So, yesterday was the 1-week anniversary of my layoff. I didn't even remember until I was in bed for the night. It's been an interesting week.

And I'm doing fine.

No, really. I'm actually quite surprised at how well I'm taking it. I really have been able to look at this whole thing as a gift, rather than as a misfortune. Of course, who knows how long this will last-- maybe when my savings account starts looking much more meager than it is now. But for now, I'm fine.

Some of it, of course, is because I'm in such a different situation this time around. While the layoff was just as sudden-- or even more so, since I got about 20 minutes notice before I clocked out for the last time-- I've been sort of mentally preparing myself for a while, just in case. I also got 2 weeks of severance pay and all my unused vacation, which I didn't get last time. My unemployment payment will be higher and extend for a longer period of time, since I worked more last year for more pay. I qualify for COBRA, and also for the federal COBRA subsidy, which means I'm guaranteed my current benefits for at least 18 months for only a little more than what I'm currently paying. I still live at home and have relatively few expenses (a student loan and a credit card payment, and that's about it), so I'm not too worried about my finances.

And mentally, I'm just in a much better place. I've been seeing a therapist for several months now, and have been taking an anti-depressant. And when I attended lydaclunas's wedding (which was AWESOME, and which I was in the process of writing about when I got laid off and therefore distracted), I spent the weekend either talking about theology and my thesis with callyperry and Melanie or writing processes with rj_anderson and risiti, or both, I came home ready to GO on my thesis. No, I haven't written anything yet-- I'm still trying to get my room clean so I have a pleasant place to write-- but I've got ideas. I've got plans. I feel a definite need to make my voice heard on this subject. And now I have all the time I need.

Last time, I was so worried about finding a new job that I still couldn't write. This time, I'm not going to worry. I'm going to seize the time I've been given, this wonderful chance to finish my thesis before time runs out, and run with it. I'll apply for jobs, of course, but only the minimum needed to keep my unemployment benefits. If I get one, great. If not-- it's okay. It really is.

Not that I don't miss my job. It was a great job, with great people. Hopefully the powers-that-be who decreed that I had to be let go will come to their senses and realize how much they need me, and I can go back. If not-- there's going to be something around the corner. Maybe even something better. Who knows?

For right now, though, I'm okay where I am. And that's a wonderful feeling-- one I haven't had in a long, long time.

Today was my one-year anniversary at work.

This afternoon, at 4:40, I got laid off.



Happy anniversary to me.

I'm about to head to the airport to catch a flight to Houston, where angua9 and I will play this afternoon before meeting up with rj_anderson, Melanie, and Cally. Then me and RJA and Melanie and Cally will drive to Victoria tomorrow morning to attend lydaclunas's wedding. EEEEEE!!! So excited!!

Saw UP last night. Super duper excellent. I know I said this last year, but I think it's Pixar's best yet. Tender and hilarious and. . . just fabulous. Loved it.


Now let's hope the meclazine can work it's magic on a commuter jet for 3 hours. . .

The family are doing as well as can be expected.

What happened was this: they were driving down the freeway, in the middle lane. Ben looked in the rearview mirror at Thomas for a second, then looked back at the road, where he saw what he thought was a semi tire tread. He swerved to miss it, and overcorrected. The car went through the fast lane and the carpool lane into the shoulder, where it slammed into the concrete barrier and flipped onto the roof. They didn't hit anyone else, and no one hit them, which is a miracle. The highway patrol and the fire department came almost immediately, and three cars stopped to help right after the accident. Laura, Abby, and Thomas rode in the ambulance to a service station, where Mom and Dad picked them up while Ben stayed with the car until it was towed, then he got a ride with the Highway Patrol. The paramedics checked them all out and cleared them to go, but Mom and Dad took Laura to the emergency room up here just to be safe. The car flipped on Laura's side of the car, so she got the worst of it-- a few cuts on her face and on her feet (she was wearing flip-flops) from the shattered windshield, some bruising from the seatbelt across her chest and waist, and a nice abrasion from the seatbelt on her neck and chest. Ben has a bit of a stiff neck and some bruising from the seatbelt as well. Abby (who is almost 6 months old) seems to be unaffected, although it looks like the back of her head might have gotten nicked by a piece of glass. Thomas (who will be 3 in November) has three tiny little cuts just under the hairline on his forehead which may or may not have been caused by the accident (he's the kind of kid who falls down 87 times a day, so who knows exactly where he picked them up?). Last night he woke up with nightmares, and keeps coming up to us with a concerned look on his face saying "car broken," but otherwise seems to be the happy kid he normally is.

This morning Ben and Laura went to the towing lot where the car is being held awaiting an insurance adjuster, and they almost didn't recognize it. I'm really thankful that they had a larger car (it's a Toyota Avalon), because I bet if they'd been in a smaller one, things would have been much worse. Anyway, I expect that Ben will get pictures tomorrow, when the insurance guy is supposed to show up. The Avalon was their only car (Ben has a motorcycle that he commutes to work on when it's warm enough), so they're pretty much without transportation till they get word on how much the insurance company will be giving them. For the moment they're borrowing our old van, since we don't know if their insurance will pay for a rental yet, although they won't be able to keep doing that, because it's a clutch and Laura doesn't know how to drive one. I may end up lending them Lizzy, since she's an automatic and is the largest of our cars. They've already ordered new car seats, although of course they're still using the old ones till they show up (seats that have been in a crash are better than no seats at all!).

And we're all just so, so thankful that we're not planning a funeral, or trying to figure out how to care for a paraplegic, or something equally horrific. It's a miracle, plain and simple.

Oh, and the tire tread Ben was trying to avoid? Turned out to be a black coat. We all know for sure now what they've been telling us on the news lately-- If you see something in the road, just hit it. Don't try to avoid it. Even if it had been the tire tread he thought it was, it would have been so much better than this.

But I'm just so glad that I still have my sister, and my brother-in-law, and my niece and nephew. So, so glad.

laundry was almost done, room started, looking at Mat Kearney on iTunes. . .

and then we got a call that my sister had been in an accident.

Her husband overcorrected to avoid a tire tread in the road. They hit the median barrier and flipped over.

Both Thomas and Abby are fine. Ben is a bit bruised from the seat belt and can't find his glasses. My sister is in a bit worse shape-- she's pretty cut up and is now at the emergency room, but she says she's okay. The car is totaled. They just paid it off two weeks ago.

Thank goodness for seatbelts. I'll have nightmares tonight of how it could have gone.

Laundry. Lots of it. I really need to stop putting that off until I have 87 loads to do. :P At least the weather is gorgeous so I can use our clothesline in the back. :P

Refilling a prescription and picking up some foaming pipe snake for the shower drain.

Cleaning my disgusting mess of a room.

Related: changing my bed. Hmm. Maybe I should wash my blankets next, so I can hang them out and they'll be nice and dry before night?

Downloading a few Mat Kearney songs (he was the opening act at the Keane concert the other night). Or maybe buying his CD, if I can find it in town.

Start a real update post, to be completed tomorrow afternoon.

Hmm. It's already 2:45, and my niece and nephew are coming over tonight so their folks can go on a date.

Who wants to bet I'll accomplish my list? :P

Best. Star Trek. Movie. EVER.

BAR NONE.

I currently have 4 2 0 codes for Dreamwidth. Comment with an e-mail address if you're interested. First come, first served!

ETA: Gone! I'll let ya'll know when I get any more. :P

I made a Dreamwidth. Just in case. Paid for it, too. No plans to abandon LJ at all, but I really like that I can import my whole journal, comments included, in case it finally becomes intolerable over here.

Plus, I could get my username without any underscores or numbers. :P

If/when I get any invite codes, I'll let you know.


Things are going pretty well. I'll post a nice big update this weekend.

And I really should have told all you about it sooner, but I've been either incredibly busy or incredibly tired, and therefore haven't had the opportunity. In fact, I should be doing laundry right now, but I decided to tell you instead. :D

I've got a new job.

It was completely unexpected. You see, two Fridays ago, my boss announced to us at staff meeting that, rather than having to lay two of us off, she was cutting all of our hours to 32 per week. Sucky, but better than losing any of our coworkers, or, worse still, losing our jobs. But then on Monday, it all turned around. One of our team members was moving into a newly created position, which, with one other TM going down to part-time, was enough to give us back our hours-- if we shuffled responsibilities a bit. The TM that left was a trainer, and sometimes worked irregular hours, so they needed someone fairly flexible to replace her. I was elected. Well, kind of. We split her responsibilities between the other trainer and I (with him taking the more senior role and me taking the more administrative tasks), and the second Admin Assistant in the department moved out to the front desk.

So now, instead of being the receptionist/HR admin assistant, I am now the Training Coordinator. I'm still responsible for the benefits, but I'll also handle tracking of the various types of training we do, teach new employee orientation, administer training audits, maintain the training manuals, and various other training throughout the theatres. It's new and exciting and scary, and I feel like I have so much to learn (probably because I DO have a lot to learn, having never done this sort of thing in my life before), but it's good. I think I'll quite like it. :)

I will have a more substantive post soon, though. I've got a few things percolating in my brain. :P

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

These five things are from connielane:

( Jane Austen, Wahleecon, Orlando Bloom, Religion, My Family )

Hey, that was fun. Anyone want five things? Or want to give me five more?

Larry H. Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz and my own workplace, Megaplex Theatres, passed away today. He's been ill for quite some time-- in fact, it was only about a month after I started that he went into the hospital with a heart attack and complications to diabetes. Last month, he had both his legs amputated. His son replaced him as CEO at the beginning of his illness, but he still kept his hand in. In fact, I talked to him on the phone just a few weeks ago.

My sympathies go out to the Miller family.

I wonder how this is going to affect my company.

Hi, folks. :) It should come as no surprise to any of you that I've been having a rough few months-- usually when I hit rough patches, my posting to LJ drops dramatically. Not that I've been all that diligent about posting in the last couple of years, but even so, it's gotten to the point of ridiculousness. Well. Anyway. I've started seeing a counselor again, and she recommended that I journal more often. So I'm trying. I've bought a Moleskine notebook to carry around with me, and I've already written a few pages in it. In addition, I'm going to try to update my LJ at least once a week. In fact, I hope to do two posts a week: one substantive update, and one Movies My Family Quotes post. And who knows? Maybe I'll even post more than that.

So to jump-start my new posting routine, I give you that 25 things about me meme that went around Facebook. I got tagged a couple of times, but didn't get to it until now. So here we are instead. :P

( 25 random things you may not know about me )

Okay, that took most of the evening. :P I'm not tagging anyone, since pretty much everyone I know has done it. Ah, well.

So my brother showed us this movie on Sunday. It's a short film that's been making the rounds of film festivals, and it's really fun and fabulous. Watch it!



Don't you love it? Don't you wish it could really be like this? I think it can! I know I could use some of that kind of validation--and I'd love to return the favor. So I'm inventing a meme!

We could all use a little validation in our lives-- an outside acknowledgment that we're not really so bad as we think we are sometimes. A little pick-me up to help us believe in ourselves. So here's the deal: In the comments, post something that you admire about me. Not about my talents, or my abilities, because talents can wax and wane. Not about outward appearance, because when has that ever really mattered? Instead, post something about who I really am, the core person that makes me me. Then post this in your own journal, and I'll return the favor. Let's bring a smile to as many of our friends' faces as possible. :)

It took 6 1/2 hours to determine what was still on the drive, and it will take another 1 1/2 hours to recover the files, but. . . the recovery program found something. Lots of somethings. We won't be able to tell for sure what we've got and what we don't have until it's done, and all the files have lost their filenames so I'm going to have to go through them one by one and see what they are but. . . I think we've got it.

I think I just lost all the papers, notes, and readings from my graduate program. Along with tons of other stuff I had backed up on my external harddrive. Which Norton Ghost just apparently overwrote, even though we told it not to.

I am trying very hard not to panic.

It's a girl!

8 minutes after her mom (my sister, Laura) arrived at the hospital (and only two hours after labor began), my newest niece arrived in the world:


(picture shamelessly stolen from my brother-in-law, since my camera's batteries were COMPLETELY DEAD :(( )

Abigail Diane (probably, with the middle name being pronounced dee-ahn, which is my grandmother's name), 19" long, 6 lbs. 14 ounces.

She's got lovely reddish-blonde hair (like her dad), long fingers and toes (like her mom) and an adorable little cry (she squeaks when she inhales). Hooray for a new niece! That makes three nieces and a nephew for me. *happy sigh*

Being an aunt is the greatest.

So, what has been good lately?

A) I've felt a bit more urgency to get my thesis done, and have made a (little) bit of progress. My main motivation? I have banned myself from reading any books that I have not already read (unless it's thesis-related) until it's done. This means no Beedle the Bard for me. No River Secrets (which I bought the other day but haven't gotten to yet). If I've never read it, it's out. (Of course, this means that the several hundred books I've already read are still fair game, but you can only read Pride and Prejudice and Memory so many times before you start to want something new. So.)

2) I filled my car up for under $15 yesterday. That is INSANE.

C) I've been bringing my Doctor Who DVDs to work with me to watch/listen to while I push papers around. Makes my job so much more enjoyable. :D

IV) Speaking of work, I got a fun reward today. My bosses were so impressed with the excellent job I did on open enrollment (Kathy said they'd never had one go so smoothly) that they gave me 4 tickets to Friday night's Jazz game! And these are primo seats, too-- not first row, but lower bowl, high face-value tickets. I've never been to a Jazz game before, so I'm quite excited about it. :)

E) My parents, in an effort to help me get more sleep (I had a really bad time for a couple of weeks, when I was stressed with open enrollment, but, as you all well know, I haven't felt properly awake since at least 2000) spent a, frankly, obscene amount of money to buy me a new mattress. It's an Intellibed, and it arrived today. I'll try it out tonight and see if it helps at all. I'm cautiously optimistic-- my aunt and uncle bought an Intellibed a few years ago and adore it-- but I'll have to give you an update after I've slept on it for a while. I'm excited, though. :)

6) When I came home from work, I found a package waiting for me from katinka31, containing an early Christmas present-- a Basil the Basilisk! It's ADORABLE, and I luves him, and he's currently curled around my neck. :) THANKS!!

Now, to finish cleaning up all the scattered books and yarn in my room so we can move my mattress onto my bed. . .

I'm hoping to post a more substantive entry tomorrow, but for now I just had to share this. Eric D. Snider is a humor columnist that I started reading back in 1998 when he was writing for BYU's Daily Universe. One of his most famous columns, which ended up as one of those anonymous e-mail forwards, was a parody script of the movie Titanic. He's since moved to his website, where I still keep up with his movie reviews and humor columns. I think Twilight haters and fans alike will find his Monday column amusing, where he revisits the parody script genre:

My Rejected 'Twilight' Screenplay


Good stuff.

*gratuitously uses her Cedric icon*

I didn't vote for him, but I certainly wish him well. Here's hoping he can make this country the great country I know it can be.

Good luck, President Obama.