The Ten Best Reasons to Live Alone

I am trying to convince myself that it’s a good thing! Here we go!

       1.     I can cook whatever I want, when I want, however I want.

Oh wait, I think I need money for that.

       2.    I only have to clean up after myself!

No one can clean up after me. Darn.

 3.     I can decorate my place however I want.

…I was already doing that before.

This isn’t working. Be more creative!

4.    No one to hog the computer or the TV

Yeah, that’s better.

      5.     I get the huge bed all to myself!

It’s a very big bed.

      6.    Someone needs to come over and kill spiders for me.

      Wait, that’s not how this works.

      7.    I can talk to myself in peace!

       …

       8.   I can invite people over and party whenever I want and play my music as loud – no wait, I live in an apartment. But I can still PAR-TAY.

If I had more friends.

Okay, I’m sounding pretty pathetic. But I’m not. I’m a fierce, independent woman! Hear me ROAR.

      9.    I can write in pure silence.

Okay, now we’re talkin’.

10.   I need a cat.

Thirty isn't old... right?

I’m going to make some people feel very old, and subsequently make others feel very young. I apologize in advance (not really!) Since I’m just about to turn 30, I’ve decided to give a short summary of my life – in bullet form!

1.  Born April 1984 in Delta, Utah. It was sunny and snowing at the same time. I was also the only one being born in the hospital that day.

The Apple Macintosh was invented in this year, and so was the CD-ROM.

2.   Moved to Port Orchard in 1993-94, and found my first best friend. We are still friends to this day.

The Java programming language was first released that year, and Kurt Cobain commits suicide.

3.   Discovered chatrooms online in 2000-2001. They would subsequently change my life forever.

4.   Got my first job at Kmart when I turned 18 in 2002, moved out of my parent’s house, and in with my online boyfriend, Josh, who had moved up here from Texas to be with me.

We had satellite TV, no cell phones, and a landline that gave us 56k internet for $10/month with a service provider.

5.   In 2004, I become a fiancée for the first time. No wedding dates are set.

6.   In March of 2005, Josh dies from a heart attack. I get fired from my cashiering job at the same time, and am forced to move back home. I attend short vocational schooling which allows me to temp in the healthcare industry.

7.   I move back out in March of 2006, and 3 months later I meet Justin. 

Those 3 months are the only time I’ve ever lived alone.

8.   Wedding bells ring in May of 2009. I had just lost my job two months prior, and was on unemployment for almost 9 months thanks to the recession.  In December, I get hired on for Franciscan Medical Group with the job I still hold to this day.

9.   In January of 2013 I separate from Justin and move back home once again. In June, the divorce is final.

10.   April 19th, 2014 I am finally moved out and on my own once more. (Reached my goal to be out before 30! Woot!)

11.   April 27th, 2014 I turn 30.

That’s a lot of sh*t to go through before I’m 30. Wow. It’d still make a pretty lame autobiography though. What about you? If an autobiography was written about your life, would people read it?

The Mail Demon

I was *this* close to making heads roll the other day. I had recently started a subscribe and save on Amazon for the Olay microderm stuff for their face brush thingie. (you'd think, being a woman, I'd be more up with the terms but turns out, no.) I get push notifications on my phone when things get delivered, and at about 4pm on delivery day, I got my text:

Your package is undeliverable as addressed. Please contact the carrier to resolve the issue.

Say WHAT.

So now I was scrambling. I get on Amazon and find that it was delivered via FedEx SmartPost (not so smart) and they list numbers so I called them. Turns out that even though it's delivered by "FedEx" they like, hand it over to USPS. OK whatever. I call the number for USPS which I think is their national number or something... it's 4:30, I'm clocked off of work, I'm annoyed as frack, and I just want to go home; and I'm sitting on hold. So, with my multi-tasking skills, I find my local post office, and using my cellphone I call them - while I'm still on hold with the national company. 

Here's the most lame, annoying rule I've ever heard: Once it's determined undeliverable it gets sent back to the shipper. Period. There's nothing they can do. No holding it for pick up, no trying again the next day. Nothing. I'm out of luck.

At this point, I'm fuming. I don't yell at the dude on the phone even though he was a little aloof with me (a "sorry ma'am" would have been nice). I get back on Amazon and read about their policy. Once they get the item back, a refund will be issued, but it could take 2-4 weeks. Luckily this thing wasn't hundreds of dollars! They tell me I need to order it again, so I try to do just that: except the price had gone up by almost $5. I email Amazon although it's hard to be polite even though it's not their fault at all. I just ask if I can get a price reduction and re-order at the same price as I had before.

Then I went home.

At this point I'm still living with my parents so I ask them if they got their mail. They had. Now I'm even more angry. It's the same damn address! I mean, what the actual f*ck?! (Sorry for the French). I was determined to call USPS tomorrow and scream at them. There was no logical reason why my parents would get their mail yet my item was "Undeliverable".

Then I checked my email, and I'd already gotten a response from Amazon. As I read the email I'd felt as though I was lava being drenched in cold water. They made it right. They gave me my refund, asked me to order again and they would refund the difference in price. They even offered to ship it one-day for free. 

Wow.

At that point, I was so calm and satisfied that I never even bothered to call USPS. The only thing I can figure is because I was moving soon, I'd already put in a request for a change of address; however the change wasn't supposed to have taken effect until the 19th of April. Maybe there had been some confusion there, who knows. But I'm so happy that Amazon made it right. 

Have you ever had this happen to you? What did you do about it?

Apparently this actually happens to people

I used to laugh at people who said they dropped their phones in the toilet. I just couldn't picture any scenario where they could possibly drop them while on the john. I shook my head at people who said their phone slipped out of their pocket - I mean, that's a lousy lie for someone who was just actually texting while going number 2 and couldn't admit it.

And then it happened to me.

Yeah, I had it in the bathroom because I was at work and when I clock out for lunch I use my phone as a timer. I was wearing a new jacket and somehow, defying all physics, as I moved the phone slipped out of my pocket and I heard that horrifying *plop*. I was lucky that it was the least amount of disgusting as it could be. Immediately after the fact, the phone still turned on and worked perfectly fine. So, I cleaned it off and used the personal heater at my desk to help dry it quickly.

It wasn't until that night when everything went horribly wrong. The battery normally lasts all day with light use at work and moderate use at home, so it was almost completely dead by the time I went to bed. I plugged it in at my nightstand like I always do and... it wouldn't charge. I freaked out. I tried it at the computer. Nothing. So, I turned it off and stuck it in rice all night.

In the morning, nothing had changed. It was the weekend, so the ability to fix it quickly was limited. I was expecting an important call on Monday and was planning on taking my car in for service on Tuesday and I just needed my phone to work. Now, I do have the full insurance coverage from Asurion, but it had a $99 deductible and I would have had to ship it back and probably have to go to Verizon to use my old Droid X as a backup in the meantime.

However, I had other, cheaper options. It was only the charging port that was the problem, so I focused on that. Could I give myself another way to charge the phone and/or buy a replacement part for less than $99? Yes and yes. I could charge it wirelessly via what's known as a Qi charger. Honestly, the idea of this technology is nothing more than a playful novelty. It's not really wireless, after all. But hey - if I didn't need to plug it in, then that would solve my problem. And I could go to Best Buy or something that day and pick one up. That could solve my immediate issue, but I would also want to fix my port; they do come in handy occasionally. So, I did a little research on how hard it would be to fix it myself. Seeing $10 for the part and $3 for the tool, I ordered them from Amazon.

I then coerced my mom to come with me to do some "emergency shopping". For shits and giggles, I decided to see if the phone would charge in the car. EUREKA. We stopped and turned around. The phone was slowly repairing itself. I plugged it in at home and boom - working once more, merely 24 hours after the original incident.

I still ordered the Qi charger from Amazon, just in case.

Have any of you dropped your phone in the toilet/other water sources? Did it work afterwards?

He Played a Transvestite

Well, ladies and gents, it's that time again. I've discovered my next hollywood obsession.

It's kind of a thing with me. It starts out innocently enough. I watch a movie or a TV show, find them or their character interesting, slowly realize how awesome they are, and suddenly want to watch everything they've been in.

I believe it all started with Siddig El Fadil aka Alexander Siddig aka Dr. Julian Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. That had been a full-blown teenager crush with posters and all. After that, it was Kate Mulgrew aka Captain Kathryn Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager. Then it was Jake Gyllenhaal of Brokeback Mountain fame. Another humongous crush. Well, and as we all know, after that it was Alton Brown. Not quite hollywood, but the same idea.

The cool part about these obsessions is that I discover movies that I didn't know existed and would have never watched had it not been for them. Kate Mulgrew was in A Stranger is Watching, which is by no means a hollywood hit, nor was it my type of movie, but I liked it nonetheless. Jake Gyllenhaal hadn't been in much thanks to his young age, so I'd watched 99.9% of everything he was in. I discovered the likes of Donnie Darko, and my favorite: October Sky.

It's a lot easier to be obsessed these days thanks to technology. Back when it was all about Jake and nothing but Jake, I still had to rent or buy everything, and if I couldn't find it at Hollywood Video I was pretty much out of luck. Now, I can download everything, from the most popular to the most obscure.

So, who is my new hollywood obsession, and did he really play a transvestite?

What was seen can not be unseen. You will now suffer just like me!

Recognize him? That's Clark Gregg, aka Agent Phil Coulson of the Marvel movies. Seen in hits like The Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, and the TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was also in that... thing, a movie called The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, which I doubt I'll ever get the nerve to watch! 

If you minus all the war/government/mafia movies (eww), and all the TV series' (darn), and everything where he's more than 6th named in the cast, this is my watch list:

Brightest Star (2013)
Labor Day (2013)
Trust Me (2013)
Very Good Girls (2013)
Much Ado About Nothing (I) (2012)
(500) Days of Summer (2009)
The Air I Breathe (2007)
In Good Company (2004)
11:14 (2003) 
My Sister's Keeper (2002)
State and Main (2000)
Lana in Love (1991)

Has anyone seen those movies? If so, what do you think? Did you like Clark Gregg? Do any of you even know who he is? Am I being too geeky? Am I asking too many questions?!

The Search is On

So, it’s finally time to move out. I’ve lived with my parents for a bit over a year trying to get my finances in order after my divorce. It seems every time I move, I get more picky. I’ve lived in some kind-of-crappy places, and some pretty decent places, but never anything too fancy (what, something other than Formica counter tops, mismatching appliances, 80’s-style cabinetry exists??) because I can’t afford much besides about the cheapest available. And by cheapest available I mean besides the 400 sq ft studio in gangsta Hilltop.

I think Washington State is one of the most expensive states to live in (I really don’t know how Seattle compares to other large cities).  Our sales tax is one of the highest in the country (9.8% in Tacoma but it varies from county to county. Fun), and we have the highest pay rate per hour at $9.32. This basically means that the apartment choices for someone in who is low on the middle-class list is you don’t get very much for your money.

I’ve checked out 3 places so far, and here is the breakdown…

$700 for 700 sq feet, a tiny-ass washer and dryer, and a kitchen from the 40s that looks like it was repainted about a dozen times. It has built-in cabinetry and no patio storage (dafuq?). At least it comes with a dishwasher, albeit a very small one. Seems almost worth the price considering the location is good, but then they tack on $70 for W/S/G, and I’m like “$770 a month for that place? Uh, no thanks…”

They have the uncanny ability of making the place look good, that’s for sure.

Another place, owned by the same company and right next door, was even more interesting. It was about 540 sq ft, but had all updated maple cabinets and stainless steel appliances. Yeah, I drooled on the carpet a little bit (oops!) But again, no patio storage (or even a patio! Which means bye-bye gas grill) and only on-site laundry, which was like, a mile away or something as this place was on the 3rd floor. Partial view of the bridges and the bay though; very nice. It was $645 but then $80 a month for W/S/G. Ugh. And 540 sq ft is like a tin can. I already downsized to get moved out in the first place. I’m already busting at the seams living in a “studio” aka, my old room. I just need more space!

*cry*

The 3rd place seems more my style. It’s in an area of town I used to live in. Not the best, but not really the worst area either, and I know it well. It’s $725 for 675 sq ft and was built/updated in the 80’s. Full size washer/dryer, patio storage, very quiet location – and W/S/G is included.  Problem is, they only have around 36 units and not all of them are 1 bedroom. So, it’ll be a test to see if they have one when I’m ready to go!

What about you? Do you rent? How to they compare?

Review Wednesday

I’m going to start a “Review Wednesday” weekly blog post, except… today’s not Wednesday and I’m horrible when a schedule is forced on me like that. Okay, so I’ll start a “review when I feel like reviewing day” whatever day that may be. There, that sounds better.

Basically, I’m going to choose something that I’ve bought that I absolutely love and want to share with the world (or my 20 followers. Whichever.) It’ll be kind of like Alton Brown’s Gear For Your Kitchen, except I don’t have the support of a professional to back up my claims. It’ll just be my own, personal experience. And I want to point out that no – none of these posts are endorsed by the parent companies and no I’m not getting paid for any of them.

Today’s post will be on the Calphalon Unison nonstick omelette pan set. I got them for a good deal a while ago as my first “real” pan purchase. [I’d started with my mother’s crappy nonstick cookware that was already scratched and no longer nonstick.] So, your first thought is probably “Oh my God, THAT much for 2 lousy nonstick pans?” Yes. However, not everything you cook needs a nonstick surface, and they will last you a very long time. The Unison set is slightly more expensive than the Contemporary set and there’s a reason for that. These pans can brown things.

Whoa.

That’s right. A nonstick pan you can create a maillard reaction in. Not only that, but they are heavy duty. They won’t warp on you, you can put them in the oven, and they cook things very evenly.  They are so nonstick that you don’t even need butter for eggs. I’ve made eggs over-easy that just slide right out of the pan on their own. (And I mean still - after having them for 3+ years already.) It’s crazy, I know.

There is a downside to owning such nice cookware, though. Putting them in the dishwasher is a no-no, even when the company says it’s okay. It’s just bad for the surface. You should also not use anything abrasive to clean or cook it with (no metal utensils, yo!), and never, I mean never, use nonstick spray in a nonstick pan!

I love these pans. They are my go-to for just about everything. They’ve already lasted me a while and I can tell they’ll continue to last for years to come.

Now for a helpful tip:

Did you know that you can season your nonstick cookware? It’s true, I read it online! Seriously though, just like seasoning a cast iron skillet, you can take some canola oil, lightly coat the surface, and stick it in the oven at 300 degrees for an hour to “set”. Let it cool and wipe off the excess oil.
Also, if you had a brain fart one day and accidentally maybe used nonstick spray in your pan, you can effectively clean it out with baking soda and vinegar.

How about you? Do you have any favorite pieces of cookware that you'd love to share?