I’m Beautiful Like Me.

This morning, I reached frustration boiling point. I was in the middle of sorting through affiliate links to add to the websites and coding the pages when my darling son turned off my computer. None of my work was saved, so I stormed off into the isolation of my bedroom, closed the door behind me and cried a spell. It was cleansing.

The hard reality is that I cannot make a livable income from home. At least not yet. A supplemental income, sure, but not something that will sustain us.

Did I forget to mention that Husband lost his job yet again?

Well, he did. Geek Squad City terminated his temp position because he “took extended breaks.” Bullshit! His “extended breaks” would be taking the actual allotted amount since he typically takes shorter breaks than offered. My take is that they were pissed they were proven wrong for firing him to begin with and basically forced to take him back.

And here is how it went:

At around 4:30pm On Friday September 12, the mail ran. Be still my beating heart, a money order for $75 came from the xSO. Woohoo, I’m going to Grinny Possum with the $10 gift certificate Elevena gave to me! And money! Yarn shopping! Woot! Just as I was putting on my shoes to leave, the cell phone rang. The temp agency gave Husband the news.

Fuck.

So much for yarn shopping. Lots of feeling sorry for myself ensued.

I felt better by Sunday morning, posted This Week in Pictures, started laundry and turned on football. I had plans for a post about Husband’s job loss, as well as plans to post some cute videos I took of Buddha. All that was promptly ruined by the weather.

Our focus shifted. We were in survival mode now. Correction: Husband was in survival mode, I was back to feeling sorry for myself. We also did not win the lottery. Our first night without power really sucked. Lots of panicking on my part about the groceries we just bought on Thursday night, fretting over the schedule being tampered with (bathtime for baby is just before bed but we cannot bathe a toddler in the dark!) and so on. School was canceled for the week, the governor declared another state of emergency (the first being over the insane price of gas) and the neighbors are all congregating onto our front stoop. I could say, “At least it wasn’t hot!” but the windows propped open invited a lot of unwanted gossip into my home.

Tuesday went better. I spent the entire day knitting and in the evening, we met at BakerX’s for knit night, since Sunergos was without power and closed. She made the most delish cookies and her home was quite comfortable, with exponentially better lighting than at Sunergos. I suggested we make knit night a sort of coffee-and-treat pot luck permanently at her place! She and Sonnie again bestowed me with infinite patience and knitting wisdoms. I didn’t leave for home until almost 11pm.

Yesterday we piled into the Jeep (borrowed from mom while she is away in Germany) and went to the Highlands to just sight-see and get out of the house. We went to Ermin’s Bakery for lunch. (Locals that haven’t been there for the tomato basil soup should go right now and try it - it is the best soup ever!) The girl managed to ruin it by whining non-stop. After I had enough, I blew my lid, drove us home and banished Joy to her room for the remainder of the day. It was a long, long afternoon. After dinner, I jumped in the shower. As I’m rinsing, the lights magikally came back on - WOOHOO! We cleaned, rewashed all the laundry, vacuumed, put the house back together. I crashed out with Buddha around 9pm, every television in the house blaring.

After this morning’s fiasco and melt-down, I moved into action. I cannot take it anymore!

I signed onto CareerBuilder and applied for over twenty jobs. Then I drove downtown and filed for child support. After getting a letter of cooperation, I took it to the Department of Children and Families and asked our worker to reapply me for Medicaid. I cannot stay in this weird lunacy-filled funk any longer. Then I went to a local restaurant where I applied a few weeks back and inquired about the status of my application. I left with a job waiting tables. Orientation is tomorrow morning.

I’m required to hide the butterfly tattoo. My hair was down during the interview. I wonder if things will change for them when they see it up.

My “conscience” tattoos, behind my ears and my Virgo glyph on the back of my neck. Not a word was said about my nose ring, though.

I’d be thrilled if I have Tuesday nights off for knit night, but if not, well, it is what it is. Sacrifices sometimes must be made.

Husband called while I was in the interview. I returned his call when I was finished and he said I should hurry home, as Buddha had injured himself while climbing on/falling from the couch. I rushed home and found a very whiny boy with an ugly bruise on his right shin. He’ll stand on it, limp half a step and start howling, the poor guy. We’re pretty certain it isn’t anything serious, so we are going to keep an eye on it. He has a doctor’s appointment early next week. If things don’t improve before then, we’ll likely push our appointment up even if we hafta be seen as walk-ins.

I gotta go hunt down some sort of shirt to hide my sins for the job, but I’ll leave you with the cute-as-hell video I’ve been promising. Please disregard my strange-behaving cat in the second video.