Top Three...good things!

Y'all, I'm going to be honest with you (as I'm wont to do ad nauseum).  I've been having a hard time at the new job. I'm trying to stay positive, but it's been a challenging first two weeks. Deeply challenging. I'm not sure what's in the cards, if it's a match and suddenly will click into place (I've had it happen before), or if it's just a royally screwed lemon. Time will tell, but if you've been wondering where the heck I've been, I hope that helps explain it.

Not that all things are bad. Nay, good happens every day! What are my Top Three good things that happened and/or exist today? Funny you should ask, because!

#1. There is a chill in the air every morning that is the whisperiest whisper of FALL!!!!! It feels so amazing even though it's a blistering sauna by 5:30 every day. It's still coming!!!

#2. I have been able to laugh even though I've wanted to punch walls and/or cry every ten minutes. No seriously! I've had at least a dozen decent giggle fits today! Nothing like it. Best drug there is!

#3. I've had my sweet boys around me all night. Little, Big, and Papa. I sure do love those rascals. They make me feel loved even when I want to get all Incredible Hulk.

(The Hubs is gonna be so mad I posted this, but I love this picture of my guys giving me their "intense look").

That's it for me today. I am definitely trying to have more of a presence this week and I do so apologize for the sparseness lately.

X's & O's, y'all! I hope you have a truly wonderful day!

Top Three Ch-ch-changes!

Hey guys! Well, today's Top Three coincides nicely with the happy cyclone of activity in my world these days. Wanna know about it?

#1. After four years at my job, I have put in my notice. It's been a helluva ride, these past four years, and I feel I've emerged from it a better, wiser person. There were some really hard times (my thanks to every person that had to listen to me bitch about it for nearly half a decade). There have been amazing people and lots of laughs and shoulders to cry on. I'm super grateful for that and I'm taking that with me in a heart-shaped velvet box, so to speak. Today is my last day. Afterwards we're all meeting up for drinks and laughs and probably tears. Some of the people I've worked with are so special and we all worry a little that we won't see each other as much as we really want to (like high school graduation). But we're going to try.

The opportunity to work in this place came to me when the Hubs and I were going through some serious LIFE stuff. I was (though I didn't quite realize it) in the throes of a serious bout with depression. I wasn't coping with anything life had to hand me and frequently sabotaged myself. I took the job out of sheer desperation and it became an island in a tempestuous sea. Sometimes it actually became the tempestuous sea and the island was something else altogether. I won't lie about that. There were many nights I came home and wept and drank copious glasses of wine because though the people I work with were becoming special to me, it wasn't easy to get there and the job itself was throttling my psyche. So today is the last day I officially work there. I'm very thankful for what it taught me, the people it brought into my world and the person that has been sculpted from every chip it seemed to be hacking away from me. Turns out, there is a method to the madness, y'all.

#2. I'm starting a new job!! I'm so excited and so terrified. It's in a similar field except I will no longer have to sell, sell, SELL! Or work an insanely always-changing schedule. I will have off a day or two around holidays (17 years of retail says what?!). I don't even know what to do with that, y'all.  I'll be one of those people who has weekends. I cannot wrap my head around that one. Like at all. It doesn't seem real. Of course, I'll be learning new skills and working with a new bunch of people who hopefully won't totally suck. Hopefully I won't suck at this job either! Here's hoping!

#3. My Fall haircut. It isn't earth-shattering news but it is a change! After a sweltering summer and wearing my hair in a ballet bun for four months, honey- I'm ready to have a new look. I was going to wait until the first day of Fall to really kick it off, but I kinda had to with the new gig.

The first picture is right when I got out of the salon...it's a little too perfect, but that's what happens when you go to the salon. I call that my "A Little Bit Country" look. The one on the right is more my style. A little looser and textured. My "A Little Bit Rock & Roll" look. The last image is what I'm aspiring to, minus the slightly vacant eyes.

So, what do y'all think? I love it and can't wait to see how it looks when I get it long like it is in the "inspiration' picture. I really dig it.

Anywho, guys! I hope y'all have a great weekend and think good thoughts for Little Lulu on Monday. I'm so nervous!!!

XOXO

Negativity Detox

A horseshoe for good luck. Wink wink!

A while back, I posted an experiment I tried: The Gossip Fast. In this experiment, I tried, with varying results, to switch conversations at work away from gossip and toward the positive. The rule was "If the person I'm speaking about heard what I was saying, would I feel bad for saying it?". It worked, but after the past two weeks at work, I feel I need a detox, so to speak. I take responsibility for the part I play in it at work, but being surrounded by a half dozen heavy-duty gossipers, it's super challenging finding something to talk about with people you have nothing in common with. I feel its become a habit again and I don't want it to be.

So beginning this very moment, is a two-week gossip fast at work. Hopefully, I can make up for the @*&%storm that has been the ecosystem there lately. Wish me luck! I'd really love to break this wretched cycle.

I hope you have a truly wonderful day!

Thursday Rant

Do you ever feel like you can almost taste big, positive, delicious changes in your life, but you don't know how the heck to get to them? I feel like that pretty much all the time these days. I think it's because I'm actually close, but I honest to goodness feel so overwhelmed and swamped by other people's bullshit at work (and quite possibly my own!) that it gets snatched away at the last minute.

Now my dreams aren't lofty by any means, and yet I find myself treading water more often than not. I'm also not in denial or being negative. I know I have made incredible leaps toward getting things back on track since I lost my job nearly five years ago. However, sometimes I get...ugh! I get so frustrated!

I need to leave my current job because it drives me absolutely effing insane. See this article for reference. And this post. However, I haven't been able to find a job that pays nearly enough to make the move doable. I don't even know where to begin to look for something that isn't linked to crappy job-hunting websites and takes seven months for a response (I'm looking at you, State of Florida jobs and PeoplesFirst) and y'all all remember this from a few weeks ago! It can feel so depressing and daunting, yet I know there is a clever solution somewhere. I know there is a way I can hustle my way into (my idea of) greatness!

But where to start?! I detest this feeling of impotence. Drastic measures may be in order.

Rant completed...for now.

I hope you have a truly wonderful day and if any jobs you don't want fall into your lap, help a sister out!!

A little something extra!

Julia.

I found this fantastic post on Yes & Yes today and it really tied in nicely with my post from this morning.

Don't you love it when something serendipitous happens like that?

The Good & The Bad...

I had every intention of posting a detailed post about bad job interviews and what they teach you. I wrote it yesterday and reread it about fourteen times before I decided I sounded a bit petty (and angry), though the message was good. So instead, I am going to give a reader's digest version of what happened on a bad interview recently and what it taught me.

The Bad: 

Weasel-y interviewer, said he didn't have time for me. He proceeded to insult my education, experience and my actual name. Not a fan of women in general, he apparently finds the fact that women have children inconvenient. Most of this was done quite passive-aggressively with several actual barbs. I also caught him looking at my chest. He told me I basically had the job (because they are desperate). Twice. But, I left feeling defeated as I am quite in need of a career change, but working for that creep wasn't an option. I cried in a diner over scrambled eggs. I felt like a Joan/Peggy hybrid.

The Good:

Some time with my mom and step-dad cheered me up and most of the anger went away. I felt a bit rejuvenated actually. I felt like I was aiming my sights too low anyway and that I should aim for better things. Things that make me a little happier, even if they aren't "my life's work". There is a whole lot out there that would be better than where I am now, and where I could have ended up if I had accepted that job.

Something I love about the KonMari Method I've been so excitedly practicing over the past few weeks is the psychological bent it takes in regard to letting things go. Generally, as with most every human I've ever met, "letting go" doesn't always come easily. I find it's even harder when my feelings get hurt. In the KonMari Method, when you let go of a physical item, you thank it. You either say "thank you, Winter Coat for keeping me warm all of those chilly days" or "thank you Brown Dress, for showing me what styles actually look good on me and which do not". In this case, Mr. Creep is a hideous brown dress I'm throwing out.

What a gift that sad person gave me. He showed me that you have to kiss some frogs before you find the right gig. He also showed me that I'm worth a lot more than the jobs I've been looking for.

Have you any interview horror stories?! Tell me yours and I hope you have a truly wonderful day!

Little Things

Image courtesy of my awesome Pinterest board.

Last week I talked about a few of my little victories in life. It's nothing earth-shattering, however, those little victories add up to so much change so very quickly, it can be astounding! Here is a handful of mine this week, reminders that not all is lost if you slip up here and there (and have that third glass of wine- hiccup!)

*I was having a blue day. Shit happens, you know? Weird dreams partnered with a wicked sinus headache. I knew I was going to be working with someone on the job that has been a psychic and emotional drain lately. I let the negativity in a little bit; but on the way to work, I gave myself a pep talk. I literally quoted myself from this blog to myself. Weird? Maybe. I need this blog just as much as anyone else reading. Anyway- I got into work and I fought the negativity. It took a lot more effort because I had already let it in, but I did it smile after smile. Mantra after mantra, I plowed through eight hours of needy clients and stayed positive. Even when two clients insulted me several times, by the time they left I had them smiling and telling me to "stay fun". I'd say that's a victory- and I didn't feel like wadded up street garbage by the time I got off work either. Huzzah! Oh- and that co-worker I was worried about? She was inexplicably in a good mood all day...huh! Wonder why?

*I ignored a few negativity traps. Do you know what these are? I bet you do. You can almost sense a set up for them, particularly when you are trying to practice peace and positivity. A co-worker asks: "How're you doing today?" and you can hear it in their voice that they want to complain when you turn around and say "Fine, how are you?". Instead of falling into one of those, I decided to say "FANTASTIC!" or "I'm really doing well! How about you? I bet your night off was wonderful!". It disarmed the negativity traps and forced them to attempt to make more pleasant small talk. I've been a beast of negativity in these situations in the past, using my sarcasm to bitch about this or that because I didn't like my job (or this or that or another thing). Of' course there are the ones who will say, "HORRIBLE. Everything went wrong!". In those cases, I find its best and easiest to say something along the lines of: "Oh that's a shame! I hope that you have a much better day today." or simply smile and say: "I'm sorry to hear that." and walk away. The best way to remove a negativity monster from your presence is to starve it. Don't play with them. Those bastards bite, and they are venomous. Truck on like a boss with positivity shooting out from your fingers and toes and smile!!

*I didn't buy the thing. My husband and I are on a budget. Well, der- everyone is these days. But I've got a plan. A nest egg plan and a debt-free plan. I'm a bit of a terrier about these things usually but haven't been for a few years because Depression and Dionysus blessed me heartily with an exhausted set of coping mechanisms and deep love of pleasure and wine and good food (Oh yeah, and laziness). When I'm bored at work or running late, or tired on my way home I'll often stop and pick up a thing. A quick-fix lunch, a wine or beer, a dinner out when I don't feel like cooking, a thing I don't need but just feel I deserve. I didn't buy the thing this week! Well, in full disclosure, I did twice (beer for the hubs- but I did that on the cheap so, snaps!). But twice out of the potential of possibly 19 times (and way more monies). That's pretty great. I saved beaucoup bucks. I didn't feed the shame spiral of spending more than I should or regretting this or that. Just that will help me feel stronger and more capable and confident for the upcoming week! I'll take that 89% success rate instead of the 11% not-failing rate, yes sir'ee.


 Did you have any little victories this week? I'd love to know, please share below!

I hope you have a truly wonderful day, y'all. Cheers!