April Showers Bring May Flowers

Life is a roller coaster.

Seriously, I was too depressed to function just yesterday and now here I sit content and optimistic.

Why?

I don't pretend to know why things work the way they do.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. I mean I have a good amount of time to my own thoughts most days which is good because Noah is making money and bringing home the bacon right now. I've just had a lot on my mind and I'm wondering what to do with my life. Things aren't exactly the way I had hoped they would be after graduating from college.

I have been playing with the idea of going back to school in the fall to work towards my masters degree. I know that I've mentioned it before but it's a harder decision for me than it seems. There are more factors involved than the surface few and I'm finding it harder and harder to make a definitive choice.

Thinking about getting my masters also quite frankly depresses me. The money that it would take to go back will only put me further into debt and the looming bills already have me scared. I don't know what I'm going to do about them and I don't know if I want to be an adult anymore.

I think I want to be one of those kids who has school paid for by their family and they are given a job randomly because their family has connections in high places. I want to be the person that can say they have their own place but doesn't have to pay for it because it was paid for by their parents. I want to be the lucky upper crust who doesn't have to worry about anything and can go out and party whenever I feel like it because money isn't scarce.

Not that I don't love my family or the way they raised me, I just find it hard to look at others living that life and having mine beat me down until I'm paying for things in the spare change I can dig out of the couch cushions.

I've been thinking about my books lately too. I'm wondering if it was worth publishing them at all. I don't think they are being read by that many people and if they are being read its just my family and friend who have chosen to pick it up.

I wish that I could hand them out to people for free and do a book signing or something. I wish I knew how to market them better and come up with a cover that isn't so boring. That stuff alone would help I'm sure.

I started writing something new just the other day and it is giving me strange dreams because it's on my mind when I go to bed. It's a different writing style for me because of the point of view but I think that I can handle it. I'm a little excited to see how the story plays out to be honest.

Now comes the bad news segment of my blog.

I've been turned down by a few more jobs in the past week. I was hoping for the best and trying hard to be optimistic about them but I guess that they weren't right for me in the end. Or maybe I wasn't right for them. I'm starting to think that having a college degree looks threatening to people.

The apartment that we were looking at and hoping for was spoken for by someone else. Apparently their application went through first because they were uneasy about us only having one income at the moment. So lesson learned about finding an apartment before you have a job. I imagine that it looks bad on the application anyway.

Now for the good news.

I have an interview next week with Family Video. The manager there said that I should start the Manager in Training program they have. That could mean that I wouldn't start on the bottom and that I would be getting better than minimum wage if I were to be accepted.

...

So my computer battery died last night and I went to bed without actually telling you the good news as I had planned to. I guess I'll just have to continue from here and apologize for the change in context.

Anyway, yesterday I was going to announce that I have been hired by a jewelry store in the Lima mall named Roger's Jewelers. I'm excited to start and I will find out tomorrow (Wednesday) what my schedule will be. I'm only part time right now so I may not be getting very good hours but the potential for growth is something I can't ignore. They have some great benefits for their employees when they start full time, including tuition reimbursement.

I got a call this morning from a cafe uptown and I scheduled an interview for later on today. You'll have to ask me later this evening how it went but I doubt that I will tell you that it went over horribly. I've always wanted to work in a cafe. It just seems like the place a novelist would spend their time.

Things are looking up!

I don't know what combination I might choose but I am going to take on two jobs right now while Roger's has me on part time. I guess that it might come down to who gives me the offer first or maybe how I feel about the people I meet when I go for the interview. First impressions are everything.

Now to find a place to live. I'm sure that it will come in good time. I'm just excited to actually have some good news to report instead of all of my depression.

Here's to hoping that the gods are good to me for a bit longer. I can only thank them for this drop of good fortune and ask that I see enough of it to finally achieve my goal of having my own place.

I hope that everyone else is having the same good fortune and that you are enjoying the warmer weather!

If you are traveling for summer vacation, I wish you safe travels.

And if you are graduating soon, well done my friends, and congratulations. I wish you nothing but the best of luck in finding out what you are going to do with the future that lies before you.

As always,

Blessed Be.

All About April

Spring is in the air. Or at least it should be.

Since it snowed yesterday, I'm hesitating on this whole spring thing.

I can see flowers popping out of the ground though and I can see the people starting to put their furniture out on porches again so that they can sit out there and eat dinner after a long day at work.

I've been thinking about doing something like that in my own dream world too. At my dream house, with a good book, sitting on the front porch, listening to the kids playing somewhere in the neighborhood.

I've been dreaming about houses a lot lately. It's the place that my brain goes to when I can't take the frustration of not being able to find a job/career.

I dream of a good sized house with a covered porch. I dream of the Victorian curved sort of turret where I can curl up with a good book and listen to the rain hit the window panes. I dream of cooking all sorts exotic foods that I've experimented with and the smell of the foods that my mom used to make. I dream of having friends over and eating good food with me while playing board games and chatting.

I dream of having a career too but I'm pretty stuck on that one.

I honestly don't know what to do about that. I've applied to everything I can find and even to places that aren't hiring now. I've been going around like a chicken with my head cut off and I feel twice as useless.

I interviewed last Monday over the phone with a publishing company for their Spanish department but when I wrote a follow-up email to the lady I spoke to, I almost instantly got a rejection email back. It was severely disappointing because it might have been cool to live in Western Chicago with all that big city culture and new things/places to explore.

I also did an interview this past Monday for a jeweler in the Lima mall. It seemed to go well and they scheduled a follow-up for next week. It could be an interesting field to work in and I could get bonuses for meeting goals like selling so much worth of items and other stuff.

I'm still waiting on word from Critical Mix. I have emailed the supervisor and he said that they were still doing interviews so that could still be something that works out in the end... I just wish they would hurry up.

The recruiter in Columbus called the other day to tell me that she may have something for me but she wants to send more than one application to the company at one time so she was hoping to get one more person to put with me before sending my info. It would let me use my Spanish and I'd be in Columbus so that I could bother my little brother all the time if I wanted to.

I can't thank Noah enough for supporting me right now and letting me complain without end about having no money or not being able to do stuff. He has been so good to me and I don't know what I would be doing without him in my life.

We've been looking at places for us to live, I think we may have found one that we'd be able to get with the money he has saved up but I still don't want him to have to do it by himself. I would feel pretty awful about that. It would be nice to have our own place though.

I read the first Game of Thrones book in two weeks. I got really into the story and I recommend it to anyone who likes Lord of the Rings. That high fantasy set in a medieval realm is exactly what I needed to get my mind off everything that had made me frustrated during the day.

We started watching the first season of the show and I'm into that too. It was probably really annoying for Noah because I had a comment for many things that have happened so far but I'm really trying hard to keep my mouth shut. It's just really hard.

I need to find the second book so that I can start reading that and getting my mind off the world while Noah does what he wants to do. I'm pretty annoying when I get bored.

Case in Point: today I got bored and found two plastic Easter eggs. For a while I was entertained by cracking them open and then getting the dang things to go back together. (They wouldn't stay closed.) Then that wasn't entertaining anymore and I had to think of something new to do... So, while Noah was distracted with his video game, I closed them around his hair and let them hang there. He had no idea they were even there until later when he went to push his hair out of his face and pulled his own hair. He probably would have walked out of the house with them if he hadn't moved his hair. It was pretty funny.

Hopefully, my next post will have better news in it than this one. I know that I'm not as upbeat as I could be but I'm doing what I can with what I've been given and I don't know how anyone can do better.

I hope everyone has a very happy Easter holiday, whether you are with family or not. Just make it a happy day like any other. Whether you celebrate the holiday or not, it doesn't matter. Just make yourself happy.

And as always,

Blessed Be