In Which I Get a Job that I like!!!!

I have undergone quite the transformation in the past year and half.  I went from a highly professional job where I was valued for my knowledge and treated in high regards to some very different types of positions.  [It is funny when I think back to it.  Sometimes I remember events and for some reason everyone in my head speaks with an English accent and sometimes I am wearing a wig like George Washington.  Ok, so that is when I have dreams about my old job but still...it is kinda odd don't ya think, chap?  End Rant Here.]  I was a pizza delivery driver, pizza maker, house keeper and finally an overqualified butt wiper.  I know my last job wasn't really all butt-wiping but it was the part that I had NO IDEA about before I had accepted it.  Granted, it was only when I had to work the floor or as a last resort, but just not my cup of tea (see, the English thing again).

Overall the dynamics where I worked for 9 months were not ideal.  Many times I felt like Lloyd in Dumb & Dumber (*Note, to truly understand the torment please click on that link).  I could go on and on and I am sure over time I will post little snippets of the hellish ordeal but for now I am trying to remove it from my memory and focus on the good.  Which is why I am writing in the first place and it brings us full circle to one year ago........

Last year I interviewed for a position that I knew I could totally do and was offered the job in a round-about way.  They basically said they couldn't afford me.  They said what they could offer and I agreed with them because at that time, my naivety about how dire the job market would become was unfathomable.  I was still expecting to find a job that made within $5 and hour of what I had been making.  So needless to say, I went on my merry way and continued to drudge forward through unemployment for another 6 months {Rant--my husband continually said "I told you to accept that other job" whenever I complained about the job I had accepted. Rant ends here}.

Fast forward 13 months later: While perusing through Craigslist I spied the same job that I had turned down last year!!!!!   No way!  Could it be?!?!  Since I had accepted the other job and "settled" for a lower salary that was commensurate with what they had offered me I wondered if I should go for it.  When I told my husband about it his response was "I told you to accept it last year!"  So I contacted them and told them my situation: the past year was pure hell and I had kicked myself for not accepting it before and I GOT THE JOB!!!!  That simple!!!!!!  Holy buckets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I started at the new job about two weeks ago.  It is a job I can do.  It is a job that makes me happy.  It is a job where I am appreciated.  It is a job where I am no longer on call, ever!!  I can have nights and weekends and holidays free!  I can go out of town.  I can drink too many beers and not get a call that someone is sick or didn't show up or there is a major crisis that I can't deal with because I got my beers on.  I can take the kids to school in the morning and then go to work.  I can leave for a full hour at lunch and take my husband to work and not have to check out and let someone know I am leaving the premise on my own time.  Pay dirt baby!!!!

My new job is administrative--the kind of crap that I did before I went to college.  However, my experiences elsewhere have come in handy and I am actually highly-qualified!!!!!!!!!  My desk is behind a large counter.  You can't even see my head when you walk in unless I really sit up to peer over the ledge.  It is my happy place.  My very own happy place and I can't think of anywhere I would rather be from 8:30 - 5 pm, Monday through Friday.  Woot! Woot!

The Ghost of Christmas Past - I apparently forgot to post this back when I wrote it

It is the holiday season and I am trying to get into the "spirit."  I had Cody drag all the Christmas boxes out of the storage unit for me and load/unload them into the car.  They are now sitting in a huge wall/pile in my sitting area.  I had planned to decorate this weekend only work got in the way.  Being on call = not fun.  Being on call = not being able to finish projects you had planned.  Therefore, my laundry monster is still as tall as me and growling to be put away.  I was able to do laundry but I didn't feel like taking the time to fold after it came out because I was sleep deprived and being lazy.  I plan on taking a few days off this week while the boys are at school to kick the house's ass.  I am going to clean it like there is no tomorrow.  It is time to mop and glo again.  I love how shiny the floors will be.  It will reflect the lights of the artificial tree that I am using this year and I won't have to worry about picking up any pine needles.  Gotta love the fake stuff (funny for a girl who spent so much time on a Christmas tree farm while growing up).

My theme this year for Christmas is "I finally have a mantle!!!"  I am really going to bank on that since I haven't had a mantle since....hmmmmm...forever.  Wait, I guess we did technically have one but it was more of a ledge behind the wood stove in the trailer that we live in for 18 months while building our house.  That was a Christmas to remember.  It is also the Christmas we compare all of the Christmas' against.  That was the year that our family of four was living oh-so-not-comfortably in a 10' x 50' 1963 trailer.  The house was so small we didn't even have room for a tree.  Not even a little one.  So we had a wreath.  We all decorated little plastic ornaments from the dollar store and hung them on the wreath alongside the ornaments the boys made at school that year.  We put lights on the wreath and all of the presents were piled on a side table under the wreath.  All the house-hold items we received that year were put into storage until we moved into the new house as we had no room for them in the tin can we called home.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not putting it down, it was a house to live in cheaply it just wasn't ideal.  If we had known it was going to take that long, it would never have transpired the way it did.  The oven was so small we had a turkey breast.  Turkey wouldn't even fit in the oven.

Cody's bedroom was the little 7'x11' pop-out add-on/entry way into the house.  It had no insulation.  So during the day he would play in there and then sleep on the couch inside at night.  We had two dressers stacked on top of each other to hold our clothes.  The cars we owned were more expensive than the house and you know what it was ok.  Looking back it makes me thankful for what we have now.  It also makes me happy that I have room to put up so many decorations that it is going to look like Christmas barfed all over the house.  I can't wait!!!!