Category: Just me being me

Full of delicious food from my first holiday dinner of the week, I’m finally getting a chance to sit down and write a blog post.

Typically I’m one of those super dorky “I LOVE CHRISTMAS” kinda girls who loves nothing more than holiday shopping, cookie baking, Christmas music and driving through neighborhoods to look at all the lit houses.

This year though, I feel like Christmas has snuck up on me. We finally bought a tree last weekend and decorated it Sunday morning. I love having a Christmas tree in the living room so that I can admire the lights while watching TV on the couch after a long day.

I bought a couple Christmas gifts last weekend when it hit me that I should probably get on the ball and start buying things. I even made it a point to order some gifts online last week so that they can arrive at our house in time to wrap them before the holiday.

We like to do an assortment of baked goods for each family, so the plan was to knock out a bunch of different treats this weekend. Of course, since I had a full day of baking ahead of me, our oven decided to break on my first batch. Luckily, I have a grandfather who lives a block away so I used his oven to finish up the ½ cooked pan of carrot walnut bread. I took the rest of my mixed ingredients to my parent’s house to bake while we worked on our family tradition of rum log cookies.

The problem is that I haven’t really felt very Christmassy this year.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’ve been so busy concentrating on my new job and starting back to work this past week. Or it could be that neither my husband nor I have any idea what to get each other and I’m afraid we might both end up with nothing under the tree. Or maybe it’s just pregnancy tiredness that has finally hit me. Either way, I feel like the season is racing past me and I don’t even care that much.

So, in an effort to kick my butt back into the Christmas mood for the next week, here are some of my favorite things about the season (in no particular order):

• Cranberry Bliss Bars from Starbucks
• Elf
• Christmas lights
• Gifts
• Spending time with my family
• Rum logs (especially with coffee in the morning)
• 24/7 Christmas music
• Love, Actually
• The Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton Christmas Album
• My families annual Christmas morning in pajamas photo
• Getting Christmas cards in the mail instead of just bills

For the next week, my goal is to really slow down and enjoy the Christmas season before it passes by. This is the last year that Travis and I will celebrate the holiday with just the two of us (and Potter). Next year, we’ll have an 8 month old son and will able to experience Christmas through his eyes!

 

Tomorrow is my first day at my new job.

I feel like a kid the day before school starts – I have some of those nervous butterflies in my stomach about finding my way to my new building; anxiety keeps pushing into my head about whether the other kids will like me; and I’ve gone through my closet to pick out my perfect “first day” outfit.

I’m a combination of nervous, excited and extremely thankful that I will be starting a new job at all.

When I found out that I would be losing my job, I was already pregnant. Being a huge planner, I had a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C ready to go into effect the moment that I walked out the door of my old office.

Plan A: If I couldn’t find a job until after the baby was born, we would survive on a combination of cutting back, my husband’s salary and my unemployment benefits.

Plan B: An even better option would be if I could pick up enough freelance work (which would unfortunately take away from my unemployment benefits) to bring in a salary and show that I was still employed through my consulting company.

Plan C: Aka, the “long shot” – get a job, any job. Preferably something full-time and marketing-related

I’d started applying for jobs at the beginning of August, but hadn’t had any luck at all until the end of October. Then, with only a week or two until I was officially unemployed I interviewed with two different companies.

The first was an opportunity I heard about from a professional contact. The job seemed right up my ally and the location of the position was great. Especially considering that we were planning to move right up the street. However, although the job was do-able it didn’t light my fire.

A couple days later, which was ironically the first day of my actual unemployment, I found out that someone else got that job. This stung a little bit, especially because I was gearing up to launch Plan A of job survival mode. However, since I didn’t really want the position in the first place I wasn’t totally crushed.

The second position I interviewed for was one of my absolute dream jobs. I had wanted to break into the college/university arena for the past few years. However, having no higher education experience meant that nobody wanted me. For this position, I did a phone interview, marketing presentation, interviewed with their search committee and then interviewed with the director of the department. It was quite intense – in fact, this is the position I was talking about in my Feeling Good post.

Imagine my surprise/gratitude/dorky dance when I got an offer for that position. Not only did I luck out on getting a job after being laid off… I got my DREAM JOB!

After hearing the horror stories of pregnant ladies who can’t find a job, marketing professionals who were out of work for over a year, and everyone else out there struggling to find a position – I feel like the luckiest girl in all the land to be able to start a new job only 5 weeks after I lost my last one!

Thankful seems like too small of a word to encompass the all-around relief and enthusiasm I have about this awesome opportunity.

The cherry and sprinkles on my deliriously happy sundae, is the fact that when I disclosed my pregnancy to my new boss he responded with a heartfelt “congratulations!” No moment of irritation crossed his face; he was actually happy and supportive. This proves to me more than anything that I have made the right choice in accepting the position.

This also proves that as trite as it may sound, things really do happen for a reason. Losing my job felt like the worst thing in the world just a couple months ago. But now, on the eve of my new employment opportunity, it truly feels like one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

 

*And no, I don’t mean the Glee group New Directions. Even though I am hopelessly addicted to Glee and have 82 Glee songs on my iPod right now. Yes, I counted. And no, that doesn’t make me feel dorky at all.**

**Ok, well maybe a little dorky.

I know I owe you a bunch of blog posts on everything from random vacation stories to my new job. I’m hoping to have a full blog post tomorrow or Friday at the latest, I just wanted to share something that made me giggle a little.

One of the cool things about having a blog is that you can see what search terms have led readers to your site. A bunch of people search for my blog name and Pocketful of Joules brings them here. This totally floats my boat, as it’s awesome and super flattering.

Even more people search for different marketing/business tips like these searches that came through: can a flyer have too many words in it, how to decide when to leave a job, how to decide when to close your business in bad weather, does my small business need a brochure, and should I go to a business networking event, etc.

So, that’s pretty crazy to think that google is spitting out my little ol’ blog and people are taking the time to visit. For those people, I’d like to give a big fat “Thank You” for making my day.

What really tickles my funny bone is the really random and crazy stuff that people search for that somehow brings them here:

• Apparently a bunch of Will Ferrell fans have been sent my way. A crapload of people have searched for some combination of Anchorman, Ron Burgundy and Stay Classy San Diego. I hope they’re not disappointed when they come to my post on How to Leave a Job Without Burning Bridges! Oh, and 2 people have searched for Ron Burgandy crying…that’s just weird.

• We also have a bunch of Labryinth fans popping in here, or at least fans of the creepy junk lady. I’ve had a bunch of people visit this site just by searching for the terms Labyrinth, Junk Lady, Back Horder and Trash Lady. The funny thing is, that their search is bringing them to my Project Me post on Purging being Fun. Of course, 2 people actually DID search for “purging is fun”, so at least they found what they were looking for!

The rest of my stats are a hodgepodge of random. Honestly, some of the stuff people google just makes no sense to me at all. Much less, how their googlings* bring them here.

My favs:

• Bad Customer service at joukes (I actually googled joukes because I didn’t know what it was…I still don’t know).
• Braless at work (hope I didn’t ruin someone’s porn obsession…)
• Youls (Is this a “My Cousin Vinny” thing??)
• The people buying our house are driving me crazy
• Pregnant on Thanksgiving

So, if you’re one of the random people who was searching for something random and stumbled onto this site. Take a look around and stay awhile. Oh, and if you know what a jouke is, please let me know!

 

*I totally just made up the word googlings, but it makes sense, right?