Carpooling

After having a look at all the prices from car rental agencies, it was pretty clear that we couldn't afford to rent one while the Vue is in the shop. So we have decided to carpool. We save a good chunk of gas and get to spend a little time before and after our workday just hanging out before the chaos of home life comes crashing in.

Wednesday: I got up a little earlier than normal this morning. D was getting a ride to work from her supervisor, but I had to take Clara to daycare. She seemed genuinely confused at me taking her in my car, and asked for mom more than a few times on the way there. After work, I picked up DeAnn from her job and then we went to pick up Clara. This was nice because I got a few minutes with my wife, before the demands of baby, to just talk to her and connect for a second. All in all, it takes about an hour and a half from the time I leave New Braunfels to the time I get home with everyone, but we're saving gas and it's not like all of that time is a complete waste of time.

Thursday: We got up nearly an hour early so that we were able to get out the door in time for me to make it to work without being late. It's been months since I've had to wake up at that hour - I haven't had to wake up so early since working at Valero. Dropped Clara off and DeAnn off and still made it to work on time. Since DeAnn has an interview tomorrow (2nd interview a-go-go! :D ) we decided to get a rental car for one day so she could make that. It'll be worth it if she gets the job. After picking her and Clara up, I dropped her off at the rental car place.

We decided to level BST last night as well. We went back to the Labyrinth of Onzozo and compete with high level people for experience mobs. That place is one of the few places in the game that both high and low level players go for various reasons and you're never quite sure why the other group is there. As a low level person, you're always wondering why high level people are there killing your experience mobs: aren't there better places/things to farm? As a high level people, you're always wondering why low level people are there killing your farming mobs: aren't there better places/thing for experience? LOL Despite the competition, we still made decent experience and eked out a level there.

And, as usual, we had a few events making us ask "How did we live through that?" The most exciting one was when I held a leech a little too long and it uncharmed, linking the other 3 in the room while we were working on a Goblin. D:! Just when we got things under control from that, Keri pulled a lot of hate from curing me and her leech came uncharmed, starting the linking all over again. Somehow, neither of us died. Next time we go out, though, we will probably be going to Crawlers' Nest, as the experience was starting to slow down a lot on the Goblins, and there are always high level farmers killing the Cockatrice.

Got the opera this weekend. While this week has been a severe financial bitch slap, at least I can settle down and enjoy this weekend knowing that, for the most part, it's already all paid for. I got us valet parking, a really nice dinner package at an upscale restaurant downtown, an evening trolley ride through the Alamo City to and from a performance of what can be argued as Puccini's finest opera. I'm really looking forward to Tosca and our night on the town. ^_^/

Crunch

Perhaps boring is better. Seriously, I look back at boring posts and realize that, while boring, at least those days weren't bad. If I had my choice between boring and bad, I'd choose boring...

Anyway, I had the typical run-of-the-mill day until 2 minutes to 5. I get a call from a very frantic DeAnn, screaming at me for the insurance papers. I told her they were in the glove box, where they have always been, and asked if she'd been in an accident. Yup. No one was hurt, thank God, but the Vue was messed up. Radiator was pushed back and busted and the car would not start. She had it towed to a nearby body shop and I picked her up after getting Clara.

To say I was ticked would probably rank in the top 25 understatements of the year. I was livid. I screamed swearing almost my entire 30-minute highway drive back on the way to Clara. I got to see it in the wrecker lot behind the shop, and if people weren't around, I'd probably have gone off there, too.

Not sure exactly how to handle this from here. We don't have enough money for a rental. We could carpool, but that would involve waking up at least 45minutes earlier. Not something I'm too keen on. Don't know what other choices we have though, and it might be kinda fun to include D in on my daily commute for a bit.

We talked a little about our options, and decided that we were just too frazzled to be much use in static. We sent a message to Talon and Ame saying what happened and decided to just try to relax, watch a movie and take the edge off. Ended up watching The Big Lebowski and drinking. And got completely wasted. On a Tuesday. >.>; Not sure how tomorrow is gonna work out, but I guess one thing is for sure: at least I'll have something to blog about. Gotta look on the bright side of things.

Sick Wife

Between the coughing, snoring and constant movement coming from the other end of the bed, I haven't had much sleep the past few nights. I feel bad for D - if I'm not sleeping well, she's probably not sleeping at all. She called in sick to work and went to the doctor's. This meant that I was late to work since I had to drop Clara off at daycare.

The day wasn't too bad at work, and traffic wasn't bad on the way home, either. Apparently Noni had a Monday, though. One of her kids had gastronomically exploded all over her house, and another had a severe allergic reaction to some food. I picked up Clara and went home, made some beef stroganoff and sat down to play FFXI a little.

SF was doing its weekly sky hunt . It had been quite some time since the last sky hunt I'd attended: several weeks to months at least. But in the 3.5 hours we were up there, we'd managed to claim Mother Globe, Faust, Steam Cleaner, Despot and pop Seiryu with my pop set. In other words: an AWESOME hunt. While killing all the placeholders, I skilled up my enfeebling magic by spamming Dia on them, and finally capped that on my 75WHM. At least now it should be capped through 74BLM, so I won't have to skill up on it during our experience points parties. It slows down the killing, and with it the experience. I waste enough time skilling dark magic as it is...

Static party tomorrow night. I just hope D and I both get a good night's rest tonight. We both need it...

Weekend Intelligence: Newsflash - Portal to Limbo Found Under 8 Year Old's Bed

The time had come to purge the evil gathering in Colin's Room. There was a whole world lost in that child's room. While there were other things that happened this weekend, that was the big one. So, in typical weekend intelligence fashion: here are the highlights!

Friday night was spent goofing off in game. Fortune smiled: I once again found a 24 pack of Ice to get the weekend started right. We spent most of the evening playing FFXI. When we decided to grab a late-night meal, we saw a stray full-sized dachshund, complete with a collar and tags. I called to it to see if it would come and he was a big ham - he came straight to me and rolled over. When we checked his tags, I was very surprised to see they were blank. Yes, blank tags. Seriously, who puts blank tags on a dog? Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of having tags? We were going to keep the dog overnight and ask around about him the next day, but he was barking and whining seemed anxious to go, so we let him back out after getting him some food.

Cleaning Colin's Room was the order for Saturday. We were determined to get completely rid of anything and everything that he doesn't play with and throw out all the trash. It was brutal. His room was twisted into a nasty mishmash of rotten food, hamster poop, candy wrappers, dirty laundry, bottle caps, random 2-cent toys and feathers. When we finished cleaning all the visible spots in the room, we moved the bed and bookcase, revealing a whole new world of filth. This whole activity took the better part of 5 hours, filled more than 4 trash bags and yielded 2 large bins full of toys. We decided to donate all the toys to our daycare, and whatever she doesn't want can go to Goodwill. It will be harder for him to make a mess now, because he doesn't have much to make a mess with.

I want to finish off the remnants of Colin's room and start working on the loft and Clara's room sometime in the upcoming week. It's my goal to have the upstairs completely clean before Colin gets back. I think part of the reason it got to that point was that the act of cleaning it all was overwhelming for an 8yr old boy. There's no way I would have been able to do that at his age. So it just slowly got worse and worse. This way, the overwhelming mess has been taken off his hands, and he can see how we want him to keep his room from now on.

Anyway, we went to besieged and campaigned a little in FFXI on Saturday night. I got over 10 levels in Enfeebling Magic skill in besieged. It's a hell of a lot easier getting it there as opposed to spamming it when I want experience on BLM. I also got to keep my campaign medal. I don't think I will ever get a promotion unless I come across a ton of free time. I can't really campaign more than I do now. DeAnn was starting to feel sick and wanted to call it an early evening, so I fished after she went to bed, and almost hit 41 in fishing.

DeAnn was full-on sick on Sunday, so we didn't make it to church like I'd wanted. I spent most of the day taking care of a sick wife and juggling housework. We were able to get some Beastmaster experience in later in the evening, once she started feeling a little better. I'd forgotten how fun that job is. We pulled half the zone of mobs at the Labyrinth of Onzozo, and still somehow we managed to escape without dying. Once we got our groove going, we pulled in an admirable 5k/hr before having to call it a night.

Well, one more week until the opera. I'm really looking forward to going to Tosca. ^_^ I just hope DeAnn's feeling better by then.