The difference between a job and a career is the difference between forty and sixty hours a week. ~Robert Frost

So I have a job. Yes that’s right – a job, not a career. You know, I’m sort of excited about it. I've been working as “the boss” for so long the idea of not being one is kind of nice. When I went in to this move I figured that I would continue to do what I had been doing, just in a different part of the country. Go figure this move that has changed so much in my life has changed that as well.

I am going to do a job that I will only commit 40 hours a week to. A huge change from my last job, where I worked an average of 60 hours a week. It also looks like if I do well at this job I could end up making more than I was! Delightful I tell you.

Things may be looking up. Of course life and Murphy’s Law know that now that I am working, I will spend the next month or two fielding calls for OTHER jobs that have been hiding from me like a dog that has stolen your favourite socks. So who knows what I’ll be doing or where I will be working in the coming months – but for right now – I have a job. Cue the happy music!

Can't Lose for Winning

You know how some days you can’t win for losing? It appears that on other days you can’t lose for the winning. Who knew?

Now as this blog has proven, I have been surprised by the blindness of this place in the back of beyond in failing to see what they have right in front of them – that would be me. The experienced, hard-working retail manager with a perfectionist bent that just wants a bloody job!

Well so far there are no manager jobs on the horizon (there is one that I’m fairly hopeful about) but at long last there are other jobs that seem to be coming out of the woodwork looking for me. You know I am no longer all that picky – funny how unemployment will do that to you. I figure any job will do at this point and I’ll worry about “career” jobs later.

All the little green gods being willing I will hopefully have a job by the end of the week.

Crossed fingers would be appreciated but are not mandatory.

Rant of Worthiness

This not finding a job thing is really starting to get ridiculous. I am a professional PEOPLE!!! You WANT me....you REALLY do!

10 ways to drive your Mom crazy

#1 Bark incessantly until your citronella collar is empty then bark whenever the feeling strikes you.

#2 Perpetrate a prison break from your cell (kennel).

#3 Work tirelessly to breach the perimeter (knock out the baby gate).

#4 Start a systemic search and destroy mission starting in the basement. Dig through all the kitty litter eat the good stuff and scatter the rest of it all over the floor.

#5 Move upstairs to the kitchen...eat all the cat food in the bowls, then knock over the cat food container and apply force (teeth, teeth and more teeth) to bust open the container and eat until full.

#6 Dump the lidded trash can over and scatter coffee grounds etc. all over the kitchen and into the carpeted dining room, grinding it in where appropriate. Take big pieces of garbage and hide them all over the house as presents for Mom (this will take some time but is well worth the effort when Mom finds them).

#7 Move in to the living room and show Mom why it's a bad idea not to clean the coffee table before she goes to work. Take everything on the coffee table and scatter it all over the floor. Chew a few bills so Mom realizes that some thought and effort went in to this concerted attack on her office space.

#8 Now move in on the hallway and attack the treat drawer. Use whatever means necessary to pull out the drawer in the process blocking the front door so Mom won't be able to get in when she gets home. Once you have the drawer open make sure to eat as many pigs ears as you can handle (you can always come back and work on them through the day as you do have hours left before Mom gets home). When you get tired of the pigs ears break in to the bag of Evo treats that Mom only let's you have one or two of a day because they are way too rich for you. Eat your fill!

#9 By now it's time to take a break until Mom gets home. When you hear her try to get in the front door and it won't open, run to the back door to meet her, barking the whole time so she knows how excited you are that she's home. When she finally gets in the house give her your cutest face and look hurt when she starts to yell.(in the spirit of teaching you from my experience...you might wanna hide instead of meeting your Mom at the door)

#10 After Mom has destroyed all your hard work by putting everything back, and you have spent a long time outside guarding the back yard, you go to bed with Mom. When she wakes up you make sure that all that stuff you ate has come out the appropriate end right where she puts her feet in the morning.

Now if all this doesn't work for you...then your Mom is a much tougher nut to crack than mine and you might need to add in some shoe chewing and stuff.

Good luck my brothers and sisters in fluff. Let me know how you do.

Studipidity is...

falling down the stairs because you were wearing your fuzzy feet.

Those same fuzzy feet that I warn everyone I gift them too, about how slippery they can be. I will have you know that as of right now I am the only one who has managed to fall in them.

Proud – that’s me.

Another Week Begins

Here’s hoping that this week is the one where a job shows up. Being unemployed is making it very hard to enjoy being here.

I swore when I moved here that I was going to take advantage of what this place had to offer. I was not going to be the hermit I had become in the big city. I was going to reinvent myself into a dinner party hostess extraordinaire, a brilliant book club member, a virulent (the distances I will go for alliteration) volunteer. Basically become the heroine of my own novel.

Now having known me for a really long time, I am aware that a lot of this is middle of the night, I can’t sleep, let’s reinvent my life, imaginative overload. Even knowing that, and knowing my trend towards the improbable if not the impossible, I yet again really believed that this time I was going to make it happen.

At some point I think I really need to get more in touch with who I really am. Because I don’t know if the person I like to invent for myself is someone I would even like being. Let’s face it, extraordinary hostesses have a ton of cleaning and cleaning up to do to keep up the reputation (I hate cleaning), brilliant book clubbers actually have to read books that are not all about escapism (there goes my love of Sci-Fi) and volunteers need to be somewhat selfless with their time (me not so much – I hoard my private time like Imelda hoarded shoes).

Maybe it’s time I rethunk this.

About a Dog

For a blog that has 'dog' listed in its description I should probably ensure that there is some dog content.

The dog in question is a 4 year old rescue BichonX named Boogie. I got him when he was 14 months old and I was his fourth owner.

Here’s his story - in his own words.

Hi, my name is Boogie. I spent the first year of my life with my first owner, I don't know what happened but all of a sudden I ended up in a cage with strangers looking at me.

Another family took me home but I was a little freaked out by what was happening to me and I got 'separation anxiety'. I would bark all the time and pee in the house when I was left alone because I was scared.

I went back in the cage with the strangers again.

Then another family took me home. I was so afraid that they would leave me that I followed my new owner everywhere and he didn't like that. He told people I was retarded because I wouldn't leave him alone.

I went back in the cage with the strangers again.

I was really scared now and started barking the whole time I was in the cage. It was driving the strangers crazy, I don't think they liked me very much. They would turn my cage to the wall to try and get me to stop barking...it didn't work.

Then one day they took me out of my cage yet again and it was yet another stranger in this little room. I jumped and wiggled and blitzed and played with her and she stayed for HOURS.

They put me back in the cage again.

Next day, the stranger came back! She took me home and I've been with her ever since. She knew about my anxiety and helped me with it. She never left me alone in the big house all by myself, when she's gone I go in my own 'house' and I like it in there when I'm alone. It's not so scary.

She says that I will never have a fifth home, that I'm hers forever. No more cages and strangers ever again!