Diagnosis: Scatterbrain

Once upon a time, roughly two years ago or so, there was this girl named Emily who had everything together. Her bills were paid early, she had a job that gave her more than enough money, she was organized and all was good. 


Then one day she quit her job and began preparations for moving back with her parents 650 miles away and the Sunday before her move she was in a car accident that totaled her father's car and she was stranded. Stressed and in whiplash pain she cried and then presented a stiff upper lip as her family solved the problem by sending her brother in-law, with whom she had never spent time with alone before, in an Enterprise Rent-A-Van to come get her and all of her belongings. 


When she got back to her parent's house she slept on the couch for a month while the tenant living in her old room finished her student teaching, graduated, and moved back to her hometown. Due to this Emily was disorganized. Almost all of her belongings were in the garage and the rest were spread around as her packing job had been hasty. Suddenly she found herself in a state of disarray, attempting to pay off her bills and make phone calls to discontinue services with various cable, electric and so on companies. Finally it was all taken care of, but she was quickly going broke as she had no job. 


Fast forward to the present. Emily's bills are on time at best, she has nearly run out of money more than once, must pay attention to her spending and has found herself to be completely disorganized. 


And it drives. Her. CRAZY.

I can't STAND feeling out of control.

I never thought I was that much of a control freak until I realized how scattered I've become. I can't figure the reason for it, as I live in my own space now, but for some reason things are easily misplaced and forgotten and, to add insult to injury, I have been feeling progressively more stupid with every passing day. Part of me wants to go back to school just to get some semblance of sanity back into my life.

I really wasn't terribly bad until I moved to Cincinnati. Now I have significantly more bills to pay, and they're spread out across the month instead of being all at the same time as they were two years ago. I also don't get paid near as much as I did back then, so I have to pay as the due dates come or I'd be broke. I mean, I only just went grocery shopping the day before yesterday for the first time in probably a month or more because of my paycheck debacle and upcoming bills.

I REALLY need a day planner so I can organize my life.

I also need to read/learn more instead of spending so much time in front of my computer doing absolutely nothing. So to try to remedy this I began reading Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne last night. And I LOVE it. I'm often a little wary of reading the classics, as they tend to be rather dry and a tad over my head as I have not grown up in the same era as the writer and therefore the jokes make no sense to me. However, I really enjoy this book so far, and have a notebook and dictionary handy for those moments when he uses words I don't already know.

Already, from changing my habit even just for one day, I have felt a slight change. Today, instead of wasting time doing other things, I finally signed up for my medical and dental benefits and have that out of the way. I also hope to do some drawing or writing. It's lovely that I'm not travelling this weekend because I honestly believe that has contributed to my insanity. Having an evening where I don't have a strict bedtime and where I don't have to wake up at 5am the next day is absolutely marvelous. And having a day where I don't have to be anywhere is equally marvelous, as it means I will be giving my apartment a much needed cleaning and purging, and I will be doing some cooking. I bought the stuff to make more of my homemade black bean burgers and will spend tomorrow afternoon working on that, as well as putting together casseroles and soups and possibly even making some cookies so that I have more options during the week. Lately it's been a cheese quesadilla every night. Mostly because that's what sounds good, and it's fast and I have the stuff to make it.

Plus Johnny will be coming to visit tomorrow night and staying through Monday morning. :) Oh, glorious weekend at home!

Wedding Planning = a pain in the...

Okay. So. This whole guest list thing is annoyingly, ridiculously stressful. No matter what someone is going to be offended because we have a list of 266 people and cannot possibly afford to invite them all and stay under budget. With just relatives we have over 150, so this is going to be insane. Assuming they all come, of course.

We've decided to meet at the court house on Monday. Just send your gifts to my apartment.

Just kidding. We'd be shot, stabbed, quartered, buried, and then eventually used as fire starters by all the very upset relatives.

But seriously, once the guest list is taken care of everything else is easy peasy. Dad's ordering a tent, I have two options lined up for photographers, my mind is full of decorating ideas, and everything will hopefully just fall into place. Now, to make the list shorter...

I know that not everyone invited will come... but if they do, we cannot possibly afford that many people. And in the meantime, it is seriously stressing me out. That, and my messy apartment. The lack of money and food was also contributing, but since I got paid and went shopping that ship has sailed and left the Nina and the Santa Maria for me to contend with. The cleaning ship will depart this weekend, since I FINALLY will be staying home for the first time in over a month and will be deep cleaning everything in this place, putting things away, sorting through the mail, etc. And it will help my stress levels immensely. I also hope to invest in some plants for my balcony.

Till then, I'll just continue to throw things across the room. It makes me feel better.