More From Unemployment-Land

God, I love my cats. They are the most reliable source of entertainment imaginable. (Yes, that is my kitchen sink; yes, Snickers is in my kitchen sink; yes, the water is running on him. No, he really doesn't mind; in fact, he kinda likes it. Yes, he did stay there for several minutes after this picture was shot.)

In other news:

--Despite the fact that I've now filled out over 100 applications for employment, I have not had an interview in weeks. I wish this bothered me more, but I'm kinda getting into the swing of unemployed-ness, and I'm almost ready to actually start USING this time...which is a probable guarantee that a job will turn up within days. We can only hope.

--LJ: still here. If he does not come up with the truck payment, he may be asked to leave.

--Tim: still here. He has one job which doesn't start til April, and which is only part-time, but which pays well. He's still looking for other jobs, and though he's being impossibly selective about who he applies with, and when and whether he returns their calls, I really can't bitch at a man who's trying--and besides, he's still doing major housework to compensate. (And I've discovered that he makes a better grilled-cheese than I do, which I didn't think was even POSSIBLE.)

--Me: still here, only now there's a little bit less of me. I've been an EXTRAORDINARILY good girl. I am simply BURSTING with pride as I relate to you the following:

Somewhere about two-and-a-half weeks ago, I made a pilgrimage to Mom's, to steal yet another of her possessions. In this case, it was the vintage-'80's exercise bike, which had been acting as a very impressive clothes-hanger in her little "den" for at least the past three or four years. (She wanted to give me the treadmill, as well, but I had no room for that whatsoever.) I brought the bike home, had Tim carry it up to my room, and spent two days giving it dirty looks from the comfort and security of my bed. Finally, I got on the damn fool thing.

The first day, I did a little less than three miles.
The second day, I did a little over five miles (split into two sessions).
A bunch of days interceded, on each of which I did a bit more.
Yesterday, the twelfth day, I did twenty miles.
(So far today, I've done 17.5, but the night is young.)

This is despite the presence of The Most Uncomfortable Bicycle Seat EVER. As in, if I were a guy I'd be sterile right now. This thing HURTS. I've tried folded towels, foam mats, the works; I even went so far as to buy one of those squishy seat-covers, but of course it didn't fit. I'm now thinking I may just have to buy a whole new seat, since apparently seat-covers no longer come in size Circa-1984-Wide-Load. I also had to replace the odometer*; the original quit on Day 3, and after several efforts at fixing it, I finally gave up, but I wasn't too trusting of the whole mathematical method of calculating distance--the one that says if you go 15 mph for 20 minutes, you've gone 5 miles. It seems too easy.

Regardless, I'm totally proud of myself. I can't say for sure whether I've lost any weight or not--I don't have an accurate scale in the house--but if I'm going by the highly accurate Jeans Scale, I'd have to say I've trimmed down a leeeeetle tiny bit. The "fat" jeans, which were getting snug, are now baggy; the "too tight to sit in comfortably" jeans are still tight, but much more sittable. So progress is clearly being made, even though I haven't changed my diet--yes, I'm still the Sugar Queen. I console myself with the knowledge that at least I'm burning some of those calories, which I wasn't doing before. And I'm actually starting to enjoy the process, as well! I get up early, watch some kiddie TV and do 5 miles; then after I cool down, I go back to sleep til I wake up. Usually I do another 5 miles or so in the afternoon, and then more while watching TV at night. I've also learned that it's possible to read while cycling, which pretty much guarantees that I'll keep at it. Any exercise that also allows reading is my kind of workout.

For a life that's pretty much teetering on the precipice of destruction, I'd have to say I'm feeling fairly good. The foreclosure process is well underway now; the mortgage company won't give me a forebearance unless I can give them a date I'm going back to work. I've tried to explain that if I HAD a date I was going back to work, I wouldn't NEED a forebearance, but again, I appear to be the only one who understands my logic. All I can do right now is just hang on and keep trying, I guess, but that's going to be a cold comfort once the sale date gets set. I really, REALLY do not want to lose this house.

But at least if I'm going to be homeless, I'll be homeless and skinny.
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* Allow me, for a moment, to toot my own horn--I am one amazing odometer-fixing machine, I am. The odometer setup I bought was made for real bicycles, not stationary bikes; accordingly, the first piece of instruction, "Secure magnet to spokes using set-screw," was an utter impossibility for me, as there were no spokes. I ended up stealing a magnet from a Magnetix kit I'd bought one day on a whim; it's exactly the right length to react to the sensor (mounted with a twisty and a rubber-band on a leg of the bike) and since it's magnetic at both ends, it sticks to the wheel of its own accord. It took me an hour to work out exactly how and where to mount everything so that it would work, and about the same to calibrate the odometer so it registered 280 revolutions as one mile--which I'd fortunately figured out back when the original odometer was working--but it works like a charm, and I'm contemplating a career as an alley mechanic. No one's home to be impressed by my genius, however, so I have to pat my own back.