Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Life's Funny Ways

On Tuesday I got laid off from my fancy new job. Last in, first out I guess. The good news is that Hubbs got a new job that very same day. Now being the smarty that I am and realizing that it was becoming increasingly likely that my new job wasn't going to work out, I'd started applying for new jobs. I nabbed a few interviews and scored a new job offer today! Hurray for us!

Hubbs and I both working full time will bring in around the same amount of money I would have gotten from the job that let me go, but at least we've got something coming in. The other nice part about my job is it has benefits with a free clinic on-site, bonuses, and a free lunch for every shift worked. I'm actually pretty excited about it, even though it will mean getting yelled at a lot on the phone.

This will also be my last week subbing, after the new job debacle, I picked up a shift for tomorrow and Friday.

In other news, we've decided to get a hamster! I'd wanted to get a guinea pig, but we don't have the floor space. I thought a hamster would be a great segue into the world of rodent ownership. I've been around to all the stores in the area, as well as called several rescues and shelters. Unfortunately, it's looking like adoption isn't an option for our new hammy friend.

The Dream Job I'd been hoping for the last few months didn't work out, but the exact same position opened up at a different location. I've allowed myself to hope that there's a slight possibility I'll get it this time. The new location is nice, but with a slightly higher cost of living than the location I was hoping for the first time. When I got rejected this time around, they told me I was an excellent candidate and to keep trying, they just only had about 200 openings for the almost a thousand people who'd applied. Better luck to me this time!

Hubbs and I are looking for somewhere to move around here for just a few months after our lease is up. We hardly have any furniture of our own, so moving won't be that tough, I'm more worried about actually finding a place that will lease to us for such a short time. After that, we're moving somewhere. Not sure where or what we'll do when we get there. We're just going to save up the majority of the money we make this summer and hope for the best. Any suggestions for places with a lot of jobs with a low cost of living? lol.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

When Life Slaps You in the Face

I feel like over the last few years, there's been a few times where life/the universe is like you know what? I know you think things are going well, but really, I hate you and want to make everything much harder for you. SMACK. Then my face stings for a bit and I get over it and take my life in a new direction. This is one of those times.

I started a new job which I was all rosy and excited about. After six days.. just SIX of actual work, my body has decided to hate me an refuse to allow me to do my job properly. Sure it's probably just my fault for taking a job in manual labor when I knew I was a big couch potato fatty. I really thought I could handle it though, apparently I cannot.

I took the day off yesterday because after work on Tuesday, it literally hurt just sitting down. It felt like my feet were going to fall off and I had this twinge in my lower back that reared up on Monday. It felt like either something in my spine was being pinched, or like two of my vertebra were rubbing together. My knees were weak and wobbly, it doesn't help that my patella rubs away at my cartilage anyway... basically I was a wreck.

Tuesday night after work, I'd applied to a boatload of other jobs. I know that I won't be able to find anything remotely as well paying as this job, but hopefully I'll find something that I can actually do until Hubbs graduates in January.

Yesterday, my phone was flooded with calls from recruiters and prospective employers. I was pretty shocked, I even had two interviews yesterday. I've got a second interview lined up for tomorrow and two others next week. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's getting interviews. Getting jobs on the other hand is a little trickier. We're hoping for something in the $10/hr range with benefits, but we'll see what happens.

Hubbs is not too happy about it. We had a fight about it yesterday morning. Hubbs and I rarely fight, but when we do, it usually stems from his own insecurities. My looking for yet another new job somehow makes him feel inadequate because for 90% of the time we've been married, I've been the only one working.

We were all excited because we were looking into the idea of buying a house... that's not happening anymore. He doesn't want to get trapped here like his siblings and blah blah so now we have a new plan. We're going to rent a new apartment for the fall semester while he finishes school, and then after he graduates, no matter what, we're moving. We have no idea where, or what we'll do when we get there, but we've decided to take the plunge and do it. Hubbs is still thinking about joining the military, and I guess we can just move wherever he gets stationed. At the moment, if that turns out to be the plan, I'm planning on going back to school wherever we move.

Last August, when I was looking for something new to do with my life, there were a few options that I was toying around with. I chose welding and obviously that didn't really work out too well. One of the other options was going back to school to be a vet tech, and I think maybe that's the path I was supposed to take. In EMT school, I did very well with the medical aspect of things, but the whole dealing with patients wasn't my forte. I love animals and always have, the best part is they can't talk back or intentionally spit in your face. I think that would be a good fit for me. There are several great accredited schools all over the country and I am confident that no matter where Hubbs is stationed that I'll be able to find a program to attend.

Hopefully, these new plans don't fail as miserably as some of our others have. Wish me luck at my interviews and any words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated. I try to be optimistic, but sometimes it really does suck when it seems like all of your grand plans are complete and epic failures despite your best efforts.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

First Real Day at the New Job

I thought I knew pain. I thought I knew what it was to be bone tired. I thought I knew what it was like to be sore and have every part of your body ache. I was wrong. I was so, so very wrong. It was all just a glimpse of the true horror that is my body today.

10 hours of hard labor after being a couch potato for basically the last... I dunno, 6 months, was absolute torture. My toes hurt, my hair hurts. My hair was plastered tightly to my head with sweat. Inside my HEPA mask, I had a continual goatee of sweat. I had to keep wiping the inside of my safety glasses because condensation kept popping up on the inside.

At the end of the day, I could barely walk, every part of me ached. I rode home on my scooter, barely able to grip the throttle and wincing in pain every time I had to put my feet down at a red light. You know what though? It was an awesome day. I relished in the new experiences and learned new things. At the end of the day I was able to look and actually see the results of my sweat and hard effort. It was awesome.

I'm going to regret it in the morning, but hopefully after a week or so, the pain will go away. lol. The other fun thing, is I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose a crapton of weight because holy heck do you work every muscle in your body. Future fit me, and current fat me are very excited about this. 

Monday, April 1, 2013

Officially Hired

It's a good feeling the moment a tentative job offer becomes an official one. My background check and drug test were squared away and I'm officially starting tomorrow.

I'm nervous, excited, and looking forward to the new challenge. It's definitely going to be a huge change from the last... what? 10 years or so I've spend behind a desk.

One thing I found amusing though, was before my drug test, I had a breathalyzer test... and I thought to myself. What sort of idiot would show up to a drug test drunk? How many times did it happen before they made it policy to breathalyze everyone? Pretty crazy stuff.

Our family in the area are very excited that we'll be sticking around for a while, and we are too. It turns out I didn't get the Dream Job that I'd applied for, but that's ok. This new job pays even more and doesn't involve moving 2,000 miles away. It's actually exciting to look at houses in the area and see what's available. Our lease is up in August, so we have to move anyway, we figure we might as well buy our next place instead of rent it.

We're meeting with the loan manager at the bank tomorrow to figure out how soon we can qualify for a loan, what sort of price range we can expect, and what we need to do to get ready. The first few paychecks are going towards paying off rent for the next 3 months and then paying off the rest of our debts. A few credit cards here and there and a sizable medical bill from back when we were actually trying to get pregnant. After that (which should be somewhere into month 2), we're going to start saving up for our down payment. There are some programs in the area for neighborhood revitalization and such that offer down payment assistance, so we'll see what happens with that. Supposedly, my parents were also supposed to help, but I'm not sure that's on the table anymore due to a slight change in their financial circumstances. Maybe I'll lean on my super rich brother. lol.

They always say that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, and that's definitely what happened here. It's an exciting new chapter in our lives and it's nice to look forward and not dread what it will bring.

Hubbs and I won't have to spend any time apart whilst he finishes school, and I'll get really valuable work experience and set myself up for even better jobs in the future. Hubbs still isn't sure what he's going to do after he graduates. Luckily, he has a good 8 months to think about it.

We went out to dinner tonight with Hubbs' other sister and her family... let me tell you, their (almost) 4 year-old is seriously a little monster. He was running around the restaurant like a madman, at one point, he ran past our table shoved his (almost) 1 year-old sister's head, which caused her to slam her forehead on the glass table. That would have hurt an adult! He's always slapping and hitting her in the head/face region. It is unbelievable. I always think to myself that if they're not more careful and take action to discipline him seriously when he does things like that, he's going to wind up accidentally killing her. I don't know what they can do to wrangle him in, but some of the things I've seen him do (and they've seen too for that matter) scare the heck out of me.

Hanging out with them makes me almost thankful that we can't have kids. If we could, it would be enough to be the best form of birth control ever.

My days from here on out are going to be filled with lots and lots of work, and a little bit of house hunting. Hopefully, I'll find some time to squeeze in some blogging as well. Last month, I was a complete failure at NaBloPoMo, but at least I tried a bit. I was just so down and our future was so uncertain it was hard to motivate myself to do anything. This time around, with so much to look forward to, maybe I'll actually want to share what's going on in our lives. lol.

Stick around, say "Hi", and I sincerely hope you'll join in on this exciting new chapter in our lives.