Miss you!

My woe is me post was getting old. :-)

How is everyone doing? What are you doing? Facebook sort of helps with that...your lives in snipits! I was happy to see an MTW update on OT.


Job
Still lucky to have a job. Chris and I begin taking home $500 total per month less with new pension and health insurance contribution rates taking effect. Given we've had no raises in over four years, we can't seem to get ahead. But at least we can still pay our bills. Although a certain dental insurance battle is pissing me off and we may need to plop a few thousand on the credit card.

The good news is that I've applied for a new title, given we got two new grants in, and I'm the co-investigator on one. That gives me a little raise, without costing the state anything (as my salary is grant funded), and it helps make up some of that $500 our take-home is reduced by.

The big grant that had me terrified was not funded, so I'm relieved. If my new title didn't go through, I was going to walk. Now, all can remain fairly stable and I can maintain the (semi) flexibility my job affords me. It's flexible often, but very inflexible other times. Hence spending vacations working half the time. I think many of you are in similar situations.

Cats
Bartleby decided to play cat bowling last night on the dining room table, just after me and my guests had put all the food, water and wine on the table. He ran at the table (which we rarely use) at full speed and jumped, sending the glasses flying. He managed to miss stepping on plates and bowls, though! Dork.

Movies and Books
I've had some time for reading and movie watching in the last month. It's been great! I'm reading The Killing Floor (thanks, Breezy, for the recommendation!) and Stuff White People Like (my coffee table reader right now). Just finished Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. It was very good. Have been using the library on campus (books are checked out by the semester instead of a few short weeks!) and half priced book store.

We went to one movie in the theater this year so far! That's big for us. Tonight we are going to Bridesmaids. Groupon, Living Social, etc. all had a deal with Fandango, so we bought a few offers and are enjoying the flicks. We also are using Red Box a little this summer since we cut Netflix out due to reducing bills. Just watched The Town and Despicable Me. Both were great.

That's all I've got. As you know, the midwest is dry and hot. We haven't had rain in our town for over three weeks and it's consistently been in the high 80s/high 90s with a fair amount of humidity. Yuck.