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| A leetle update! This is, obviously, not a Cool Great Big Post, but I'm just keeping y'all up to date with my doings. There are a lot of them.
1) I work a LOT. Since I am the one-and-only maker of homecoming mums for Michaels of Overton Ridge, I clock twelve-hour shifts alllllllll the time and am basically made of overtime. This is, yes, exhausting, but the paychecks are nice.
2) I got promoted to Lead Sales Associate (a full-time, better-paid position) within like three weeks of starting the job. Unfortunately, they aren't allowed to give me more than a dollar raise for the first 60 days of my working there. Fortunately, I am guaranteed another raise after Halloween. It better be a good one.
3) Having a job, and therefore a second paycheck in the budget, is really dang good. Exhausting, yes. No boredom, oh yes. Adding to savings and getting ready for those big future someday steps like Moving to a New Place, Hunting for a Better Job, and Having an Adorable Baby or Seven. (All of these, it should be noted, are like waaaaaay in the future, and contingent upon circumstance.)
4) I still don't know a lot of people here, blargh. I am combating this in the best way I can think of: taking classes. Not the how-to-think kind of classes that (like Creative Writing, may it burn in a thousand fiery hells) drain you of all original thought or ability, but the kind that teach you how to make pretty cakes, and cook filet of sole in mango-and-chile sauce. And talk to the people that are in said classes and make friends with them.
5) I'm gonna go cook & eat something now. KBAI
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| Well, I promised! I am finally, finally employed, and I start today, in an hour. So here's some catching up:
1) My first month of marriage I spent being married. It rocked. I also assembled a resume, references, whole nine yards. How hard can this employment thing be, I asked?
2) My second month of marriage I spent applying to all the jobs I really wanted. Halfway through the month, rejections started pouring in. You'd think I sent them a manuscript instead of a resume. Ho-hum.
3) My third month of marriage I spent applying to all the jobs I thought I could get, while finagling to get experience (the crucial ingredient) for the jobs I really wanted.
4) Now here I am, assembling the paperwork for hospital volunteering and substitute teaching. Plus I needed money, so, inspired by Lina (who has been incredibly encouraging)... I walked into Michaels on a day when it was cram-packed, found the (absolutely frantic) hiring-and-floor manager, and told him he looked really stressed out and I could be there immediately if he wanted my help.
So that's how I got employed. It ain't no high-paying job, that's for sure, but the people are friendly and happy-looking and it's Michaels. Which I'm sure in the long run doesn't mean that much extra, except that I actually like what they sell... as opposed to Target. (MOAR LIEK BLARGET, AMIRITE)
Anyhow! Off to work. This is the only time I get to wear Normal People Clothes to this job. Where are those knee-socks...?
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| Finally, I have something worthwhile to tell you about. I mean, my life's been fairly eventful of late, but it's mostly the guess-what-Kevin-did variety of eventful, which tends to nauseate even me in the retelling. My life goes like this: CLEAN COOK READ APPLY FOR JOBS SNUGGLE WITH KEVIN REPEAT UNTIL DEAD. So, y'know. Time to mix it up a bit with a pinch of disaster. ________________________________________________________________
The Almighty Stench or, I Swear I'm Not Being Abused
(As first told to Flynn Burklin, who is awesome.)
I sent Kevin to work, day before yesterday, with a big tupperware container full of Wal-Mart broccoli, rice and cheese. 'Cause, you know, that stuff's cheap. And it's a large recipe, too-- Kevin ate to bestuffment and brought home a good two or three ounces in the tupperware, which I set on the counter to be cleaned later.
Somehow it got tucked behind the paper towels, and I forgot about it.
Today, as I rummaged for something to fill my rumbling tummy, I noticed an odd odor in the kitchen. Poking around, I discovered the tupperware. Could this be the source of the smell?
Opened it.
YES IN FACT IT COULD BE.
Gagging, teary-eyed, and not entirely in control of my functions, I emptied the tupperware into the trash and ran hot water with soap over it. However, as you've probably already guessed, the trash failed to contain the stench.
So there I was, washing the tupperware, trying to figure out why I was still gagging. And I mean seriously gagging; I gave myself hiccups. Not cute little 'hup' hiccups, either-- I'm talking major diaphragmic spasms that sound like distressed seabirds when my mouth's open and rip my eardrums in when my mouth's closed.
Then it hit me: I just dumped all that nasty crap in the trash! WHAT
I sacked up the trash, still gagging and hiccupping, and hauled it to the dumpster. I was still barefoot and wild-haired, and I probably looked at least half-crazy. I scared this lady in the parking lot, who was just trying to unload her kids from her truck.
Then I came back up to the house, turned off the AC, opened all the doors and windows, lit candles and turned on the stove and bathroom fans. The cloud of stink was, at this point, nearly visible. And I was still wracked with hiccups.
Plus, to make matters worse, remember the reason I went in the kitchen in the first place? Yeah. I was still starving. And there was no way to eat anything in here without smelling that the whole time.
Thus, I was standing at the fridge, looking for something really garlicky that might help cover the stench long enough for me to devour my food...
...when I heard a voice at the door. "Are you okay?"
It's the lady from the truck. Her kids are clustered around her knees, making faces. Doubtless the stink has reached them where they stand, right outside my front door.
"Erm, yes," I say, "I just uh see there was this broccoli."
"Oh, I mean, I heard these awful whooping sobbing noises and I thought... you know.. I mean, I thought you might be injured."
Whooping sobbing noises. "Oh. Yeah. Um, I have hiccups?" Way to be persuasive there, Elise, now she's going to think your husband was beating you.
"Okay, well, you ummmm call the police if there's any trouble, okay?"
So now I'm sitting in my gassy house WITH THE DOOR CLOSED, eating green olives with capers and pickles on toast, hoping the woman didn't call the cops or anything because if they smell this place they will surely convict me of running a meth lab.
The end.
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| The reason I haven't been posting or commenting or anything isn't because I have nothing to talk about, or because I don't care, or anything else I was worried it might have been.
No, it's because I'm reading four books at once and trying to get a job. In fact, I think I'm going to go fill out a job application right now.
So once I see more every day than the inside of my apartment, and once I run out of books, I'll probably get back into the swing of things. (It's already begun; I won the Factions campaign of Guild Wars last night, and I hung paper lanterns all over the wall the night before. You know. Normal things.)
Life continues to be completely awesome over here. It feels like I'm crouched on the starting line, listening to the hush of a crowd on the edge of their seats, digging my toes into the ground and waiting for the crack that will change the nature of all these passing moments from excited anticipation to determined joy.
Also, Kevin is the best husband ever. (I know some of you folks have awesome husbands, but I'm still pretty sure Kevin is the best.)
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| Aight guys, show of hands.
How many of you read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time when you were young?
How many of you read it after you were grown up?
How many of you found it life-changing and still cry when Meg faces down IT for Charles Wallace?
How many of you haven't read it yet?
And besides Narnia and Hobbit, can you think of any other beautiful, terrible books that filled your tiny grade-school heads with wild questions and secret hopes and restless, half-formed dreams that still shape the way you are today?
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True