ENTERTAINMENT: The Sims
To begin with, I don’t usually just sit down and play computer games for hours and hours at a time. I used to, but I rarely do anymore. But for the past few days, I’ve been really into the Sims 2 again. I’m not sure why. I go on these Sims binges where I just can’t seem to get enough. Then I get kind of tired of it and don’t play it for months. I’m sure that won’t change.
What I usually do with my characters is play me and Ky. I very rarely play anybody else. I usually play as Ky for a while, level him up a little bit, then create me and play as me. Then I put them together, two struggling people with no money, and have them get married. Then they have babies right away. This is usually what causes my downfall.
But this time, I maximized both me and Ky before I got them married so that we’d each have a bundle of money to bring together when we got married. And it worked! We each had about 200,000 Simoleans when we got married, which gave us a net total of 400,000. Yay for math. And, I know it’s really sad, but we got pregnant almost right away and had twin girls! I’m so happy! LOL
Anyway, to make a long story short (too late), I like the Sims. And what’s even better is that they’re coming out with the Sims 3 in 2009. I can’t wait! It sounds like you can customize your Sim a lot more, and you can actually walk around in their neighborhood and visit neighbors’ houses and stuff. It sounds neat. It’s on my birthday list next year, if anybody is interested! 
FINANCES: PayPal
Okay. This has been a big stress for me lately so I’m going to tell you all about it.
To begin this story, we must go back to December of 2007 when I decided to get Ky a guitar for Christmas. So, I go to Guitar Center online and find a good beginner, fairly inexpensive one for him. I order it through PayPal. All seems well.
About two weeks later, just a few days before Christmas, I check to see what the order status is. PayPal has accepted the payment and the guitar says it was shipped. Wait, shipped? I look at the shipping confirmation number through FedEx or whoever they sent it through. It says it was shipped to some place in Kansas. I don’t know how that happened, but I call Guitar Center.
After explaining the problem to at least three people, I finally talk to the person who can help me. And after explaining the situation once again, he puts me on hold with that annoying hold radio that most places have now. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t so loud. Fifteen minutes goes by and the man finally comes back on the phone. He explains to me that the guitar was supposed to be delivered to me but was sent back to the warehouse for some reason and was shipped to some other guy in Kansas.
He apologizes profusely and says that he will give me the same guitar for almost half the price, but it won’t be delivered until the beginning of January. Although I’m a little upset that it’ll be coming after Christmas, I figure that Ky won’t care when it comes, especially if I got it for less. So I go ahead and tell him to send me another one and refund the other money. Well, I try to give him my PayPal information again to pay for it, but I can’t since I don’t have an actual card with them. I have to give him my bank card number. That’s fine, I had the money. But I asked him when my money with PayPal would be refunded. He says within thirty days, usually less.
Thirty-seven days go by and still no refund has come. It’s now getting into February. I call Guitar Center once again and say that I still haven’t been refunded the money. They apologize once again and say they will take care of it right away. March comes and the credit finally shows up. I think everything is peachy.
But no.
It is now July and PayPal has been sending me bills saying that I owe them over $140! I checked my online statement numerous times and it says I have a $0 balance. Weird. So I ignore them (which was my first mistake). Well, for the past month, I’ve had debt collectors calling me (which I had no idea that’s who it was until someone actually picked up the phone; we didn’t know the number so we just assumed it was telemarketers). I talked to them on Thursday, and the annoying, won’t-let-us-get-a-word-in-edgewise lady kept insisting that I give her my bank information so that I can get them off my back. I tell them that I would never give my information out over the phone to someone who was calling me asking for money and information. She keeps insisting that it’s legitimate. Ky talks to her. He kind of gives it to her without actually giving it to her. Basically, he tells her how it is without being a jackass. Something Ky’s very good at doing. I haven’t got much of a spine, so I’m glad he’s around for this stuff.
We finally give her $10 to leave us alone for the month but on a credit card. That way, I can dispute any extra charges with the credit card company. So Ky goes to work and we kind of forget about it for the time being
But Ky wants to get it sorted out and he refuses to pay any money that we don’t actually owe due to the error of Guitar Center or PayPal or whoever. So when he got home on Friday, he was on the phone for an hour or so with PayPal trying to tell them the situation and get things reversed. He finally did, I believe. I think he said that PayPal would reverse all the extra charges for the error that they and/or Guitar Center had made.
But here’s the kicker: the whole problem, besides Guitar Center taking two months to refund the money, was that when PayPal originally charged me for the guitar, they charged me $219.19 or something like that. But when Guitar Center gave me my money back, PayPal only refunded $216.81 approx. I guess that the original $219 was just an estimate and the $216 was the actual price. PayPal’s fault, not Guitar Center’s. That’s what Ky said that the lady said, anyway.
So, although nobody will probably read this, to make a long story short…I’ve been a little stressed this week.
MARRIAGE: Missing Ky
Sometimes I really love having my alone time. Sometimes I just love to chill out by myself and work on my puzzle or play the Sims or something like that. I usually love my alone time. But lately especially, I find myself feeling less and less like having alone time. I know I will always need it and want it, but I find that I need it a lot less.
And I really miss sleeping at the same time as him. Even though he works four days and has four days off, even though it’s even, he’s usually used to staying up all night and sleeping during the day. So often times he’ll stay awake until he would normally go to bed when he works. So even though he’s home (and I can totally understand that he wants to keep the same basic schedule), he’s awake and I’m asleep. It’s especially hard because he does try to sleep next to me usually once or twice before he works, but since I’m used to sleeping alone, I don’t always get the most restful sleep. But I’d much rather lose a little sleep than miss sleeping next to him.
I’m not really complaining. It could be a whole lot worse. It can just be hard sometimes. Anybody know what I’m talking about?
ABOUT: Tigerlily Sandybanks
Okay, I have to explain the Tigerlily Sandybanks title, first of all. Not much to tell, actually. I had a really good anagram of my maiden name, Allergy Monk, but since I got married, that wasn’t really valid anymore. I went searching around on the internet for a good anagram creater. I found a pretty good one, but none of the names really flowed well like Allergy Monk.
So, I was looking for a name generator and low and behold, there was an elven and hobbit name generator. Now, I love the Lord of the Rings, but I’m not a super huge fanatic like some people are. But I gave it a shot. So, I put in Kelly Goeken. It came up with something silly. And Kellyn was even worse. Esmerelda, I think. So I did Kellyn Marie Goeken, my full name, and it came up with Tigerlily. I love that name. It’s really pretty and it reminds me of Peter Pan, which for some strange reason, I love.
Boring, right? So, Tigerlily Sandybanks is born. I hope I can sustain her. My baby…. 
