I am no longer employed.

Writing that tiny sentence is more painful that I imagined it would be. I keep telling myself that everything happens for a reason, but I still don’t believe it. I was laid off from my job of almost 8 years last Thursday, and a week later I’m still not sure it’s sunk in yet. Business has been getting bad, and we’d had a lot of layoffs in the last year. But I’d just heard that we were doing “ok” and so I thought that really meant “ok”. I had no idea it meant I’d be out of a job. I also thought there were people who would go before me. People who have been there significantly less years than I had. I was obviously wrong.

My first reaction when they told me was “How could they do this to me?” and still, it’s the one question I keep repeating in my head. I know I can find another job, so I wasn’t as worried about that. But I felt so betrayed. Still feel so betrayed. My favorite part about my job was the people, hands down. It was family owned and operated, and my coworkers came to be part of my family. We had game nights, we went to the movies, we swapped organs.  So when I was abruptly dropped from the family, I was understandably (in my opinion) hurt. I know I’ll get to the point where I’m not as angry, not as hurt, and can understand that this was a financial business decision and not a personal attack. But I’m not there yet.

For the past week I’ve been waffling as to what I want to do with my life. My first instinct was to go back to school and get a masters degree in something useful. A B.A. in Behavioral Sciences isn’t really something I can use.  So I called my old school to see if I could get in there. They’re not talking admissions for anything before Fall of 2010. So that’s out. I checked the local college, because they have a great sign language program (and being an interpreter has always been my dream job). ALL of the classes are full, but I got on the waitlist for a couple. Class starts next week. I’m not holding my breath, but it’s worth a shot. If I don’t get in, well then I put my nose to the grindstone and find a job.

At least now I know that having coworkers that are “family” is not job security.  Next time I just need to make myself irreplaceable.

8-31-09 Edited to Add: I have never felt, and will never feel that donating my kidney should have given me job security. She is my friend, plain and simple. It also happened that she was technically my boss, but that never came to play in my decision. It was the friendship that we have that made me decide to do it. I mentioned it solely to illustrate the close relationship I have with my coworkers. Not working with them will not change that. We are still friends, and will remain friends as long as humanly possible.

It’s common knowledge throughout a good portion of the blog world that Maggie has this fantastic life list that she’s come up with, and now Intel is helping to sponsor it so she can cross off some of the things on her list. When I first saw her list, I was in awe of how grand and large her plans were. Donate a million dollars to charity? Be conversational in seven languages? Those are some lofty goals! But she seems so positive that she’ll be able to do it.  I’d always casually made comments about how I wanted to do “this that or the other thing” before I died, but I’d never put much stock into actually completing them.  But still, it’s an idea I’ve been toying around with for a long while, so I’m going to try it.  It’s a little daunting to try and come up with 100 things to do, so I’m going to start with 10, and add to it as time goes on. Some will be easy to check off, others will require work over time. But all are things I truly would like to accomplish in my lifetime.

There. Those are the first 10 on my life list. I think that’s a good start, don’t you?

Since my original decision to start sending mass amounts of snail mail, I have steadily sent birthday cards, thank you cards, thinking of you cards, and various other types of cards to every person I have an address for.  I think I get a bigger kick out of writing and sending the cards than I do from receiving them.  While I’m continuing to do that, I’ve also discovered a new obsession.

Postcards!

In a nutshell, you send a postcard to someone in the world, and someone else sends one back to you. My first day I sent postcards to Finland, Netherlands, China, Germany and Belarus. When the first person received and recorded my postcard (via the assigned ID#), my name was given to someone else to send a postcard to me. I’ve yet to receive it, but I know it’s coming! This way you get to send AND receive postcards from people all over the world. It’s fun if you like to collect postcards, or if you like getting mail, or if you just like to learn bits of information about other countries.

In addition to the “official” postcard trading, there is a forum FULL of different types of trades. I am partial to “tags” where there’s a certain type of postcard that everyone wants, so you “tag” the person who posted before you. For example, there was a thread entitled “Flower Tag” and I tagged the person above me, and sent them a lovely postcard with a picture of a pink flower. Then someone posted after me and I was tagged, and I received a postcard with a purple flower. It’s a little like a chain letter, except it’s a public forum, and you’re only sending postcards to one person at a time. And your address is never public. You send a private message to the person you tagged requesting their address, and they send a private message back with their information. Simple!

I’ve received quite a few cards from all over the world, and you can see them here. I keep track of where they came from using the photo location tool. I’ve also sent quite a few out, and am waiting to receive my cards in turn. The sent postcards with the link in the caption are the cards that have been received and recorded on the site. You can see exactly how far they went, and how long it took. The photo locations on those cards are where the picture on the postcard was taken, not where they were sent.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all these postcards, but I do know I look forward to getting the mail every day, as well as going to the post office to send out my latest cards. It’s an inexpensive hobby, and I’m having a great time with it!

Lots of things have happened over the past 3 months, so I’ll give you a quick recap:

• Donald and I finally moved everything in to the new house, and we’re 90% unpacked. We have a few boxes still waiting to find a home (you know that stuff that you don’t want to throw out or give away, but you don’t really have a place for it either?) but everything else is pretty much done. We redid the planter in the backyard (a disaster story for another day) and I finally planted flowers! Some of them look awesome, and others…well let’s just say I’ll be replacing them when the temps cool down a little bit.
• I turned 30 on May 17th and hated every single second of it. I fought it all the way until the night before when a friend said “So you’re 30 now, huh?” I calmly replied “I am 29 for 4 more hours, thank you very much.” I’m not sure why I hated turning 30 so passionately. Maybe it’s because I thought I’d be in a different place in life, or because I’d always (stupidly, yes) considered 30 old. But I’m over that now, and am embracing my 30-ness. (The fact that I am the youngest of my friends, save one, helps me get past my hangups)
• Donald and I took a 9 day vacation in June/July and it was wonderful. We spent 2 days in Arizona visiting three of my best friends (and watching the Angels pound on the Diamondbacks) and then spent Donald’s birthday and the 4th of July out at the river for the rest of our vacation. I love the river. It’s relaxing and fun, and such a great time. Lots of our friends were out there that week, so I did quite a bit of socializing while being lazy. Two of our friends, who we seem to only see during the summer, were there with their 3 boys, and man did they all get cuter over the past year (the boys, not the parents). I had a great time playing with their kids, as well as watching Donald’s newest nephew enjoy his first river trip. (He was 3.5 months on the trip, but seriously looks like he’s 6 or 7 mos. He’s a beefy baby!) We also had the sad experience of watching a fire very close to where we were staying, as it burned on the opposite side of the river. I’d never seen a fire that close before, and it was a little unnerving. But they managed to put it out before it could jump to our side, so we still have a vacation spot to go to.

Aside from all that, I’ve just been working, reading, setting up the house, and spending time with friends. I love our new house, and am very content to stay home curled up on the couch watching a movie, rather than going out and being social.

What have you been up to?

New site, same blog!

Welcome to my blog’s new home. I’ve been working on this move off and on since the beginning of the year, and I finally feel like I’m ready to open the doors. All of my old posts and pictures are here now, so if you’re new feel free to browse through the archives! And if you’re a loyal reader, thanks for making the move with me! If you notice links that lead to nowhere, or pictures that don’t show up, please let me know. I’ve done my best to fix them all, but I’m sure a few got away from me.

I am going to make a strong effort to post here much more often than I used to. Taking a three month break really made me miss blogging, and more importantly, all the people I’ve met and become friends with in the process.

This site is a work in progress, so I really appreciate any and all feedback you have for me.

Thanks!

Denora