Bleeding

I'm sitting here at the ref. desk, bleeding, but I'd rather not go into it. No, my beloved knife was not involved this time! Thank goodness I always have lots of Puffs Plus on hand, I'm trying to staunch the bleeding but it's taking forever. Hopefully no one will notice.

Took Ma to the Dr. today and will pick her up when I'm done here. I got a free "$85" for opening up another bank account recently now that I have 2 paychecks (I know they will 1099 me for that and I'll be lucky to come out ahead after taxes with more like a free $40, but still, that's a lot of $!) and come to find out, I now have online access to her account since it's with the same bank and I've always been on her account. This is actually good b/c now the loan process to my brother will be much more streamlined! Previously I had to get $ to him, then she would write me a check for reimbursement, then I had to deposit it, what a hassle! Now everything can be done electronically. Cool.

I am determined to save, save, save $ this year. I did pretty good last year even with all the legal bills piling up, but coulda done better. I used coupons galore and got lots of free stuff, and will continue doing so. Also this year I will continue putting away a certain amount every month for property taxes, hiding it over at the credit union where it cannot be gotten to easily; then, this month I'm going to start adding another $45 per month to my car payment in order to get it paid off asap (I did this with my last car and paid it off early, but I've been holding off on doing it with this car b/c of the legal bills); but the big thing for this year will be beginning our Emergency Fund. Everyone should have one, of 3-6 months expenses! Good lord, that's a lot of $, and it's hard to start an EF when our credit card bills are so high b/c of, yes, the legal expenses, but I'm going to have to bite the bullet and begin one anyway. It's going to be slow going, but I began today, putting a little $ over in my savings account (unfortunately the $ that's already there is going to have to go for the big property tax bill this year mostly, along with the $ hiding over at the credit union. That will pretty much wipe us out but next year's bill should be much better w/the homestead exemption we will be able to claim). [Ha! I guess the title of this post is multi-descriptive!] The new bank account will help me manage the bills a little better too.

S very sweetly rented Little Miss Sunshine for me and it's waiting at home. I can't wait to watch it. The New Year for me also symbolizes the time of year when I try to see as many Oscar-contendors as possible and I'm guessing this might be one. Once the Oscar nominees are officially announced, then I get into high gear and really get strategic about seeing most of them. It's a lot of fun, kind of like a game. Some of you will remember that last year, at the Mezzanine's Oscar party, I tied for 1st place in the prediction game and won $10 in Mezzy bucks!

Speaking of the Mezz, we were there on N.Y.'s Eve Eve! It had been awhile. That place used to be our hangout, sometimes several times a week. But now that we no longer live down the street, and they stopped showing the WWE PPV's, we've moved on. Still, it's always fun to go back! S, M., and I were there on Saturday to see the UFC PPV. I predicted Chuck Liddell to win and I was right. I also ran into a musician friend of mine, who incredibly was with a guy I graduated from high school with! Small freakin' world! Sadly, we found out that the cook, this friendly little Mexican guy who made the most amazing cheeseburgers ever and loved to duck into our private room to catch snippets of wrestling, had recently died in a car wreck. Sometimes he would even have his daughters there at the Mezz with him. We felt really, really sad. He was buried in Mexico.