Red Pencil Diaries

It’’s only Tuesday, and it’’s 11 a.m., and I’‘m sitting here in my pajamas. of course, I have already done some laundry and mopped the floor. So I’‘ve made progress (of sorts). So now I’‘m taking a break and trying to decide whether I want to go shower and get dressed. I don’‘t see the point, really. I mean, where am I going to go?

This past weekend wore me out. On Friday, we closed on our house in Indiana. So we finally got it. The current residents said they’‘d probably move out in the next couple of weeks. They have up to 30 days to get out. But we’‘re hoping they will be out sooner. We’‘re still not sure when the people who made the offer on our house will want to close. They were supposed to try to get an inspection here on Monday, but that never happened. And I haven’‘t heard anything else yet.

We also went out of town to Cave City (Jellystone Park) to camp in cabins and celebrate Halloween. They had cabin decorating (ours won 3rd place) and costume contests (my nephew Tommy won 1st place as Bam Bam and my niece Katie won 3rd place as Wilma). We had a great time. But we left really late on Saturday night to come home, because on Sunday morning, we got up and drove up to Indy and went tailgating with Dave’’s friends from work at the Indianapolis Colt’’s football game. They played the Houston Texans. Colts won 30 to 21. It was a great game. I’‘d never been to a pro game before. I actually had fun!

Yesterday I had to pick Pebbles up from the kennel. She’’s been so tired—snoring right here next to me as I type. I don’‘t think she sleeps much at the kennel. Too much barking, I guess.

Well, that’’s my week so far. I think I’‘ll call Kachina later and see when she wants to go to the unemployment office. Fun Fun Fun…

Today is my last day here at work. I’‘m off tomorrow to go out of town (AND to close on our house! Yay!). To make a statement, I decided to wear my new Halloween t-shirt to work. It has the cutest little bat on the front and beneath it, it says “Bite me!” Oh, and it glows in the dark.

I’‘m still feeling kind of weird about things. I can honestly say, I’‘m gonna miss this place. Or at least some of the people here. But this must be a sign that I need to move on. It’’s time for me to think about things and make some decisions about what I want to do next. I need some time off. I’‘ve had a rather crazy year, and I know it’’s taken its toll on me.

Today we’‘re going out for Japanese food for lunch. Yum. I haven’‘t had sushi in months. I think I deserve some tamago…

Well. I signed and turned in my paperwork. Tomorrow will be my last day here—I’‘m off on Friday to go to Cave City with my family. I feel sort of odd today. Things seem final. And part of me is excited and ready to move on. But there’’s a part of me that has gotten used to being around these people for five days a week for the past four years. It’’s sort of a comfortable situation, I guess. And some of them, I actually do like. So it will be fairly difficult to just leave it all behind.

I packed up most of my stuff today. I finally remembered to bring in a bag to pack it all in. Luckily after two rounds of moving, I haven’‘t much personal stuff in my cube.

I’‘ve been thinking about how nice it will be to sleep in next week. But I’‘m thinking I will also probably continue to wake up early. My body will expect me to get up and get ready and do something. So I may start walking in the morning. I need to get myself in better shape anyway (I’‘d like to be more toned and lose a bit more weight for when I get pregnant again). I guess this will be the perfect time to start trying.

I got laid off yesterday. Yay! My last day of work is Friday. After that, I’‘ll be drawing unemployment and trying to pack up my stuff for our big move. Then I may coast through the holidays and THEN I might consider finding a job.

I guess I deserve a break though. I feel kind of like a weight has been lifted from me. After months of waiting to see how this reorg was gonna go, I finally find out that they never really had a role in it for me anyway.

Oh well. I feel kind of weird. I’‘m not really upset. But I can’‘t quite capture my emotion in words. Relieved comes closest, I guess.

I’‘ll keep everyone posted as to my unemployed status…

Here is the book club list for this year… I think we’‘re down to the second book already.

A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis
Envy, Sandra Brown
The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger
Women, Charles Bukowski
The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
Good Omens, Neil Gaiman

Oops. ALmost forgot. We got our first bid on our house on Monday night. The people offered us full price. They asked us to leave our refrigerator. We said “Sure.” So now, the sale of our house is now pending… I want to say we sold our house, but I’‘m afraid I’‘ll jinx it. Once the papers are signed, I’‘ll feel much better. But so far, so good. woohoo!

Yesterday was an interesting day in purgatory. It rained. Heavily. And the windows around my cube started to leak. One of them had a stream of water running down the wall—right next to a power outlet and a bunch of wiring. Our office manager came up and soaked up most of the mess with paper towels and then lined the windows with more paper towels and asked me to “keep an eye on things.” My co-worker Jody said that at least I’‘m picking up new skills. I think I was sort of acting as deputy janitor… And apparently the leaking was caused by a design flaw. I wonder how that will get fixed? Probably with a lot of drilling and hammering during business hours for two more months. Yeah. That’‘d be about par for the course…

Today the construction up here continues. It’’s not been bad until today. This morning, for about 15 minutes, a guy was drilling into a huge, solid door with a loud, shrill drill. Now, two IT guys are unloading boxes of servers and dumping stuff on the ground. It’’s very distracting. It sound like they are angrilly rifling through stacks of metal and wire… God, I wish I’‘d remembered to bring in some headphones.

I hear that some of our friends are going to see Dave Attell and Lewis Black when they come here on tour… Must be nice.

Well. So far, my new cube on the second floor is working out pretty well. It’’s very quiet up here. And I am in the back of the row instead of in the front. Oh, and not having a VP directly across from my cube is definitely a bonus.

I’‘m also closer to a window. Or shall I say windows. I have the blinds completely closed, but I still suffer some glare problems. But I am not going to complain about that. What I AM going to complain about is the fact that they moved us up here, but the bathrooms aren’‘t finished yet. So I have to trek downstairs. I guess I should just be happy to have a bathroom at all, though, considering the shut downs we experienced the first week on the first floor.

OTHER NEWS:
Dave and I have busted our asses getting our house ready to go on the market. The FOR SALE sign went up last Wednesday night. We had our first open house on Sunday, and our realtor Julie said 20 families came by to look at it. AND… (drum roll please) we are getting our first official offer tonight! WOOHOO!

Let’’s just hope it’’s an offer that works for us. It’‘d be awesome to sell after less than a week on market. It’‘d be quite a load off our minds. Wish us luck…

Ok. Kachina just sent this little bit of text from an article she’’s editing:

You need to seriously evaluate the pros and cons of being a big chief in a small pond, or a chief among other chiefs in a larger pond.

Bad. Very bad. Very very bad. See, if you mix metaphors like this, your chiefs will all die. Remember that. LOL