Peace Out 2008

Oh 2008, what a year. For me, '08 was a huge roller coaster with tons of ups and downs, twists and turns.

I had a lot of fun, and made some amazing memories. My "new" Dallas friendships have grown stronger. I felt more grown-up then I've ever felt. I was punched in the face with the realization that I have a ton of debt, and it will take me ages to pay it off. I worked a job in the industry that I dreamed of working in, only to find that it might not be what I want to do. My best pal moved far away. One friend got a divorce. A few others got married. My parents got one year older, and for the first time, I'm starting to see them as anything other than invincible, and have felt multiple stabs of fear that something might happen to them. I lost about 30 lbs. And gained back about 8 in the last two months (damn holidays). I've suffered from jealousy of all of my friends who have great, well-paying jobs, boyfriends/husbands, master's degrees, and no debt. I've grown in my spirituality and yet, I haven't been able to fully commit to my walk with Christ. I've prayed, cried, and pounded my fist in frustration. I've felt fear, and excitement, even elation. I'm about to embark on a huge adventure, symbolically I think, on the very first day of January.

Here's hoping that 2009 will a better year for us all. I'm looking at it as a rebuilding year. A year for starting over and re-focusing and changing my lifestyle to be more beneficial for my future.

May God bless you and yours on the eve of this New Year. Cheers to 2009!

Moving Day!

Well, it's here. The week of the big move. I fly out tomorrow afternoon for a quick night in Kansas City and my future roomie will pick me up on January 1 on her way and we will hit the road for Chicago. My dad will meet us up there with the moving truck early on January 2. We'll have a few days to try and unpack some stuff and then will be heading back to work 2 more weeks at our jobs.

I'm so excited. For right now, most of my nerves about not having a job have been suppressed with the utter joy of a new adventure about to happen. I've spent the last few days here at work doing next to nothing because I can't bring myself to be anything but overly excited to LEAVE this place which is making getting any work done practically impossible.

My actual last day in Dallas, January 16, will bittersweet. But right now, it's just sweet.

Merry Christmas to All....

And to all safe travels, a happy gathering with friends/family, a warm meal, a kind word, a nice gift, and all the love in the world surrounding you!

I'm waiting for Santa back in Kansas, and then will be in the process of moving my stuff to Chicago, so my posting will be sporatic at best for the next few days.

Hope you all enjoy your holiday! Talk to you next year!

Resignation

Today was the big day. I had to come in this morning and give my notice of resignation. Honestly, I was terrified. I had no idea how they would react. Would they freak out and let me go immediately? Would they be kind and understanding? One can never tell.

Also running through my head was thoughts of should I really do this? Is it unwise to quit a decent enough job in this economy? Because once its done, its done.

Strangely enough I got a decent night's sleep last night. Getting ready this morning I felt fine. Driving to work I felt completely normal. I was even fine when I first got here. But when my boss walked in, my stomach immediately knotted up and I felt like throwing up. Quitting a job has never been pleasant, but this is the first career related job I've ever quit. It is a thousand times more important for this to end well.

I gathered my nerves, walked in, asked for a moment and sat down. And then, I teared up. Shocker of all shockers, I was actually sad to give notice! I didn't realize that as crazy and frustrating as this place has been, I've also enjoyed my time here. But that always happens to me, I never realize how great something is until I don't have it anymore.

Feeling intensely awkward for showing emotion, I swallowed hard and gave her the letter. Before she opened it, I told her why I was there. She was surprisingly kind and respectful. She told me she was very sorry to see me go, that I was doing such a good job, and that she was certain things would work out for me in the future. I was completely surprised at how quick and easy it went.

But I'm not done. I have to tell the president of our company and she can be a bit more on the emotional side. I'm afraid she'll take it personally and it might not go as smoothly. To say i'm NERVOUS is putting it mildly!

Say a prayer and cross your fingers for me that things will go fine!

Tis the Season...

A few days ago, I was tagged by the lovely Emily over at Overdue. Who I love, because not only is she very entertaining on her blog, but because she's a librarian, and that's in my top 5 list of careers I'd rather be doing right now and just might do in the future.

Anywho, the purpose of this tag, was to list 6 things that make you happy. And even though I've been a bit of a Grinch this Christmas, I could make a long, long, list of way more than 6 things that I'm blissfully happy about. But I'll spare you and keep it at 6.

1. Jesus Christ.
2. My lovely and cherished friends and family
3. Reading anything and everything - great works of literature, chic-lit, memoirs, magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc.
4. Creative crafty things and cooking.
5. My warm, cuddly bed that I get to snuggle in every night.
6. My move to Chicago. I couldn't be more scared, but I also couldn't be more exciting about this new adventure!
7. Traveling anywhere and everywhere. (Had to add one more, couldn't leave off traveling!)

Just a few things that are currently making me smile. And I since this is an easy way to get you thinking about things that make you happy, and "Tis the Season to be Jolly", I'm going to pass this along to 5 others:

Carolyn at Writing is My Therapy
Cyndi at Just An Everyday Bitch
Jess at Couch Potato on The Run
Mich at Who Is Mich?
Whitney from That Girl

My Christmas Wish List

The My Favorite Things list seems to be all the rage in the blogging world so I thought I'd jump in on that bandwagon as well. Some of these things are out of my price range, but this is more of a hypothetical type of list. Happy Christmas!

This super cute and super cozy looking cashmere pillow and blanket would be perfect for traveling.

I love love love to travel, and packing all my toiletries for the plane can be a nightmare. These two travel kits from Philosophy and Bliss would be really helpful.

These travel slippers are cute and compact. They would be very easy to tuck in to my overstuffed suitcase. Because who really wants to walk around barefoot on hotel carpet?!

I love to cook but don't get the chance to do so too often. When I do, I always drive myself crazy trying to read a cookbook and keep it open all why trying to stir and saute. I think this cookbook holder is very pretty and would look nice in my kitchen

Due to my extreme lack of funds, I'm still driving around my old car from high school/college. And it has served me well. Gotta love Hondas! But from time to time my check engine light pops on and since I'm broke as a joke, It drives me crazy to have to take it in for a diagnostic test at $100 a pop when whatever is wrong is something minor that doesn't need to be repaired. I drive my dad crazy too because I'm always calling him to ask him what's wrong. Like he can tell from 3 states away! Anyway, I think this CarMD system would be very handy and would save me a bit of cash. And save my dad's sanity!

I have almost no use for this, but I don't care, I love it. Because who doesn't love cute, animal shaped chalkboards? Maybe for somewhere in the kitchen?











It's official. I'm a nerd. I really dig the History Channel and the Discovery Channel and all of that stuff. And seriously, this earth is totally fascinating! Good work God! To fuel my love of knowledge, I would love to receive the Planet Earth DVD set. And it's one of Oprah's favorite things too, so you know it's cool.







I heart Paris, and I heart this umbrella. Too too cute!




This list could honestly continue on for pages and pages, but in the spirit of our current financial situation, I'll cut it off here. I don't want to lead you all in to temptation. Heaven knows I've been drooling over Gifts.com all day today but have managed to restrain. My credit card thanks me.



Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!

If You're Bored...

Via Toujours Complexe, I found this really fun, new personality test. You don't have to sign up or look at ads or any of the usual stuff that comes along with the internet personality tests so if you're bored, I definitely recommend checking it out! My results are very spot-on.

Her Favorite Things

That Girl is having an awesome giveaway of her favorite things. Check it out here. I can't wait to see what her favorite things are! I'm almost as excited as I get for Oprah's favorite things!

Jealousy is the Worst

Do any of you have those friends who lives are seemingly perfect in every way? Where things just seem to fall in their laps? The ones who's lives just make yours seem so lonely and mundane? And just not successful?


I have a dear friend who is married to a WONDERFUL man who loves her so dearly. She got a pretty decent job right out of college. And when she realized she didn't like that job, her company promoted her to a fantastic job that suits her personality perfectly. She makes pretty good money for being only 2 years out of college. And she keeps getting these opportunites through her job to meet top people in her industry. To travel all over. To get to work with wonderful non-profit organizations. Everyone loves her. EVERYONE. I seriously don't know one person that doesn't love her. I don't know one thing that she's done that hasn't turned out so perfectly for her. Every project she does makes her bosses, co-workers, co-organizers, friends, family, or whoever else fall more in love with her. She works hard, but things still just seem to come so easily to her.

I HATE that I feel this way. But eveytime she has a new phenomenal experience, I feel a tiny stab of jealosy. I want nothing but the best for her. She deserves it all. But it just hurts because I feel like my life is just so far from that. I don't know what else to do differently. Like I said, I want her to be happy and definitely don't want her to not have great things happen, but sometimes, it's just hard to hear about another victory.

I feel so selfish and guilty and I would just die if she ever knew I felt this way sometimes. We're very close friends and I think it would hurt her terribly to know that I have these thoughts.

Ugh, just had to get this off of my chest.

Rude Awakening

I might be in for a rude awakening when I get to Chicago. Today in Dallas, the temperature dropped pretty rapidly in a few hours. It went from being in the mid 60's to about 39 degrees. On my way to the second job, it started sleeting pretty heavily. The wind was blowing like crazy. And I was freezing!

I usually have a good laugh at the Dallas folks because being from Kansas originally, where we have some pretty brutal and windy winters, I've got pretty thick skin compared to Texans. It hits like 60 degrees here and people are freezing and wearing coats. If it rains too hard people slow down to about 45 or 50 miles per hour on the highway. If there are light flurries, people absolutely flip out and don't go in to work until noon, or work and/or school is canceled all together. Pretty funny if you ask me because at home, work and/or school is NEVER canceled. You learn to drive in ice and snow. Sure you take it easy, but there is rarely a time when you can't make it to work.

But I must've been living here too long. Tonight I was shivering and freezing. So I think moving to Chicago in January is really going to be quite the shock to my system and will definitely take some getting used to.

Speaking of Chicago, I've pushed back my move by a few weeks. It turned out that I was going to be paying rent in both Chicago and Dallas for the month of January (which really sucks for my budget!) and I figured I might as well stay down here where I've actually got 2 jobs and make a little extra money before heading up to the Windy City where I do not have employment. The whole moving thing has become very stressful and quite the money suck. Logistics are a nightmare. I have to go back to Wichita for the holidays, then come back to Dallas for 3 days of work. Then fly back to Wichita to meet up with my dad, my future roomie and the moving truck to drive to Chicago to move in to our place. Then drive back to Wichita and fly back to Dallas to work for a few weeks. Then will drive back to Wichita, pick up the future roomie (who is also staying at her job for a few extra weeks), and drive the rest of the way to Chicago. Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it.

The money thing is killing me too. We found out last week that our landlord wanted the other half of the deposit (We only put down a 1/2 months rent deposit, $750, originally). We were under the impression that the $750 we put down was all that she required for a deposit. So we had to send in another $750 last weekend. We are also responsible for 1/2 of the rent in December and all of January. With the rent that I also have to pay here in Dallas for January that puts me at a grand total of $2,505 in the next two months. Add on to that credit card bills, student loans, car insurance, gas, utilities and I've got myself quite a bit of money that I'm going to owe. And since I'm living pay check to paycheck as it is, coming up with that money is seemingly impossible. I live in mortal fear that I won't be able to come up with the money and then I'll really be screwed.

I know once I get there it will be fantastic. It may be tough at first trying to find a job, or working a random job (as opposed to a career), but just getting out of Dallas and having a fresh new experience will be good for my soul. But the getting there and getting back on my feet is REALLY stressful. Ugh.

Any tips or suggestions for making the transition a bit smoother?

If anyone out there works in Media/Advertising/Marketing and/or Non-Profit and is aware of a job opening please let me know! I will happily apply!

A Fun Contest

I'm super excited to have stumbled across the new contest that "Lipsmacker" is having over at the Lipstick Diaries. She's giving away some fabulous goodies from Sephora. And what girl doesn't LOVE makeup?

Make sure to head on over a sign up. And do some reading, cause the Lipstick Diaries is sure to keep you entertained!!!

9 Long Days

It's been a long, fantastic break from work and real life. I went home last week for Thanksgiving and took the rest of my vacation this week. Tomorrow I have to go back. It's a weirdly bittersweet feeling. It's been 9 days without work. 9 days of family, friends, a long mind-numbingly ridiculous argument with my mother that kept circling back to the point we started, 2 6-hour drives, a broken car, and attempting to pack up some of my stuff for the big move. 9 days is nothing. But it feels like forever. Tomorrow I have to go back to work and I know that I'll be dealing with that weird, split personality feeling that I get at work where I both love my job and hate it. Where I feel tied down to the corporate world and where I find interest in some of my new responsibilities.

My original plan was to spend a good majority of my break searching for advertising/marketing, event planning, or non-profit jobs in Chicago. And to figure out my financial situation and how I'm going to make this move work in a few short weeks. And getting all of my non-essential items packed. Of course, as always, I didn't get half of that accomplished.

I'm really excited for this move. But for some reason, I'm also dragging my feet. I'm sad/scared to quit my job. It just feels reckless in this economy. Now that I'm thinking about leaving, it suddenly seems great. I'm really, really sad to say goodbye to my friends. I love my apartment. And my roommate. And being in my comfort zone. I'm really, really concerned about my financial situation and how I'm going to pay for everything. I'm scared I won't find a new job. I'm worried about making friends.

This is so unlike me. Normally I'm the first to plan and take a trip, or move away without a fear or care in the world. Maybe it's being older. Maybe it's all of the responsibilities I have now. Maybe the older you get the harder it is to leave the relationships you've made and maybe it's harder to start new ones. Maybe I'm just a huge bundle of stress, nervous and fear and I'll get it over it in a second. Who knows?

All I can tell you is that I feel extreme excitement and dread at the exact same time.