Employed AGAIN!!!

I got a job, Y’all!

I can’t tell you about it, because I signed a confidentiality agreement (I’m really special and important), but still…a job! I can pay my bills again!

So after nine months I can finally stop complaining about not having a job, and start complaining about how much I hate my job…YAY!!

Thank you to all of you who have sent me messages in the past few months. I greatly appreciated your support. Your letters brought tears to eyes because of your kind words, but most importantly they brought me hope. You kept me sane. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Not a real post, just an update

So…guys…yeah…still unemployed. I interviewed at two companies last week, and I just heard back from them. I’m a great fit for their companies, but they’re not hiring me.

The good news is, they both want me to interview for other open positions, so at least there’s that. I’m sure I’ll be crying again in a couple of weeks when these come back as duds as well. If I could afford the vodka, I’d be drinking.

 

Dating a whole family

Recently, at a job interview, I was talking with another candidate, and we got on the topic of dating men with children. She mentioned that she had two grown children, and was just getting back into dating. She recently started dating a man with children, and was wondering if it would be difficult. I told her that I had no children, but my boyfriend has two. She asked me if it was hard dating a man with kids, so I told her the truth. Yes. It was hard, at first. Sometimes it still is.

I thought long and hard before I said yes to that first date. I knew it would mean that I would never come first in his life, and I was right. Even now, two years later, if there is a kid-friendly event that we plan on attending, he first asks his kids if they want to go. At that point it no longer matters that I want to go. The kids, specifically his son, have final say, because they might get bored.

I can’t complain because I knew what I was getting into. I made the decision to stay and I’m happy I made that choice.

A close friend of mine recently started dating a man with kids, and I couldn’t help but think she was making a mistake. I didn’t know if she could handle not being the center of attention. Thankfully, it seems to be going really well for her, and I’m glad I did not voice my thoughts. I would hate it if she walked away from a happy relationship, because of my experience.

The kids are terrific. They are funny, polite, and well-behaved. They rarely cause me any trouble. Only on occasion do I get any attitude from a 10-year-old girl, who is clearly competing with me for her father’s attention. I can’t blame her. The poor girl is also competing with her 13-year-old brother, and more often than not he wins. It’s understandable, he’s a boy and a mini version of my boyfriend. A gamer and all around nerd. I think his sci-fi geekery is my influence, though. I don’t apologize for that; it makes him cooler.

I’m very lucky to have them in my life. There are, of course, times when everything gets a little too overwhelming. When that happens I go someplace by myself and have some quiet time. Usually, that’s just closing the door to our bedroom, and reading a book. If I don’t close the door I’ll have a little visitor that comes in to talk to me, or just wave at me and then walk away. It’s cute, but not when I’m in one of my moods.

Even though life with my boyfriend and two kids, that are not mine, can sometimes be stressing, I still believe I made the right decision. I’m happier for it.

There’s a new pope, and he speaks Spanish.

So…there’s a new pope. Living in Miami I’ve heard a lot from the Hispanic community about the first South American pope, and I’m wondering why. When I first heard there was a new pope, and that he was from South America, I called my mother to get her thoughts on the subject ( She’s Colombian – and very proud of that ). As soon as I said “Hi”, she screamed into the phone that we had a new pope, and that it was a great day for South Americans. Okay…sure. I can understand there being a feeling of national pride for Argentinians, but should there be? The papacy is not an international competition. The pope belongs to the entire Catholic community, and not just one nation.

I think it’s a shame that ignorance and bigotry is so prevalent in our society that we can get so excited about the new pope being “one of us”. It shouldn’t matter what race or nationality he is. The only concern should be, “Can he do the job?”. We are all equal, are we not? There should be no feelings of superiority because Pope Francis is “ours”. It should not even be an issue. Do Hispanics now have a direct line to God? Uhm…no. Are they now God’s chosen people? No, again. Aren’t we ALL His children? Or is it just nice to have a pope who can speak Spanish without the help of a translator? Maybe.

There should be a sense of community among the world’s Catholics, and there very well may be, I’m just not getting that feeling.  I’ve tried getting the answer from my mother on why it’s so exciting, but she doesn’t understand my question. I’m just too American to understand the Latin culture, she says.

I will continue to talk to people around town, and get different views. I’ll update this post if I ever get the answer, but somehow I don’t think I’ll get it. I’m just too American to understand.

Damn you, internet doctors.

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep because every time I lay down I start coughing until it seems like I will choke to death. It isn’t fun. I’ve been sick for a month. Just when I started getting over the Flu, I caught something else. It’s so not fair.

Yesterday I made the mistake of going on WebMD to check my symptoms. Not a good idea. Apparently I have EVERYTHING from Pneumonia to cancer. Thanks a lot, fake internet doctor.

When I do manage to sleep a little, I have very vivid dreams and some nightmares. I call them fever dreams, because I always have them when I’m ill. I had one such nightmare yesterday. It was the kind that makes you bolt out of bed in a panic, gasping for breath. I can’t actually remember it now, like so many dreams, but I know it freaked me out. Funny enough, the only part of it I do remember is me looking in a mirror and seeing my hairstyle. It looked pretty good; I’ll have to remember to describe it to my hairstylist.