First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who offered their thoughts and advice on my last post. He's been much better about helping me - I think he got the idea that I was pretty upset. He helped me out on Thursday getting my Internet set up - not a word of complaint (needed someone here to let the Internet guy in to get things set up.)

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I've now been moved into my new place for a full week. Today and tomorrow I plan to do a lot of unpacking and organizing. I'm hoping to get most of it done so I don't have much to do later and can feel actually settled.

Last night I bought some needed items to replace things that I'd left behind or sold previously (when I was going to grad school.)

I bought a microwave, a toaster, a crockpot, a kitchen trash can, a couple of skillets and a cooking pot. What this means is now I can actually cook things here rather than eating PBJs or buying fast food.

I also bought a bed from Mattress Firm. It was about $376 or so after taxes and delivery charges. The mattress itself was $298. Not the best one by far .. but I'm hoping it will do the job and last a while. It is the first bed I actually bought for myself .. ever. All my previous beds were either hand me downs, or provided by the place I was renting.

I plan on going by Goodwill today to see what they have in the way of kitchen tables and love seats - also any kind of cabinets. I am in major need of storage space for pantry and cookware/dishware. Of course if I manage to find anything, I'm not sure how I'd get any of it home.

I really do NOT want to employ two men and a truck again ... I don't know anyone with a truck that could haul it for me. I really need to get most of my boxes unpacked first anyway though before adding more to the mess ...

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I'd really like to highly recommend Bubblews . com for writing whatever you want and getting paid for it. I have made close to $170 since June. I have a link to my profile page in the links section - that is where I've spent a lot of my short Internet time lately.

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I'll be getting my second paycheck this coming Thursday from my bus job. I'm hoping that the union mandated pay raise will take effect Once I see that, then I plan on working on a budget. I haven't been operating on a budget or any real kind of expense tracking for awhile ... and my bank account and credit cards show it. I won't be carrying a balance on any of my cards, but the bank accounts will definitely be slim after paying them ... (I do have my emergency fund still fully intact in a separate bank, but was not wanting to spend all I had in my regular bank ..)

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I think my cat Kari is much happier being a single cat than one of many. Almost within two days of being here, her entire attitude seemed to perk up and go back to her usual self. I hadn't seen her tail straight up in happy signal for a long time.

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I need to edit my sidebar since I accomplished my two big goals and figure out what my new goals are. Will have to wait til after my next paycheck though so I have a better idea of what I'm working with.