Really?

I love diamonds as much as any girl, in fact I'm sure MUCH MORE SO! But, come on! This is obnoxious.

The unemployed have time to surf the net....

So, Holiday Inn has "human bed-warmers" in England? I'd never believe it, but it's Rueters. It reads like it's out of The Onion. Check it out here for yourself. Honestly, I can't imagine who'd want to take them up on this. I want to pretend my hotel sheets are freshly laundered and I'm the only person who's been in them since the laundry. This may not be true, but let's humor me people. I'll bring my own human to the hotel to warm my sheets, thankyouverymuch!

Random Thoughts of the Unemployed

1. When you don't have a job, your home is no longer the oasis it once was. It begins to feel like your prison.

2. Daytime tv is made for idiots. If you start with average intelligence, you'll soon be an idiot after a few episodes of Maury, Dr. Phil, and the likes.

3. The exception to #2 is Regis and Kelly. Especially if Anderson Cooper is filling in. Kelly is so funny, and makes Anderson delightfully uncomfortable. He is often the guest host on Fridays. Don't ask how I know this.

4. I will watch an episode of Wife Swap in it's entirety, even though that show is awful.

5. All the blue-haired old ladies at the mall on weekday mornings know each other. It's like a club, or cult...I'm not sure which.

6. It's very easy to lose your mind.

7. It's equally easy to lose your self worth.

8. The pets seem to enjoy having a full time maid.

9. It's nice having time to catch up on some reading and DVDs I've been wanting to watch.

10. God bless Lifetime for Will & Grace reruns. Some days it's the only time I smile.

11. As much as I complain about some of my coworkers, it's incredibly lonely at home all day.

12. I worry I'll be unable to find a job and end up working at McDonald's to the embarrassment of my friends and family.

13. In reality, even McDonald's would never hire me. I'm "over-qualified" and for that reason they know I won't stay long term.

14. I'm scared as hell.

15. I'm bored as hell.

16. I'm having some problems controlling my eating. I've been binging from stress & boredom.

17. I wish I could go back and tell that stupid 20-something year old to get her bachelors degree. A gemology degree, and a jewelry design degree are the same exact thing as NO degree. Idiot.

18. Part of me just wants to use the job loss as a reason to move away and start a new life.

19. It's nice not having to worry if I have to get up early to deal with snowy roads. The answer is always no. I can roll out of bed at the crack of noon everyday if I feel like it. (but I'd miss Regis and Kelly) ;)

20. I don't like living in limbo. It's different limbo than I was living in before worrying if I'd get laid off, but not less stressful. Just different.

21. I don't want to whine, be negative, or be a burden to anyone. But I'm failing at that.

Comfortably numb

Well, I've settled into unemployment. I try to leave the house daily to battle the depression. Most days I succeed, some days I fail miserably. I've become a regular mall-walker. Weird, but it gets me out of the house for a change of scenery, and a bit of exercise. I've been doing the treadmill daily, in addition to several workout DVDs. Yoga, and Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. I really enjoy the 30 Day Shred. It's a great workout.

I've sent out several resumes, and haven't heard boo back from a single one. It's a bit discouraging. I see a lot of morons out there with jobs, and I know I'm smarter than the average person by quite a bit, I just need to somehow make that come across on paper. I'm apparently not doing that effectively.

I went to see "The Lovely Bones" Tuesday, January 12th. It was a free movie that I got passes to on the internet. Nick wanted to see it, but ended up having to work (much needed) overtime. I called around, and nobody could go with me on 4 hours notice. That's pretty reasonable. I don't expect people to drop their lives to entertain me, and I'm certainly comfortable going to the movies alone; I do it often. For some reason this was suddenly a metaphor for my life. I had no friends, and nobody cared about me. I couldn't even lure anyone to a FREE movie with me. I suddenly was having a MAJOR pity party. I debated not going, but figured it's a free movie, and it gets me out of the house, so I better do it. I went to the mall where it was screening early to get in a little walk. I walked around and window shopped, and seemed to feel a little better. I went to Arby's (which I don't even like) to grab a quick bite to eat before the movie. While I was eating, a friend called to see if I found a movie date, and I lost it. I was now the girl at Arby's eating alone and crying on the phone to her friend. L-O-S-E-R! Big time. I was embarrassed of myself. I hate crying in public. I hate people looking at me with pity-face. I dried my tears and went to the movie. I was ok, but a lot of the movie seemed like the little girl who narrates it was kind of lonely...I mean she's dead, so that's lonely, right? Well, I didn't really care for the movie, but for some reason I cried a bit at the end. I doubt much of my emotion was caused by the movie, if any. As I was leaving, the tears streamed more, and more until by the time I was at my car I was full on bawling. Not just bawling, but hyper-ventilating and sobbing. I was the most alone I've ever felt. I was nothing to anyone. I had no value or worth whatsoever. I cried the entire 30 minute drive home. Nick thought I had lost my mind when I got home, and maybe I had. I wasn't sure, and didn't much care. That was my darkest day. I've been better since then, but I do still have my moments of depression.

About a month ago someone who I had always considered a friend lashed out at me in a really hurtful manner. It really caught me off guard, and tore me to shreds. It happened the week before I was laid off, and while it's clear by what he said to me a lot of it was him projecting a lot of his own issues onto me, it was still extremely hurtful coming from someone I always held as a friend. Sometimes people seem super nice on the outside, but it's a mask they are wearing. Sometimes in the end they turn out to be mean-spirited frauds who kick you in the teeth when you're already down. It was a good lesson for me, but a hurtful one. I guess that's life, right? It made me cherish the people who are my true friends more. You know who you are, and I love you. :) Thanks for all the support lately. I've needed it.

I guess my grandpa isn't doing well now. He just moved into an assisted living apartment after living independently for just over 91 years, but he seems to be going downhill rapidly. My grandpa has always meant the world to me. He's really been more of a parent to me than my mother or father ever were, and I really can't imagine my life without him. He wasn't well enough to make it to our family Christmas celebration last week, which was really sad for me. He was one of the only ones I wanted to see, to be honest. I'm going to make arrangements to go up and see him. He lives about 4 hours north of here, so I'm going to go on a little road trip, maybe next week. I hope he's the sweet, kind, grandpa I've always known, but I've been told to be prepared that he may not be. He's been lashing out at people, which isn't his nature, so I'm worried.

The other shoe

Well, the other shoe finally dropped. I've been fearful of my company laying me off for about 1 1/2 years now, and Wednesday, December 30th my fear became my reality.

It's a mix of emotions. Relief, because I can't worry about it anymore. It's happened. Fear. What if I can't find a job? My degrees aren't exactly sought after. Yeah....a gemologist isn't someone that everyone is knocking down doors to employ in this economy. I fear I'll be living in a tent city before long. (I can hear Matty yelling at me that this isn't true...I know, Matty.) I fear I'll lose everything. In reality, I know this isn't true because I've been planning for my unemployment for a while now. We refinanced the house to a lower interest rate, and our payment lowered by about $350/month. I've been saving money in anticipation of my paycheck disappearing. Funny, my job cut me by 1 day a week at the beginning of the year, and still with 20% less income I managed to save a decent amount of money.

I've never been unemployed, and frankly it's really not good for your self esteem. It's kind of sad how much my job defined who I was as a person, and I'm not really sure who I am anymore. I'm not really sure I want to find out, either. I don't really care.

I think my biggest fear is of myself. I'm worried about me slipping away. Slipping into a depression I can't pull out of. I noticed myself getting depressed on my Fridays off that I've had for the last year. I forced myself to go out on my day off. Just to leave the house, because on the days I didn't leave the house, I didn't like where I was mentally. It makes me feel bad about myself. I'm not productive. My mind and soul go to dark places, and I don't want this to be who I am, or define me. I can feel the slip already happening. It's hard to get out of bed. It's hard to leave the couch. Everything is so hard. Except crying, that's easy.

Do yourself a favor

http://www.sketchysantas.com/ Go check out this website. You'll be glad you did. It cracks me up!

Recap of Thanksgiving through now.

We had Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday. I love the food, the parade, the black Friday newspaper. Everything. I just love it. We had a decent time, although this year was spent at a restaurant. It's never quite right to me at a restaurant. Nick's grandma didn't want to cook, so she wanted to go out to eat, even though I offered to cook. I "live too far away". It's 10 miles. Whatever. All in all it was more pleasant than I had anticipated it being, primarily because when we arrived at the restaurant, Nick's normally cranky and cantankerous Grandmother, was hitting the bottle and was half in the bag. Yes, folks the wine was flowing at Grandma's end of the table, causing me to rename the holiday "Drunksgiving". To be honest, Grandma is much more pleasant after a couple drinks. She works at a church, and in the 19 years I've known her, I've never even seen her sip an alcoholic beverage. I thought I had to be drinking to make her tolerable, but turns out she's fine if I'm sober and she's drunk. My liver thanks her. ;)

I went out shopping with Nick's cousin Kim and her daughter Jessica at midnight on Thanksgiving. I'll never do that again. Toys R Us is a mob scene and those people are nuts. I only went because Nick's aunt Bonnie wanted Zhu Zhu hamsters for her grandkids. We didn't get any, so we went to another store, and ended up shopping until about 6:00am the next morning, going out to breakfast and I got home at 7:00am. I had an all night shopping binge. Weird. As I was coming home, I noticed a slight scratch in my throat...

I came home, took a nap for a few hours, and got up to do a little more shopping. I wanted a new tv for the bedroom since our old one is 14 years old and has started making people look orange until it warms up for about 15 minutes. We found a nice 32" Sony Bravia for $379.99 which was the same as Best Buy had as a door buster, so we bought that, a wall mount, some HD cables, and headed to the GAP and bought me some uber-soft, comfy pajamas. It's good I bought these things, because massive illness ensued and I spent the next week and a half laying in bed in my new pajamas watching tv.

I ended up with what I like to affectionately call the "hotdog flu" mainly because Nick mostly wanted to offer to make me hotdogs while I was dying in bed. Literally too sick to get up and make my own food, I was sort of at his mercy. I was on bedrest from black Friday evening, and all weekend. I called in sick Monday, came in Tuesday and Wednesday to spread disease, then Thursday I took a turn for the worse. I felt awful. Fever, terrible cough, horrible headache, sinus issues, body aches that made me want to die. I actually slept through my alarm on Thursday, and called in and took a half day off to sleep. When I went in, it was clear I shouldn't have and I asked to take Friday off. I'm SOOOOOO glad I did.

Thursday night we had been invited to a VIP party for the reopening of Anemoni Sushi. It was the first time this person had extended an invitation to us, and we didn't want to turn them down, so I went even though I was dying with the hotdog flu. I took a nice disco nap after work so I would be somewhat awake for it. It started at 8:00, and we arrived at around 8:10. We ate drank and were merry, and I schmoozed with Sven Sundgaard our local weatherman. The food was good, and the people were very nice, so a good time was had by all, and we were really glad we went....until we left and got out to my car. The driver's side window had been smashed out, and they stole all my stuff. My GPS, iPhone FM transmitter/car charger, my iPod monster cable, and some other assorted things were all gone. They apparently took my canvas Trader Joe's bag to steal my things in. I'm such a conscientious victim to have provided my own bag for their convenience. So needless to say, it ruined a fairly nice evening. The driver's side window had been smashed, and glass was everywhere. The temp was about 20 degrees, so the 25 minute car ride home was REALLY cold. Ugh. Got home, put on my jammies, took some Robutussin and went to bed. (On a side note, if you get robbed in the city of Minneapolis, you have to fill out your own police report online. I wonder if I'm supposed to be pounding the pavement looking for my stolen property, too. Probably. I've always thought the Minneapolis police are lackeys.)

I woke up at 4:00am the next morning BURNING UP! (and if you know me, you know I'm ALWAYS cold) I was SO hot. I took off my jammies, and was laying in bed, in just my underwear. (black thong, since you asked) I was so sick. I'll spare you the details of specifically what happened, but we'll just say my stomach didn't feel well. I used my iphone to google window replacement companies from my bed, called and arranged it, and spent the rest of the day hoping I'd just die and be at peace. Here we are almost two weeks after the start of this illness, and I've still got a cough and runny nose, but I'm a LOT better. I think I'm going to make it, after all.