Well, well. Grandpa Rod and Grandma Arlene have sent their granddaughter a birthday card from Springfield, Oregon with a crisp new $20 bill! Thanks, Gramps and Granny!

Then there’s also the $20 Tom won yesterday on a scratch ticket before he twisted his knee on his way to do the laundry. He didn’t actually fall down, but he started to slip and wrenched his knee while he was at it. It’s sore, but he’s still able to get around.

Not surprisingly, we still haven’t screwed. We have to “build up to it,” he says, but again, I’m just not so sure I want to. I love it when we lie in bed and chat or read together, and his backrubs feel wonderful, but I just don’t have the desire to have any kind of sex with him. I still have mixed emotions about his not cumming, too. While it would be nice of him to allow himself to do so every so often to be a little more “normal,” so to speak and to make me feel better for the same reasons anyone would feel better if they knew they made their partner feel good enough to cum, I don’t want the mess. Plus, it’s our ticket out of having to use birth control, no matter how sterile I may be.

I was having a hard time motivating myself to work out since I’ve been 122 for several weeks now, but I finally got myself to do so, reminding myself that it’s important to do it to stay fit and to keep from gaining the weight back.

I had a video card failure yesterday and Tom opened my computer to find it filthy. Not just with dust, but with sticky residue from the damn incense. After he cleaned the card, all was fine.

In spite of the snow and slush, we went out for pizza yesterday. It was a bit of a zoo, but it was nice to get out and the pizza was good, as always. His was pepperoni, mine was mushroom with black olives.

We peered in through the living room window of the house next door. I’m going back and forth between wanting that house so bad, to thinking it’d be best just to stay put. Even Tom’s tempted to just stay here till we can no longer stand it due to the lack of space (or if it gets noisy), but we both agreed to keep our eyes open. If the price is right and the house isn’t on top of someone’s yard or driveway, we just may go for it. The biggest reason we may stay put is for obvious reasons – money. From June through August when we don’t have to run the heat, I could have $400 each month for fun! That’d easily get the rest of the Tonners and Barbies on my list. Easily! This would leave tons of room for other goodies like the 2nd and 3rd seasons of Charlie’s Angels, desks, dining tables, a washer, a dryer, other dolls, more oils, and even a year of Harry & David’s Collection Favorites. For $300, I was thinking of signing on to get monthly treats delivered to our door for one year, most of which Tom wouldn’t care for, though he agrees it’d be a good deal for that price. The treats would mainly consist of fruits, chocolate and nuts. The only month I wouldn’t like would be January’s oranges. I asked if they could substitute that with honey mangos, but those are only available in May and June, so maybe they can give me peaches instead.

Next week we’re ordering a new cage. I’m sick of these oversized cages, one of which is easily escapable being a ferret cage. She got out a few days ago and was all over the place. It would’ve been fine had the little devil not dug up and flung dirt all over from the plants! This cage will be smaller, so it will be easier to clean and hide if the handyman ever had to come in here. The bars are also spaced closer together. It’s 18x11x24.

I totally believe without a doubt that we really do get punished for trying to change the way we are, even if it’s not exactly us trying to make the changes. First I get punished for them building me a half-assed ear frame in ’75 when I was 10, by causing me to have the problems with the frame that led me to the surgery I had when I was 30 and living in Phoenix where they removed the damn thing. Now I’m being punished because they built the canal while they were at it. I want to reach in and yank this eardrum out so badly! Adjusting the headphones had made quite a difference, but the last two days have been bad. Of course it’s also quite a coincidence that after I go and have braces to straighten my teeth they all start getting cavities like crazy. If I woke up tomorrow suddenly insured and richer than we are now and wanting a kid as bad as I used to, I would never have Invitro! Never in a million years. I used to think such procedures were okay or else whatever’s up there wouldn’t have given us the ability to do them in the first place, but maybe they’re not so okay after all. Or at least not for everyone.

I can no longer read without glasses, which sucks, but would I ever have any kind of corrective surgery? First of all, I wouldn’t have the guts to have them slice and dice my eyeballs, but if I did – no way!

Anyway, the house next door seems nice enough for its age, but the layout isn’t the greatest. The downstairs bedrooms are directly off of the living room, and the bathroom is like this one where you have to go through the bedrooms to get to it. The carpet’s a dull beige color, but it would hide lint better than this carpet. The worst thing was the huge single-paned windows. How asinine to have such a thing! You’d lose a lot of heat that way. It was so big that I was like, gee, why don’t you just make the whole wall of glass! The windows didn’t even appear to have any screens either.

It had its pros as well. I got the impression it may be cooler in the summer, and of course the biggest thing of all is that no one’s yard or driveway runs right up to it.

I just wish I could know how long we’ll be in Oregon, as well as how long she’ll live next door, what will move in if she moves out soon, what will move in next door if we don’t move in there, etc. These things would influence what we decide. I could stand to stay here a few years, but wouldn’t want to spend a decade here as cheap as this place is to heat and what with the rent being $450 and not $800.