5 Days, 5 Breakfasts

Each morning Hubs and I have gone to a different breakfast place. The only factors used in choosing were A) they were cheap and B) we'd never visited them before. That was fun, but an awful expensive venture for Mrs. No Job. I've eaten more eggs, pancakes and green peppers than should be legal.

Last night Hubs went to the garage (which was showing a balmy -5 temp) to program the replacement garage door opener. He came in walking crooked with a big lump on his head and said, "I thought you weren't going to leave me alone anymore?!" You see, there's a running joke between us that he's not allowed to do home improvement projects when I'm not home because he always manages to injure himself. Last night though, he really had me worried. His eyes were following my finger (I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV) but he was ... sluggish. He said something about a reflex response, so I hit him. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or punch me, so I figured he wasn't dying. I made him put frozen veggies - a lovely, colorful blend - on his head for 20 minutes, but he was falling asleep. EVERYONE knows you're not supposed to go to sleep after a head injury, right?! Wrong. WebMD said it was okay, as long as he didn't throw up or fall into such a deep sleep that he wouldn't wake up. Well, to make sure he wasn't suffering from a subdural hematoma, I woke him up every 30 minutes. Oh yeah, he hated me. But there was no way I was going to let him die and leave my kids with nothing but an unemployed mother!

Speaking of which, I just realized yesterday that the only life insurance I had was through work. So now if I get hit by a bus - or more likely, freeze to death, since this IS Chicago - no one gets anything. How terrible is THAT?!

Adventures in Unemployment, Day 4

As you can see, it's riciculously cold here in the Windy City. Damn cold. So cold, in fact, that I can't really enjoy my forced vacation. At least not outside. On the plus side, my darling husband has taken me to a new breakfast place each morning. It's quite an indulgence, I know, for one who is unemployed. I've been working on my book. I've played with my kids... a lot. This morning we spent an hour at Menards, picking out a new light fixture for the living room.

As much as I'm trying to stay calm, the dread crept up on me when I was wandering the aisles at Menard's. My internal clock told me to hurry up, I had someplace to be. Why? Because up until now, I always had someplace to be, some place to rush off to. And now I don't (mostly) and it scares the hell out of me.

Then later on, Isaiah gave me something he wrote at school and asked me if I wanted to take it with me to hang up at work. THAT broke my heart. Instead of reminding him that I'm "taking time off", I just took it and said I loved it, and I'd hang it on the refrigerator in the mean time.

I did get some leads, one nice person sent me a list of non-profit and do-gooder type jobs that I'm pretty interested in. Unfortunately, she got it through her Master's program so many of them require far more education than I have. But I'll still scour the list and apply to anything I think I can wrangle my way into.

Back to the want ads....

Adventures in Unemployment, Day 1

Day started out great - Hubs took me to an adorable, out of the way breakfast place so I could get my beloved pumpkin pancakes with candied pecans and cinnamon butter. Heaven! Then we went to the unemployemnt office. I was number 89. They were on number 29. We waited 3 hours patiently, while one of the workers there was verbally abusing people and the other was telling everyone to just wait their turn. So, wait I did. Then they get to number 82. And do you know what that stank ass government worker does? She stops going in order and just starts taking the forms from one random table. What?! Are you fucking kidding me?! So I *tried* to be reasonable, but you know there's no reasoning with those people. So Hubs and I loudly protest on the way out, because at that point he'd been awake for 24 hours and was understandably cranky. One day down, no unemployment claim. Government: 1, Jesse: 0.
After picking the kids up from school I made good on my promise to take them to the park. We played in the snow, threw snowballs, made snow angels... it was a good time.

Tonight, after the kids are in bed and Hubs heads out to work, am I going to compuslively apply to jobs like a lunatic? No. I'm going to try a new brand of wine, put my feet up, and watch a movie. I'll return to my lunatic applications tomorrow.

Oh! I have a goal! (Yes, just one, it seems) I'm going to finish writing my book. Got no excuses now, do I?

Sidebar: I've gotten so many wonderful messages of support and job leads from my fanfuckingtastic friends out there, I just wanted to say thank you. It means a lot!

Preparing for Day One of the Unemployment Adventure

Friday I went though a whole range of emotions relating to being laid off. Mostly fear and dread. Strangely, I'm not too angry with the company. I suppose my final decision on that won't be made until this all plays out. You see, if I find a great job relatively quickly, I'll figure being let go was a blessing in disguise. If I never find a job, wind up living in a cardboard box on Lower Wacker, well then it'll be obvious that the company was the devil and ruined my life. So I'm reserving my judgement for now.
I was really worried about what to tell my kids. Don't want them to worry, you know. So tonight I explained that I'm taking some time off to look for a better job, work on safe haven projects, and spend time with them. It's all true, too. Except the implied part that it was my choice.
Tomorrow Hubs is going to take me out to breakfast after we take the kids to school. In part because it's something we never get to do alone, and in part to keep me from feeling so aimless on my first day of the Unemployment Adventure. Then I'll head to the Office of Employment Security (what a misleading name!) and then I'll come home and get back to work on the safe haven project at hand.

Tuesday... well, that's another story.