I applied for a kind of weird (because not any of the tasks I've done before) job Thursday, because the social worker in charge of jobs in our town encouraged me to (she's been trying to get hold of the person who would have to okay the work practice I actually wanted to do for a couple of weeks with no luck). I used to think I might want to do office work, I suppose, but it's still odd. (The local Red Cross office, so it's kind of a bit of everything - including selling some things in their shop and keeping up the public... area? Finnish Red Cross is a good organization though - no history of corruption like some of the international ones -, and the local chapters, as with any charity org, are the most important to support.) However, it's better than waiting indefinitely for the coordinator of classroom assistants for the local schools that speak Swedish to contact the social worker back.
And I really would like to have a paycheck again. At the best of times, we don't necessarily exceed Wax's paycheck in monthly expenses, but fixing a car or anything like that, or taking cats to the vet, will push the budget over the edge. For a few months after my previous work practice ended I still wasn't out of leftover money, but we've been spending more than we earned the last couple of months, and that's really not fun.
Stuff that we're not going to do until I have a paycheck again now includes but is not limited to:
- buying the rest of the murderbot books
- buying Greta Morgan (previously of The Hush Sound)'s new music
- buying a new keyboard - this keyboard is starting to waver a bit at times, and I really want a mechanical keyboard
- buying a new mouse, because mine died suddenly and I'm now using the emergency backup mouse, which is miniature and corded and plugged in with a usb extension cable, and bunnies have gnawed the scroll wheel, and double-clicking is slow and weird
- buying a new power source for my computer because the fan in the current one buzzes like it's full of angry bees for a good minute and a half every time you start it up and thereafter intermittently
- buying new noise-canceling headphones for Wax
- writing to TWSBI customer service to order a replacement wrench for my Diamond 580, which has been unusable since I broke the previous one late last year
- taking Snookums to the vet to have his teeth cleaned, which has now been put off for financial reasons twice
- traveling to Helsinki again to visit an international friend who has recently moved there
- buying the lumber to make toekicks under the kitchen cabinets and replace some missing trim from various doors and windows and baseboards around the house