it continues

And we figured out today that one of our trees is rapidly dying, so now we get to have that removed. It needs to be removed so we can continue our retaining wall project. Better to get it out of the way before we put in the wall..... unfortunately, that costs money.

*sigh

The circle of crap continues

Not only have I been out of work for a year, I had to reapply for benefits.

Future Benefit estimate: $0.00. You read that correctly --ZERO. right now I'm just left to hope that they determine otherwise and give me benefits, otherwise things around here are entering worst case scenario and going to get ugly while I frantically search for anything that will take me, increase my hours at my coffee shop to full time + start picking up at any store that'll take me. As I pay off the stuff I owe on and cut every expense I can to the absolute minimum. I won't know anything til Wednesday or Thursday so for the next 3 days I get to sit and worry.... awesome.

Wedding planning is officially on hold til further notice.

I want to cry, scream, throw things. ... mainly because of the 2nd paragraph--- not because of putting wedding planning on hold. I'm mad about that, but I'm in defcon 5 panic mode here. I was FINALLY starting to feel ahead of things too.

Seriously, who do I have to sleep with to get a job???

Oh yeah, and because I was a transferred in to my community college already having a bachelors degree and 138 credits that I'm not worthy of financial aid because those 138 + credits are more than 150% of the credits required for the program I applied for. It's been suspended. I have to appeal to get it reinstated for fall.

Can I catch a break? Because I feel like karma's bitch right now. What in the hell happened to my life?

When did I go out of style?

As a teenager, I was about as far from fashionable as one could get. I mostly wore baggy t shirts and jeans. I was lucky if I did my hair. Thinking back, I was probably the Ally Sheedy character from the Breakfast Club --if you had to put me in a category.

Over the course of my college years, I gained confidence and began to be much more fashionable. I went from having an almost empty closet to an overflowing one.

Currently I've amassed a great selection of business casual and work clothes. Over the last year, they've sat in closet collecting dust as I haven't needed them. As a result, I now have a ton of t-shirts and boring/conservative tops, a dwindling supply of jeans and 1 pair of khaki capris. My options decrease substantially when it gets warm out. So even if I want to dress nicely, I can't really do with it without winding up overdressed or underdressed. My go to outfit is a light blue tshirt with multi color penguins on it paired with aforementioned cargo capris.....  Next to better dressed people my age, I feel like I look frumpy.

Tonight, I engaged in some much needed solo retail therapy. I wound up getting 2 pairs of bermuda shorts -- 1 turquoise plaid!!!! and 1 grey --(WHOA! Big leap. I can't remember the last time I wore shorts, let alone plaid ones) and 3 shirts - two tank tops and a tunic. I tried on way more than that to find the stuff I did.

I can't wait to wear it all!

Stupid congestion

It's a beautiful day. I want to go exercise, but this stupid congestion is hanging on and zapping my energy. Even though I'm getting better, I still feel like those first couple days when you think you may be coming down with something (you know, you get the scratchy throat, icky taste in your mouth).

Ugh. 

90 day health challenge update

I don't know what week I'm in, but I know its supposed to be coming to a close in the next couple weeks.

I kind of lost sight of it which is sad. I couldn't even make 90 days! Shame on me. I did succeed in cutting out sugar in my coffee and for 2 months I successfully cut out pop. I fell off the wagon while I was sick but will be getting back on that one.

Exercise was my greatest failing.... But I did manage to run a 5K!

So while this one is coming to a close and I was not fully successful, I think I may undertake a new one.

3 days off!

I have 3 whole days off! I'm not visiting my coffee shop or any other one of its brand. I'm using this time to recover from my cold and rest in general. I've needed this break because months on end of only having 1 day off at a time just wasn't cutting it! I am too nice of person and almost had to go in today. Luckily karma was on my side and the person called me back saying they no longer needed me to cover part of his shift. *insert sigh of relief!*

I really wish I was on vacation but it's either have a wedding or go on a trip at this point... actually, it's more like pay my bills or go on vacation. I guess I'll take pay my bills. :( Damn conscience....

On the meltdown front, I'm feeling slightly better about my situation, despite all the uncertainty. The knot has subsided back into it's dull ache. My weekly meltdown is complete. Although, my meltdowns are starting to increase in frequency which is not good..  What changed my attitude today? The mood lifting effects of lot's of sleep, a new hair color and beer!

And now, back to the 24 finale, and more beer. Drown knot drown!

Really? It's been a year?

In 6 days, I've been out of work for a year. I've neared the end of my first extension and now they're asking me to reapply for benefits.

Despite the shining sun outside, I'm being covered by a raincloud. Let's review the last year:

May 29th, 2009: last day of full time work, spirits high that a new adventure was right around the corner.
June-August 2009: Kind of enjoyed being off because I could be outside, go to the gym, Money was still ok as I was completely blind to the money I was hemorrhaging. I deluded myself that I was living the good life cheap, but was doing anything but.

October-November 2009:  I officially ran out of money. I was living with $30 in my personal bank account. I didn't think I'd be able to buy christmas gifts if things continued.

December 2009: A small light appeared when I got my part time job. It was scary to start over, but it was only temporary, right? Things were going to change soon because I couldn't possibly be out of work for a year, right? I have a bachelors degree and extensive job history. Someone has a use for me full time, right?

January -May 2010: I started taking some classes at the local community college to start trying to figure out what in the hell to do with my crumbled life. Over the course of that semester, I discovered the direction I was pursuing would only result in me being more overspecialized and in a field that it was still difficult to find jobs. So now I'm left wondering, what next?

Today: On the job hunt, I've retooled my resume several times, handcrafted it to fit every detail possible in a job description and STILL CAN'T GET A CALL BACK! Even for the jobs I was a near perfect match to begin with. I don't know what I else I can do short of tracking down the HR person and sleeping with them.

And now the icing on the cake is I have to reapply for benefits. I'm scared to do it. What if they penalize me for working part time and base my amount on my current income, not the one I lost in the first place? If they do that I'm fucked 100x over. I will have to cancel all wedding plans because I probably won't be able to pay for my mortgage. I don't know what to do anymore.

Welcome back giant knot in my stomach. How did things get so screwed up?

A smattering of various topics

I'll open with an interesting experience at work today:

A family comes in to order drinks. Their daughter, who was maybe 8-10ish, ordered a mocha.(?!?!) I highlighted that it has 2 shots of espresso in it and double checked that they didn't want to make it a decaf (many parents will make it a decaf upon realization of espresso being involved), but they did not so I moved on to the next drink. The son wanted a hot chocolate. Both kids got chocolate covered pretzels. As we're trying to check out, the son is bouncing off the walls, picking up everything in the "grab and go" section asking if they can have it. The daughter is also a bit hyper. The mom looks at me and says "Ah. I don't get why they're so hyper!?!?".  REALLY? No idea? Huh? It took everything in me not to say something about the sugar bombs and sugar/caffeine bombs she just ordered for her kids.

Granted, it's less sugar than a can of coca cola..... In my shock, I wasn't even thinking about the calories and fat of those two drinks --which ends up at around 32g of fat for a small!

I feel so old because I certainly don't remember having that urge to consume caffeinated things, especially coffee at such a young age. But then again, coffee shops weren't a part of my growing up....And well, I was kind of a weird kid.....with "kind of" being kind of an understatement. :)

Ok, onto other life stuff-- in a nutshell

1. Job hunt: Grumble grumble.... I'll stop there. 
2. Wedding planning: Reception venue booked.  Next up: ceremony site, officiant, DJ, photographer.... if I don't wind up broke first.
3. Pampered Chef: No parties booked. I've been sick so I haven't been able to do any follow up calls. Seriously questioning if I have it in me to make it past my 90 days....at least I got some cool product out of the deal, right?
4. House: Most projects are on hold. Gutters pretty much wiped us out financially. The only thing we're working on is our retaining wall project (ongoing). We're about 1/2 way across with the first terrace.

the day off

So not only did I get up at 4:30 am and head into work ON MY DAY OFF, I'm also sick.

Whoo hoo! What a horrible way to spend a day off.

Seriously?

http://www.today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37216290/ns/today-today_people?gt1=43001

This sickens me. She was just being a dumb teen who got knocked up. Who and the hell wants to hear her speak, let alone pay her $15,000- $30,000 to do so?

I can't manage anything but a strong eye roll and a sigh on this....

cross that one off the list of potential careers....

I will never be able to be a flight attendant. That's what I learned today.

You needed to have a 57" knuckle to knuckle arm span and I was about 8" short of that.

At least it wasn't because they didn't like me or something. It's something I have completely no control over -- my velociraptor arms.....

:)

Reception Venue: CHECK!

So I lost out on May 21st, but June 4th was available so my new wedding date will be 6/4/2011!

And now to find a ceremony place...

5K success!

So I planned to do the 5K today, but hadn't really trained at all. My training has mostly consisted of junk food and pizza so I had pretty low expectations for how my attempt would go. I fully anticipated walking 75% of it.

Well, there must have been some energy I was stealing from the crowd, because, I RAN THE WHOLE THING!!!! It helped that it was mostly a flat course and I didn't attempt to run very quickly at all. I just kept my 13 or so minute mile pace up and never really felt like stopping.

My only mistake was that I thought I was slightly closer to the end than I thought so I started picking up the pace a bit early. Because of that, for a brief moment I didn't think I'd make it running across the finish line. But I did. And I feel great!

Final time: 39:42!

I was not chip timed for this one because I didn't think I'd actually run the whole thing.

Next goal: 5K in June in St. Paul. Only this one I think I'll actually train for so I can maybe get under 36 minutes.

No one to blame for this but myself

We finally made a decision on venue.... only I had dragged my feet in expressing interest so it's booked for that date. Only that date that month which is soo weird/funny.

So now the question is: change dates? Keep looking at other venues?

not even qualified to tie my own shoes....

Which must be why I wear so many slip ons... ha ha.

Because I'm frustrated, I've been stepping up my job search which means a couple things:

1. I compulsively check job sites looking at job after job that I am not qualified and see very few that I am qualified for
2. I get more and more depressed at that fact because I look daily and see nothing which makes me angry which makes check more and more often hoping for change, yet seeing none. It's a vicious cycle. 

In the end, I start to wonder if I'm actually qualified for anything, including the aforementioned tying of my own shoes. One begins to wonder, do I have a degree in shoe tying? No.  What is it on my resume that can stand out and say I'm more qualified for this shoe tying business than the next person? Is it all just a crap shoot? What makes a HR person choose the other people?

All I know is I need whatever voodoo people who are getting decent jobs in this economy are using so I can also get one. 

Ready or not, I'm running

Saturday May 15th, I'm officially doing a 5k. I haven't so much been training so I fully expect to walk over 1/2 of it. It'll be good incentive for the next one in June.

My parents are visiting and giving me a treadmill so maybe I can get running again!

Perturbed ......

So our neighbors are getting landscaping done, which is great. The only bad thing, their landscapers took out some of the lilacs at the top of the hill  in our backyard. They took out at least 1 large lilac tree. The lilacs are both theirs and ours so I'm a bit ticked off, and so is Branden that it was taken out for no real apparent reason.

:-/

I just wish they would have let us know that that was the plan ahead of time instead of just ripping one of them out. We may have tried to move it.

Welcome to my weekly meltdown

Its really hard to stay positive. I slip into a stressed out funk about 1x a week, if not more. This time it's been triggered by schedule dissatisfaction, seeing my old job posted (not at the research lab, the wonderfully overpaying one before that) and how much they start at now -- I'll just say it was utterly depressing/devastating to my psyche because I know I stand a snowball's chance in hell of ever making that again--, and general frustration with my complete loss of direction. 

The worst part is the aforementioned complete lack of desire to even try anymore. I've entered apathic stage again. *sigh*

Privacy

Ok, so I blog and put information out there about myself. But even though I do that, belong to sites for planning a wedding and thus put a ton of info out there about myself, I'm really irritated by FB lately. Their recent changes that want to link a page to every bit of information I had on my profile bugs me. Do these links then superceede your privacy settings? How is that information being used? Why this suddenly bothers me, I don't know. Maybe it is because of how easy it is to lose control of your information once you put it out there.

So I'll continue blogging and continue using FB but I'm definitely taking quite a bit of my info off that site. I didn't realize just how many pages I liked and was going to be linked to. It's kind of scary. 207 pages in my "likes" and then my profile sections added another 50 or so. Yikes.

So my profile will be empty... those who know me, know what they need to about my life already. Those that don't, but want to know can.... just ask me!

GRRR.

I hate calling a customer service center and getting a crabby person on the other side. I just did that and the lady who answered the phone sounded all down -- like if her voice was a musical composition, I'd describe it as being in minor tones (and that sums up my knowledge of music theory).

It's really aggravating when I've applied to several call center positions and either never heard back or got told I was not qualified. I'm pretty sure, I'd do a hell of a lot better job than that lady did. But nope, I'm not qualified. Whatever.

Overcoming... myself.

I had my first Pampered Chef party (not a kickoff party but an actual booked party) on Friday and I had a blast doing it! The only problem is that I have no future bookings. I was really hoping to walk away with one firm booking so I could just let things go from there. Now, I have to actually put in the work and make the contacts. Who knew that this would be work? (I'm kidding by the way. I knew it would be and its why I took it on!).

The biggest battle between me and success is... well, ME. I have to overcome the things about me that hold me back. My "never wanting to bother or be too pushy" mentality, my "worrying too much about what other people think of me", my over-reliance on media other than the phone to talk to people (although, I think as a society, we've moved in this direction: email, texting, FB, all work against us).

 In the grand scheme of things, these are probably the things that are holding me back in general. The reason that 100 or so applications later, I still work in a coffee shop. Self confidence and believing that I deserve the successes I get have never been my fortes. Somewhere along the line I stopped believing in myself and it sucks. But I guess a layoff and extreme financial humbling will do that to anyone...

So I resolve this week to make those contacts. I resolve to just suck it up and rewrite my damn resume so I can get a full time job again and pay for a wedding. I've started looking outside the science field to more administrative positions and I think if I can get my resume to stand out, I'd really be a good match for the positions.

Update next week on how I do on these resolutions....