Wahoo!

It is official: My husband has obtained employment.

I feel very, very blessed. And lucky. And humbled.  We made adjustments last week that made it so we would have been fine - like, seriously, fine. But now we can pretty much go back to what we were doing before and things won't change much (well, except for the 3 mile commute. That is going away. But that is so far down on the totem pole of what matters that it isn't an issue.) He starts his new job on Monday, so he has this week to breathe and relax (well, as much as Shane ever relaxes) and do some honey-do's. Hang out with the kids, go on long runs. He is super excited about the company he will work for - they seem to be good and kind and moral people and happy to have him.

I know there are people out there who are unemployed for months and months. My heart goes out to them. The uncertainty, the emotional toll on everyone in the family, the financial strain - gah, it's hard. And I shouldn't even say it's hard because I really only scratched the surface of what it really means. But: I will never forget his voice the day he told me he was coming home from work and the reality that it brought with it. I'll never forget the panic of all the "what if's" and "how will we" and "why". I learned some valuable lessons of what really matters, who really matters, and what is needful. It was a huge wake-up call. I think it's taught us both a lesson, and I hope we can learn from it on a permanent basis.

I will say this: I had a calm assurance throughout that told me it will be okay. My heart was in it for the long haul - I had no idea something would come along so quickly. I don't know why I felt that calm, but it made a huge difference. Would it have eroded over time? Maybe. Working an entire 40 hour week week last week was a reality that I haven't had in over 10 years - it wasn't a stretch for me to start feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to be at home as much as my husband wanted to be at work. But I know our temporal needs were and would have been met. That is so humbling! And so hard for me to do - I am much, much, much better at fear than faith.

Feeling super grateful.

Random Thoughts...

Random thoughts from the past few days:

• Has my chin hair re-emerged, or am I just picking that spot on my chin for no good reason?
• Why the hell did I teach the cat to drink water out of the faucet? I'm tired of watching her approach the water as if it's something that's going to attack her, then try to bite the water in an attempt to drink it, and then the stupid way she looks afterward with water all over her whiskers. Does she have no shame?
• How long until my husband finds a job? Can we be done with this trial now?
• How can an employer say one thing in an exit interview and write something completely different on the exit interview paper?
• The Pie pizza is the best. Truly. And worth a half hour drive for carry-out.
• Sometimes nothing feels better than running really hard just to make sure you still feel alive.
• How long until my husband finds a job? Can we be done with this trial now?
• How the hell does unemployment work?
• Thank heaven I didn't buy those Steve Madden shoes...Even with the 15% off, they were out of my (last weeks) budget. And even more out of my (this weeks) budget.
• It's our turn. Everyone else has done this, it's our turn. But I really hoped to avoid a turn...
• How long until my husband finds a job? Can we be done with this trial now?
• Augustus Mcrae and Captain Call - I love you. Seeing you arguing over the merits of having at least one leg with which to kick a pig gave me an excellent excuse to cry on Saturday afternoon.
• I have awesome friends and neighbors.
• pleasedon'tcrywhenItellyouthisbecausethenI'llhavetocrytoo,mmkay?
• How long do I wait to cancel my cable?
• My sister rocks.
• Please oh please oh please oh please.... 
• Betty Crocker I am not because my cake will not turn out the way her's does. Argh.
• My job is awesome. Someone was really looking out for me the day I found it.
• Some companies leave much to be desired. Valuing their employees, for example.
• Can we be done with this trial now?
• 
  My tulips are gorgeous this year. Gorgeous! I can't stop taking pictures of them.

Oh, and thanks to all for your kind words about Shane's job. I feel kind of bad now sticking that little detail in at the bottom of my post. But I'm awkward at stuff like this. Of course, who isn't? I feel lucky that we've lasted this long. I can now have empathy as well as sympathy, right?

Friday the 13th. Part Whatever.

I've never ever seen a Friday the 13th (or really any scary movie. A brief encounter with a TV broadcast of The Exorcist when I was 8 cured me of any desire to ever watch horror flicks. But that is beside the point.) I'm pretty sure they tell the story of Jason and his hockey mask and how they terrorize people. And somehow this has to do with Friday the 13th. People hate Friday the 13ths. Bad joo joo.

So, in spite of all the bad karma associated with today, it still started out better than I ever could imagine. The proof:

• It was my first day off after my kids went back on track. I sent them off to school this morning with a kiss on the head and the solo drinking of my hot chocolate while surfing the internet in my heart.
• I got back in my bed for a lovely 20 minutes and cuddled with the cat. I never actually fell asleep, but taking a little break in my cozy bed is something I love more than cheese curds.
• I had 3 loads of laundry washed, dried, and hung up before noon.
• I did a 600 rep workout on Bodyrock.tv. 
• I swept and mopped not just the kitchen, but also the entryway (something I do very, very rarely.)
• After Shane came home for lunch, I cleaned the downstairs bathroom, hung up the last few clothes in the drier, and started another load of towels to wash.
• I mailed my last SDBBE book from the previous round. Apryl, you can expect your book next week - wahoo!!

I would take any of these events on a Friday. Most times, I am barely starting them as the kids walk in the door from early day at school. As a little treat, I stopped at the 7-11 and got my very first Vanilla Coke since Mardi Gras. It tasted wonderful. I picked up the kids from school so they didn't have to walk home in the cold wind and rain. Great day, right?

But then, I went to Sam's Club so I could get my eyes checked and buy a pizza for dinner. Just as I walked outside, this happened.

In case you can't tell, the flip flop on the left is broken. It is nearly impossible to walk in broken flip flops. You can't put the strap between your toes and walk. And you can't really slide the flip flop along the floor in an attempt to keep the shoe on through pressure. It just doesn't work.

So, today really was Friday the 13th. Because my flip flop broke. And, oh, yeah, my husband lost his job. Broken flip flops, no job, no bueno. I don't think Jason in a hockey mask comes remotely close to that.

Parenting Disconnect

"Mom, when you picked us up from school, you seemed like you were happy. And now you seem like you are mad."

It's true. All of it. When I got home from work and found my kids hadn't beat me home, I figured I'd drive to find and pick them up. That's nice, right? When I found them on a different street than I expected, playing with 2 other boys, some rocks, pennies, and a sling shot, I kept my cool. I even drove around the circle of houses so they could shoot the sling shot one more time. Then I let them shoot it one more time. Again. And then I fielded the questions of whether we could play (no: karate in 45 minutes, scouts an hour and 45 minutes after that, and homework to do.) I was going with it. Coaxed them into the car, tried to talk about their day, trying to be the Happy Mom all the way.

But then: I mentioned the 10 minutes more of reading that they had to do, and Ben flipped out. He doesn't want to read, nor does he want to write a note to his teacher to explain why he didn't read. So I lose my temper with him. And then Thomas informs me that he has 2 math pages to finish, from which he keeps asking me questions: what's 72 times 4? Does this 2 need to have 2 decimal points after it? Can I only do 4 more of the 5 questions I have left before karate and then do the rest of them after karate along with my reading? Oh, and will you make me some toast? Can I have some milk with that? Where is my karate belt?

So, yeah, it all equates to a pissed off mom. The minute I decide to be the nice parent, to keep my temper for the whole 45 minutes we have together, I lose it in the next minute. Then I feel bad when my kid asks me why, when I appeared to be nice at first, I'm back to being the grumpy, mean mom that everyone avoids looking at in the grocery store. And I feel guilty that I'm that mom, not the one who answers the children's homework questions nicely and makes their toast happily and handles their tantrums with grace rather than the urge to slap and scream and rage. I think of the recently-popular facebook status says something to the effect of building a child up now is cheaper than therapy later. At this rate, someone's going to be paying a fortune.

It all combines to make me wonder who they think I am, and how it really corresponds with who I think I am.

The people came back!

For almost all of my married life, I've worked for a company in downtown Salt Lake City. For many years, the path I took to my office each day took me through the old ZCMI Center mall, which, along with its sister mall across the street, was The Place To Shop for most of my growing up years. I thought it was so exciting to work in a place that was central to most of my shopping memories, which my sister summed up very eloquently here. I loved going downstairs to get something to eat at the food court, or to run across the street to Nordstrom meet my mom for the Anniversary Sale. Even better, I could shop for baby clothes any time I felt like it during what can only be called my Baby Starvation period of late 1999 - August 2001.

After a while, it was a bit blase to work around the malls. I didn't go down often, and then at all. Then, as stores like Eddie Bauer, The Gap, and Harroons (which I adored. It filled the need for swishy skirts during my hippie period perfectly!) closed, the malls weren't much of an attraction anymore. It's no fun to wander a mall with completely empty corridors, right? I watched their long, slow, agonizing final death that happened in 2007 when the malls were officially closed and systematically knocked down. Downtown became a ghost town of church employees and construction workers. It all went away - buildings and food court and even parking garage. Downtown was sad. I was sad. No shopping. No good places to eat. No baby clothes.

It was a sad day, the last time I walked through ZCMI center out to Trax, realizing that I would spend the next 5 or 6 years walking on the cold street to my office instead of through a warm and cozy mall (no more jaywalking). And it was a sad day when all that remained of Nordstrom was bare concrete walls, sniff. For what seemed like decades, I watched the construction of the malls' replacement - City Creek. Monthly company staff meetings on higher floors were always accompanied by me staring down at the new construction below. As the shape and structure of City Creek became apparent, I got excited, but never ever imagined that the year it would really open - 2012 - would ever really get here. Or that I would still be working right in the same place.

But: it's open!! Of course they had to do the grand opening on a day when I wasn't scheduled to work nor could I make it, so the Saturday after it opened, Shane and I and the boys went down to walk through the now-open pathways I'd watched being built. My kids loved it (Thomas can't wait to go back later this month when he comes for our Bring Your Kids to Work Day. He wants to check out the Disney Store, which on the day we visited, had a ginormous line. Who waits to get into the Disney Store, I ask?) We had a great time wandering around, and none of us could believe how nice it was.

The thing that has been the most surprising to me is the the people. The people have came back! The ghost town created by the old, dying malls and then Construction Central have been replaced by more people than you can shake a stick at. They are everywhere All. Day. Long. now. It's awesome and it makes me giddy with excitement.

I love to walk across the sky bridge to White House Black Market and check out the clearance rack (the only other WH/BM I've ever been to is at Fashion Place and I always have 3 boys in tow, all impatient and wanting me to hurry). I love that J Jill is there - a store I've loved from catalogs and random visits to The Gateway. I can even go to the Nordstrom sale in Downtown again - wahoo! Last week I tried on a pair of Steve Madden sandals that I've been salivating over, and I got a sample of lip gloss at Sephora. Fun, right?

I feel kind of bad, because my luck is at the demise of Amy's happy shopping (her Nordstrom closed so that mine could open. I am sorry, Amy, I really am!!) And I also feel a kind of possessiveness about the whole thing - I mean, I watched the men who built it eat McDonald's egg McMuffins every morning, as they first tore it all down and then built it back up. That's kind of an ownership, right? (Ok, not really.) And while I will probably only ever shop the clearance racks at most of the stores, I can still watch for the stuff I love to go on clearance. How exciting!! Maybe one day I'll dare to venture into Tiffany's. And all on my own time, without any impatient people waiting while I look at items I'm never going to buy.


The first week after it opened, Amy texted me asking where City Creek was. I excitedly told her and then found out she was on her way to check it out. I ran downstairs and we met up in the bathroom, hugging and laughing about the fact that we were both sporting ponytails. We chatted about all the ritzy stores and the retractable roof and all the posh, snotty people who were clearly there to Be Seen (giggle.) It was awesome being there with my sister.

So, have you come down to City Creek yet? If you do, and I'm at work, come and visit me! I'm an awesome tour guide.