I dreamed about the mice last night, but in the dream they were rats, and there were so many of them that it was all you could hear and they were out in the open, everywhere. They didn't even bother to sneak. Took my dog in to the twenty-four hour veterinary clinic the other night after I spotted her with a block of rat poison in her mouth. Luckily, she didn't ingest any. Thinking about something happening to her really breaks me up, but she's fine. I was adamantly against using poison to control the mouse problem. Until there were a couple of instances where the snap traps didn’t finish the job and the dilemma of putting these mice out of their misery arose. This situation was something I wasn’t emotionally prepared to handle. Finally, I resorted to poison, confined to the basement. The dog got into the poison at an entirely different location, just a day or two after I decided to start using it in my own home, ironically. So, I decided to remove the poison. I’m just too damn paranoid. The apartment where I live requires a $250 pet deposit for each pet living in the home. In the near future, the plan is to look for a kitten. Although $250 is an extreme amount for my budget right now, I think I’m going to go for it. I would have to insure, before making any final decisions, that whatever kitten I adopt will be compatible and friendly with my dog, first and foremost. Ideally, whichever cat I pick will be a good mouser. Maybe the cat smell alone would be enough to discourage the mice. If not, I think that it would be nice for my dog to have a companion.

My boyfriend has pleurisy. He’s on antibiotics. His birthday is this weekend. We talked about summer activities yesterday. Picnics, kayaking, putt-putt and go-karts. I’m looking forward to the summer. I feel really optimistic about being with him.

I miss my mom and my dad. We spend a lot of the summer together around a campfire, listening to records, talking, arguing, and laughing. The older I get, the more I see where aspects of my personality comes from each of them.

Last week, I spent too much money. I spent money on the dentist, on my car, on the vet. Money is nice and a pain in the ass.

I’m on a brand of birth control that I was on once before. Before I didn’t notice much of an effect. This time, it’s made me feel moody as hell. For the whole month that I’ve been taking it, I’ve felt like I’m a day out from my period. It sucks and is annoying. The real kicker is, having taken it before, I just assumed that it would agree with me, so I bought six months worth of the stuff. Hopefully as it becomes more integrated into my system, the side effects will lessen.

I need to change my transmission filter. I’m about 46 miles out from my recent repair and it needs to be changed, the transmission filter, whatever, wherever that is.

I’d like to eat healthier foods. Honestly, I prefer home cooked meals over fast food. I prefer fresh over processed, most of the time. The truth is I’m just too lazy. I’ll buy healthy food, and the majority of it goes bad before I get to eat it. If I were less lazy, I could divvy up these foods and freeze them as soon as I get them. Plus, it would make cooking meals a lot more simple and convenient. I have a friend who once a month does this. I’ve done it before, but on a smaller scale. I should quit making excuses to be lazy and just do it. I know that I’d be glad if I did.

I wish I had a dishwasher. I used to, but now I don’t. Dishwashers are pretty awesome. Doing dishes sucks. I used to have really pretty dishes, but after so many years, they started to have chips and cracks. I found a nice new set of dishes at a garage sale, for a decent price. I bought those and got rid of my old set. This new set isn’t as pretty, or functional really. The shape of the old set was better, but they did get pretty hot in the microwave. I should go to goodwill and find some new dishes that are functional and pretty.

It sure was a nice Valentine’s Day weekend. I’m fortunate to have a great sweetheart of a guy to call mine, and we really made the most of it. We didn’t make a big deal out of it, which I couldn’t be happier about. For one thing, I absolutely despise dressing up. I’m a bit of a homebody anyways and getting all dolled up for a night out usually leaves me feeling exhausted with the evening before it’s even time to get out the door. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to getting a little cutsied up, slapping on a little lipstick, fancying up my hair, but that is pretty much the extent of my comfort zone. Putting on a rigid dress or painfully awkward shoes is really at the bottom of my list of favorite things. Not to mention, I’ve been in the service industry for about ten years and although working an occasion like Valentine’s Day usually means a pretty decent take home, it’s a pain in the ass. Places are crowded, service usually sucks due to the high expectation of perfect service and sheer numbers of people in attendance. So when we started noticing the pink and red adorning the center aisles of every shopping center in existence, we decided that we’d make spaghetti at home. It was awesome.

We kicked off the weekend by picking up groceries and movies together, after exchanging a couple of personalized gifts. On Saturday we shared some wine, watched movies, and stayed up late, just hanging out. Sunday we helped each other cleaning the house, doing the dishes, and cooking dinner. We listened to music, talked, played with the dog, played dice, watched movies, just hung out with one another, and the best part is, we did it all in pajamas. We slept in this morning, on new super comfy pillows. There was leftover spaghetti and meatballs to take to work, for dinner. He left for work a couple hours before I had to do the same. We kissed each other goodbye and I got myself cleaned up and did my makeup for work. All day today I have felt super relaxed. Although I like to go out every once in a while, it’s the super low maintenance weekends like that that leave me feeling like I’ve just come back from vacation, and in a good way. Not the kind of vacation where you scramble to hit every attraction and make the most of every moment in a new place, bouncing from here to there without a moment to catch your breath. It was more like a vacation to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, with enough time to sit around, not doing much other than reading, having a couple of drinks, laughing, and playing trivial pursuit until 5 a.m., and for just a few days you can rest assured knowing that it will be at least two days before you have to worry about going to work, school, paying bills, just the general commonplace, everyday responsibilities of life.  

Reflecting on this Valentine’s Day weekend sure has got me feeling grateful to be with someone who values things like that. It is nice and comforting knowing that I don’t have to put on airs to impress him. It is a nice, calm feeling knowing that we enjoy being together, even if it means sometimes doing our own thing, rather than being a constant source of entertainment for one another. I suppose that all this might seem pretty boring to some couples. Sure, it isn’t necessarily glamorous, but glamour just isn’t my scene. I’m all about good company, low maintenance interaction, and really, I guess when it boils down to it, friendship. We got a pretty good thing going on. It is so easy to have fun together, and to also have the room to enjoy time not spent attached at the hip, which is part of what makes me so happy about our relationship. Plus, he is a total hunk who surprises me with vintage Tom Jones magazine issues as Valentine’s Day presents, and brings his pillow downstairs to sleep on the floor next to me when I fall asleep, snoring on the couch.