During the day is easiest. To laugh, to smile, to pretend everything is ok. There’s job searching to do, meals to create, hockey games to go to, and chores to be done. Distractions are plentiful, and logic is fully intact. Ridiculous ideas are seen exactly for what they are. Jealousy is kept in check. Hope, optimism, and happiness prevail over the dark thoughts that try and break through.

It’s different at night. The silence gives the doubts and fears and insecurities free reign, and boy do they take advantage.  Illogical stupid questions are not only considered, they snowball into monstrous ridiculous scenarios. What if I can’t find a job? What if I can’t pay my bills next month What if my unemployment runs out? What if I end up living in my car in a parking lot somewhere? What if I can never get out of debt? What if I never have a baby? What if I never live comfortably? What if I never lose this weight? What if he gets tired of me and leaves? What if? What if? What if? Those are just some of the things that go through my head at night. Sometimes it’s worse. But it’s always so very hard to deal with.

The thing is, I know things will be ok. They suck right now, but they’ll get better. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next month, but eventually it’ll be ok.  I just need to figure out how to get through the now. How to fight the feelings that make me feel like I’m drowning. Or that cause me to cry at night when I’m trying desperately, so desperately, to fall asleep.  If I can get it under control, the anxiety attacks will go away. I’ll be able to sleep through the night again. I’ll be a happy person again.

Admitting there’s a problem is the first step, right?

Have you ever had an one of those moments where the cheesiest, most obvious thought pops into your head, and you really feel like you’re starring in your own movie? I like to call them Lifetime Movie Moments. Because sometimes you’re just sitting there and it hits you, and the music should swell, and then the camera should fade to black and roll credits. You ever get that?

I had one of these moments last week, as I was sitting at dinner with 5 of my closest friends. I looked around at my friends and realized how much I love all of them, and how lucky I am to have them. And not just them, but the friends I have that weren’t with us that night. Cheesy? Yeah, maybe. True? Absolutely. Each one of them is special in their own way.

I have a friend I have known since junior high, that I don’t speak with often enough,  but I know she’s just a phone call away whenever I need her.

I have a friend with whom I share a brain, even though she lives several states away. When I was laid off, she was my first phone call. Her anger on my behalf was enough to snap me back into reality and help me focus on figuring out the next step.

I have a friend who makes giant poster thank you cards, for simple things like being the designated driver. I can text her a basic question, and end up dumping a whole bunch of my crazy irrationality on her, and she thinks nothing of it.

I have a friend who can be heard for miles. Giving him a high five will bruise your hand for a week. But he’s one of the most fun, honest and caring guys I’ve ever known. (Also, he loves his wife more than any man I’ve ever met, which is awesome in and of itself).

I have a friend who I’ve never met in person, but who will send me a box of books that she thinks I’ll like, simply because she feels like it.

I have a friend who convinced me to drive 35 miles away (almost 2 hours with traffic!) to bowl with her. She’s the one who eventually introduced me to Donald, and for that I can never thank her enough.

I have friends who moved to Arizona a few years ago, and who I miss terribly. They always have a place for me to stay any time I want to come visit.

I have friends who are the parents of Donald’s nieces and nephews. I am so lucky that I actually like all 4 of them, not only because they’re his family, but because they’re just really great people.

I have friends both online and in person, in California, and scattered across the globe. I have friends I see once a year and that I see once a week. Every single one of them means a lot to me. I just thought they should know.

I have to say 2009 was not one of my favorite years, and I’m not sorry to see it go. Last year I summed it up with a survey, and for comparison’s sake I decided to do it again this year.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Moved into my own house with Donald, Filed for unemployment

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?  I never make resolutions for the new year. If I want to change something, I start right away. I never wait until January 1.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes! Donald’s sister had the cutest boy ever in March!  I love that kid!

4. Did anyone close to you die? My grandfather in May

5. What countries did you visit? I visited the other side of the US. That’s as international as I got.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? A wedding, a pregnancy, a job. Not necessarily in that order.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? May 3, the day my Grampa died. July 2, the day I got a brick as a gift. October 22-26, my first NFL football game and the best vacation I’ve ever had!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Learning to cook, and not poisoning anyone in the process.

9. What was your biggest failure? My lack of getting a new job after my old one let me go.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I was sick a bit, but nothing serious.

11. What was the best thing you bought? My Sketchers Shape Ups! They’re awesome and I love love LOVE them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Donald, hands down. When I had a meltdown after I was laid off, he was more supportive and wonderful than I deserved. I don’t think I would have made it without him.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Like last year, not something I can talk about here.

14. Where did most of your money go? Bills. Again.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Learning to cook, and our trip to Pittsburgh (which I totally forgot to post about)

16. What song will always remind you of 2009? Alright by Darius Rucker.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
Honestly, probably sadder, but I’m working on that.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner!

c) richer or poorer? Poorer. Lack of a job will do that to ya.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Saved money

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Stressed about things I cannot control.

20. How did you spend Christmas? Christmas Eve I spent with Donald’s family, watching his hilarious nieces and nephews. Christmas day we went to my parent’s house for gifts and stockings, then to see Sherlock Holmes, and back to my parents for dinner.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009? Every single day.

22. What was your favorite TV program? I love NCIS and House, and I discovered the magic of the Penguins of Madagascar. If you’ve not seen it yet, you should watch an episode or 4. It’s great.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I don’t hate anyone. I dislike people strongly, but I rarely use “hate” to describe how I feel.

24. What was the best book you read? I didn’t read as much this year as I have in the past, which is odd since I had so much more free time. I can’t think of any book that stands out.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? I don’t really think I have one.

26. What did you want and get? A house that I absolutely love!

27. What did you want and not get? A winning lottery ticket

28. What was your favorite film of this year? The Hangover, The Proposal, The Blind Side, Julie & Julia.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 30 this year! I went with my friends to dinner the night before, and did the family dinner the night of my birthday.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Karma taking it’s toll, but I can wait for that.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009? Pretty much the same as I’d describe it since 1993. Jeans and T-shirt/Tank Top/Sweatshirt

32. What kept you sane? Donald and my fantastic friends.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I can’t really think of anyone who sparked my interest this year.

34. What political issue stirred you the most? I was a little too busy being selfish and focusing on my own life this year to pay attention to politics.

35. Who did you miss? Heather, Kerry, Tony & Jenn. The closest friends I have that don’t live near me.

36. Who was the best new person you met? I became closer with a lot of my friends this year, which I think is better than meeting new people.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009. You can only control so much. The rest you just have to roll with.

A smattering of things I wanted to share but are too short for their own posts:

- I was driving home after running errands today, and since it was still nice outside, I had my window open. I was stopped at a light when I heard a strange noise. I looked over and there’s a 60+ year old man riding a bike and singing Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” at the top of his lungs. It was too dark to tell if he had an mp3 player that he was accompanying, or if he was just singing by memory. I hope he was as entertained with himself as I was with him.

- For those of you in the colder regions of the country, I thought you’d like to know that the weather here has been the same as it was in July. Meaning 80’s-90’s during the day, and absolutely beautiful out. Apparently no one told California that’s it’s freaking November already.

- Speaking of November, I’m taking an informal poll: When is the appropriate time to put up holiday decorations? (specifically the holidays of Hanukkah or Christmas, as they’re the most popular for decorating) I’m of the opinion that the day after Thanksgiving is the absolute earliest that decor should appear, and really I’d be happier if people waited until December 1st.  My next door neighbors already have a wreath on the house above their garage and a big MERRY CHRISTMAS sign in lights in the front window. Both have been up since the 6th. This displeases me. It is the only house in our entire community that has decorations up already.  I’m hoping they just had a free moment and popped up the only decorations they had, but sadly I think this could be quite the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation disaster house.

- Now, Christmas music. December 15th is a fine time to start the carols, don’t you agree? 10 full days of Christmas music should be plenty enough for anyone. Even the full month of December should be satisfactory to hardcore Christmas lovers. So explain to me why on November 10th, Michael’s had Christmas music playing (LOUDLY) throughout their store? I honestly walked in, heard the music, and walked right back out again. Just because of the music. It’s just too early.

- If you’re a friend of mine on Facebook, you might have seen a comment I made about my new shoes. I saved for and bought some Sketchers Shape-Ups and I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. They’re extremely comfortable and I immediately felt them pushing my calves to work a little harder. They felt weird at first, almost like I was walking on sand, but now I’m totally used to it. I wear them everywhere, and I find myself wanting to walk more, rather than be lazy. I park further away from the store I’m visiting, I take the long way to the mailbox (which is significant, since the mailbox is 50 feet from my house, and I’m instead walking over half a mile to get there), and I even wear them while at home, rather than scooting around the house in socks. I’ve already lost weight (not just from the shoes, but they’re helping) and I’m completely inspired to keep working out!

Jezzi

I was a sophomore in high school when I found her. I was visiting a friend in the housing tract across from ours, when we saw her wandering around the street. Knowing who her owners were, we took her back to them, thinking maybe she’d escaped on accident.

“We don’t want her” they told us.  At around 8 weeks old, they just put her out and didn’t think twice about it.

I took her home to my parents house and asked if I could keep her. They begrudgingly said yes, after I promised to clean up after her and feed her all by myself. That lasted a month, but I never stopped loving her.

When I left for college, she stayed with my parents. When I moved back up to the area, I was always in a place that didn’t allow dogs, so she could never come live with me. By that time she was more my parent’s dog than mine anyway.

The past year has been rough on her. She lost a lot of weight rather rapidly, as a result of the Leukemia that invaded her body. I saw her a little over a week ago, and she still looked happy to see me. She always pushed her head under your hand so you could pet her, and last week was no exception. The only difference was how skinny she was.

My sister came over tonight and told me that Jezzi wasn’t coming to the door when they came home anymore, and that her energy was non-existent. My mom called me a few hours later and told me they were putting her to sleep.  That she wouldn’t make it through the night.  I knew it was coming, so I managed not to break into tears. I held it together until my sister and her friend went home, and then I lost it.

She was a great dog, and I’ll miss her.

I love you, Jezzi.

I’ve worked in customer service all of my adult (and partial teen) life. I know customers can be frustrating, so when I’m in the position of being a customer, I try to be very polite and understanding. Especially when I call at the end of the workday, because I know the customer service rep is probably tired and counting the minutes until they have to go home. I’ve been there. But my politeness and understanding wears out quickly when the person I’m speaking with doesn’t have two braincells that function at the same time.

I called my dental insurance company today, just to confirm that the bill they sent me covered the months of September, October and November*, since the bill had no dates on it, just amounts.  The conversation went a bit like this:

Me: Hi! I received a bill from you and I’ve just written out the check for it. However, there were no dates on the bill, so I was calling to confirm that this payment covers everything I owe through November.

Him: Please wait.

<3 minutes of dead silence later>

Him: You owe $XXX.

Me: Yes, I’m aware of that. I have the bill here, and have already written the check. But the bill doesn’t have a date on it. Is the $XXX for the months of September, October, and November?

<silence>

Me: Hello?

Him: Ma’am, you owe $XXX.

Me: Yes, we’ve covered that. Does the $XXX cover me for September, October, and November? That’s all I need to know.

Him: Your account will be current when you pay $XXX.

Me: Ok, current through October? Current through November? I just need to know what months I’m paying for.

Him: Ma’am, I just told you that you owe $XXX.

<lather, rinse, repeat no less than 4 more times.>

Finally…

Me: I’d like to speak with your supervisor please.

It took his supervisor less than 10 seconds to confirm that yes, the amount covers me for those three months. Halle-freaking-lujah! Though why he couldn’t answer that question remains a mystery to me.

*Switching to COBRA from my previous company’s insurance gives me 60 days to start making payments, so I wasn’t past due on my account. However, it took the insurance company 50 days to send me a bill. Think I can wait 50 days to send them a payment?

Since I started buying homemade cards to snail mail to people, I’ve found a couple shops that have quickly become my favorites. Carrie’s Cards is one of those shops, and Carrie herself is as nice as could be. She makes great cards, as well as magnets and coasters in all different patterns and colors.  She’s fantastic to work with too!

I started buying from Carrie in March when I went through my obsessive card buying phase, and I was always really happy with the cards I got from her. I’ve steadily purchased from her ever since then, and I’ve never ever been disappointed. I recently purchased some more Thank You cards, as I’d almost exhausted my supply and I was planning on sending them out for anyone who’d donated to Step Out.  I contacted her to ask if she would be willing to make a couple more cards in a couple different colors than she already offered. I could not have been more surprised and thankful when she generously offered to donate some cards to me, since I’m sending them out to anyone who donates to Step Out.  I received the cards today, and WOW are they fabulous! I cannot wait to send them out!

I want to thank Carrie again for her generous donation, as well as thank all of you who’ve donated so far. If you haven’t donated yet, you still have a little more than a week to do so. The cards are first come first served, so don’t delay! Not only will you be helping to find a cure for Diabetes, but you’ll be getting a beautiful handmade card and my sincere thanks for your help!

Also, if you’re in the market for great greeting cards of all types (and really, the world could use more happiness spread through snail mail), check out Carrie’s shop. She’s great!

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.

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!

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