed to go

The cons:
1. WTF do I do in the winter? Despite the very short winter we had this past year, there was still loads of snow and dangerous driving conditions. How do those little scooter things hold up? Besides, I have no real desire to get soaked while driving.
2. Wouldn’t be able to pick up any other people if they needed a ride, or large items requiring a car trunk
3. I’d have to get an M class licence. Not a true “con” per se, but it’s an extra step and minor expense I wouldn’t have to do if I got a car. I don’t think this applies if I got a tiny one with less than 50cc and a lower top speed (or if those are even worth getting), but I read that factoid on a Vancouver forum, not a reliable (or even Ontario based) source.
4. I have no idea how scooter insurance works, and whether it would be more or less expensive than insurance on a second car.

However, my other top choice would be to get a Smart ForTwo. The new 2008s are even gas instead of diesel, and still quite efficient. And they’re even cuter than scooters, and eliminate the first and fourth con of scooters. Of course, the second still applies (to a point – they’ll definitely carry a second person, and a lot more than a scooter, and keep it dry to boot, but less than a “normal” car trunk and back seat), plus the added con of them being 4 or 5 times more than a scooter.

But if I had the cash, I’d get a ForTwo in a second, though maybe still consider a scooter for fun someday. But since I don’t have the ability to buy a new car… a scooter looks very attractive.
Except the getting rained on part. Maybe I could get a dorky rain cape. With the batman logo on it!

So this is what’s running through my head lately. Any insight?

*= “afford” may be too strong of a word. I still owe the majority of what my little Accent cost to the bank. I’ve been paying it down since I got my job, but the point is I don’t have the cash to pay it all off yet, let alone buy something new.

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

Last night I found out that my grandma fell down a flight of stairs the other day and broke both her wrists.

This is the same grandma who had a knee replacement a few years go, as well as toe-joint replacements (and unrelated, a mastectomy due to breast cancer), so she walks with two canes. Now she can’t hold her canes, ’cause her wrists are broken.

They don’t have casts on yet, because they are still too swollen to put them on. I didn’t know they waited for swelling to go down before putting casts on. Apparently she should have those “soon”.

Does anyone have any good diabetic-friendly casserole recipes? I’d love to bring some food, since not only can she not cook she can’t even feed herself, so I thought it might make things easier on my grandpa to not have to cook all the time as well as take care of her.

Now I’m going to totally steal cavaticat‘s idea and provide a visual for anyone wanting to send any well-wishes or good thoughts her way: 930

Ok, so it’s a known fact I’m a giant nerd.

But why, oh why, can’t I be one of those giant nerds with more money than they know what to do with?

Seriously, universe, where’s all my money?

I wasn’t one of those people who spent $80 every weekend on beer and cigarettes all through college.

I don’t have a tricked-out car.

If those people spent all my money I’ll be pissed.

I’m looking for a new multi-domain webhost, as mine had a security breech last week, and a few of my sites (same account, same server) got hacked.
If I’m going to spend the time to rebuild them (even sloppily and quickly), I may as well switch to a new host that uses cPanel, because I like cPanel and DreamHost doesn’t use it.

I basically used DH as my catch-all host; anything that was not my business or my blog was hosted there, as it allowed unlimited domains to be hosted. I currently have 7 domains, but one was going to be trashed anyway (since I have no use for caitlin-brown.com anymore). Two of the remaining 6 are really just placeholder domains. Someday, maybe far in the future, maybe I’ll have time and energy to turn them into something useful. :p

If anyone has any suggestions for a new host, I’d love to hear them! Preferably I’d like to stay under $10/mo, since that’s on top of the money I pay for hosting my business and blog (but those hosts don’t allow so many domains without going to the much-too-large and too-expensive packages) and it’s not like they were bringing in any money.

Also, with the NegaStone down for so long, where will I get my daily NSFW fix??