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Oh shit, bilz. I was hoping I would come back on here to read that you had gotten a bad-ass job. 
Necro, too bad about your job as well. Being a tour guide sounds right up your alley (not in a dirty way).
Me? All of my time has been taken up by work and commuting recently. My gym in town closed down, so that means I get an hour of my time back rather than commuting 20 miles into town and 20 miles home. We've got weight-lifting equipment here at home, so Mr Stardust and I are just going to use that and run for our cardio. It's free and it gives us couple time. Now to sell this house so I don't have to commute on the days when I drive into town for bikram yoga....
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Ooh, starting your own biz sounds FAB, Bilzie!  Yes, I know...running one's own biz would be HARD work, but being your own boss & keeping the majority of the profits would RULE!  Even though my job is fun & easy, I still MISS being my OWN boss...I miss taking time off WHENEVER I want to, looking EXACTLY how I want & making EVEN MORE money! *sighsss* Mind U, I can give away & pick up all the shifts I want, pick my own vacation time, and wear my make-up & hair pretty wild, but COMPLETE FREEDOM of expression would be THE ULTIMATE!  I have been working extra hours this month, just so I can keep my med & dental insurance. I guess I am LUCKY to even have those benefits now that I think about it!  I hope to gaud that all of U have those kind of bennies right now! 
Sell your house, Stardy?  What part of northern FL (Jax) are U interested in moving to? U do still live there, right? Who are U working for now-a-days? I apologize, I really NEED to play "catch-up" on the threads of this message board! 
Nothing new here, that I haven't posted about before, that is. New apt., saving at least a $1,000 a month now...need that $ to move to SF, in the next few years. (*fingers & toes crossed*) My son & his g/f live w/ me and my daughter & her by/fr live with his parents (who are old enough to be my parents.) Alex (my daughter) & Adam will be starting college this fall. I am having Christian (my son) & Hannah look into the Sierra Job Corp program soon. There is A LOT of FREE vocational, technical & college training through that program now-a-days, suprisingly enough! Wish that program would allow ME o be a student, but it is ONLY for 16-24 year olds. :lol
I am sooooooooooo looking fwd to the shows I will be attanding in San Fran @ the end of August!!!!!!!!!!!  I am also looking fwd to getting my sleep-addicted arse (I am pretty sure that I have an extreme case of sleep apnea right now) to the gym, sauna, pool & hot tub that is located DIRECTLY in front of my current abode! I also wanta start mountain-climbing. (Yes, I am NOT KIDDING about this...plz, don't laugh TOO HARD at the thought of me doing this!  ) My new place is located on a mountain & many of my neighbors actually MOUNTAIN CLIMB to the top of it!  Part of the peak of our the mountain has a trail & the other part is all rocky & somewhat jagged. Think I'll start on the trail, THANK U! 
Btw Bil, how are the kiddies & Chelle doing? 
I'm on a Hot Trip to Heavan, baybee!!!!!!! 
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| We're just looking to move into St. Augustine. Right now we live about a 1/2 hour outside of town, out in potato farm country. It was okay when we moved out here, but the commute is getting a bit old. My hubby has a 1/2 hour commute to and from work and while I have a large territory the main thing for me is freeway access. Right now we're about 15-20 minutes from the freeway, depending on what kind of farm equipment I get stuck behind. All of our shopping and fun stuff we do is all up in St. Augustine as well. And, if we were to have kids we would be at least a 1/2 hour away from daycare and family. Do-able, but stressful...hence the reason we only have furry four-legged children right now.
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Stardy, my Mamasan originally lived in Jax, then moved into a GORGEOUS beach home in St. Augustine...after living in her dream house for a few years, she ended up buying a condo in Jax because she got TIRED of the commute. Part of the reason I moved outta my Steal-of-a-deal, mini-mansion was because the last 3 mile stretch was a 2-way road & it nearly DOUBLED my commute, time-wise. (LAME!) Even though I only live 5 miles closer "into town" (more like "into the suburbs of Sparks, NV" :lol), I am sooo much CLOSER to the freeway & to Reno (to work, that is! I must admit, I've NEVER been "too keen" about Jax & have ALWAYS prefered BEAUTIFUL St. Augustine! But now-a-days, I prolly couldn't live back east, as I've been so accustomed to a 24-hour lifestyle out west. Another funny thing is that I was RAISED in Jax & NEVER KNEW there were POTATO FARMS on the outskirts of town! Anyhoo, GLAD to see that U are busy at work & I wish U luck on selling your home & finding the one that U truely wish for! Nw someone NEEDS to send me some LUCK & a PHAT BANK ROLL to move to San Francisco with!!!!!!!!!!!! 
I'm on a Hot Trip to Heavan, baybee!!!!!!!
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| Yeah, St. Augustine kicks Jacksonville's ass every day of the week. Jax is the wierdest city in Florida. There is like no nightlife or any interesting places in the downtown area to visit. The only thing decent about it is the shopping.
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| I thought the film was pretty good....which is a lot better than all of the other film adaptations of Alan Moore's work. The others have ranged from downright hideous to completely missing the point. I think with Watchmen that Zack Snyder was so concerned with getting the overall idea of the film and the exact look that he forgot to put a bit of life into it. He had some great actors, but it didn't completely gel.
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| I completely forgot about the DVD extras! I need to rent the DVD now. Zack Snyder did The Black Freighter with Gerard Butler cast in the lead, so I'm curious to see how that is. I would like to see a version of Watchmen with The Black Freighter cut into the movie at the appropriate places. That side story added so much the the overall story of Watchmen. I'd also like to see Hollis Mason's autobiography cut into the movie as well....but I don't know if they did anything with that.
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My favorite movie review site, Pajiba featured it on their daily link round-up. There is a lot of love for zombies at that site.
I didn't know The Pretenders were still together! You know, I used to love them until I started listening to a lot of Sirius First Wave, before my free subscription ran out. The DJs on that station used to play them all the time. Like, every 6 or 7 songs....which is a lot for a satellite radio station which presumably has access to ALL classic alternative music. I'm kind of tired of them for now, but I hope that I can get back to enjoying them one day when I've got enough time between me and that radio station.
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What have I been up to? Same old shizniz, another day...my home is currently the floor of a hospital room in downtown Reno. My son's lung collapsed a few days ago, so he'll probably be in here for a week or so. The e.r docs' & nurses explanation for this is that "it is more common in skinny, tall, young, white boys" (And yes, and this is the EXACT terminology that they used...UNREAL!) My son went through 2 very painful emergency operations, while awake, within 2 hours of eachother, just 29 hours ago.  I am just GLAD that he is ALIVE at this point...now if he could just heal rapidly & be out of excruciating pain! Oh, I swear that most ALL of the docs in the e.r. @ St. Mary's have had plastic surgery...most of them look like "Ken & Barbie"...it's just BIZARRE! I am so sick of this place. My son was here 3 weeks ago w/ a bad staph infection...it was so bad that he was on the verge of having some of his arms amputated...he did have to have 3 surgeries for the infection though...and thank goodness that the anti-biotics kicked in! But now this. I am just glad that the boy is ALIVE at this point...looking fwd to his major health issues dissappearing once & for all!
I'm on a Hot Trip to Heavan, baybee!!!!!!!
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Sandi, I've been thinking about you so much over the past couple weeks. I really hope your son gets over all of this soon and is back to being 100%.
Today I feel like being a bum. I'll probably end up doing some cleaning and laundry, but for the most part it feels like a snuggle up in bed and read kind of day.
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Sandi,
Sorry to hear all the health problems your son has had recently. Glad to hear he seems to be doing OK.
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Hey guys. How's things? I really should log on here more often. *guilt* Hope you're feeling better, Sandi!
I still don't have a job, but I have dole money so it's all good. Oh and I've actually graduated now (graduation is a total farce, incidentally) so I have my degree and everything but STILL no one wants me to work for them. *sigh* So in the absence of something better to do, I'm writing a lot again... and playing on the Xbox a lot. Ooh and I started an art course. That's exciting.
I'll shut up now.
Oh and on the Watchmen movie, I thought it was okay as a spectacle in a sort of "Whooo pretty Hollywood blockbuster" kind of way and I want to get the dvd (but only the one with the special features) but it wasn't much more than that. The comic is a great piece of art that pushed the boundaries of the medium, the film is just another action movie, which is sad. Although Rorscharch was magnicent. Oh and the opening credits were fun.
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I do believe I have had the shittiest month of my life. It started with my grandmother falling for the third time this year on the first weekend of October. Then, at the age of 91, due to the pain she had been in since she broke her hip a few months ago and the added pain from the last fall, she died on the second weekend of October. That following week, I found out that my poor cat Kali is FIV-positive, symptomatic, and probably has 1-2 years left to live. She's only 9, which sounds old for a cat, but if she were healthy she could easily live until nearly 20 years of age. I also found out that my aunt's breast cancer metastasized to her lymph nodes, now she needs to do a year of chemo instead of only a few months.
So, on the third weekend of October we had my grandmother's funeral. And that same fucking day the former director of the FSU Circus, the director that I had when I was in, died of a heart attack. My friend who works as a bodysnatcher for a mortuary in Tallahassee was the one who got the call to pick him up - she didn't know it was him until she walked in the door.
So then I went to his funeral four days later.
Shit-tastic.  I don't remember ever being so continuously angry at any other time in my life. And I don't even want to try to remember how much alcohol I drank.
At least I've had a few bits of good news recently. My hubby and I put in a bid for a gorgeous short-sale house in St. Aug. I've decided that when my current career in pharma has run it's course (probably in a few years) that I'm going to go back to school to be an acupuncture physician. And I started a Shaklee business to help me get there, which I am super excited about! I got a big box of goodies when I signed up, so it was like Christmas.
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Fucking awesome. I just got a company voicemail today informing all field sales and managed care reps that my company is going to do layoffs AGAIN. No wait, excuse me, not layoffs - a contraction in the US market. Not only that, but if I get laid off this year it'll have much more impact than it did last year. Last year I just canceled a few financial things and didn't buy Christmas presents. This year, we're trying to buy a new house and deal with the prospect of not being able to sell the one we're currently in (because we're upside down in our mortgage, thankyouverymuch US government and banks) and therefore needing to rent it if we get a new house before we sell this one. But if I get laid off, we will not be moving into town. We'll be stuck out here in the fucking country for God knows how long.
I'm in a better position than I was last year since I now sell a stable biologic product (read: no generic competition since it's too expensive to produce) and I'm over 100% of my goal. And, since the company is looking to save money, I'm a bargain since I'm a contract employee and paid at least $10K less than everyone else. But on the other hand, I'm not a direct employee of my company so if they decide to prioritize direct employees over contract employees then I have a greater chance of being laid off.
If this were the end of 2010 and I'd had a full year to get my Shaklee business going, a layoff wouldn't affect me as much as it would now. I mean, I wouldn't be happy or anything like that but it wouldn't completely ruin our plans. Or snatch a beautiful, kid-friendly house right out of our hands.
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| There is that. But I'd rather get that house, move out of BFE Potato Country, and then focus on my business.
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| Yeah, I'd have more respect if they were honest and just said "lay-offs."
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| That sucks, Stardy. I hope things work out in your favor. You are too awesome to have to worry about this kind of crap.
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Things are looking up for me:
1. I'm officially a free woman. Well, not really. Someone has already claimed me.
2. I found a new place to live ALL BY MYSELF DAMNIT!
3. My birthday is in two weeks.
4. I only have 92 days left of school. We are past the halfway point.
5. I spent over a week in Israel around New Years and it was AMAZING!
6. I feel like my life is finally starting and it's all for me now.
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Glad to hear things are going well for you, Merc.
Claimed already?!?
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Claimed by one of my best friends. I've been struggling with my feelings for him for the past four years. Turns out he's been struggling with the same feelings for me. Now that I'm starting to feel better about my life and where it's going, we are going to try to see where this goes. It's tricky, because he lives in Israel at the moment. My trip out there over the holidays was kind of a test to see if we could make it work as a couple. I was a little shocked by how easy it was. By the time we got out of the airport, I felt like we'd been together for years. The distance sucks, but right now I think it's the best thing for us. I really need to focus on me and get myself back on track. He's going to move to Toronto in April (he has dual Israeli/Canadian citizenship), so I'll see him then, and once school's out, I'll be able to spend most of the summer with him up there. I'm trying to be very careful not to rush myself, because I still have a lot of issues to deal with before I'm ready to be part of a couple again. He's been incredibly supportive and has given me a lot of encouragement throughout everything I've been through in the past year. He's really good at playing devil's advocate and helping me see every angle of the situations I've been in and the emotions I've been dealing with. He has been so good at helping me learn to put myself first and figure out what I really want instead of doing what I feel l "should" do or what I feel obligated to do. Not that this is anything new. He's always been this way. When I was so sick a few years ago, he was one of my main sources of support.
The awesome thing is that I can really see a future with him. We both want pretty much the same things out of life and have very similar and complimentary goals for ourselves in terms of career, kids, lifestyle, flashy cars, ridiculous houses, baby grand pianos, etc. Now we just need to figure out how to make it work.
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I'm really happy for you, but you have to be extra careful of those Canadians.
Michelle and I dated Long distance for 2 years before we decided that it was getting old and it was time to change the distance. She was living in Vancouver when I met her, so the time change was only 2 hours which helped. We did a ton of "internet" dates which we would plan during the week, then on like a friday or saturday we would each rent the same movie, and we would find some recipe and make the same meal. the internet was a lot slower in those days so we really couldn't do camera chats, although we both had webcams. we usually ended up typing messages in some private chat back and forth. Sadly, our proposal was a text in a chat, I think Michelle misses getting some romantic proposal, but hey, we met on an airplane which has to count for something. The Time lag with Isreal makes the internet dates a little harder, but once he moves to Toronto then you should be good to go, and heck, if you are up there this summer maybe we can get together one evening for dinner or something, although my kids will have to come as well.
I guess I'm writing all these details to say you can make it work, it isn't that difficult and as you said the distance can be a good thing, especially at this point in your life, I know when I met Michelle I was still going through a ton of personal drama and the distance put some distance and made me slow down my emotions some and find a better place.
Good Luck, I"m rooting for you
The Early Bird may catch the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese
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Canadians are sketchy! He's not really Canadian though. He's a citizen because his mom is a citizen--he has never lived there. He hasn't even been to Toronto. It's one of the best markets for his job, which is why he picked it. However, the more we look at what Toronto has to offer, the more excited we get.
The seven hour time difference really sucks, but that doesn't keep us from being in constant contact. He sits in front of a computer all day at work, so when I'm not in front of a class we can chat and send each other messages. We use Skype a lot, but we've never done the webcam thing. Just voice chat. The internet dates you guys had sound so sweet!
The most difficult/annoying part of all of this is going to be my immigration to Canada. It's an intense and time consuming process, and while I completely understand why it has to be that way, it's frustrating because we really want to settle down with each other and start making a life. When we will finally be able to do that is pretty much out of our hands.
Getting together for dinner would be awesome!
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| I think the plan is to sit down with an immigration lawyer, so we are sure we do everything properly. Fortunately, we have a friend who just went through this and she's been giving us tons of helpful advice.
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Good luck to the both of you. I'll add that Bunny and I had the long distance thing going for a while too (2 years) or so before I moved to the DC area. You just have to be ready to commit the time and be patient because you just can't spend the amount of time you would if both of you are close.
It worked well for us and for Bill & Michelle, so it can be successful.
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Reading this makes me feel better. It could be a year and a half for us. Well, I guess if you want to be nit picky about it, it has already been a lot longer than that. I won't make the move until I have permanent resident status, because I can't be without health insurance and I want to be able to work as soon as possible. I wouldn't feel right making him support me for an extended period of time. I think when Bilz was saying that some people he knew had to wait before they could work, it was because they moved up there before getting that kind of visa. Apparently if you are out of the country, your application goes through faster. A friend of mine was telling me that her hairdresser's boyfriend had to wait 14 months to be approved for residency. In that time he couldn't work. My friend's boyfriend had it all done in four months, but they did it before he entered the country. That's why I like the idea of just getting a lawyer, even if we only have a consultation. I want to make sure we do it right. My friend and her boyfriend did it on their own, and they made it through, but they had been living together for a couple years and had much better documentation than we do at this point. It's going to feel so strange having to keep records as proof of our relationship.
This next phase of my life is going to be quite an adventure.
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| Awesome. The more I research Canada and how everything works up there, the more comfortable I am with making the move. It just seems much more stable and sane. I'm starting to see why all my Canadian friends think Americans are ridiculous. I'll probably hang on to my citizenship, though. Being a permanent resident will be good enough for me.
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Yeah, I looked into that and it is a possibility.
Right now I'm snowed in. Today's plan: awesome breakfast and packing! I can't wait to move this weekend.
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