Wednesday Word

serendipity - an aptitude for make desirable discoveries by accident
I think it was serendipity that I happened to see that job listing when I did.
Interview on Friday. I have a good feeling about this. :) 

maybe Tuesday's not so terrible after all

I was all set to whine again about traffic. Getting home from work was about as much fun as getting to work was. But I got home right as one of my kid's friends was pulling up. He's one of the teens I used to see all the time, back before I had all these major life changes, but I haven't seen him in months and months.

It was nice to catch up with what's going on in his life, and to just hear a (small) group of teens hang out and laugh for a while.

I miss that. Oh, I know I was incredibly fortunate to get to spend as much time with my kids and their friends as I did. I know  also it was inevitable that I wouldn't see much of my teens and their friends as they got older, regardless of the changes in my life. And I'm okay with that. I truly don't want to go back to the more hands-on parenting of younger kids.

But sometimes, like tonight, I get reminders of how much fun it can be to see my kids with their friends. It was nice to come home to that, tonight. :)

terrible two-sday...

yep, in the mood to throw a tantrum like a two year old today, all on account of traffic. seriously, how do these other drivers still not realize they are supposed to get out of my way? ;p

ugh, thought I left home with plenty of time to run a couple of errands on the way to work, but no....I ended up sitting in traffic the whole time and even got to work a few minutes late. So not the way my Tuesday was supposed to start. grr!

Monday Music

what doesn't kill you makes you Stronger...

oh, think good thoughts...

I've applied for a job I'd really like to get, and I got an email saying my resume has been reviewed and is being directed to the next person in line. It could be a week or 2 before I even hear if they want to interview me. Any positive thoughts, mojo, prayers, etc would be appreciated.

interesting question, mom...

talked to my mom tonight, getting caught up, and I mentioned I went to visit my boyfriend last weekend. She already knew, I'm sure, because my sister would have told her. But anyway, after I mentioned it and brought up my boyfriend, my mom asked me when I was getting married again.

Funny, in the 4+ years I was with ex before we got engaged, I don't recall my mom once asking when I was getting married. She may very well have, and it's just I don't remember. It's been a long time.

Anyway, I was more than a little surprised that my mom asked me that. I'm taking it to mean she approves, not that I need her approval. But it's nice to know my family likes my boyfriend enough that they wouldn't object to me marrying him. :)

meeting the OX

As in, the Other Ex. Well, not THE Other Ex, who would be the ex of ex's OW, but who is completely irrelevant at this point. Now, this would be the relevant to my life now OX...

I met my boyfriend's ex this weekend. It was pretty much by accident. We zagged when we should have zigged (or vice versa) and ended up running into her when none of us expected to. Have to hand it to her, when she realized the situation she handled it well, and politely. Truth be told she handled it better than I did. I pretty much sat there with no idea of what to say. It had just been too weird to hear her say "oh you must be...(insert real name here) for me to do more than nod yes. And really, what was I supposed to do? Say "it's nice meeting you, too?" That big of a hypocrite I'm not. lol

It wasn't until later on that I got around to thinking about why this seemed so weird to me. Some of it, I think, is simply because up until several years, the idea that I could find myself in a situation like this - meeting a boyfriend's ex-wife - just wasn't on the radar of my life. And truth be told, my boyfriend and I have been doing our best to avoid this particular scenario for the past couple of years. He deserves to keep his life private from his ex, and I haven't been in any big hurry to meet the woman who hurt him so badly.

But a lot of the weirdness is because of how she found out about me, and from knowing that she talked about me with their kids, and from assuming that I'm still a topic of discussion from time to time. Oh, I know it's not really about me. It's about my boyfriend. I just happen to be the person he's in a relationship with, so I become part of these conversations by default. Doesn't make it any less odd to know that people are talking about me.

Ya know though, now that the first meeting has happened, I'm relieved that it has. It was inevitable, and it's better that it happened in some innocuous way rather than at some event in front of their kids.

But it's still weird.

oh holy hell, yet another engagement

jeez, this is getting...I dunno...something. Sign from above-ish?  I swear I haven't known this many people to get engaged and/or married since I was in my mid-20s.

I guess this is one of those lessons I still need to learn - being genuinely happy for people who want to get married.

ah, the joys of divorce...

I worked on my federal income taxes today. Last year's was really straightforward. All I had was spousal support, which oh joy, oh bliss, is considered alimony for federal tax purposes even though the state I live in doesn't "do" alimony. They do spousal support. Anyway, not really a big issue. It didn't total enough that I had to pay any taxes on it, and with the education credit I could get from going back to school, I ended up with a small refund.

This year, though I had the "alimony" and my income, and a rolled-over IRA, and education credits, and for the first time ever, I have to figure out the earned income tax credit. Apparently I'm eligible, filing as head of household with some dependents, now that I'm officially in the low income bracket (yeah, this would be where the sarcastic "ah, the joys of divorce" comes in).

Okay, I get why all this stuff is in place, and I am grateful for the financial aid I've received, as well as the refund  H&R Block is telling me (so far) that I should be getting. But, wow, just didn't think I'd be here at this stage of my life. Both my pride and my ego are smarting a bit tonight. Not a pleasant feeling.

I was brought up with my feet planted firmly in middle class. Not just middle class, but white bread WASP middle class. I know there were tough times, when my dad was unemployed, that I'm sure tumbled the family out of middle class and into the same position I find myself in now. But it never occurred to me back then that we were anything but a middle class family.

I got married, had a family, was a stay at home mom. Can you get any more middle class than that?

But then I got divorced, and today I got to see, in black and white, it all spelled out. And it looks a lot worse on paper (well, on computer screen) than it really is. But it's what's on paper (er, computer screen) that matters as far as the IRS says. And according to them, with my earned income, I'm eligible for the credit. Which means I'm so not in the middle class. Not according to the government of the country I live in.

whoosh! blows to my pride and ego, in one fell swoop.

It's temporary. I know this. I didn't work the entire year of 2011. Oldest son was a full-time college student still living at home. Various situations just came together which made me eligible for the EITC. And like I said previously, I will be grateful for this refund that I supposedly could get.

I just need to release yet another part of the image I had of myself and my life first.

video killed the...

oh wait, wrong kind of video. and I think it should be more like I killed the video voice over. lol

We decided to create some training and sales/marketing videos for the company website.We're all supposed to try to make some, but I ended up being the first one to actually make one.

I gotta say, for a first attempt I didn't think it sucked too much. It's not great. It's probably not even good. And I so do not have a voice-over career in front of me. But for doing it all by myself, it's not horrible. I guess that's saying something. lol

gulp...

I've got 2 kids - one college-aged, who is taking a semester off, and a younger one still  in high school but at the age when he/we need to start thinking about college for him.

My older son is drifting a bit. He's not sure what direction he wants to go in. He's warring between doing what interests him but knowing there's not really a future, and figuring out something else that interests him (he has a lot of interests) that would lead him down a career path.

Younger son is...well, I'm not sure what younger son is thinking. The most I can get out of him is that when it comes time to go to college, he wants to go somewhere that's not here. As in, he wants to move out and away.

Alrighty then....yeah, younger son is still kind of mad at me. For what I'm not exactly sure. Moving on with my life after the divorce, near as I can tell. For me having been angry and hurt because of what his dad did. For talking to my friends about my (in son's mind, his) life. There's probably a ton of other reasons, stuff he perceives as something I've done wrong. Ah, the joys of living with a self absorbed teenager...

I know he's entitled to have his feelings. And he's not being ugly or belligerent, at all. It's just he usually radiates this wall of anger when he's around me. It gets old.

Anyway, I've been attempting to have these "are you thinking about your future?" conversations with both kids. I'm pushing harder with older son because...well, because he's older, he's an adult and damn it, he really needs to figure this shit out, kwim?

So, with older son, I broached the subject of the possibility of me moving when younger son is 18, out of high school, and hopefully in college. I asked older son if he would be surprised to learn I've been considering that option. He said he wasn't surprised. I did also mention that there were several options about what I could do with the house, and my decision would include taking into consideration where the kids are heading at that time.

It was kind of scary to admit aloud that I've been thinking about this. It would mean a lot of big changes, and impact a lot more than just me. I've gotten better, much better, at dealing with change. But still...this would be scary...

rainy days and...

never mind...it's Friday. :)

it is raining, though. but I'm sitting here in my not-even-a-cube really hoping the afternoon stays as quiet as the morning was. I like Fridays like this. Well, the Fridays that I have to work. The Fridays I don't have to work I've got better things to do than sit and be quiet.

One of the things I should be doing on this quiet Friday at work is to start my to-do lists. I took a break from writing them for a while, after a conversation I had with my boyfriend. He passed along something someone had told him about writing to-do lists that hit a little too close to home for comfort, and I decided to see how my life would go without my lists.

This experiment was...er, interesting. I can't say it was a complete failure but it wasn't a success either. Turns out I do sometimes need to write down the things I need to do. Otherwise I forget to do things like throw a load of dirty towels in the washer when I get home from work. The next morning, stepping out of the shower, is not the time to remember. Just sayin'...

What I did learn, with this, is that I do not need a multi-page list that includes all the potential chores, errands, and projects that I feel like I should be doing. That just makes things overwhelming, and discourages me from even starting the list. So instead I'm going to try something else (another idea I hijacked from my boyfriend ;) and that's to make daily lists with only a few items on each list. That way things like "wash towels" don't get forgotten. lol

I've never claimed to be an organized, neat and tidy, kind of person. And going back to work hasn't helped any, at all. It's time I pull it together, and at least come up with some semblance of organization. Turns out I really do like having clean towels...

another engagement

this time it's someone at work. and the wedding is planned for April.

I made all the proper noises. Congratulations. How exciting. et cetera. so forth. blah da blah-dity blah.

inside my head there was still this tiny voice screaming "Don't do it!"

another part of me is envious. and impatient.

I'm ready to get on with the next stage of my life, but it's not time yet.