A Brand New Start

February 9, 2010 · Filed under It Gets Amazing, The Every Day Life, Those Job Things We Shouldn't Blog About

Since quitting my job at Walgreens I had a lot of anxiety about finding another job. I really wanted to do all that good housewife stuff for KC since I was now home alone every night, but the stress of wanting to find a new job really kept me glued to the computer most nights.

I spent hours applying to multiple jobs (sometimes 10 a night) and hearing nothing back. I feel that I’m a good worker. I genuinely love to work. I’m definitely a people person when I’m in a work environment and I love making people happy. Yet nothing!

I found that my resume just wasn’t good. Probably because of my own lack of faith in myself it was sparse and really undersold me. I researched resumes on the internet and discovered that when job hunting you’re really trying to sell yourself because in essence when you get hired a company is buying you.

I worked diligently to make my resume as effective as possible. I reworded things, played up all my strengths included some extra curricular activities I do within the community, things I did in college and high school, etc….

It worked!

All of the sudden I had MULTIPLE job offers. (Well three, but when you’ve been hearing nothing on full time jobs in a year three is a lot!) One of as a receptionist at a salon and spa, one was a receptionist at a local resort and one was for a Day Staff position at a national non-profit agency working with people who have developmental disabilities.

Guess which one I wanted?

Yeah, I’m all for the non-profit stuff. I wanted that job the most. It was full time, paid well, came with training, offered the opportunity for advancement with the company, as well as tuition reimbursement and other kick ass job perks. The only downside would have been the hour commute.

The other jobs were good because they were full time, but the non-profit really seemed like somewhere I could make a career for myself.

I interviewed there last Wednesday. The woman who would be my boss was a small and funky. She was young and had short hair that was dyed bright red. She has on a really cute sort of hipster outfit with nice vintagey jewelry. I liked her instantly. As we talked through the interview it was easy to tell she loved her job and she explained the position I would be in and it seemed completely perfect. She said they would have to have another interview with me so I wasn’t feeling too happy about doing the 4 hour round trip again just to not have the job work out.

After the interview I reflected on how that job would change my life. I had another interview near my house at a hair salon later that same day. I went and it just didn’t seem like a good fit for me. I could just tell I wouldn’t be happy or fulfilled there. I knew I would take it if it was offered and it would certainly be a good start…I was just holding out hope for the other job.

As I waited I updated my Facebook that waiting is the hardest part. An hour later I checked my phone. I had gotten a call HOURS ago from the woman who interviewed me offering me the position!!!!!

I got the call a full two hours before I even interviewed at the other job.

I GOT THE JOB!!!!!

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The Cleansing Begins

January 13, 2010 · Filed under On Health

Oh God, internet. Do you know how little I can handle talking about “bathroom issues”? It’s definitely something Loralee and I have in common. I’m blushing just typing about this! However, it’s something that has been coming up a lot in my daily life so here we go. You’ll be so glad I’m back after reading this.

How should I phrase this? I have been having trouble going since I was a teenager. I will only go in certain places at certain times and I really get stressed out about it and have forced myself to hold it far more often than I should. A few times in the past and far too often in the last few months I have had pain and bright red blood almost as much as if I had my period. (So sorry about the TMI.) After one of these episodes it would be extremely painful to go for over a week and I just prayed that it healed before it started to bleed again.

I’ve also just been feeling so bloated and easily made nauseous. My energy has been lower than normal and I’ve been feeling weaker and I just had a feeling it was all related to these bathroom issues I have been having.

I started researching doing a colon cleanse and a lot of the stories I have read people were having the same symptoms as me and they started to go away after they cleansed. Well the notion of having relief and feeling better without going to a doctor (which I don’t have the option of) sounded really good to me.

Then I had to pick which one. Many of them just don’t make sense to me. They have kits in store, but then you find out that it’s a daily regimen you’re supposed to continue permanently after. It doesn’t sound safe to do it for such a prolonged period of time. Then when I looked them up most got terrible feedback and were said to be scams.

I finally chose the Dr. Natura Colonaide (yeah, I got it at Walgreens. I don’t think it’s sold anywhere else yet.) It makes more sense to me because it’s a 14 day program. Every morning you mix a powder into 8 ounces of juice, drink 8 glasses of water during the day and then a cup of their tea every night.

I started it last Friday so I’m only on day 5 of 14, but I have to tell you I’m already feeling so much better. It isn’t uncontrollable. It hasn’t effected my life, but it just makes me feel so much better to go knowing there won’t be any pain.

I’m also feeling really good about drinking so much water. It’s always been hard for me to get into the swing of keeping well hydrated, but knowing that it could make me feel really sick if I don’t has been keeping me motivated and I’m really enjoying it now! I’ve had only water, tea, juice or milk for the last 5 days (I know that doesn’t sound like anything major, but I am a total soda ADDICT) and I’m really excited to continue with it.

I’ll be sure to update once this is all over and let you know how it went (I know you’re dying to know!) For now I’m just really feeling better about my body and health than I have in a while. Hopefully this is the little push I need to get myself in a better direction.

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Suddenly A New Year

January 11, 2010 · Filed under The Every Day Life

Oh how much I have been sucking at keeping this site going.

So much has happened since my last post…It’s been almost four months! I’ll try to keep everything concise and organized so this post isn’t too long.

1. Walgreens – I feel comfortable writing the company name of the drug store I worked at because I no longer work there. At this job I was able to do something I genuinely enjoyed. I really loved being around all the beauty products and I enjoyed helping the customers find what they needed. It made me realize that I would love a job in the beauty industry. Whether that would mean being a make-up artist, esthetician, or even working at a beauty counter.

I have also really started taking more pride in my personal appearance. I’m wearing more make-up and wearing my hair down more. It feels good. I really like doing little things that show I care about myself.

Also at Walgreens I made some good friends. It was nice going to work knowing I would see people I was genuinely close to. I got a new bestie out of that job! It’s hard to complain about that.

Another positive thing that came out of the job was learning how to use coupons to my advantage. I really know how to look for deals now and work sales to my advantage when possible. That’s a good thing! It’s really been helpful.

Now to the negatives (and you knew it was coming). Working at Walgreens sort of felt like I would imagine working at Wal-Mart would feel…only the company didn’t feel successful. It became apparent very quickly that this job was very different from The Pet Store. My first week there I was working along side another employee and she was explaining to me the department and how things worked. She was helping to train me! Immediately the manager on duty came over and started saying that we couldn’t be standing around talking and we needed to break it up. That was one of the first indicators that something was amiss.

I could go on and on about my experiences there. The bottom line is they were super uptight. They hated employees being friends with one another. We were never able to talk without getting in trouble. They never praised us for good work. I had customers compliment me to the manager and call in about me and I heard nothing about it from the manager. They actually seemed resentful of how much the customers liked me. I got written up three times also while working there. The first time I was scheduled for a day that wasn’t my availability (I worked at The Pet Store that day) and I couldn’t find someone to cover the shift. The second time I was trying to do them a favor by working a day shift, but I was scheduled at The Pet Store so I would have to be 2 hours late. I told them 4 days in advance, left my number and told them to call me if there was a problem. I heard nothing and two hours into the shift I got called into the office and received a write up. The third one I actually received immediately after I put in my two weeks and really confirmed my decision. That one was for being late 3 times to work. Despite the fact that it was right before Christmas and I had to drive by a mall to get to work…and I called them.

The nail in the coffin two things that happened at the same time. The first being hour cuts, which cut my hours completely in half. Also the head of the cosmetics felt like I was trying to sabotage her department by not ringing up enough sales and was going to move me out of the department.

So if I was getting half the hours, not doing what I enjoyed, getting written up and not even allowed to talk during work? It was time to go.

Walgreens goes down as the worst job I have ever had and I once had to clean poo out of a urinal at a past job. Yeah.

2. The Pet Store – Yup, still there! Things are still going well. The managers actually manage unlike the other job and things flow. I got moved over to Pet Care so I’m no longer just ringing people up. I’m over cleaning cages and selling pets. The hours are really good for me. It’s usually something like 6-11 in the morning so I get the whole rest of the day. I’ll still need another job to supplement the hours, but I’m still happy working there and it’s almost been a year. I’m so glad I kept this job at while I was at Walgreens.

3. Apartment – Still there, kind of waiting for the year to be up so KC and I can move on. We’re definitely at the stage where we are getting more serious and we’re ready to settle in with each other. All our roommate went home for the holiday so we had a good amount of time to nest at home with each other. It solidified that we’re past the roommate point in our lives and we’re so ready to be on our own together. So we have till July to save and get things in order. Then we’ll be looking for somewhere nice, but easily affordable so we can stay there a while. I don’t want to keep moving around. Hopefully we’ll be able to find something we’ll be happy with.

4. Job Search – Ugg!! Trying to find a full time job completely sucks and makes me feel worthless. It’s been almost a year since I was laid off from my office job and started looking for a new full time position. It’s just not fun and I’m going to keep trying, but it just really makes me worry. I’m going to take a class at the Career & Technical Institute on resume writing and job hunting. Hopefully that will help spotlight what I might be doing wrong and what I can improve upon.

Alright that’s enough for now…more soon.

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One Thing At A Time: Car Edition

October 18, 2009 · Filed under I'm Letting It Out, My Crazy Family, The Every Day Life

I’m all wow, people really don’t seem to be missing me. Then I read emails and messages that are all “Dude! Your comments are closed! WTF?”. Then I also realized my email address I used to use for this site is no longer set up. Sorry about that guys!

I’m going to try to organize this so that it’s not just one big long explosion entry.

So today I’m going to talk to you guys about my car.

It occurs to me that I haven’t posted anything since BEFORE this issue came up. You guys (unless we’re friends on Facebook) don’t even know there was ever an issue. Boy do we need to talk!

Let’s start at the beginning.

In June KC and I realized our car needed new tires. At this point we didn’t have much money, but we did what we could and bought a tire a week for four weeks until we finally had a new set. Hooray for tires! We were very happy to have that out of the way.

In July our car was having a few more issues. We were having multiple problems with the headlight going out resulting in getting pulled over by various officers of the law and a few written warnings. Despite getting it fixed the light continued to go out.

While taking it in we also got various things done (I honestly don’t remember what) what I do remember is it cost $280. The VERY NEXT DAY the car wouldn’t turn on. We got a jump start and it seemed alright. We turned it off again at home tried to turn it on again and…it wouldn’t start. We got it towed to the auto shop and it was determined that we would need a new alternator. That was an extra $350.

Alright. We were upset about it. It was hard to pay for, but we did it and we actually felt really good about it. This was an investment into a car we really needed. It was one less thing we would have to worry about later.

In August the car went out of alignment. We had just taken a trip to Philly for my B-day and we were working on moving so we ignored it for a week. We would have to wait till we got paid to worry about it. It continued to get worse and I noticed that the tires screeched when we went around bends or turns.

By the time we were able to get to KOST our steering wheel needed to be held completely sideways in order for the car to drive straight.

We waited a while at KOST and about a hour later a man came over wanting to know who owned the car. I said it was both of ours. He said we should follow him and he took us out into the bay where they were working on the vehicles.

He took us to it and it was still up in the air. He began to tell us that the A Frame was completely rusted through. He said there was no way to align the car with it in that condition and the rusted frame was what had caused the misalignment. He told us he could look into a way to fix it, but it would cost us at least $1,200.

I was devastated.

I told him not to bother looking into it. There was no way I was going to put that much money into that car even if we did have that much, which clearly we didn’t. He also showed us that our tires had been riding sideways and our brand new tires were already worn to the threads.

Then the guy told us that he couldn’t believe we had been driving the car in that condition, how unbelievably unsafe it was and he recommended that we have it towed home. Now, I really didn’t want to pay to tow it and we only lived about 8 miles away. We had been driving on it for this long…we decided to drive it home.

He then made us sign a paper saying that he recommended we never drive it again and that they aren’t liable. Lovely. Just the sort of thing you want to sign.

We did make it home. Once we were there we thought perhaps we should just take it down the block to get some dinner and then that would be it. We would never drive it again. We pulled out, drove a few feet and then there was a loud “POP” and lots of shacking.

We had popped out tire. The car was done. We backed it up into the driveway and left it there. This happened on August 28.

Moving is not enjoyable when you don’t have a car. Luckily we were able to borrow my father’s car for a few weeks, but after that we were on our own.

(I’ll say more about moving in a different post.)

So since September 20th KC and I have not had a car. I’ve been working two jobs around 65 hours a week, taking buses and taxis. It has not been fun. I don’t even want to think about the amount of money I have wasted on cabs.

Back to the car. So I decided we should post the car on Craig’s List. I thought $500 would be fair.

Someone contacted us and it turned out the A Frame had ben recalled by Hyundai and we would be able to get that part fixed for free.

Great! So the car was towed to Hyundai at there expense to be fixed for free. Woo!

That was on September 30. A week went by and I called my dad to see how things were going. He told me they had found a few more things wrong with the car. It would cost a little over $900. He said he and my mom had talked it over and told them to go ahead with it and I could pay them back. The car would be done in a few weeks.

What? $900! A few more weeks? I could have passed out.

I just couldn’t imagine putting that much extra money into this car after already spending all that money during the summer. I am the third owner of this car. I bought it in 2004 for $3,000. I was so upset over that. I really don’t like owning people money either.

However, KC calmed me down and we decided it was still cheaper than buying a new car and if this worked it would still be a good thing.

Time kept passing by. I kept taking taxi’s, buses, and depending on thoughtful coworkers giving me rides.

I do have to say I’m extremely grateful that KC and I moved while this first happened. We probably would have lost our jobs.

This past Monday I decided to call the dealership. They said the car was getting fixed that day! It would either be finished later that day or on Tuesday. Fantastic! I called Tuesday and left a message. No one called me back.

I called them around 2:00pm. They said the car would be done by 5:00pm. Super, but I had to go into job #2 by this point so I wouldn’t be able to get it until the next day. Boo.

Still 5 came and went with no word. I called at 6:30 and they said they were waiting for the part. It would come in on Thursday and be done Thursday night. What? I was annoyed, but fine.

Thursday came. I called to check. They were working on it at that moment, but it wouldn’t be done will the next morning.

On Friday I called at 11:30. They said it wouldn’t be done will 2:30 at the latest. At 2:30 I called and they said it would be done at 3:15. Grrr.

At 4:30 I finally got a call saying the car was done, but they couldn’t get a hold of my father for payment. I gave them my mom’s number. Still nothing. I tried calling both numbers. Both calls failed. I called one brother, no answer. I called my other brother and when I got a hold of him I asked if he knew where my parents were. “Yeah, They’re on a cruise”. What???

I was on emotional overload at that point and so upset knowing I would have to take ANOTHER cab in the morning. I must have cried for the next two hours.

Finally I was able to calm down and see the positive. The car is done. My parent’s got home today and my dad said he would call and pay on Monday so HOPEFULLY on Monday after my 6am – 11 am shift I will be able to pick up my car and DRIVE IT HOME.

I’ll keep you informed.

Next Entry….The Drug Store.

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Newer Things

August 22, 2009 · Filed under It Gets Amazing, The Every Day Life

THE NEW JOB

I have been working at the drug store for about two or so weeks now. Long enough to earn my first paycheck and certainly long enough to give me swollen ankles from multiple 12 hour days on me feet. Ouch.

Things seem to be going well. I’m enjoying being somewhere new and meeting new people. I also love being in the cosmetics section to the degree that it’s really making me consider other career options and I really want to kick myself for not pursuing cosmetology at the trade school while I was in high school.

I love academics so much and I have always wanted to prove that I could achieve something really great, such as earning a doctorate. That’s always the goal. Earning a doctorate. I’m not saying that I’m going to give up on that. I’m not. I truly believe that will have that one day. Right now I’m just thinking that until I am able to make that happen it may be worth my while to learn a skill that I can make money off of now doing something that I enjoy.

I have to think on this for a while. It’s not something I am just going to jump into, but I am hoping to start saving some money away so that when I’m ready I can afford to go. I would really like a career as a make-up artist.

Does that sound crazy? I feel like I am often getting these ideas in my head, but this one feels so wonderful to me. I’m really good with people. I’m motivated. I love art, color and make-up and I’m good with long hours on my feet.

So that’s where I am now. I’m considering pursuing a job at a make-up store or counter to give me some experience in the field so that I can decide if this is really something I am going to enjoy long term.

It is something to think about.

The only bad part of the second job is that it’s sort of slow there right now and very often there is literally nothing to do. During those times I sort of wander around tweaking things and rearranging things in a sort of OCD manner to pass the time, but when there aren’t customers or tasks to accomplish time seems to stand still. It’s awful!

I also came out to my coworkers pretty quickly. I mean, when you’re standing around with your co-workers making small talk it really doesn’t take long to get into significant others. I decided that whenever it naturally came up in conversation I would refer to KC as my girlfriend. It seemed to have gone over very well. I’ sure there was some talk about it when I wasn’t there between people, but everyone has been very nice and treat it as nothing out of the ordinary. Perfect for me. That’s all I want.

NEW DIGS

I hinted at a possible big change coming up in a past entry and with money exchanging hands I think it’s safe to talk about.

KC and I are MOVING!

No seriously!

Ever since KC started her new job and I started my new jobs things have been pretty hectic. We don’t see each other often and the commute is seriously bringing us down. We each work about a half an hour away from home. All three of our jobs are within a 2 mile radius of one another. KC works nights and I work nights and days.

Here is a typical day for us:

3:30 am – Go to sleep
7:30 am – Wake up, shower, get dressed, wake up KC
8:00 am – KC drives me 30 minutes to work, we stop for coffee
8:45 am – I go into work 15 minutes early to hear the morning meeting and drink my coffee, KC heads home to sleep.
2:45 pm – I’m done at job #1, KC has napped, done our laundry and cleaned she comes to pick me up
3:00 pm – We eat dinner together
4:00 pm – KC drops me off at job #2, she goes to the library to read.
5:00 pm – KC drops the car off to me and has a coworker pick her up and bring her to work.
10:30 pm – I get off of work and drive to KC’s job. I sit and wait in the car for an hour.
11:30 pm – KC is on her break and we spend a half hour together.
12:00 am – I sleep in the car for 2 hours.
2:00 am – KC is done with work. We drive home.
3:30 am – Go to sleep.

Rinse and repeat.

This gets old pretty fast. It also costs us $10 to $20 a day in gas. That’s killer.

However, this new house will change all that. We’ll be moving into a house at the end of this month. It’s got 4 bedrooms and we’ll be sharing it with 3 other girls. I realize that sounds insane, but it’s super affordable and it will give us a chance to really save so we can be on our own by next year.

It has a living room, dining room, kitchen, ONE bathroom, a nook for Penelope and a full basement.

Most importantly it is in WALKING distance of KC’s job and a mere 2 miles from mine. This is going to save so much gas and so much stress for both of us. I’m really so excited about it. I can not wait!

There are definitely a few drawbacks, but I’m hoping that the positives will far out shine them and that KC and I will have a wonderful year living there.

It’s a new chapter of our life together.

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Welcome!

August 5, 2009 · Filed under Things That Go With Blogging

I know what you’re thinking. What the hell is this? What the heck did she do to her website?

I’ve moved my friends!

Thanks to the suggestion of Jill from Glossy Veneer I decided to move to a free WordPress account. I then mapped my domain name to the new account so you don’t even have to worry about updating everything.

Also, I’m pretty damn sure that this one actually has a feed something my old one lacked.

So here we are. This is my solution and I pray the spam doesn’t follow me since I can’t figure out how to set up the filters here either.

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Frusteration

August 4, 2009 · Filed under I'm Letting It Out, Things That Go With Blogging, Those Job Things We Shouldn't Blog About

People do you know what I hate? Spam comments! Sweet Jesus! I’m getting over 500 spam comments a day right now. I’ve been trying to load Akismet to which WordPress says I need an API key.

Then I try to log in to get said API key when WordPress says, “Hey! That’s not the right username/password combo. Denied!” Only it says denied all ghetto, like DEE-NIED. Then I’m all, “Bitch! How they hell do you think I even found out about this API bidness! I’m logged into my account already with this information. Obviously it is correct.”

Then my computer is all, “Hey! I’m only a machine. I can’t help you with this. Stop shouting at me. I thought we were in love.”

That makes me feel bad so then I just yell about it on Twitter and promptly ignore my blg for a while and just let those comments build up.

In all seriousness though…I am thinking about saying a fond farewell to this hear lovely blog. I have to think about it.

There are some developments in the Angela & KC living situation that I can’t really disclose yet. Right now this blog costs me $15 a month and I make about $14 every 6 months off my ads. So it’s really not paying me right now to keep it going. Especially if these new developments progress where I would like them too.

You see, it’s really not about the spam when it comes down to it. It’s about the time and the money.

I recently just started a second job. Some of you might remember me working at an office for oh…about 6 years. It was for a business owned by my parents. It wasn’t the greatest job and surely not what I had my heart set on, but it was full time. My parents laid me off to part time in November. It took me till March to take a hint and really go nuts trying to find a new job.

It was then I got the part time gig at the pet store. I set on working really hard and doing my best and I was sure they would see me as an asset and give me better hours and a way to further my career with the company.

It took me till July to realize that in this economy no one is an asset in a large corporation. I asked the main manager at the beginning of summer if I could get more hours or become full time. I was willing to work very hard and I do feel that I am great at what I do.

The manager said that he couldn’t because they just didn’t have the hours available. Though he did say that when school started he might be able to give me more. They then proceeded to hire FIVE new part time cashiers. Seriously.

I know that it is more lucrative to a company to hire a lot of part time people and few full time people, less benefits and all that to pay. So…I can sort of get it, but at the same time it is SO frustrating. I’m struggling so much and sometimes I feel like KC and I will never be able to move forward.

I had a good cry about it and decided to just keep going and aim for the fall in hopes they would give me more hours then. A position opened in pet care and I told every manager who would listen that I was interested. Everyone seemed to take it into consideration and one of the head managers said it sounded like it might be a good solution because I’m so good with customer service and I could do both jobs.

A few weeks went by and I heard nothing and they still haven’t hired anyone for the spot.

Then last week happened. Last week I got 11 hours. ELEVEN HOURS! I’ll do the math for you friends that is a whopping $88 for that week BEFORE taxes.

Meanwhile I have been getting contacted by a drug store. I applied there a while back and even interviewed there a few weeks ago. I just wasn’t sure I could handle doing both jobs. I didn’t know if it was nessesary. Honestly at that point I thought the pet store would give me more hours or the new position.

Getting that 11 hours showed me things aren’t going to advance for me there. I contacted the drug store and told them I was still interested. I immediately got the job.

They promised me 20 hours a week in return for me giving them weekends. Great! That’s a really good point to start at around here in the land of no full time jobs.

I went back to the pet store and met with my manager. I told him about the new job and hoped he would be able to work with me on weekends. He basically told me that if I needed Saturdays off I would no longer be able to work there. Lovely.

This made me upset again because I didn’t want to leave the pet store yet before I knew about the new store and really I needed them both. Neither job alone would be enough to live on.

I went back to the drug store and told them what the pet store had said. Thank goodness they were understanding. They said as long as I could promise them days on Wednesday and Sunday I was set. Hooray!

I stopped back at the pet store and wrote up my new availability giving them Saturdays, but letting them know Wednesday and Sunday would be for the drug store. The other days I can work days at the pet store and nights at the drug store.

We’ll see how this goes. I haven’t officially started the new job yet. I’m still in training. My job title is Beauty Advisor, which I’m actually pretty excited about. I love talking about and learning about beauty and skin care products so it sounds like a good match for now.

I’ll keep you updated on the situation with KC and I. I’m not leaving blogging yet also so don’t worry. I’m still paid up till September anyway.

If you have to log in to comment or any bull shit like that blame the evil spammers.

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To My Lovely KC,

July 23, 2009 · Filed under This Thing We Call Love

I remember the first time I really met you. I’m not talking about the first time, you know when my ex and I were seeing The Chicago Kings and I was sort of rude to you. At least you know now that it wasn’t you. I just totally need to work on my people skills and I don’t do well in crowds and with new people…I was pretty overwhelmed that night. Like I said, you know that now.

I’m talking about the time we really met at the bar. Consequently it was my first time at a sports bar and the bar tender looked at me like I was out of my mind when I ordered a cosmopolitan. Then I looked around the bar and realized I was the only one there NOT drinking a beer. I may feel at home in those bars now, but then it was totally out of my relm.

I’ll also point out that I couldn’t believe all those awful TVs blaring that sports dribble and don’t even bring up the whole college sports on TV thing to me because I don’t think I will ever understand that. I think I counted 5 TVs in that bar each playing a different sports program. I quickly took note of the exits. Where was I again?

Oh yeah…our first meeting.

Fuck. I think I have to admit that I was instantly attracted to you. I flirted with you pretty quickly. Only because I love to flirt and be flirted with and honestly I never thought you would be attracted to me too. I wouldn’t know until some time later, but it still shocks me.

After that it gets sort of drawn out and messy so let’s skip over that for the sake of this letter.

It’s now two and a half years later and it’s you I wake up to every morning. You know, those mornings when I wake up and stare at you with contempt for a few hours until I finally wake you up? I’m sure it’s wonderful to be awoken by someone glaring at you asking, “How can you possibly sleep in this late??”. When that person obviously must know you worked until 2:00 am the night before and didn’t even get to sleep until anywhere from 3 to 4 am. Just ignore all those early morning Twitters I made about you.

Oh yeah. I really love showing you what a catch I am! Especially on those nights when I wear that purple nightgown. That’s the one that is essentially a lilac mumu? I can’t even look at myself in the mirror when I wear that horrible thing and yet I wear it around you all the time. Note to self: burn mumu.

Yet even though I know you can’t stand that nightgown you still take time to tell me you think I’m beautiful. That always means a lot.

The point of this is that I still really have to work to find things about you that annoy me. So much so that much of the time I feel like a crazy person. We don’t even fight! We bicker and sometimes I’m all prickly and you tell me to get ahold of myself. That’s pretty much it. For a person that was raised around arguing and who spent six years arguing constantly with her significant other it still doesn’t feel like we’re past the honeymoon period of dating. I suppose if you think about it we are still in that newness period. I hope it lasts, because I’m really happy here.

Now for the mushy part (and I promise to keep it brief) you light me up. My day is never brighter than when I get to spend it with you. I never feel more beautiful then when you’re smiling at me. When you put your arms around me and hold me close I feel like we’re the only two people in the world. People keep telling me they have never seen me so happy and truthfully I have never been this happy.

I’m continually grateful to have you in my life.

Thank you for every single thing you do for me. I appreciate you.

Happy Second Anniversary!

Love,

Angela

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My Vacation In Video Form

July 22, 2009 · Filed under Philadelphia, Traveling

I’m not to great when it comes to recapping things so I thought I would just make you a video to watch!

Here is a recap of my trip to Philadelphia as it was happening. I’m officially 25.

I hope you enjoyed it!

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Sometimes Venting Is In Order

July 15, 2009 · Filed under I'm Letting It Out, My Crazy Family, The Every Day Life

I really took the comments on my entry about things to do before my birthday to heart. The consensus was to just relax and let go of these self imposed deadlines. So yeah KC and I did not stay up all night at the casino.

I’m feeling a lot more relaxed about getting this one year older. I’m not at all where I intended to be at this age. (Of course 14 year old me thought I would have at least 3 kids by now amongst other things. What was I thinking??) That’s okay. I think this happens to everyone at one point or another. It’s so easy to wrapped up In our expectations for how our life is supposed to be. It’s hard to train oneself to let go of all those supposed tos and focus on what is.

All things considered: crappy relationship with parents, living at home with those parents, minimum wage job, no savings. I still feel like I have a really good life. I still have tons of things to be thankful for. Things could be better, surely, but they could also be loads worse. It’s really important to keep remembering that.

It might take a long time, but I sincerely feel like everything I want for my life will happen in it’s own time. I know that KC and I will get on our own feet. I just have to keep striving.

Though while we’re talking about the home situation some can I vent to you a bit about my father? Good. Thank you.

Here is the thing…I do believe my dad is a good person. He let KC live with us when she had no where to go and he does always try to help people when he can. Sometimes I just feel like he gets too wrapped up in things to really see himself.

I remember when I was younger he used to always buy presents for these kids at church that came from poorer families. He was always showering those kids with attention and of course I know why now. I knew why then. I just always wished he would have paid that much attention to me. It wasn’t about the gifts. It was just that continual feeling of never being good enough. I still feel that way.

That’s not really the point though. The point is I grew up with a father that did good things for other people just because it was right. I grew up with a father that (even though he thought (thinks?) “colored” was the proper term for black people always taught me never to judge people by anything other that their character and their actions. Parents that made sure I watched Shindler’s List and Roots. Parents that made sure to take me to the Holocaust Museum before I was really even young enough to understand it to make sure I understood how horrible those things were. I remember at 8 years old reading the quote, “History that is forgotten is doomed to be repeated”. I really took those things to heart.

I never wanted to be the sort of person that listened to stereotypes. I love learning about other cultures. I think it’s extremely important to learn about the history of those cultures and races no matter how difficult it is to hear about. Whenever I’m viewing or reading something particularly painful I remind myself that if someone had to live through this I can handle hearing about it. I think it’s really important.

That might be why it’s so hard for me to see these changes in my father, one of the people who helped instill these lessons in me.

He’s changing. I don’t know if it’s getting older or the fact that all of the sudden (in the past 5 years or less) gotten completely (and I mean completely) obsessed with the Vietnam war.

He used to only have a thing against Asian people. Understandable perhaps? I never really thought so and he didn’t used to bring it up. Once he went on a Disney cruise and they were having some sort of…I don’t know retreat? In any case there were hundreds of Vietnamese people on the ship. My father was really religious at the time and my mother and I teased that perhaps God was trying to tell him something. (AKA your prejudice is ridiculous and maybe you should start seeing that these people are just like everyone else.)  No. He had the audacity to complain to the staff! That was the beginning.

Now it’s not at all uncommon for him to send absurdly racist even sexist forwards to, well pretty much everyone. He makes comments about other races all the time. I was talking with my hands the other day as I am wont to do and he asked me if I was Italian. When he tells a (bigoted) joke and I don’t laugh he says things like, “yeah you probably didn’t get that one, you’re a blonde”.

All he ever does is talk about “the war”. He spends his free time going to events with all his new veteran events, building a website for veterans in his group, looking up names of people he served with and cold calling in hopes it’s them and they want to join his groups, etc…He has even gone on multiple reunions to other states to meet up with these people! My father is 60. He served in Vietnam for 9 months as an engineer when he was 18. I get that war sucks, but I can’t imagine spending my entire life so wrapped up and obsessive about such a small portion of it.

He has also been keeping very odd hours. KC doesn’t get home until 2:30 am and sometimes we’ll stay up together and watch some TV downstairs. We don’t have TV in our room so it’s pretty much our only chance to watch any shows. Lately at 3:00 am or later he’ll be awake down there sitting in his recliner working on his website or (as of late) cleaning his guns. Yes! My father is up in the wee hours of the morning cleaning his pistol!!

On another note, aren’t you supposed to have a permit for those things? Who would give a possibly mentally unstable older man a gun! Guns!

If there is one thing I abhor it’s weapons. I hate living in that house knowing there are multiple guns. It makes me feel extremely unsettled.

The last thing I want to mention is that fact that he is replacing his real family with these army people. For thanksgiving he wanted us to go to one of his new friend’s homes instead of my aunts, which is our family tradition. Then he found out recently that that “friend” wasn’t even a real veteran and had been lying to them and the VA in order to get free benefits.

It just doesn’t make sense to me. I feel like his is not the same person anymore. I have been keeping track of the things he and my mom have been saying to me in the last few weeks as a sort of experiment and neither of them has had one nice thing to say to me.

I could go on and on and on.

Thanks for letting me vent. I really love this blog.

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