I am sorry, Blog

Poor neglected blog - it's been ages. How have you been? I know. Lonely. The only recent play you've gotten from me is the new Etsy sidebar button. I'm just using you to hawk my goods. But soon, bloggy blog, I will have more to tell. You will once again have purpose. I've already got a post in mind, about how I kill plants. Aren't you excited? Me too.

Love,
Val

Dream

Last night I had a dream that I went back to my old workplace. The bosses weren't there. I was looking through files and emails. I met the new office manager, who had the personality of a pebble. I found a file that said that I was fired because they thought I was trying to get pregnant. I felt vindicated after that. I'm sure they fired me for very different reasons, but still, raw injustice is easier to swallow somehow.

JobOverFired=VeryYes

Dear Bloggy Blog,
I got fired yesterday. I didn't see it coming. I don't know what happened. I don't know what triggered it. The reasons given were that I was a bad fit for the job, I was slow on projects, and I needed to be reminded of things. Even if I were to give credence to any of these reasons, which I don't, these reasons are not fire-able offenses. These are things people bring to the attention of their workers, make a plan, set goals, and they fricken work on them. They don't surprise you first thing Monday morning with, "we're letting you go, please give us your keys and credit card." I loved the things they said to soften the blow. "You're a smart girl." "Everyone here likes you." and "I know this is difficult for you. It's difficult for us too." Wow. Just wow.

Being the really annoying psychologist I am, I can't help but to analyze the crap out of the situation. I'm trying to think of every possible angle - what could have possibly been going through their minds? If they really did in fact fire me for the reasons stated, what the hell? Aside from the fact that it's ego-preserving, I can't help but think that there is something else going on. Maybe they knew somebody close to them who needed a job. Maybe they were having financial troubles but didn't want that to get out. Maybe the boss is just insane. I don't know what is going on, but this does NOT make sense. Not on any planet. Not even the crazy planet.

JobbyJobJob!

My dear loyal followers (all 2 of you),

I finally write what you already know - I got a job!! After a year of looking and 5 months of not working, I finally have a job! I am now the office manager for a tiny industrial engineering firm, which both designs and manufactures its tiny products. Tiny firm, tiny products. The commute takes 10 minutes and the people are totally fricken rad. The bosses acknowledged from the beginning that I am totally over qualified for this job, so they are building in
some challenging projects for me that hopefully will elevate the job eventually. For right now I'm doing all the stuff required to run an office - but I also have several projects starting that will allow me to shape policy in the company. I will finally be able to use my industrial/organizational psychology, and I even have already put some of that knowledge to use. Oh, and they're so excited about me that they put this darling headshot of me in their newsletter. :-)

Aside from being totally impressive on paper, I've been informally informed by the staff that the hiring decision also may have depended partly on the following factors:

• I play disc golf
• I bake
• I'm tall
• I love beer and can talk about it for hours (and drink it for hours)
• I get along with engineers
• I'm related to engineers
• I dress well
• I can argue the semantics of just about anything

So yeah, whatever it takes, right? I have a job. Woot!

Getting some Movement

Getting some movement - that's what the dual career lady at my Dr. Hubby's university calls it. Lately I've gotten some great movement on my job searching process. My contact at the uni has been sending job ads my way, and sending out my resume to people she knows. This last week I interviewed at a learning center and an engineering firm. Next week I have one set up with the study abroad office. All this is happening at once after months of almost nothing. Hurray! Even if I don't get a job out of it, the process is lifting my spirits considerably.

I had a second interview with the engineering firm on Friday, and will have a third interview with them this Tuesday. I hope it goes well, because of the three, I most want to work there. Yay!

Huh...

After months of putting my name/resume out there, networking, applying, etc., today I got 2 calls for interviews, and they're both tomorrow. And my oldest friend Brian, whom I have known since kindergarten, sent me a Wii. Yes, a Wii. Still waiting for a callback on the message a left him. When we had our yearly phone conversation on my birthday, he mentioned that he had never sent a wedding present, and that I should look for something in the mail from him. Huh...

Five and half hours left in the day. I wonder what else Cinco de Mayo holds in store for me?

Mad Eye Moody

"Constant Vigilance!" That's what Mad Eye Moody would shout to the students at Hogwarts to keep them on their toes. That phrase stuck with me all these years after reading the 4th Harry Potter book, because I think it pretty well explains an important and mostly annoying trait of mine. My husband thinks I'm paranoid because I constantly think of locking up the house, the car, checking to see whose following me, scope out a room before sitting down, seeing if I can run in the shoes/clothes I'm wearing, etc. Yeah, so maybe I'm a little more vigilant than most. I come from a city. So sue me.

Anyway, our little pooper of an old car seems to have sprung a gas leak, and I detected it. Booyah! When I was reparking it from the garage to the street, I noticed a tiny trail of drips, got underneath and got a sample of it. Fresh gas. Damn. The repair will no doubt be annoyingly expensive, but not as annoying as dying! My survival skills, while they most of the time just get in the way of normal functioning, seem to have benefitted our well-being once again. And this randomly placed reward of my paranoia will no doubt be a most effective reinforcer of this most annoying behavior. ;-) He he! Yeah baby...

Logically...

Since I'm also not getting any callbacks on the low-level, low-paying, brainless jobs I'm applying to, I might as well only apply to jobs I like, right?

The D Word

I'm not gonna cop to it. I don't want to be labeled. I'd be happy to cop to it if I knew it wouldn't come back later to bite me in the ass. I don't like it when labels prevent you from getting or doing what you want. Especially if you change later and can no longer be labeled by said thing. I like the flexibility, the transience of being unlabeled. I don't have any tattoos or piercings of any kind. I'm just not sure I would want to be be tied down to a particular image or hole that, when it stopped actually symbolizing who and what I am, I would try to explain that it in fact still *is* who and what I am, just to justify its continued permanent existence on my visible person.

Which is why I won't yet cop to the D word. Because words get written down and follow you around, even if you try evasive maneuvers. I consider my mental state to be something that is fluid, changeable, changing, up for debate, even. Every day since Tuesday has been great. But Tuesday sucked. Yet even on Tuesday, as I despairingly typed "help" into the google bar, I only barely met 3 of the 9 criteria for depression, according to the lamely-inadequate-yet-revered-by-those-lucky-psychologists-who-have-never-personally-experienced-mental-disorders book that tells you what's wrong with you, the DSM-IV. Yes, according to this wonderful tome of mental health, you must meet 5, yes, FIVE of the 9 criteria in order to be diagnosed as "depressed." So I guess I'm not. Who the hell meets 5 criteria and still has the wherewithall to pull themselves together and make it to a psychologist's office?

Anyway, I'm feeling so much better now, in spite of having no job and really wanting one, being more in debt than I'd like to be, consciously not reproducing because of said debt even as my age advances and my fertility melts away, and being scared by all my mom-friends/sisters who are are having a hard time remaining sane while parenting.

Like TV pastor Dr. Schuller says, tough times never last, but tough people do. I actually repeated this to myself on Tuesday. Stop snickering... it helped a little.

Even the Unemployed Like Fridays

It's a good day. It's sunny. I have the windows open and it's supposed to reach 80 today. Yay! Thinking back on Tuesday, my worst day in a long time, it seems like a distant memory. I felt like a different person on that day. I think that day was so awful that I have, without even trying, just bounced away in the opposite direction from it. I feel so much better now. I feel confident that a day like that won't happen again anytime soon. But my bad mood caught me so much by surprise that I want to get to the bottom of why it happened.

Today is Friday and I'm looking forward to spending some time with Dr. J this weekend. Especially since the weather should be nice. Maybe we can do something outside.

Today

I seemed to have gained 5 pounds over the weekend. How did that happen? Oh wait...

I'm trying to get a handle on how being unemployed is affecting me - big picture. Some days are fine and I can totally roll with it. Other days, like today, are pretty rough and it's hard to get a handle on my self worth as a non-working person. For so long I worked, got paid, derived validation from several sources as people read and used my stuff. And the work product I produced lasted months - even years. Hey Valerie, can you dig up that report you did breaking down each of the US News Rankings components? Sure. No prob. Still cool years later. These days it's more like,

Him: Hey Val, great dinner.
Val: Glad you liked it.
Him: (Next day) So, what's for dinner?
Val: What, you're hungry again already? I thought you liked my yesterday dinner!
Him: Well, it was great, but, um... you know, I can make a PB & J.

While I love cooking, the positive results of dinner only last a few hours. These days I spend my days looking for and applying to jobs (50% time), playing volleyball (20% time), shopping, cooking, and cleaning, etc (30% time). I need to change this up. Most of my time is spent doing something that up until now hasn't gotten me anything except some interview experience. The volleyball gives back a huge return on the time investment, so that's great. Yesterday I finally did our wedding album, almost 5 years later. And you know, it felt so great to create this lasting thing that can be appreciated in the years to come. I think I need to do more creative, lasting things like this. And take allergy meds at go pet dogs at the SPCA. Not that I've ever done this. And I have to admit that I am afraid of big/jumpy/slobbery/yippy dogs, so I know that will cut down on the dogs I can walk/pet. But maybe I'll give them a call and see what's what.

One Year

Tomorrow is my one year bloggiversary. Hopefully in the next year I'll have closer to 365 posts rather than 36 posts.

Also, on a side note, there's a good reason I don't keep candy in the house. Yesterday I ate an entire box of girl scout cookies, 2 cadbury eggs, and a snickers bar, along with the regular breakfast lunch and dinner. Yeah, I probably shouldn't do that. Maybe I'll send the rest of our easter candy with Dr. J to work so that he can set it out. As long as that kind of thing isn't sitting around, I have great dietary habits. But if it's here I just want to NOM NOM NOM...

Today is better

I'm doing a lot better today, in part due to the girl scout cookies my mom sent (Thanks Mom), but mostly because my hubby is who he is. He held a pillow for me to punch, and in his own stubborn way he told me he wasn't going to back down from trying to make my life better, even though I told him nothing short of a job would. I could have married a pushover, but that wouldn't have done me any good. I'm glad my husband challenges me to be a better person on a daily basis. Thanks Dr. J.

If it weren't for the inevitable scurvy...

I could eat bean burritos for every meal.

Today -
Breakfast: bean burrito
Lunch: candy
Second Lunch: bean burrito
Dinner: hmmm we'll see. Might involve beans, cheese, and tortillas somehow...

Grrr...Arggghhh....

Today is just one of those fricken days. I was mentally counting in the shower - what time of month is it? I'm not quite entitled to be feeling what I'm feeling yet, but I feel like I could bite somebody's head off today. I'm so damn frustrated. I'm sick of not having a job. But that's a given. I'm sick of people giving me advice about how to live my non-jobbed life. "You'd feel better if you just did this... volunteering, creating something, getting out into the world, shopping, reading, taking a class, exercising more... yada yada." The know-it-all ramblings of the smugly jobbed. Kiss my ass. I'd feel better if I had a job. That's it. That's the only thing in this effing time of frustration that would make me feel better. Telling me what to do, how to feel, and that it's not my fault DOES NOT HELP.

Trying not to lose hope...

I could punch something. BAM!

Thanks

Dear Parents,

Thanks again for not naming me Amy. I know you were tempted.

Love,
Valerie

No Job Yet

I haven't written in several months. Sort of lost heart after Doddy died, not that I wrote regularly before that. So we've been in Virginia for over a half year now, and things are okay. I haven't found a job yet, which sucks. I telecommuted to my old job through the end of December, but I've been looking for full time employment here since long before that. No luck yet. And I'm finally starting to think that luck may have something to do with it. I'm so Internal-Locus-of-Control that it's hard not to internalize the up until now job rejection I've been receiving. But really, I'm a great worker. I'd be a better worker than a lot of people out there who are currently employed, and I'd be willing to work for less money. Attractive qualities, I'm sure, but things aren't so simple. I keep applying, interviewing, etc. Hopefully someday soon something will stick. And I have done some subtle networking - nothing too overt. Maybe it's time to change to more aggressive tactics.

Usually I am pretty positive, but sometimes I just get depressed about it, like yesterday. Today is better.

Doddy Died

The parents had her put down yesterday. This sucks.

Doddy

My dog is dying. When I say my dog, I mean my parents' dog. She's 14, and the perfect dog. The runt of a litter of 8 - her mom was a golden retriever and her dad was a "big white dog", which I think in retrospect means yellow lab. My parents and sibs, the ones who live with her, are in the process of deciding what to do, which if she doesn't die first, probably means they will put her down in the next couple of days.

Doddy's a great dog. Nowadays I only see her about once a year, or less, but she always seems to remember me. She's always been a happy dog - bounding around my parents' land. No fences were required - she learned the boundaries by meeting the neighbor dogs. She often left rabbits or birds for us on the front step. She'd follow me out to the mailbox at the end of the long driveway and follow me back, usually without straying. If she did leave my side, she came back when called. She is a really mellow dog. She'd have great energy for chasing things and running around, but if you came over to pet her she just rolls on her back and expects you to rub her tummy for as long as you have patience for. Then she'd follow you once you walked away covered in white dog hair. Jeez, I can't even pick a verb tense. She's not dead yet, but for awhile now she has not been so spritely.

We thought she was a barkless dog for the longest time. The first time we heard her bark was when someone unknown came up the driveway and was trying to get around her. Now you have to understand, my parents live out in the sticks, so no one ever comes up the drive who is unfamiliar. She was totally cool with new people, as long as they were accompanied by someone she knew. But if the person she knew was displaying any kind of negative emotion toward the new person, that person became Doddy's enemy.

Doddy has never been a crotch sniffer, never a jumper, never a wet-nosed licker. I'm telling you - the perfect dog. She had her quirks. She hated baths. She hated them so much that she was really afraid of going in the bathroom. You had to drag her in there, but she would run right out. If you managed to get her in the tub, forget about actually keeping her there. The easiest way to give her a bath was outside, with warm water and soap in a stock pot, with three people holding her in place. So that happened like once a year, if that.

She hates thunderstorms. She is really afraid of them. They don't happen that often in Oregon City, thankfully, but she's been known to hide or run away when they happen, or just shake. Also, she's been bulimic in the past. Well not like skinny-girl bulimic, but with 6 or 7 people giving you treats all the time, it's hard to keep track of when she's had too much. Oops.

She was never trained in the formal sense. She knew not to pee in the house, but if you said "sit!" to her, she would just look at you. But if you pushed her butt down, she would stay there. She fits in perfectly with our family. Mellow, content to do her own thing when no one else is around, she loves scratch, she looks out for both our well-being and our safety, is not too needy, and is just really great to be around.

I call her Puppy - I always have. I'm hoping this health problem will turn around, but I know it probably won't. I'm really sad that the perfect dog is dying. There have been a lot of really lame dogs out there that people gave a big fuss about when they died, and they weren't even one tenth as cool as this dog. This sucks.

Post Hiatus

Dr. J and I moved to Virginia. Yippee! We are settling in. Currently, he is at work - working hard, I'm sure. I am here at home, having just completed my workday as a telecommuter part time. It's time for me to study, but I am putting it off and blogging instead! So much has happened since I last blogged.


Virginia is great. Nature is nearby, and so is shopping. We went mountain biking on a trail that Justin found fun and I found not scary. A success! (I also thought it was fun). And the best part is that it's a 10 minute drive from home.

I haven't been knitting. Which is bad because there are twins due in the family in November, and they will grow right out of the newborn-sized things I'm knitting if I don't get to it.

More details once I look through recent pictures. I'll try to be a better blogger now. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to report next time.