Well, hello, there.  I haven't posted in awhile and I apologize, but the truth is I've mostly defected to facebook.  I have a new blog and you can find it at

www.schadybitch.blogspot.com

Congratulations to Barack Obama, our new president-elect!

I had a job interview this weekend.  A national hair and makeup product store is opening in a nearby town and on a lark I decided that I wanted to apply for some part time hours and, of course, the discount. 

It's been almost a decade since I filled out a job application.  Back then, we had to hand write the applications (name, SSN, address, job history, references, phone numbers - it took FOREVER).  Today, all of this stuff is online with windows to fill it all in and for some reason, I find this method much more convenient and quick, especially because it looks SO much neater and more legible than someone's chicken scratched scrawl.  You just fill out the windows, hit enter, and voila!  Your app is submitted for review. 

I also had to include an email address so I was expecting some kind of email notification that my app was recieved and I'd be contacted shortly for an interview if my qualifications were a match.  I assumed it'd be a few days, maybe a week, until I heard anything.  So you can imagine my surprise when my phone rang the next day.  The GM wanted to schedule an interview.

This is AWESOME, I thought, and then I realized I'd have to go on a job interview.  Now, not only have I not filled out a job application in almost ten years, I also haven't been on a job interview in that same time.  I love my current job.  I don't need a part-time job to supplement.  I just want all the makeup and hair product I can get at a discount.

Not only was I stressing out over the interview, I also started to stress about a resume.  Because, obviously, I don't have one of those anymore, either.  So, I asked for some advice on an online bulletin board that I frequent.  What do I include on this resume?  I've had my current job for nine years.  Prior to that I worked secretarial positions.  Prior to that, in my teens, I worked at McDonalds and Barnes and Noble.  How relevant is that?  How far back in my job history do I go?

The answer that I got?  "It's never a good idea to apply for a job just to get a discount!"  WHAT?  Why do you think I work in the airline industry??  For my love of travel?  That I really love people and am SO good with them?  For the insurance bennies and (nonexistant) 401k match?  Please!  While I certainly did get my job for (some of) those reasons, I also wanted the travel discount.  HELLO!  Why ELSE would you work for an airline? 

Anyway, I don't know what I'll actually do if this other company offers me some parttime work.  I think it'd be great to get five hours a week on a busy Saturday afternoon.  And then maybe I won't have to spend $40 on my Ojon shampoo and conditioner, or pay full price for my Stila, Cargo, Lorac, and Nars?  That would be awesome.

I wanted to say here how sometimes I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

I spent a long time dating the wrong guys, being in long distance 'relationships' where I often felt more lonely than if I had just simply been single, trying to juggle the demands of my job vs. having a fulfilling personal life.  It was hard for me.  I couldn't understand how my west side friends managed to date, fall in love, and get married all while being on reserve for work.  I just couldn't make it work the way they could.

Eventually work settled down enough for me to start going out and having some kind of social life.  And then I met Chris.  Our first date was six months ago today, on Valentine's Day.  I know people like to assign significance to maybe non-significant days, but I went out with Chris for the first time on a day that as a single girl I hated. 

I can't exactly pinpoint when it was that I knew I was falling in love with him.  Perhaps it was my compulsion to call or text him constantly, to actually want to talk to him on the phone all the time when I was out of town.  When I started bidding for schedules to work around his set schedule, I knew there was something there because I didn't do that for almost anyone.  I started to spend most of my free time with him and somehow, almost seamlessly, he and I started to fit our lives together.

And somehow it just keeps getting better.  My other house is going back up on the market and after the debacle with my keys not working the first time I went down, Chris went to Boardman with me a second time without knowing whether the new set of keys I had would work, to help me clean the place.  He didn't have to do this.  I certainly didn't expect him to.  But he did.  And the keys even worked. 

He does sweet thoughtful things for me all the time.  He once left me flowers in a vase on my kitchen table.  He brings me my favorite kind of apples.  He takes out my trash when I'm out of town.  He bought me a travel book about London when I started to fly there. 

August 12th found me flying to London in the middle of the night during a meteor shower.  It was amazing.  My airplane was way out over the Atlantic Ocean and my pilots let us all come up into the cockpit to watch.  It was so dark I never saw so many stars; every few seconds one would sail across the sky carrying all the wishes of those of us watching from below. 

And the only wish in my heart at that moment was for Chris to be there to watch with me. 

So, yes, I feel lucky.  There are lots of things in my life right now that are causing turmoil, and yet, I have him.  I have my family.  I have love.  How lucky is that?

My mom and I drove to Youngstown today to check out my condo.  It has been rented for the past year or so and my tenants moved out last week.  I want to get it back up on the market as soon as possible because I truly cannot afford two mortgages.  This is a scary time for me, as I'm sure it is for a lot of people.  I mean, I could really lose everything if I don't get it sold or rented quickly.

Life has been not fun for me lately either.  A lot of turmoil at work with gas prices being so high.  My car, which I just paid off in June, is old with about 130,000 miles on it, and the check engine like keeps flickering on.  I know it could be something easy like a sensor going bad but it could also be something horrible and in my heart I just don't want to know.  Of course, there are my housing issues.  Trying to learn how to be with my boyfriend's kids.  I've actually got a lot going on and while it's amazing to be so busy with an actual life sometimes I think it's a little more than I can handle.  I've been pretty calm about it so far but I don't know how long it'll be until I have a full on freakout.

Anyway, my mother and I drove down to Youngstown today.  She had loaded her car full of cleaning supplies:  a wet-vac, mop and bucket, a linoleum vaccuum cleaner, carpet vaccuum, paper towels, pretty much anything you could think of for a spring cleaning in August.  She thoughtfully included two bottles of water and some lawn chairs in case we wanted to sit.  I showed up at her house with the housekeys and we took off.

On the way there she mentioned to me that she had seen purple boxes hanging in trees along route 11 at irregular intervals.  Coincidentally I had noticed one just before my boyfriend's exit so I knew what she was talking about.  She said she'd seen some around Dayton, too.  I am an internet nerd and so I told her it was probably a geocaching game but I started to think about it.  We noticed two on our drive, one northbound and one southbound.

I had just read a Patricia Cornwall book called Postmortem and my gross imagination took over.  What if it was a serial killer who'd chopped up the body parts and put them in purple carry bags and then hung them in trees all over Ohio?  I couldn't wait to get home so that I could hop online and see what I could find.

We made it to my condo in good time but when we tried to get in, my keys didn't work.  I had made copies of the originals at Lowe's about 18 months ago and forgot that a batch of them hadn't worked.  I must have had some from that batch.  ANNOYING.  I felt so bad.  We drove all that way and couldn't even get in the house.  My mom, who had done all that prep work with loading the car, was so understanding.  Incidentally, when I went to close on the house 2 1/2 years ago, I had left the giant bank check for the downpayment on the refrigerator at my mom's house in NE Ohio.  It just seems like that's the way my luck runs sometimes.

In case you were wondering, the purple bags that were hanging in the trees are not some serial killer's sick game.  They are actually bug traps, specifically for the emerald ash borer.  According to some research, once an ash tree is infested it dies within five years.  Ohio has 5 billion ash trees.  I personally like the lush leafy greenery of Ohio's summers so I certainly hope the bug traps are doing the trick. 

Anyway, wish me luck in selling my house. 

I think I've had writer's block lately.  Or, that's not exactly true.  When I feel like writing something, I'm often overseas in a crewroom filled with people vying for computer time and I just think it's sort of rude to monopolize the computer trying compose a blog when there are people who have to send emails to their loved ones.

I tell myself I could bring a pad and paper to put my thoughts down the old fashioned way but this does not appeal to me as I type a lot faster than I write.  I could also bring my laptop with me, but it's such a pain in the butt to drag it all over the place (it's heavy). 

I do love Paris though.  I've taken a bajillion pictures of the Eiffel Tower lately.  It's been lit up blue and it's quite striking against the night sky.  Also, I've taken to exploring the area around my hotel in search of cheap meals.  Sleeping is a huge issue because I just can't seem to sleep the night before we leave and find myself up in the middle of the night.  Paris is six hours ahead so when it's midnight there it's 6pm here and I'm wide awake looking for dinner.

The other night I actually went wandering around and found a McDonalds open late.  I got a Burger Royal with cheese and it was delicious.  The thing about the French is that it seems all they eat is baguette sandwiches with cheese (and maybe a sliced tomato if you're lucky).  I've eaten at a few places in the Latin Quarter and have so far not been impressed with the so-called famed French Cuisine.  I ordered Coq au Vin and they brought me some fatty beef dish.  Another place served me fried turkey and spaghetti.  It makes me miss Bob Evans.  I've wandered into a few Chinese places but I've been hesitant to order anything. 

I never thought I'd say this but at least in England you can order some good vegetarian dishes.

Anyway, other than my sleeping issues, I've been enjoying getting to know Paris.  It's a lovely city. 

Well...my tenants have decided not ro renew their lease with me, which is a major bummer because I was hoping they'd at least extend through January.  I contacted my old realtor (the good one, not the dud) and I'm gonna put it back up on the market and hopefully I won't have to declare bankruptcy or anything. 

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I am becoming a worrywart.

Growing up (older), I've seen a few changes in my personality.  I've gone from an uptight, anxious girl into a more relaxed and confident woman (with an occasional throwback flash of my trademark irritation with the world), capable of handling most situations with minimal freakouts.

I've also turned into a planner.  I am a list maker by long habit but lately I've gotten to the point where I don't even have to write my lists down because I'm repeating the items so often in my head that I actually memorize the things I ahve to do.  Or they've become such routine that I go to the grocery store already knowing what I need to get.

Unfortunately for me, the list making often happens after I've gone to bed.  I'll be happily sleeping away and then I'll wake up for a potty break or whatnot and find myself unable to fall back to sleep.  Instead I'll start thinking about my budget or the things I have to do to prepare for my next trip (when it's London I have to make sure I put all my liquids into one see through plastic bag and the containers IN the bag cannot hold more liquid than 3ml (or something) so I think about reorganizing my tote).  I'll think about the food I want to bring, the clothes I need to wash, where the heck my shoes are. 

Then I'll start thinking about my budget again, worry about my car breaking down, the amount of money I have in my savings account...on and on and on until I REALLY can't sleep.

I know most people do this.  I do.  I know my parents have been wandering around their house in the middle of the night for years, probably worrying about the same kind of crap.  It's the same with me, only I often wander around hotels in the middle of the night.  If only I could figure out a way to distract myself...books only work for so long.  French TV sucks.  (Yes, this happens to me frequently when I'm in France)

Well...anyway, I have to go to the store now and get prepared for my next trip.  Thankfully the laundry is done.  But I've gotta get some food, and a new big tote/purse because my new gorgeous purse is too small and I want to be able to pack some food.  *planplanplan*

The other night I went to the movies with my mom and we saw the most adorable movie I've seen in a long time, Wall-e, which is about a robot left on Earth after all the humans have abandoned it because we made it uninhabitable.  It's Wall-e's job, and thousands of other robots left on the planet, to clean up the mess.  Wall-e faithfully has been doing his job for about 700 years as slowly all his compatriot robots stop working.  The movie is so wonderful that you kind of forget that you're watching animation. 

When I went to go see it, I was PMS'ed out of my head and the animated, anthropomorphized robot with his big hopeful, anxious to please, and please like me eyes totally made me want to weep for the first half of the movie.  I kinda did too.  I was totally pathetic. 

The movie, however, was awesome.  My mom and I stayed til after the credits had rolled.  I turned to her and asked her to take me to Lowe's (she drove) so that I could get a recycling bin, because the image of Earth withered and sufferring periodic sandstorms blasting away the hollowed out buildings in the movie really bothered me.

I've been making more of an effort lately to be more 'green'.  With gas prices so high, I've tried to do less driving and hope that my next car will be more fuel efficient - in fact, I really want to get a used Toyota Corolla for distance driving and maybe a scooter or a small motorcycle for around town stuff.  Thankfully, my current vehicle gets about 30 miles to the gallon, which, while not great, is supremely better than those gas hog SUV's still out on the road.

I've got my new recylcing bin in the garage which I'm slowly filling with plastic bottles, laundry detergent containers, newspapers, and other paper products.  I keep thinking how I want to get a bicycle so that when I want to run down to the local convenience store (about a mile up the road) I can just hop on my bike, get some cardio, and come back with a paper all without having used any gas.  I also bought a reusable bag for when I go to the grocery store so that I don't keep using plastic bags for my food.

I know it's not much but it's a start.  Soon, I want to switch to more environmentally friendly cleaning products.  Eventually, I want to have my own garden so I can grow some of my own food (someday when I have a house instead of a townhouse).  I'd like to build a "green" house someday too.  Hopefully I'll get more savvy at recognizing "green" opportunities when I see them, too.  Until then, I'm going to fill my recycling bin with stuff and try to be a responsible steward. 

PS:  Go see Wall-e.

I have an old friend.  I speak to her very rarely but every six months I'll get the random email update complete with vague details about her life but it's not overly newsy or anything.

She has an account on facebook.  Facebook has status updates of all your friends, much like myspace does, but she doesn't have a myspace account.  So I get snippets of her life from facebook.  She'll often post a status update where I'll wonder what else is going on in her life or I'll want to know what the status update is pertaining to, and I just miss her.  I miss knowing what's going on in her life, even though we haven't really spoken in years and haven't lived near eachother since before college.  So really, fourteen years. 

I can't explain why sometimes I get so nostalgic about it, but I think it's because I get a tiny peak into her life via the status updates and I find myself wondering and wishing that she kept a blog or was more communicative.  I know people move on and make new lives for themselves but she was someone I once considered one of my best friends.  Sometimes I just feel sad that we've grown so far apart for no reason that I can discern other than time and distance.

So when I bought my house seven months ago it came with a garage and two garage door openers.  I gave one to my mom.  Why?  I don't know why - something about if she came over and it was raining she wanted to just pull into the garage so that she wouldn't get wet and mess up her hair.  So okay, I gave her the spare garage door opener.

ANYWAY.  About four months ago I started dating this guy...and he kinda started spending a lot of time at my house.  And it was kind of annoying having to get up EARLY in the morning to close the garage door behind him when he left for work!  I'm sure many of you are wondering why I didn't make him just park in the driveway thereby eliminating the whole having to get up early in the morning to shut the garage door behind him thing?  Well, I thought that would be sort of rude when I had an especially good parking spot available in the garage.

So, long explanation short, I stole the garage door opener out of my mom's car and gave it to my boyfriend and never told my mom that I took it back.

Yes, with little fanfare I actually took that step that girls seem to agonize over.  I forked over the keys to my house and invited my boyfriend over ANY TIME HE WANTED TO COME BY.  Which, happily, is a lot of the time.  I cleared out room in the second walk-in closet in the master bedroom so that he could put some clothes in there.  I bought him an iron and an ironing board so he could iron his clothes (instead of using the dryer method which is what I prefer).* 

In the meantime, my mom just thought she had put the garage door opener into my dad's car.  I was free and clear.  Until this morning.

My car battery was about a year overdue to be replaced and finally it gave out.  It was dead, so dead it wouldn't even hold a charge.  I had to get jumpstarted twice on the way home from work.  So this morning, after Chris left for work, I called up the 'rents to have them help me get my car to the shop.  After we got my car squared away we went back to my parents' house where my mom reminded me that my other garage door opener was in my dad's car.  My dad promptly piped up that he didn't have my garage door opener in HIS car.  My mom wondered where it could've gone...And I felt at this point I had to confess that I had taken it back a month or so ago.

"You stole MY garage door opener?!" she said, "What did you do with it??  Did you give it to your boyfriend??"

I was not ashamed.  I did not slink away or try to change the subject.  I fessed up.

"Yes, mom, I took back MY garage door opener and gave it to Chris."

"That was sneaky," she hedged.

I smirked.  I actually smirked.  Because, really, I know that I'll never have to get up at five am to send Chris on his way to work.  (I'm clearly exaggerating the time of morning that I used to do this but it was really early and I wasn't thrilled to get up that early)

*The dryer method is when you throw your wrinkly clothes into the dryer for ten minutes and then hang it up right away, thereby avoiding ironing altogether, which I hate.