I was going over an old LJ today and found this.  Note that it is from 2004 so all of the prices have only gone up!

A Gallon is a Gallon!

To keep things in perspective, even though it still hurts. For those who have forgotten their measurements and prices:

1 cup = 8 ounces
2 cups = 1 pint = 16 ounces
2 pints = 1 quart = 32 ounces
4 quarts = 1 gallon = 128 ounces

You Think A Gallon Of Gas Is Expensive?

It makes one think and puts things in perspective.
Check out these prices:

Diet Snapple 16 oz $1.29 ….. $10.32 per gallon
Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19 ….. $9.52 per gallon
Gatorade 20 oz $1.59 ….. $10.17 per gallon
Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25 ….. $10.00 per gallon
Brake Fluid 12 oz $3.15 ….. $33.60 per gallon
Vicks Nyquil 6 oz $8.35 ….. $178.13 per gallon
Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85 ….. $123.20 per gallon
Whiteout 7 oz $1.39 ….. $25.42 per gallon
Scope 1.5 oz $0.99 ….. $84.48 per gallon

This is the REAL KICKER:
Evian Water 9 oz $1.49 ….. $21.19 per gallon.
$21.19 FOR WATER! And the buyers don’t even know the source.

So, the next time you’re at the pump, be glad your car doesn’t run on water, Scope, Whiteout, PEPTO BISMOL or NYQUIL.

50 things u have never been asked…
Once you’ve been tagged, you have answer this and tag 15 people, including the person who tagged you.

1, What color is your toothbrush?
Turquoise and white
2, Name one person who made you smile today:
Sarah or Barbara
3, What were you doing at 8 am this morning?
Sleeping, I think
4, What were you doing 45 minutes ago?
Again with the sleeping thing
5, What is your favorite candy bar?
Milky Way Dark or mint Three Muskateers
6, Have you ever been to a strip club?
No
7, What is the last thing you said aloud?
Umm…I don’t remember.  It was a while ago.
8. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Mint choc chip or cookies and cream
9, What was the last thing you had to drink?
iced tea
10, Do you like your wallet?
Yes – it has a zipper so money can’t fall out.
11, What was the last thing you ate?
Goulash
12, Have you bought any new clothing items this week?
No – I can’t really afford to right now.
13, The last sporting event you watched?
Some of the season opener of baseball while I was eating out the other day.
14, What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?
Movie Theater Butter
15, Who is the last person you sent a text message too?
Oh geez – Barbi, I think
16, Ever go camping?
Not in many, many years
17, Do you take vitamins daily?
Yes I do
18, Do you go to church every Sunday?
*blushes* I want to, but I’m afraid
19, Do you have a tan?
*roflol* Umm..no.  My sister got all of those genes
20, Do you prefer Chinese food over pizza?
Sometimes.
21, Do you drink your soda with a straw?
Um – it depends on what it’s in and where I am.
22, What did your last text message say?
Um…it was something from Tom and I think I love you was part of it.
23, What are you doing tomorrow?
Laundry or car inspection, I hope.
25, Look to your left, what do you see?
kleenex. I’m sick.
26, What color is your watch?
I don’t wear one.  I keep half of one in my pocket and its brown.
27, What do you think of when you hear Australia?
Steve Irwin
29, Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive thru?
Drive thru
30. What is your favorite number?
I’m fairly fond of 8
31, Who’s the last person you talked to on the phone?
Tom
32, Any plans today?
Taking Tom back to his truck , laundry, getting my nails done
33, How many states have you lived in?
1
34, Biggest annoyance right now?
My finances
35, Last song listened to?
The theme song to “Arthur”
36,Can you say the alphabet backwards?
If you give me enough time and don’t count my mistakes.
37, Do you have a maid service clean your house?
I wish.
38, Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time?
My Sketcher sneakers
39, Are you jealous of anyone?
Unfortunately, yes
40, Is anyone jealous of you?
I don’t think so.  I don’t see why anyone would be.
41, Do you love anyone?
Oh yes.
42, Do any of your friends have children?
Yes. Several of them.
43, What do you usually do during the day?
umm…on a slight majority I’m working.  Otherwise I’m relaxing or doing errands.
44, Do you hate anyone that you know right now?
Nope
45, Do you use the word ‘hello’ daily?
I’m more of a hi person.
46, What color is your car?
blue
47, Do you like cats?
I love cats
48. Are you thinking about someone right now?
yes
49, Have you ever been to Six Flags?
No
50, How did you get your worst scar?
My gall bladder surgery last year.  And there are four of them.

Do you see the egg on my face?  And where’s that crow I’m going to have to eat? There are days when I just think that I shouldn’t bother getting excited about something. It always seems to either be too good to be true or falls apart.  Maybe not everything, but it feels that way tonight.  *sigh*

Mom (who doesn’t work on Mondays) was doing some research and listening to the news.  I had told her about my plan for paying off my debts and she had been doubtful.  Isn’t there a clause somewhere that says the truth of the cliche “mother’s always right” runs out?  I was not happy, but I had been relieved.  I was doing something about my debt and was on my way out of debt in the next 33 months.  *sigh*  I should have known it was too good to be true.

Mom watched the news and saw a report on debt and the ways out there to settle it.  She had me watch the six o’clock news to see if they would re-run the report that they had run during the five o’clock  news (they did not) but I did check their web page and found this.  The news station is KDKA channel 2 in Pittsburgh, PA, related to the first broadcast radio station KDKA 1020.  That was disheartening, but it got worse when I went over to ConsumerReport.org.  This article was the most helpful to me.

This quote made me think (once I had read it and not heard just heard it from Mom):

“It’s possible to negotiate down the debt that you owe to a fraction of what it was before. In fact, bank officials that we talked to said they don’t give any better deals to the debt companies than they do to individuals that call them up personally,” said Tiernan.

Grant it I was very upset when Mom called and told me this. I don’t like to be wrong and once I have a plan settled on in my mind, I really like to stick with it. I’m not very fond of change.  Crying, yelling, swearing – it wasn’t pretty.  I was in my car and alone.  That’s probably the only good thing about it. lol  I’ve been in a pretty poor mood all evening, truth be told, and I’m hoping blogging it out will help.

So what am I going to do now?  I’m going to call the credit card companies.  To be honest, I’m really scared about it.  I don’t like confrontation at all and even more so when I’m feeling desperate.  I’m not sure how much they are going to be willing to help me, but I am going to give it a shot before I take my next step.  I’ll start with Bank of America and go on from there.  I may have to do them one at a time.  I don’t know.  I don’t know how much I can afford to pay.  I should figure that though, shouldn’t I?

The moral of the story? Never go against your mother.  She almost always ends up being right.

Hi everyone!  I’m here to welcome my newest reader, Barbara of Barbara’s 365.  Barbara found me as a link in the comments of one of her friends.  She is a good photographer and participating in Project 365.   Check out her blog to discover her friends, family, and quirky things going on in her photo stories.

Are you a new reader to Aribitrary Elucidation?  Comment and let me know – you could get your own shout out!  Have a great day!

They finally gave him a load through PA.  Woot!  He should be at Wal-Mart around 8 pm if all goes according to plan.  I’ll be very glad to see him and I’m pretty darn excited.  I’m trying not to get my hopes up since I know it can all still go kaput, but its hard not to.  I remembered to turn on the air purifiers (go me!) so he can breathe when he gets here.  I have to remember to give him his medical card and hope he remembers his iPod so he can load up on the new books and music we have.  And I’ll get the trash taken out!  Woot!

I’m feeling sick.  I was getting sick yesterday and I still feel bad today. I got some cold stuff yesterday so hopefullyI won’t feel too bad while I’m at work. I do hope the day goes quickly.   The apartment is not clean, but Tom told me that because I’m sick I shouldn’t worry about it.  So I’m not going to.  Isn’t he wonderful?  I won’t get to talk to him today (:(), but seeing him will make up for it.  Since I don’t have to work tomorrow I can stay up as late as he does.  Yippee!!!

Well, it’s early morning and I have to keep going.  Have a great day everyone!

One of the things I hate to do is admit that I can’t handle something. One of my biggest depression episode triggers is money/finances.  I hate it with  a passion. I am not a good money handler.  I never have been.  I was engaged to a guy who took advantage of me and my trusting/generous nature and helped me rack up a huge amonth of debt.  Moving out took it up even farther.  I had a job that paid well, but was making my depression and anxiety much much worse.  I quit and started a new job, but lost $400 a month when I did so.  That took me from being able to make my payments into the world of not being able to make them.

Sunday I made a decision.  I was going to do something about my debt.  I did look into credit counseling, but that didn’t do much to lower my monthly payments.  Hey, I need money to be able to eat, don’t I?  That’s when I came across Franklin Debt Relief and debt settlement/negotiation. I was able to talk to someone today about it (a very nice man) and get more information.  Its not the best or easiest thing.  One of the things you have to do is stop paying your creditors.  That may sound nice, but it gives you big black marks on your credit report.  After so many months FDR approaches the creditor and negotiates a settlement, usually for much less than is owed (up to 60% less than you owe now).  FDR gives you a monthly payment (and they’re flexible about the pay date as long as you give them 5 days notice) and you pay that each month up to 33 months.  By then you’re out of debt and on the way to earning back that good credit.

There are some cons about it.  One thing is that you open yourself up to collection calls and collection letters.  They tell you to change the address/phone number to their’s, but creditors are persistant and will most likely call you last known number as well.  Another thing you open yourself up to is lawsuits.  Creditors can take you to court if you don’t pay them. From what I understand its not a common occurrance, but it is out there.  They do charge you – 15% of what you owe.  However, since you now owe only approximately 40% of what you did originally, the 15% raises what you owe to about 55% of what you orginally owed.  Much less, isn’t it?  Another plus is the short term of the payments.  No more thirty years of paying minimum balances and thousands and thousands in interest.

After looking at all my options I decided to pursue this one.  I’m addressing something that I’ve been avoiding an yes, I will be closing ALL of my credit cards once they are paid off.  I am NOT going to get into this mess again.  I will do my best to keep you all up to date on my progress with FDR as well as the credit cards I’m not turning over to them (I don’t owe enough on them to make it worth going after at this point – plus on two of them I haven’t made enough payments to qualify).

Monday, April 13, 2009

• Work
• Grocery shopping
• Eat dinner
• Play with Kit
• Talk to Tom
• Take pills
• Nag people about reading my story
• Go to sleep

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

• Mail state taxes
• Work
• Eat dinner
• Play with Kit
• Talk to Tom
• Take pills
• Nag people about reading my story
• Go to sleep

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

• Laundry
• Eat dinner
• Play with Kit
• Talk to Tom
• Take pills
• Nag people about reading my story
• Go to sleep

Thursday, April 16, 2009

• Laundry (if I didn’t do it on Wednesday)
• Eat dinner
• Play with Kit
• Talk to Tom
• Take pills.
• Nag people about reading my story
• Go to sleep

Friday, April 17, 2009

• Work
• Eat dinner
• Play with Kit
• Talk to Tom
• Take pills
• Nag people about reading my story
• Go to sleep early

Saturday, April 19, 2009

• Work
• Eat
• Talk to Tom
• Work on story
• Sleep

Sunday, April 20, 2009

• Go to church (?)
• Laundry (if I still have some at this point)
• Talk to Tom
• Work on story
• Go to sleep

The absolutely terrific Sarah of There’s More to the Story runs WeeklyPlans.  Stop over and join in the fun!

April 5 – April 11

Kit the Cat
Read the rest of this entry »

How many triangles can you see in Kit Kit’s head and face?