Significant recent changes in my life

I’ve been pretty remiss lately with both blog updates and actually having a life outside of work. It seems they go hand in hand — whenever I’m too busy working, I don’t blog as often and I tend to not be able to keep up with friendships. There’s a lot going on at work, most of it good, and a lot of it significant, but I feel that requires a separate blog entry, and more accurately, a separate blog. More on that later this week, or perhaps next if I get totally swamped again.

But on to my personal life. Though there isn’t much of it to speak of, I do have a couple things that are interesting. The most interesting thing that happened recently was that I got a housemate. I haven’t had a housemate in 3 years or so, and haven’t had a female housemate (which my new housemate is) in 5 years or so…so why the change?

Well, for one, I needed some extra money to pay back some debt I have from major dental problems and some ongoing health issues. The ongoing health issues are mostly back- and wrist-related, and a chiropractor and a lot of ice packs are helping immensely, but chiropractors don’t come cheap. Unfortunately, a couple weeks ago I threw my lower back totally out of alignment and I have not really been the same since. Just when I started to feel like myself again, I helped my new housemate move in (yesterday) and now I’m limping around again. That’s just no good. Even though the chiro sessions are reasonably priced, I do sessions 1-2x a week right now (until I can get everything straightened out) and that’s just not helping my pocketbook.

So money was the first and foremost issue that made me seek out a housemate. If I don’t accumulate any new debt, and don’t use any of my current Simpli salary to pay off any more of my personal debt, with just the housemate monthly income, I’ll be debt-free in 12 months. That would be a tremendous achievement for me.

But it’s more than that. You see, my kitties were lonely. When I came home at night from work (and lately, it’s been come-home-sleep-wake-up-shower-go-to-work-come-home-sleep…), my kitty girls would just yowl plaintively at my bedroom door, begging me to love on them for just a few minutes. Of course, it’s rare that I even have a few minutes at home. I tried to make as much time for them as I could, but they were so sad. I saw it in their eyes. Therefore, a housemate who liked kitty girls also solved that problem.

Finally, I was getting kind of lonely in those weird night ways. You know, when you hear something that goes THONK in the middle of the night (and with two nocturnal kitty girls in the house, there are a lot of THONKs!) and you just hope that it’s not someone coming to rob you. Fortunately, that has never been the case for me… but it still makes me feel better to know someone else is here.

So, a few months ago, I set out on the path to find a housemate. I dug through the craigslist housing wanted section for a few weeks, responding to a few posts that looked interesting. I also posted my own place under rooms/shared a few times. I got a couple responses, but no one I wanted to live with. Then, one night, I was digging through housing wanted and found a post that had a title beginning with “Geek girl…” Really? Another geek girl? Wow, this was great!

We met at my place and immediately hit it off. Turns out we both work at Market Post Tower (she for another company there as a datacenter tech.) We have similar interests, but have different life paths, which makes for interesting conversations. My landlord interviewed her (and I mean really grilled her, too; it was funny!) and approved, so L moved in yesterday. My place has 3 bedrooms — she took 1 bedroom that was formerly my home office and I moved the home office into the smaller 3rd bedroom.

Obviously she has been here only a day, so I can’t say how well it will work out long term, but so far I’m enjoying having found someone I can live with and still count as a friend, too. A bonus is that she is female, but tomboyish like me, so we can share “girly” stuff without having to feel all weird and cutesy about it. This is very cool. I am happy. And now I can go pay my chiropractor bill and pay off all that tooth stuff that cost me a fortune a few months ago. The kitties are grumpy, but they will get over it. 🙂