Ready to Go

Today I am thankful because:

1. Last night when we were over at the "lake house" looking around, a neighbor walked over to talk to us. She had all kinds of useful information (like property lines, neighbors, whose pier is whose) because she and her husband have lived there since 1980. She was very nice, telling us all about the builder, the home, the neighborhood, etc. Z asked her questions about the lake, the property, the pine trees that we want to cut down (hey, I love trees and will plant some others in their place, but pines are too dangerous next to your home), etc. She was very helpful.

2. Today my family started talking about Christmas plans, which makes me very excited. I love Christmas!

3. I might be in a new house with enough time to decorate for fall (for a month maybe). That would make me very happy to have pumpkins on our front steps, etc. (I really use "etc." too often.) But there is honestly no point in decorating the apartment. Last fall, all I did was change the centerpiece to a pretty bowl full of bright, tiny gourds. It was beautiful, but here, it would just get in my way. Frown.

4. I am listening to Billy Joel's greatest hits at work. And next is The Mamas and the Papas – also greatest hits. You can't beat that.

5. Last night I got my new Southern Living magazine in the mail. This is my favorite magazine, and not just because I did an internship there the summer before I graduated (although it is pretty cool to recognize all the names on the masthead of a giant publication like that). It's just the quintessential journal for all things Southern. Classic recipes, sound gardening advice, pretty and easy decorating tips: it is information I can actually use, not just read about and forget. I love magazines, and I subscribe to about a dozen, but that is by far my favorite. Now if I only had a hammock to go read it in.


Before we went to the gym last night, Z and I wanted to go check out a new house we'd seen online. Pictures of houses online are so misleading. The photographer is either so tight to the house that they crop out the bright pink monstrosity beside it, or they take the interior pictures while hanging out a window so the rooms look bigger. It's easy to like a house online, but we go visit each house before we make our agent take us there, because chances are we will hate it, and we start to feel like jerks for making him drive us to homes that we immediately don't like. I mean, talk about wasting someone's time. So, anyway, we were headed to go find a new house, but we accidentally turned onto the wrong road, which took us close by the "lake house." So we decided to swing by and walk the property again. That's when we met the neighbor. She was so kind. God bless the friendly people who walk across the street to greet potential new neighbors.

After talking with that nice lady for a while and thoroughly inspecting the lot, we drove to the other house, which looked very nice online: 2-car garage, lovely landscaping, etc. But, alas, it is very tight with the other houses in the neighborhood. It still looked very nice from the outside, though, so we probably will get our agent to make an appointment for us to tour it. But I think our plan now is to wait the 10 more days until bar results and make an offer on the "lake house."

Once we'd seen both houses, we drove to the gym. We didn't get there until 7:00, which means we didn't get home until almost 8:00. Thankfully I cooked chili two nights ago, so we had leftovers and I didn't have to start cooking that late.

I talked to my mother after dinner and asked her to drive to Prattvegas (well, the "lake house" isn't technically in Prattvegas, but you can bet we will still call it that…) to see the house. We don't want to be in the situation again where we have to make an offer on a house that no one in our family has looked at yet. I want my mother, stepfather, brother, and sister to come see it with level-headed eyes, if you will, and give their opinions. So, if we do that next weekend, we want to get our agent to take us to the house sometime this week, considering we haven't even been inside yet. (Of course, on a shady day with no glares on the windows, you can see almost the whole house by peering through windows. It's a new construction, so it's not like there are window treatments.)

I have just had another "encounter" with my boss. She might be the absolute rudest person I've ever met, and I cannot stand the way she shouts at people. Usually it's not me because I try my hardest to just stay away from her. But about 5 times now (in less than 2 months) I have been on the receiving end of one of her tirades. She gets in your face and yells and shouts and waves her arms. All over nothing. There is never anything to get upset about. This time, it was because I'd given a stack of papers to a lady down the hall, not her, even though I was specifically told to do so. (Oh yeah, she's 65 years old and slightly forgetful, you might say.) It wasn't a stack of confidential papers, and they weren't lost. They were just sitting on the wrong desk for 45 minutes. She also shouts in front of lots of people whenever she gets the chance. This time it was in front of just two people, but it's a small building and I'm not kidding when I say she's the loudest person I've ever heard, so chances are good that the whole damn company heard her. She threw her pen on the table and shouted, "Why did you do that!?" I just stared at her in disbelief and answered, "You told me to." Well, she didn't like that.

I can't wait to get my test results back. I just refuse to believe that a job has to equal torture, that you have no choice but to put up with a crappy job. I would like to hold on to the hope that there is a job for me out there where I can be respected and even valued, where I can breathe easily without worrying about pissing off an irrational hot-head (that's 2 jobs in a row now), where I can prosper (yes, it would be nice if you didn't pay me the bare minimum) and grow (please stop making me do your grunt work; I'm more qualified to do your job than you are.) I don't want to hate my job! I want to love my job! I want to be inspired to do great work, not feel like I hate to survive the day and nothing more. I need to go back to the top and read my list again.

(I write this throughout my work day. This should explain the difference in my tone. My outlook changes with each long hour.)