Day 7: Away Laughing on a Fast Camel (Or a Kind-Of Fast Alero!)

I'm dying this morning! I'm laughing so hard I can barely breathe! Finding that picture of the old lady with the shotgun was priceless! I've posted on my Facebook page, and emailed it to my friends! It's just too funny! It totally looks like that dinosaur is eating Rocky! :)

So, earlier this morning, I got my first rewarding "stay at home mom" moment; our snake Patches O'Houlihan shed his skin! I was there to cheer on all his hard work! :)

Ok, so what does today hold for me:

-send last Secret Sister letter (Done)

-pick up mail (Done)

-blog (Doing it as we speak!)

-find a Notre Dame ATM to deposit money and go to WaMu to withdraw money (Found them online, and know where they are, now I just need to go!) (Done, they're literally within walking distance of each other!)

-clean litterbox (Not done! Bad Danica!)

-fill dog water bowl (Done)

-do dishes (Again, did just enough for dinner. We had delicious chicken burritos! Yummy!)

-check on what I can and can't bring aboard the airline (Not Done)

-start packing (Not Done)

So, that's that. I've finally calmed down from the hilarity of the picture, so I think it's safe for me to drive. :) I'll update at the end of the day.

Update:

So, after I went to the post office and got my mail, I drove to Lancaster to switch money from my WaMu account to my Notre Dame account so I'd have money there to pay my car payment. I was glad to see the WaMu and the credit union that is partnered with NDFCU were basically next door to each other! :)

After I did the money switch, I went into a Waldenbooks that was next to the credit union. I haven't wandered through a bookstore in a year, not since I've been out in California. So, I just spent an hour or so wandering around the store, looking at books. Not as welcoming as Barnes and Nobles, but after all this time, it was great to be in a bookstore again!

After that I made a wrong turn out of the parking lot and was heading in the direction of the dollar store, even though I told myself I wasn't going to go there.

When I got to the dollar store, I told myself I wasn't going to get anything except Rice Krispies, if they had them. Well, then they had a multi-week pill holder, which I wanted, and a purse-size hairbrush (which I needed now that my hair is getting longer and Hans has no windows in his 55 Chevy!) and they had some muffin mixes and some cool wall stickers to decorate the walls and some adorable art prints of dogs and cats that were perfect for the living room, and a new sprayer for the hose because the other one broke, and metal fencing for the garden border so the dogs wouldn't chew it and before I knew it I was leaving there with $40 worth of very useful stuff, but stuff that I wasn't planning on buying! :)

I don't regret it at all, but I can't help feeling like Rimmer in the BodySwap episode of Red Dwarf when he trades his hologrammatic body for Lister's real flesh-and-blood body and goes crazy eating food and otherwise indulging. I fell like I'm going a bit wild with the shopping, but it is all useful stuff, and it's all from the dollar store, so it's not like I'm breaking the bank getting it. Still, $40 here and $40 there adds up, so I think I'm not with my dollar store extravaganzas! :)

After I got back home, I did some gardening, pulling all the weeds out of the border around the front of the house, digging up some of the daffodils from the backyard (who had been buried for years and one bulb had multiplied into giant clumps of 11 bulbs) and planted them all spaced out in the front of the house. I also sprinkled some wildflower seeds in the area, so hopefully by the time the daffodils bloom and die the wildflowers will be growing there.

After gardening I came in and hung up the new pictures I got for the living room, and tried out a few places for the wall stickers. Nothing really felt right, so I set those aside for later, and started cooking dinner and washing some dishes. Hans was home soon after that, we had a nice dinner, and went to bed.

That's about it for Friday. One week since I'd been laid-off. It's been a good week, a relaxing vacation of a week. I feel more alive and vital than I have in months.

Day 4: Tuesday March 17th, 2008

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As it is, since I don't have a workplace, I don't need to worry about people pinching me if I'm not wearing green!

I've started this blog on here to document my days as one of the thousands of unemployed Americans. This is the first time in my life I've ever been laid-off. It was very disconcerting to have no control over leaving a job. I felt very odd leaving so many loose ends, and not getting to say goodbye to all my contacts.

What's on the docket for today?

-washing all the dirty laundry (Done, save for one load)

-cleaning the bathroom (Not done yet)

-cleaning the litterboxes (Done, and 4 cats poop a lot!)

-doing some dishes (Did just the basics, enough for dinner)

-depositing severance check (Done)

-going to therapy (Done)

-cooking dinner (Done, and beef filets from the dollar store are like shoe leather!)

That may not sound like much, but you haven't seen the pile of dirty dishes and how nasty the bathroom is! It will take all day! :)

I do also hope to take the dogs for a short walk and apply for some jobs as well. (Didn't do that either)

We shall see how the day progresses.

It's another beautiful day here in Southern California. Sunny and warm, birds chirping, a nice breeze. The weather here never ceases to amaze me.

On the depression front, I've managed to wean off the Cymbalta with no "brain zaps" at all! This 5-HTP continues to amaze me! Now to start weaning off the Citalopram (generic Celexa) as well. I'd like to be able to maintain my mood with as little chemical involvement as possible, given that Hans and I are still hoping to become pregnant.

I shall update again at the end of the day!

Update:

Focused on laundry most of the day. Left a bit early for my therapy appointment so I could stop at the dollar store and pick up some odds and ends. Went to therapy, and afterwards went back to the dollar store to buy some food. I got some amazing great deals (3 romaine hearts for a dollar!) and a couple duds (tough beef filets and overly sweet marinated mushrooms). Pretty good overall though!

Cooked dinner for Hans, we watched the movie "Caffeine" and I bought my airline tickets to visit my family for two weeks. I'm leaving from Burbank on Tuesday March 24 and getting back on April 7th. My brother is going to give me some money to help him on some projects that he's working on for work, and let me stay with him while I'm there.

It will be great to see my nieces and nephews, since they are the ones that change the most in a year. It will be nice to see the rest of my family and friends that I haven't seen in a year too. I wish Hans could go too, but it's a good thing that he's still got a job!

Day 3: The first Monday

Monday March 16th, 2009

This was the first weekday after the lay-off on Friday. I had a long to-do list, and over the course of the day, here's what I got done:

-picked-up baking supplies and other items we were out of at the grocery store

-mailed package, letters and Netflix out

-brought in the trash bin

-signed the paperwork for HR, and packed up the donated jewelry that I was repairing on a voluntary basis for my work, and gave it all to Hans to drop off for me

-wrapped gifts for Enrique

-baked bars and made deviled eggs

-got to Mom and Dad's by 6pm

-followed up on some of the leads in the free classified magazine I'd picked up the other day

-dyed my hair (It's a gorgeous shade of red now!)

-filed for unemployment

-looked up how I could sell jewelry at the swap meet

I didn't do all these things in this order. I had started a list in a notebook, just to make sure that I wouldn't get overwhelmed by knowing I had things I needed to do, but not being able to remember what they were. So this is the order that I had remembered I needed to do these things.

I looked at some jobs on craigslist.org and saw some I'll probably apply for. My problem is that there are jobs that I could do, but don't really want to do. There is a job for an HR assistant that I'm totally qualified to do, but when I went to tweak my resume and highlight why I have the skills needed to do this job, I saw that what I have written in my "objective" is so inspiring about wanting to help others reach their goals and teaching, training and mentoring. I really want a job like that.

We'll see. I'll probably still apply for it.

I talked to my brother Joel, and he offered to fly me out to Wisconsin to visit now that I don't have to worry about taking time off work. I could help him with some projects he's working on, and visit family and friends. Hans said he's cool with it, as long as I come back! :) I'm considering it.

Had a nice dinner at Hans' parents house to celebrate the 2 family birthdays in March: Hans and Enrique. As always, it was great fun.

Afterwards, back home and stayed up later than we probably should have watching old episodes of Red Dwarf.

Day 2: Saugus Swap-Meet!

Sunday March 15, 2009

Hans and I woke up early to get ready to go to the swap meet in Saugus! We drove to Jason's house, and because he had errands to run after the swap meet, he drove seperately, following us down the mountain road into Santa Clarita Valley.

We drove to the swap meet, where we met up with Scott. He had left his girl's house early in the morning, and decided to just nap in his car in the parking lot until we got there.

We walked through the swap meet, and got a few things. Hans got a chip-and-dip set, a salt and pepper set, and a set of 4 bowls all with a pool-ball theme. I found a vintage Holly Hobbie doll and another rag doll; Holly Hobbie's Friend Carrie. My sister Holly had the Holly Hobbie doll when she was a child, and I had the Carrie doll! It was a real blast from the past finding them! I'm going to wash them up and send the Holly Hobbie doll to Holly.

I picked up a small bag of kettle corn for us to munch on, and a bag of fresh cherries as well.

We found some houseware stuff we had needed, as well as some birthday presents for Hans' brother-in-law Enrique.

By noon we were out of the money we'd brought, and had seen everything, so we left. We all drove over to Hans' parent's house, where Hans and Jason did a last minute fix on Hans' 55, and then we drove to Tiny's Subs for lunch.

After lunch, Hans and I drove in his 55 around town to visit friends of his. We went to see his friend Kevin, and I spent some time talking with Kevin's wife Chanel. She recommended a product called "Fertility Tracker" where you lick a glass slide everyday, and look at the pattern that your dried saliva forms. If it dries in a "fern" pattern, it means you're going to ovulate in the next 24 hours. I'll probably look into getting it, as Hans and I are hoping to start a family.

Hans had joked the other day that now that I was laid-off, it was a guarantee I'd be pregnant. Then he joked that if he had quit his job in anger the week before, and now I'd gotten laid-off, we'd not only be pregnant, but I'd give birth to quinteplets and a puppy. I don't want to know how the puppy got in there with 5 babies!

Next we visited his friend Travis, Travis' brother Carl, and their girls. We hung out there for a while and had a nice time.

After that, we visited his friend Brian, and hung out there for a bit as well.

On the way back to Hans' parents house, we picked up Cousin's burgers and ate dinner with his folks. We spent a little time there, and then wrapped things up to come home.

I must note; this was a very unusual weekend. Because it was Hans' birthday, and I think too to take my mind off the recent lay-off, we did a lot more stuff and spent more money than we would normally do. Rarely do we have weekends this active. It was a wonderful time, and I couldn't have been happier browsing the swap meet and driving around town in Hans' awesome truck.

Danica Is Laid-Off

As of 1pm on Friday March 13th, I joined the thousands of unemployed Americans.

It was not unexpected, but was somewhat surprising. I worked for a non-profit, and knew that money was tight, and it was likely that some people would be losing their jobs.

I knew the 5-HTP I'm on was working when I didn't start crying immediately when my boss said "Can I talk with you in the office?"

I followed her in, and when I saw the other people there, I knew this wasn't just a discussion about whether I was over-using Facebook at work.

I actually managed to not cry at all throughout most of the proceedings. It wasn't so much being laid off that had me crying, it was how nice they were being about it, and my relief that they hadn't brought me in there to scold me for something.

Unfortunately when I did actually start crying it broke a streak of nearly 25 days without crying! And that including during therapy appointments!

So, they explained things too me, gave me a check of severance pay, and a representative from HR followed me back to my desk to watch me pack things up. She was very nice about letting me use the computer to wrap up some loose ends, I hope it didn't get her in trouble.

I called my boyfriend Hans before starting to pack. He was out at lunch consoling a friend and co-worker who had just gotten fired from his job! I asked him to come pick me up. He asked "Right now?" and I said "Yes, I've been laid off. I'm packing up my desk and have to be out of here shortly."

I loaded my plants into the lid from a paper box, and loaded the rest of the stuff into the box parts of the paper boxes. I put my fish into a small glass jar, and dumped out the rest of his water. I forgot to take the name plate I printed out that said "Danica Duensing, Resource Coordinator" with all the cute clip art of black cats around it, but I think I'll live.

I explained where stuff was to my boss, and let her know which loose ends still needed to be followed up with.

The woman from HR helped me carry my stuff outside, where I sat on a low wall and waited 10 minutes or so for Hans to come.

When he arrived, he helped me load stuff up, and I went with him back to Valencia where he was at another job site working on a project. I sat in the car in the sun and enjoyed the spring breeze. A spring breeze out here is a mid-June breeze with no humidity in the Midwest, so I very much enjoyed it.

I finished reading the book I was reading: "Stop in the Name of Pants!" by Louise Rennison. I read over the "separation paperwork". I was about to drive over to the bank when Hans finished work.

We drove over to his friend's shop, where he was going to finish working on his '55 Chevy pick-up. I took the car and drove over to his parent's house. His mom and I talked for a few hours about all sorts of things, and it was very nice.

Hans brought his repaired truck back to his parents house, and we drove back to our house in Lake Hughes and went to bed.