I’m drained so tonight’s official post is very random.

There’s a new rule in our family: If you had socks on when you entered the car, said socks stay on in the car. Period. This ranks among those things I never imagined myself saying let alone imposing a rule on.

Dear reader, I will let you only imagine what situation could have possibly resulted in that rule being created.

I’m in a bit of a panic. I did write some yesterday as I fought back the self-doubt and just pure unadulterated fear of the unknown. Did I mention that Change sucks and currently scares the crap out of me?

So anyway I looked back at my notes from yesterday and was going to type them in tonight in the spirit of the Blog365 challenge. Honestly, they really look rather like those of a crazy woman and amount to just straight out fear of change, fear of what will happen in my relationship when I’m no longer commuting with and working with my husband, how I will survive without the support of friends who are coworkers, if everyone in the new place will hate me, if I’ll hate the new job, if I’ll be able to do the new job, and the never ending to do list that is still hanging over me in my current job not to mention the to do’s left for the car and the house cleaning for the weekend and A having a sleep over tomorrow night and shopping for clothes that I will simply look fat in for the new job…and and and and

So if you suffered through that ramble, I apologize. Thus ends the offline post recap from yesterday.

It’s 2008. I’m not even sure where the last year went and reflecting upon it really hasn’t done much for my mood today very honestly.

I had to go clothes shopping today in anticipation for the new job which starts next week. I don’t think I ended up blogging about that..it’s been a whirlwind. I interviewed for the job that’s 5 minutes from home and was passed over initially then called back to interview for another open position that they had at their home office which is just a little further away. In a nutshell the day before that interview they called me and offered me the position for which I initially applied as the guy who had accepted backed out at the last minute. After some back and forth and discussions on why the guy had declined as well as what had made me second fiddle (just in case I’d be walking in to a bad situation) everything worked out and I accepted. So now my last day at the current job is Friday and I start on the 7th.

So back to today, I have been working in a street casual office for the last 3 years. Before that I worked in business casual and business professional but honestly most of those clothes either no longer fit or have long since been donated to charity for lack of wear and limited closet space. So I had to go shopping to buy some slacks etc. Wow. Nothing like looking in a mirror and trying on clothes to blow your self esteem to little bitty bits. So in the spirit of sounding cliche and making a New Year’s resolution, I will actually commit to USING the onsite fitness center at my new place of employ. I will stop eating as much junk and plan meals out. After all I’m gaining back the commute time so I can use a small part of it to start getting healthier and be able to face myself in the mirror in 2009.

In other news, the car situation looks to be working out. They declared the vehicle a total loss, but between the payment and the GAP insurance I took out when I bought it the lien should at least get paid. I also was able to make a really good deal with year-end with the salesman who sold me the original vehicle to get the same car except in the ‘08 model for only $200 more than I spent on the other car. He was really desperate to make the sale..apparently he was only one car away from the salesman of the year and me calling him in the eleventh hour so to speak made him very happy and very willing to cut me the best deal right away.

I’m tired and feeling beat down. I knew the anxiety this week would be bad…change for me is never a fun prospect and between the job and car I just want to curl up in bed and stay there.

I did buy myself the first season dvd of the show “Bones” at the day after Christmas sale at Target and have started watching it. It’s a good show and it’s a nice little escape right now. I think I’ll go watch another episode while A is happily playing and before I need to put her to bed.

We always knew that it would eventually happen.  J and I commute to work together daily and it’s one of the reasons that I was seeking a job closer to our home.  The commute ends up being about 30-45 minutes each way.  What did we know would happen?  We knew that with as many stupid drivers as there are on the road and with the amount of time we spend there that we’d eventually get into a serious accident.  The fear was that both of us would be in the car and if something happened that both of A’s parents could end up in the hospital or worse at one time.

We walked away from it, but I’m pretty sure the car is totaled.  We’ll know more about that piece of things probably Monday.  With the snow, the adjuster is pretty backed up and wasn’t able to get out to look at the car yesterday.

On the way to work yesterday morning traffic was actually pretty light so we were able to go 55-60 on the highway we take south from home.  We were in the left lane about halfway to work when out of the corner of our eyes we saw a white vehicle merging onto the highway and trying to cross three lanes of traffic.  We could see that she looked like she was either going to hit or near miss the red car in the middle lane just ahead of us.  She hit him.  He spun and hit the front right corner of our car on the passenger side pushing us into the guard rail.  His vehicle ran along the length of our car on the passenger side going backwards while we continued going forwards running the driver’s side of the car along the guard rail.  I think the only pieces of the car they could get away with not replacing would be the hood, roof, and hatchback. 

Two firetrucks, an ambulance, two police cars, and two tow trucks later we had the highway reduced to one lane.  Both the red car and ours were towed and the lady in the white car was able to drive hers away.  Probably a good thing she ended up on the opposite side of the highway so that we weren’t able to talk to her. 

I don’t know if she was on a cell phone or not or what made her think that driving across three lanes at one time going an insane speed off the exit ramp was a good idea, but I hope she got an awful lot of citations.

I’m thankful that A was not in the car with us and that we did walk away.  We’re both really sore today but nothing appears to be broken, concussed, or otherwise damaged.  I suppose it speaks volumes to the work I’ve been doing with C in that I’m really not panicking about what will happen next.  Honestly, there’s nothing I can really do about what happens next until I find out what the insurance companies are going to do to sort everything out.

So me and my muscle relaxers are going to go take another rest.

Ok, I must be crazy or on way too many pain killers.  Some strange compulsion made me sign up for 365 days of blogging.  See the snazzy new badge on my sidebar for more details. 

2008 is shaping up to have some major resolutions!

Corgimom started it. My daemon has run away as apparently he only liked my blog in Safari

I can’t believe it’s already the end of November! It’s the time now when my holiday stress will start to go into full swing.

We’re suppoed to be getting a pretty big snowstorm tomorrow so instead of going out on our girl’s night tonight somewhere fun we went shopping together at Super Target to get our weekend errand items done before the snow flies. Sign of being old: Shopping for groceries on a Friday night with a girlfriend and yawning by 8:30pm after getting things finished.

I did get a lot of holiday gifts taken care of so I have a good 25 days to stress myself out over whether or not I got the RIGHT gifts.

The evil germs have settled in and I believe are applying for mortgages in my lungs. I’m hoping to deny each and every one of their requests to stay but they sure are persistent!

Congratulations to everyone who successfully completed NaBloPoMo!

Today C and I talked a lot about current events and what makes this cycle different from how I would have reacted a year or so ago. I always come back to the idea of feeling like I’ve been here before, that I’ve made no progress, that I’m just repeating the same things I’ve gone through before over and over in an endless “Groundhog’s Day”esque fashion.

We talked about how it’s true that a lot of the things life has dealt me recently have a similar feel to things I’ve gone through in the past, but the truth of it is that’s how life works. You go through the same types of things just with different people or in a different job etc etc. I’m living in a big Barbie house of life just moving from room to room until I’m through the house and then cycling back through with different furniture and new dolls.

What I need to look at is the differences. I’m learning that saying “no” is actually an option in my life. That in the past in some of the situations especially with my family that saying “no” wasn’t even on the table in my mind. Now I’m at the point where I feel like it is among the available choices and that if I choose to say “yes” that I recognize that I’ve chosen it and the reasons why.

I’m learning the right questions to ask of other people so that I don’t feel used or have to try to guess what they want from me or how they would feel if I did a, b, or c. I’m actually asking those questions and learning to simply accept the answers at face value rather than second guessing every action.

I’m learning which battles to fight and which ones I have to simply let go and not come back to.

I’m learning to recognize that I simply can’t please everyone at all times and that it’s ok to put myself first sometimes.

Those are all differences from a year ago and looking at them on paper makes them seem kinda small as I read back over this, but another difference is that I know they’re not small. I’m moving forward. I’m going to see C once every two weeks versus twice a week when we started this journey. That’s progress, that’s more than a step…it’s a short jaunt.

I’m not good at the waiting game. My friend Zaz talked a lot about the need for approval in one of her recent posts and as usual she says what I’m thinking far more gracefully than I do.

I haven’t heard back yet from the company I interviewed with and it’s starting to get to me. From a logical point of view (funny how I can always readily identify the logical point of view yet it doesn’t really make a difference in how I react to a situation) I know that the interviewing/hiring process can take a while especially in the final stages. I also know that there could be a vast multitude of reasons that they haven’t called me to pull a Donald Trump, “You’re Hired!”. And I know that there are legitimate rational and likely simple explanations for them not calling my references yet. And even though I KNOW all of these things, I’m feeling rather unpopular and unwanted. There’s this nagging feeling that I didn’t give them what they wanted.

“Give them what they want” Hmm…if that doesn’t just resonate. I’m always trying to do just that. Fulfill the needs of others in order to feel needed myself and when I don’t feel needed I’m hurt and personalize the rejection.

So, I wait and try to stave off the hurt little girl who is singing in my head “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I’ll go eat worms…”

Worms!

I missed a day.  I know I intended to blog last night, but somewhere between getting a sick child to bed who wanted NOTHING to do with going to bed, arranging pick ups for a lot of the toys we’re cleaning out of the house, arranging pick up for Santa’s gift to A this year, and taking cold medicine I fell asleep.

I’m a little bummed I’m no longer in the prize running, but I’ll live.  I’m interested to see who wins the prizes I’m sponsoring.