Updates and Holidays

Yes, it's been a good long while since I last posted and sad to say, I don't really have an excuse as to why I haven't posted. I'm still unemployed and starting to freak out about it. I do have one semester of paralegal school over and done with. Just 24 more units to go and I'll be the proud recipient of a paralegal certificate!

Been struggling with a bit of depression - which makes it super hard to get to the gym where I know I'll feel better but when it's hard to get out of bed in the morning (and I've NEVER been one of those annoyingly chipper people who BOUND out of bed eager to start the day) it's usually an upward struggle from there.

Roomie and I went to see The Nutcracker today. As always, it was beautiful. Normally, I don't even mind the little children that are present. I think it's cute when little girls show up dressed in their little holiday dresses and ask rather loud questions about the plot. Today, however, this little anklebiter kept pounding up and down the stairs that were right by me and I wanted to clobber him. We were in the balcony section (first row) and he and his mother had seats in the last row. For some reason, she felt it would be perfectly acceptable to let her child run up and down the stairs from top to bottom throughout the performance. I restrained myself from saying something for the first half. After intermission, he commenced to once again racing up and down the stairs and started playing with his newly purchased nutcracker right next to me. And then shouted "Mommy?" like he was going to just shout a question at her regardless of the fact that he was in a theater. So I shushed him (you know, shh!) and apparently it freaked the uncontrolled brat so badly he ran back up to his mother and actually stayed there for the rest of the performance!

I don't have any major plans for the holidays - Roomie and I will spend the day together and we're currently arguing about what to have on Christmas dinner. Thoughts?

Job Interviews and Unemployment Frustrations...

Last week I had a job interview that was....let's optimistically call it practice for the future since it was extremely clear I wasn't going to get the job. During the job interview, I could barely get a word in edge-wise as the hiring manager basically kept up a monologue on whatever entered her head. The economy featured prominently in the monologue as she had a talent pool for this position unlike any she'd seen in the past filled with top candidates such as myself due to the recession. And 75% of the applicants for this position had recently been laid-off from their previous jobs due to the economy. Well, that news cheered me to no end. That's just what you want someone to tell you in a job interview. This person also told me flat out that I was "grossly underpaid" at my previous place of employment. Also good news that cheered me. And to cap this 40 minute extravaganza of joyous little tidbits of information, she decided to close the interview with the name of her contact at a temporary agency that I could sign up with for temporary employment. Yeah, she's gonna call back for a second interview.

Roomie and I have been working on redoing the deck in our patio. It's not really a deck, per se, more of a three step staircase that extends halfway around the patio with planters at the end of it. I'll have to post pictures of the finished product soon. The whole goal of this is to make the patio look like something other than the pitiful cement slab that it was. We're hoping to be done with the patio by the end of next weekend. We have paint touchups on the deck to do, a major cleaning and sweeping, re-arranging all of the plants and staking 2 of the forsythia bushes that have decided they want to grow out intstead of up.

This would help so much with my boredom and frustration if I had an outdoor place to retreat to for some sunlight and outdoor time that isn't cluttered with painting supplies, exercise equipment, you name it. I've been on a little "de-cluttering" binge since becoming unemployed. In an effort to conserve gasoline I wound up deciding that while I'm unemployed I would not drive anywhere a minimum of 3 days a week, which essentially means I'm stuck in the house for those 3 days a week. So I need activities to keep me occupied on those days. I started cleaning out my file cabinet and shredding things but that's slow going.

One of my decisions to keep myself occupied is to start catching up on all of my craft-y activities, such as scrapbooking and cross-stitch projects. I've decided to spend a minimum of 2 hours per night on some type of craft in order to make some headway towards getting caught up before I wind up employed again. So far, so good. Last night and tonight I've been dutifully working on my craft projects whilst watching (and this is a tad humiliating to admit) "Big Brother After Dark." I've got another hour to go on tonight's craft before I'm finished for the night.

Another decision that I've recently arrived at is I don't care if I am unemployed, I have to find the money somewhere to continue my personal training sessions. I do so much better with exercising on a schedule if 2 or 3 of those scheduled times I have my trainer kicking my @$$ and telling me to do more reps. My first session is tomorrow. I am totally looking forward to this - I can't wait! Don't get me wrong - I'm not one of those weird exercise fanatics that live to exercise and all that, but I do find that it's easier to keep diabetes under control with regular exercise. And quite frankly, since I've been unemployed, I've been snacking WAY more than I should. Discipline has gone out the window - it's so much easier to be disciplined if you're working!

And since tomorrow I'm leaving the house anyway, I'm also planning on getting my haircut and my nails done for another job interview I have scheduled on Thursday. I'm really looking forward to some pampering that I can't really afford but want to look my best for the interview.

PIckles

Pickles is a cat. He used to live across the parking lot at my condominium complex but his owners committed the unthinkable: they moved and left him there. I will not go into a rant about how I feel about people who abandon their pets - not at this time. Suffice to say, I feel pretty strongly if you take on the responsibility of sharing your life with an animal, you had better be prepared to make certain sacrifices as far as future housing goes. When I was getting ready to move from southern California to northern California and began searching for an apartment, literally the first words out of my mouth when I was calling about vacancies, was do you accept pets? If they said no, I said thank you for your time and went on to the next call.

OK, so maybe I wound up on a little rant anyway - back to Pickles. He is about 8 or 9 years old and he's absolutely adorable. Once we figured out that he had been abandoned, Roomie and I started leaving food for him. Eventually, he began spending his nights in our fenced-in patio. We tried to coax him inside but Pickles would have none of that - he would never come in. Last fall, Roomie panicked at the thought of Pickles sleeping out in the cold and the rain and purchased Pickles his own little house (OK, so technically it's a dog house). We lined his little house with pillows and comforters and blankets. Roomie also built him a little porch for the house so he could have his meals out of the rain as well and there was added protection from the wind and the rain. And Pickles loved it.

Now that it's summer again, the house has been packed away and Pickles has little beds all over our patio for certain times of the day and night. He likes to sleep on the pillow right outside the patio door in the early afternoon and also from twilight to about 10 p.m. Then he'll move to his little spread over by the patio table and curl up under the comforter there. He likes to sleep under the covers.

Last Saturday morning, Roomie came running in and woke me up at 7am. It appeared that Pickles had a fish bone or something stuck in his throat from the canned soft food that Roomie had given to Pickles. A trip to the emergency room vet followed - Pickles did not enjoy this trip. It turns out that it was not a fish bone but Pickles had two little growths on both sides of his mouth that were inflamed and needed to be removed. They sedated him and performed the operation - the growths were benign thankfully.

When we got back home with Pickles, we opened up the cat carrier and Pickles promptly left the patio. He spend the rest of the day punishing us for taking us to the "stabby place" as Max the pyscho kitty calls it, and wouldn't come home at all. Well, he would venture close to the patio and let us pet him but then he would zip away again.

Roomie was distraught - he's still sort of new to the whole cat punishment thing. He was certain that Pickles was never coming home again. I tried to explain to him that we were being punished for taking Pickles to the vet, even though it was in his best interests but Roomie wanted to hear none of it. He was certain that Pickles would never come back and would starve to death in his new hiding place. Well, Sunday morning when I woke up, Roomie came in to tell me that Pickles was in the patio sleeping.

Pickles is now eating soft food and you can tell that while his little sutures bother him a bit, they don't bother him nearly as much as those inflamed growths did. And he's almost completely forgiven us for taking him to the vet. :)

Changes....

Unfortunately, it's been awhile since I last posted anything - I'm not quite sure why except I was too "busy" - looking back, I can't see any compelling reason that would prevent me from posting but there you have it.

Let's see, among my many changes is I decided not to go to law school. I wound up doing a lot of soul searching and talking to many people about this and eventually wound up deciding that it was in my best interests NOT to attend law school. The major deciding factor? I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and I decided that I needed to focus more on my health and well-being, rather than stressing myself out with 3 years of law school.


However, the idea of not working in the legal field was complete anathema to me so I've enrolled in a paralegal program at the local university. It will take about 18 months to 2 years to complete (if I can ever get it together) and this way I will still be able to work in the legal field and earn a decent living. Right now I'm waiting for my student aid to come through before registering for fall classes.

In order to deal with my diabetes, I decided I was going to need some help. I found a therapist to help me deal with the emotional side of being diagnosed, I also located a personal trainer to kick my butt at the gym on a fairly regular basis. And the best part? I searched for and found a personal chef who would come in once a week and cook diabetic friendly meals for me and leave them in the refrigerator. All I had to do was heat and serve. My triglycerides came down significantly as well as my A1C levels. All was well.

And then last month, I was laid off from my job. I've spent pretty much the first month dealing with the shock of not having a job and being let go. Change is hard, especially when your daily routine is completely disrupted and you have to find a new routine. I can no longer afford my personal trainer, therapist, or the chef so now I'm sort of venturing into diabetes land on my own and trying to apply what I'd learned with everyone as far as meals, etc. goes.

I'm a little worried but now that I have all this time, I can structure my days to maximize my efforts towards becoming healthier. I was originally going to say super healthy but I don't know if that applies with being diabetic. Something I'm going to have to think about.


Fortunately, my mother is paying for my health insurance through COBRA for three months so at least I won't be venturing about uninsured for the meantime and hopefully I will find employment soon with benefits.


And on the bonus side, my birthday is coming up this week. I've already received a lovely card and letter from High School Friend and my mother tells me that a package is in the mail!