I just did a significant Friend List trimming - mostly people I either have lost touch with entirely or keep in touch with elsewhere. I don't use this site as much as I used to, anyway. Please do not take it personally if you were cut - chances are if you're reading this at all, we probably talk elsewhere more than we correspond on here.

And a killer sinus infection. No wonder I've been so miserable!

If anyone is interested in following my therealljidol progress, I've created a new account for it, thereby allowing me to add new friends without worrying about giving away too much personal info.

That account is dawnstar4idol.

Thanks!

lawchicky talked me into it (though it didn't take a huge amount of convincing, I admit). I'm joining therealljidol. I don't write as much as I'd like, outside of therapeutic journaling, and I think this will get the creative juices flowing.

Here goes nothing! :)

I'm sure I've done this before, but ...

Bold the ones you've read COMPLETELY, italicize the ones you've read part of. Watching the movie or the cartoon doesn't count. Abridged versions don't count either. BTW, according to the BBC if you've read 7 of these, you are above the average.

( Clicky )

I should build my "To Read" list from this - there are a number of books on here that I haven't read but would like to. While 7 is "average," I'm kind of ashamed that I'm only at 16. Note, btw, that all the italicized (save for The Bible) books are ones I was assigned to read in school but only ever skimmed. Some of these, I would like to try again now that I could truly appreciate them.

Here we are again, back at my in-laws' place in southwestern Florida. This week has been a roller-coaster ride, not only for us but for all those closest to us. It was supposed to be a vacation, one which started last Sunday, but everything got all muddled up around the middle of last week.

It started with a telephone interview for a job I very much wanted. The interview went very well, and they asked me to come to Bethesda for an in-person interview. Had it happened, that interview would have taken place yesterday. Instead, I spent yesterday (and the day before yesterday, as well as today) driving my way back down the coast from our vacation in upstate New York. The organization wanted someone to start far sooner than I could have managed to relocate my family from Florida and the majority of our stuff from storage in New York. One potential new beginning, ended.

Fast forward, then, to Sunday night. We were due to leave central New York the following morning, making a quick stop in western New York before beginning the trek south. This is where the real turmoil began. I don't know why it was so much harder to say goodbye this time. Perhaps it's that my son (now 2 1/4 years old) is so much more verbal than he was when we last visited, and was so vocal about his goodbyes and how much he missed his grandma after we parted ways. Or perhaps it's that his grandma (my mother), broke down sooner than usual - while she was still in my arms, sharing a farewell hug. Whatever the cause, I was a wreck, and I was convinced that I simply could not return to Florida. Hours later, after he held me as I sobbed, my husband had agreed to contact his former employer in western New York, and ask for his old job back - the job he hated, the job we had agreed was going to be an absolute last resort. But, my emotionally-charged self insisted, perhaps after 7 months, we were at the stage of "last resort."

Before we left our motel room the next morning, my husband had the name of someone to talk to in a different department from the one he left. It was in a whole different building, and I was convinced it would be better. This would be the new beginning we've been needing. Why, then, did all signs seem to be pointing against it? We turned onto the Thruway, and my eye caught the sign in the other direction, saying, "Wrong Way." My stomach felt queasy all morning and afternoon, and when he called me from the office building, the words, "So I appear to have a job," did not fill me with elation. Nor were they particularly enthusiastic in tone.

Yet it wasn't until hours later - after visiting with a friend and suffering a near-panic-attack when my husband told me it was snowing outside, and after utterly failing to find anything remotely within our price range for apartments - that I finally said to him, "I don't want this." All day, I kept shaking my head, seemingly at random. In truth, I was reacting to the myriad thoughts flitting through my head. Desperate though I am to get on our feet again, this was another false start.

Now, this evening, we've arrived back to our temporary home, armed with to-do lists and with goals firmly in our minds. Somewhere, there is a new beginning waiting for us. Sometime, and I hope it will be soon, we will open the right door, and we'll start to get our lives under our own control again.

This is one crazy-assed road I've been on for the past 24 hours. Last night was mostly composed of sobbing on the floor of the motel room, cuddling with O, letting him hold me as I sobbed uncontrollably, and saying lots of, "I can't do this!" In the end, we agreed that he would call his former employer (pre-Xerox) and ask what opportunities might be available. He did that this morning, got a name for someone in a department that was hiring, and met with him. He was offered a job.

We made a snap decision, and started telling people that we were moving back here. While talking to Beth, though, I became more and more aware that ... this doesn't feel right. This isn't where either of us wants to be, the job isn't one he wants to take, and we're just FINALLY starting to see results in FL. Plus, there's a job fair in Tampa next month, so that holds more potential, too.

If all this wasn't enough... the job would barely pay more than O makes on unemployment (about 1/2 what he made at Xerox), and living anyplace that wouldn't require at least a 30-45 minute commute would cost more than we could afford or be in neighborhoods we feel safe in. Plus, he was miserable there. Not so much in the second department he was in, but he still wasn't himself.

We aren't saying no to the job. Not yet. But we're no longer jumping at it. We are going to go ahead with our plans to drive back down to Florida, and make our decision by the end of the week. We're scared, both of us. We're scared to take it and be stuck right where we were before L was born, or worse. And we're scared that if he doesn't take it, nothing else will come along. (I'm more scared of that than he is. He has a really positive outlook, based on the fact that things were starting to look up for us, before we took this vacation.)


I REALLY need a vacation from this vacation. I'm actually looking forward to the 3 days in the car on the way back because it will be more relaxing than what the end of this vacation has been.


(Comments disabled because there are ALREADY too many conflicting thoughts in my head, and O and I just need to figure this all out for ourselves.)

( E-mail received today, re: my aforementioned interview )

Logistics got in the way again. Following the schedule she would need, I would be in Maryland until Friday, drive for two days back to Florida... to then pack everything up and be moved to Maryland by the following Tuesday. That's just not possible.

Job hunting from out-of-state is hard. :/

Right now, I'm leaning towards continuing work on our own business plan while also searching for work in FL itself. I think that will be easier to manage. I don't want to close any doors, obviously, but that is my current feeling.

Alright, I'm getting desperate. O lost his job in July - 6 months ago. We moved to FL in August. In the past 5 months, I've had a 3-week temp assignment. And nothing else. No interviews, nothing. O has had not even a bite, either. We need a new plan. I want to move back to NY. O would rather end up in the DC area. The Boston area is also a consideration. These are the areas we're now concentrating on, all but completely abandoning the FL idea entirely because it is just not panning out.

What I am asking of my readers is this: boost our signal, please. If you know anyone in NY (specifically upstate, ideally Albany or Ithaca areas) or the DC/MD/VA areas who might be in the market for an part-time office assistant/writer/editor (any or all of the above, and full-time will be considered, for the right position) and/or a jack-of-all-trades IT guy who specializes in web design, social media marketing, and UNIX administration... send them our way, please.

Feel free to repost this, ideally with a link back to this post, or copy it into an e-mail to send out to everyone you know, or whatever you need to do to get the word out.

A couple of you have already responded to similar request I put out via e-mail, and I thank you wholeheartedly for your help. But the further we can spread the word, the more likely it is that the message will reach the right ears and eyes.

Thanks!

"I know that 2009 was pretty horrid for a lot of people. One way we might make 2010 a bit better is to spread some love around. So if you care to reply to this post I will give you a response of something I like about you.

If you like participating in these sorts of things and want to repost this in your LJ that'd be fun, too."

(stolen from nounsandverbs)