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I’m sure you’re wondering about the new job.  To be honest, I’m kind of wondering the same thing.

I spent the first month trying to wrap my arms around my undefined job title and functions, and learning the company processes.  Then I found out I was pregnant and that really threw me for a loop.

I instantly became Not Myself, and when things went downhill, who could focus on job functions when real life was falling apart?  Everyone was very understanding, but I was making  a lot of mistakes and feeling very sheepish in general because my head just wasn’t in the game.

In the last couple of weeks I have started to feel more like myself again, and now my boss is in some kind of weird mood.  He took those of us in the local office out to lunch, only to spend the entire time bitching about how we need to be more autonomous but he can’t trust us to do our jobs correctly.  Interesting.

He’s managed to piss off all of his support staff, but he’s been out of town for most of the last month or so, so we are hoping that he’s in a better mood once he gets into the office on Monday.

Personally I am dreading his return and hoping for a change in his demeanor.  I know that I’m going to have to start being more confrontational with him in order to get my job done to the best of my ability, and I’m not sure how that is going to go over.

I had to go to a continuing education class at the end of July.  The topics were interesting, but it really drove home to me what I had been ignoring all along: I don’t want to do this anymore.  I’ve outgrown being someone else’s employee, and a location change isn’t going to change what’s inside me.  I’m unhappy in my work life right now.

I want to work for myself and have more autonomy to fail or succeed on my own.  I’m currently trying to fight the ennui and put some things into place that will make walking away from my job easier on me and my family financially.

I’m enjoying the remarkably lower stress level of the new job, as well as the larger paycheck.  I’m just not willing to do all of this much longer.

In late February I found out I was pregnant.  Total shocker.  We tried for a few years to get pregnant and were basically told that there was no good reason why we weren’t, we just weren’t.  So we gave up on having a  baby and then BAM.

I had my first two doctors appointments in March.  On March 7th I went alone and saw the baby via ultrasound, but I was only about 5.5 weeks along so there wasn’t much to see.   On March 24th my husband got to go with me to see the baby, and we were estimated at about 8 weeks along or so.  We saw and heard the heartbeat.  Our due date was estimated at October 31.

April 4 was supposed to be my first “official” OBGYN maternity appointment, but on April 1 I found out my job was changing insurance companies on May 1 and the new insurance would not be accepted by my wonderful doctor.  On April 13 I went to a new doctor, had another ultrasound (baby growing like a weed, zipping around inside me) and confirmed that I would be going to a specialist to have Downs screening done.  The specialist called and the only appointment available was April 29th, my 39th birthday.

On April 29th we went to the screening where the ultrasound tech discovered a large encephalocele on the back of the baby’s head.  We were told this was a fatal deformity.

On May 4th we went in for a second opinion, only to find that the encephalocele had progressed and the baby’s brain was herniating out into the sac outside her skull.  Prognosis: if the baby survived to birth, she would live perhaps hours outside the womb.

On May 11th we consulted with a high risk OBGYN in another county to discuss termination of the pregnancy due to the risk to my health and the poor fetal prognosis. On May 12th the procedure was performed.

June and July are a bit of a blur.  I went back to work on May 16th and threw myself into work since I had virtually no time off and had just started the job.  It’s now August and the fog is just starting to lift.

I’ll post about the job later.

Image by Skiwalker79 via Flickr

I resigned from my old job on January 14, took the following week off, then started at my new job on Monday.  I’d been looking forward to it, but I was also dreading the end of my loafing around the house in my pajamas all day.

I expected things to be slow the first few days, and on Monday they were.  My trainer works in another office, and she wouldn’t be in until Tuesday so she asked me to watch some recorded webinars on Monday.  Yawn.

Tuesday was live training, which turned out to be a lot of fun.  Wednesday was boring as hell.  Thursday went pretty well, and then today (Friday) was awesome.

The trainer has figured out she doesn’t need to babysit me.  The staff is starting to feed me work that is my actual job, and everyone is so friggin nice.  I also got my final paycheck from the old job.  It was nice to be able to go there, get the check and then leave and go to a job I enjoy.

Life is good.

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Oy!  I haven’t been here in HOW LONG?

Well, let me just tell you… it’s been a crazy couple of months.  I wasn’t a NaNoWriMo winner, but I do have some great pages I can work with at a later date.

I had planned to kind of get my freelance act together over December but that didn’t work out so well.  I ended up being sick part of the month, then the holidays got crazy and just before Christmas I heard from the guy I interviewed with back in April.

It seems that the position he told me they were going to create actually happened, and he wanted to discuss the opportunity with me.  We met for lunch between Christmas and New Year’s and had a really great conversation.  He told me that he would get back to me January 3.  On December 30th he sent me an application to complete and told me it was the “next step” in the hiring process: credit check, background check, etc.  I emailed him the applications on January 3rd and on the 4th he asked me to drop off the hard copies, so I did.

And then the waiting began.  I didn’t hear from him again until I sent him an email on January 12.  He asked me to call him and when I did, he offered me the job.  His corporate office overnighted an offer packet to me that arrived the 13th, and I sent him an email accepting on the 14th.  I also put in my notice at my job, which they did not accept, walking me out that day (this is standard procedure).

The new position is a promotion and a raise.  My dear friend M works there and helped keep my name in his head.  She loves it there and says I will, too.  I know a lot of people who work there already.

Since he called to talk to me about the job I have been stressing at work.  No sleeping, intestinal issues, chest pains (!!!) and just general bitchiness.  Since I resigned, all of that has disappeared.

I knew I would be out of work when I put in my noticed, but I decided to take this upcoming week off.  I’m teaching CE on Tuesday and then meeting with HR at the new job.  Otherwise, I’m just going to enjoy some time off.

2011 is going to be a great year,

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I managed to hurt my finger again.  More gravy!  I was testing the gravy at home to see if it was warm enough, and without thinking I dipped my not-completely-healed finger into a small amount on a spoon.  It was so hot it burned my fingertip.  It’s feeling much better today but is still red.

None of my clothes fit me anymore.  Well, they do, but they are uncomfortable and my choices are limited.  I got on the scale today and it read 242.4, so that explains it.

I’m a mere .6 away from my heaviest weight of this year, which is where I was when I started SparkPeople in January.  All that work down the drain.

I know why I gained.  I’ve been depressed and not really caring about my weight.  I’d been lazy, and eating everything in sight.  Being healthy is hard work and I am LAZY.

I realize that I need to treat myself better.  I started working out with a friend in the evening (we’re doing various DVDs in her humongous living room after work).  I’m not crazy about it, but it’s not the company, it’s just my natural inclination to want to go home and lounge around eating peanut butter.

I signed back in to SparkPeople today, and I’ve been logging my food.  Mostly fruits and veggies, but then again it’s only 10:30 in the morning.

I can do this, because I’ve done it before.  It doesn’t matter if it’s the holidays, because they are each only one day per month.  I need to take better care of myself.  I want to fit back into my clothes!

1. Logging every bite.
2. No candy.  Who needs it?
3. Exercising at least 10 minutes per day.
4. Speak kindly to myself.

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The night before kitty died, I found her in her pen in bad shape.  I knew the end was near, so I plucked her up and gave her a nice warm bath, wrapped her in a fluffy towel still warm from the dryer, and carried her around like a baby.

We generally eat dinner in the livingroom (horrible habit, I know, but a habit nonetheless) and I put her on the couch between us so she could be part of the family one last time.

She was so precious and weak.  Her nose twitched when she smelled dinner, so I put a small spot of gravy on my left index finger for her to lick off.  I misjudged her weakness and she misjudged my gift, clamping down on my finger in a frenzy of chomping. 

Her canine went nearly through my index finger.  When I was able to get her loose my husband bundled me off to the bathroom to fix me up.  We returned to dinner and treated her as though nothing had happened.

I steadfastly refused to go to the doctor, so the next few days were this: me constantly picking, poking, squeezing and cleaning my wound.  I doused it in alcohol, I drained it, I bandaged it.  I rebandaged it.

Yesterday afternoon I did a thorough cleaning (I’ll spare you the gory details) and when I was finished all that was left of a nasty wound was a pinkened raw area on my fingertip and a slight divot.

Today the wound is even less.  I predict by Friday it will be a mere memory.  I can use it for typing already, even now.

This was by far the worst wound she ever inflicted upon me.  It was painful and it throbbed and got infected, and it made it hard to type.  It’s also the last wound she would ever inflict upon me, save for my broken heart.

In just a few days all of the wounds will be internal.  Time will heal those, too, I suppose.

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A couple of clients came in this morning to discuss some details of their account.  Nothing hairy, it was quite a nice conversation actually.

They’re both older gentlemen, and one of them was messing with his cell phone before we got started.  We chatted, discussed the future of the account and then they stood up to leave.

“I hope you don’t mind,” the other gentleman said.  ”I recorded our conversation so I didn’t have to take notes.”  He flashed a small tape recorder at me.

This was his “cell phone” that he had been messing with under the table.  He didn’t inform me he was taping, and he didn’t show me the recorder until it was over.

What could I say?  It’s not like he asked me ahead of time.  I reported it to my manager and she is going to check with legal.

I really need to get out of this town.

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My 20 year old cat died over the weekend.  I got her when I first moved out on my own right after high school.  She was old and I knew it was coming.  Her passing was sweet and peaceful, but it still hurts a lot.

NaNoWriMo starts today and I wasn’t sure how I would cope with having to write on top of processing this loss.   I’ve got an outline, so I just started writing.

Three hundred or so words in and I can already feel it starting to save me.  Writing always seems to save me, no matter what else is going on in my life.

How do other people cope without it?

That means NaNoWriMo.  I got a story idea a couple of days ago and I’ve been outlining the hell out of it in anticipation of starting it November 1.

See you December 1!

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I was cleaning up my desk yesterday and found this quote again.  It’s actually taped above my monitor on a shelf, but I don’t always notice it.  This is the entire quote.  The bold portion is what I have above my desk.

“In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”

 ~ Ayn Rand