“Tell me you love me!”

I am pretty much on cloud nine at the moment.  When I went to process the vehicle registration renewal for one of our vehicles, the DMV website gave me an error saying that registrations that are overdue cannot be processed online.  Given that we had never even received a renewal notice nor had we received any information about the registration being past due, I decided that the website was full of it.  Our vehicle had a ’14 sticker on it, and I was a week away from the due date when I tried to apply.

I got on the phone right away with the DMV… This is what I do for a living–I resolve weird issues related to the administration of vehicles, so I was in my zone.  The woman at the DMV insisted that the vehicle hadn’t been registered since 2012 and that the tags were expired by almost a year.  She requested that we pay $363.00 for last year’s renewal and an additional $309.00 for this year’s renewal.  Now–we’ve been saving up for this year’s renewal, but there’s no way in the world I’m prepared to pay an EXTRA $363.00!  I may or may not have deadpanned and declared to the agent “I’m not paying that. There’s no way in the world!”

I asked how to dispute it, and she asked that I verify the sticker number, so that they could work through it.  Well–I had Jeff send me the photo, and lo and behold, the wrong sticker was on the vehicle.  After the 6 digit sticker number is the vehicle license plate number and this one did not match our plate number.  But I meant it when I told the DMV I’m not paying it… I called the dealer next and asked to speak with a title clerk.  The thing is, we bought our vehicle last July and these tags expire this July–it should’ve been noted in the inspection or during the title and licensing of this vehicle that the registration was due.  The great thing is, they were as wonderful to work with on this issue as they were when we were buying our vehicle.  I’ll definitely recommend them for your car buying needs.  I’m even going to write them a nice review on Yelp!

After researching it, the dealer determined that the previous owner of the vehicle put the wrong sticker on the vehicle and offered to send us to a check to cover the cost of last year’s renewal.  Hallelujah!

It’s times like these when I am able to take a snarl of a mess and resolve it satisfactorily that I turn to Jeff and tell him “Now, tell me you love me,” with a smug grin on my face 😉

The cure to indecision? Procrastination.

This post contains a couple of swear words.  Fair Warning 🙂

So, (there I go again), I am in dire need of studying because I found out today that there’s an assignment due on Thursday but I hadn’t actually received my “textbooks” until this afternoon.  I am torn between studying and gaming, though, and so I find myself here: procrastinating.

I was so fuming mad this afternoon dealing with the fiasco that is MCTC.  Jeff was going to pick up the books for me as he has more flexibility in his schedule, but when I called to verify stock, they were outrageous.  They refused to check to see if the books were there and said they were too busy and that there was a line inside the store and outside the store and we would just have to come down there.  They wouldn’t even say whether we could pay with AMEX or not.  I went on a tirade about getting what you pay for (because this is one of the cheapest schools in the area) and then ended up just going to the bookstore myself.

The “line” that they exaggerated and made out to be miles long was just about 10 people.  And the only reason that there was a line was to check book bags.  Waste. Of. Time.  So after I get through that line, I pull my “books” from the stacks, sure that I am missing something, because what is labeled as a book is actually a ream of paper wrapped in kitchen-grade saran wrap.  Looks like it’s got the POTENTIAL to be a book, but it’s just not quite there yet.  Kind of like this college and how it’s just on the cusp of being great but just falls short and ends up being mediocre.  I waited in line for the check-out while a huffy student in front of me threw fits about waiting in line (for 20 minutes) to buy a 70 cent bag of chips.

When I got to the check out, the woman was probably having a good day and I probably wrecked it. 😦 I wanted to know where the binding was.  She replied that most people were buying their own binders and kindly directed me to the back of the store to pick one out.  I replied that after paying over a thousand dollars in tuition and over one hundred and sixty dollars for the book the least of my expectations is that it be bound and said “Can’t you do anything about that?” She smirked (which toppled my negative attitude from veiled contempt for outright disgust) and said “nope.”  So, naturally I mocked her, she responded with a highly impressive level of sarcasm and we went our separate ways.  Truth be told, I think our skill levels were quite equal when it comes to being bitchy when the situation calls for it.  I’m being ripped off by a rigged institution (can’t buy the book used or resell it due to this lack of binding and because of an access code that’s required) so I was bitchy, and she was bitchy because it wasn’t her fault at all.  I was sincerely impressed with her level of sarcasm because if I weren’t so well versed in it, it would appear to be great customer service.  Plus 5 to her.

Plus 5 to me, too, though.  Refusing to spend one red cent more than necessary at the college library, I headed over to the nearest office supply store.  Staples was able to cleanly bind my book into two parts – separating the case studies from the actual text will come in handy over the course of the semester.  I got two books bound and bought two notebooks for eight bucks.

At this point, I find it prudent to begin my studies… if only so I can go back to playing Guild Wars 2.  Here’s a bonus screen shot of Harkin and Aminarra at a vista in Rata Sum:

Money

If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some. – Benjamin Franklin

Had a busy busy weekend, for sure.   Spent money like we were rich, except we’re really not.  I’m not even going to talk about the Weight Watcher’s meeting because it was yet again uninspirational.  /sigh.  Breakfast with Runa afterwards, though, was pretty cool.  I actually tracked my breakfast–of course, that was the only meal I tracked this weekend, so not sure how many points I would win for that.

I’m still on my chocolate/sweets kick.  A candy bar a day is NOT good for you, and I know that, and yet I still seek it out.  Today there were 2 Godiva truffles, 2 ghirardelli caramel squares and 1 hershey’s kiss.  And I wanted more.  I would say that this is a story for another day, but the reality is that it is a story for every day, at least for me, over the past few weeks.  No wonder I’ve gained nearly 3 lbs…

Moving on.

Saturday had the same gamut that I usually run.  After school on Saturday, though, Jeff and I went to Target to get some meds for this cold that I’m fighting.  Since it was in such close proximity, we stopped in to Verizon and finally replaced my phone–an original DROID that had a bad case of confusion.  My old DROID would not let me hang up calls, sometimes wouldn’t recognize that I was swiping to unlock the phone when someone was calling, wouldn’t open the app I was asking for, but would open unrelated ones, would take pictures that were half black half color…. And it didn’t really matter what I did, it was unreliable at best.  I have replaced it now with a Motorola Droid Razr… in purple. Because it’s an awesome color.

Motorola Droid Razr (Purple)

Mom had mentioned that there was a clearance sale of jewelry at the mall and so I convinced Jeff that it was a good idea to stop by.  The first place we looked had friendly staff, but we didn’t find any engagement rings that we just NEEDED to have.  We went a level up and found a beautiful diamond solitare that I fell in love with:

Now it's official-official, not just facebook official!

We decided to go ahead and get this beauty now instead of waiting until March, and since we were applying for financing anyway, we replaced Jeff’s watch while we were at it.  On Sunday, we signed the applications and got our deposit turned in for the new apartment that we plan to move to in May.  I think I’ve managed to spend more money in a span of two days than I usually would over the course of a year.

I went to dinner at my parent’s house tonight, so I could show them my new ring and Jeff’s watch.  My papa-bear burst out laughing when Jeff showed the watch to him.  I was perplexed until he showed us his watch alongside Jeff’s–we bought the same exact watch that my step-dad has. LOL!  We were highly amused.  I guess it’s true what they say, daughters find husbands like their fathers.  (So, fathers out there–treat the momma’s right because your daughter will find a man just like you, for better or worse.)

Tomorrow morning the plan is to join my mom at the 6am class, so I should boogie off to bed.  No menu in today’s post because it simply didn’t get done with everything else going on.  We also did not go grocery shopping, so tomorrow is going to be interesting when it comes to food… oi oi oi…

The good news is that I have some time on Wednesday that I should be able to dedicate to food prep, and I’ve got some great ideas pulled from Pinterest for batch cooking and planning, so look forward to that.  🙂

Thanks for reading! Have a great [insert time of day you’re reading this here]