Feeling sheepish

I know I know I know I know I know!!!!!

I'm a terrible fibber!  I keep saying I'm going to post, and then I don't.  Do good intentions count for anything?

So, as I sit here with the latest Bulls pre-season game on the TV, I'll make my latest effort to do a blog post.  I'm in a holding pattern at the moment: I still haven't heard back about the copy editing test, and I have no idea if they just hated my work or if they've been too busy to deal with it.  Meanwhile, there's the possibility I'll get sucked back in to the place I worked last year: this is something that just came up this afternoon, so I don't know if it's really something that will work out, for them or for me, but there's been a change of management since I fled, and it might be doable.  Or not.  Lots of variables and questions, but I'm going to go talk to them a week from Thursday, and we'll see what's what.

Yeah, vague.  I know.  At any rate, it's ego-boosting and flattering to be asked.

Early voting started in Illinois yesterday, and I went over to vote - it's not as if I ever had any doubt how I was going to vote, so I might as well get 'er done.  The election judges, bless their hearts, they try: but, for instance, when you are assigning numbers to people waiting to vote, so you can call them in numerical order, it really works better if you assign each number to only one person, so that when you call each number, only one person comes forward... not, oh, say, two.  They went with the less good option.  They also had nowhere near enough pens for people to use to fill out the application cards they needed to fill out to vote early.

But it's done, and it felt good to get it done.

The house continues to be a slight money pit: latest outlay was $1,400 to have the furnace fixed, since the onset of cooler weather made it clear it had stopped working.  It's a high-efficiency furnace we bought some time in the early years of living here, in the early 2000s, so it was definitely worth repairing instead of replacing - but ouch.

My moving-related anxiety dreams have mostly stopped.  I do keep having dreams about Jerry in which something is wrong: in the latest iteration, he was leaving me for some reason - he didn't want to be with me anymore.  (He also had some large tattoos in Tibetan script in bands across his abdomen.) I'm not sure I understand what's going on with those, unless it's a subconscious feeling that he abandoned me by dying. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me as a possibility, but things that don't make sense are a hallmark of this whole widowhood thing, aren't they?

Sorry - I'm running out of steam here.  Three-point Bulls game, 44 seconds to go. Let's go, Bulls.

"Shortly"

Yowza!  I said I was going to do another blog post "shortly" - well, clearly that didn't work, and it's way too late at night to start a real entry now, so I'll just say that a) me removing the photo from the front of the blog has no significance other than I decided it was taking up too much room and I need to find something else for the top of the blog that still lets the newest post show up when the blog itself is opened; b) I'm waiting to hear back on a copy editing test for a possible job... with a medical non-profit 2 miles from the last job location.  It would mean that hideous commute again, but I think, if everything were to align correctly, it could be a good thing; c) just finished a Russian-to-English translation.  So I'm still here and still plugging away.

More to come... at some time in the not too distant future.  I hope.

Word Cloud

I was reading Alicia's latest post just now and saw that she'd made mention of a "word cloud" - of course, I'd seen those things before on people's blogs, but Alicia's mention made me curious what would come up if I created one from this blog.  And I guess the result I got is no surprise at all, but it's certainly interesting to see my thoughts, feelings, concerns and (one might say) obsessions of the past 2+ years in graphic form:

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ago behind blog comments copy course dreams editing fact garage going guy home house interview jerry job karen knew life list loved market months moving oh people person point posted ready realize really reason someone something staying sure things think thought took totally translation week widow work y'all yard year

created at TagCrowd.com

Another blog post coming shortly.

Onwards and upwards

Didn't get the job.  Their loss.  Onwards...

Not 100% sure, but when in doubt...

Hej hej, y'all.  (Sorry... watched the US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night.  Thought it was not fabulous, thought the accent variety was bizarre, but thought Rooney Mara was amazing.  I'd watched the Swedish version, so I knew what horrors were coming and didn't find them as shocking as I might have.  I tried to read the book a year or two ago and gave up after a very short time, bored and really, really annoyed by the writing: perhaps it was the translation?  Anyway, so much for my history with Stieg Larsson.  End of distracted aside.)

So, as I said in my last short post, I've faced reality: I'm not ready to move.  Of course, I'm not 100% sure that staying here is 100% right, but I'm unsure and doubtful enough about moving on before I'm totally ready that staying put seems like the wiser option.  And while I'm no believer in omens or signs, I do find it comforting that I got back from my trip late Monday night, got up Tuesday, went to Monster.com and immediately found a job opening at a translation agency 6 miles from my home.  And sent my resume and cover letter.  And got a call a few hours later asking me to come in for an interview.  And had the interview yesterday morning.  And saw a big Buddha head in the office entryway when I got there (which Jerry would have loved). And wasn't nervous.

I don't know if I'll get the job: the person I spoke with had more people to interview, and then was going to be out of town over the weekend, so I'm not supposed to hear back until at least the middle of next week.  The job isn't translating, but it includes organizing jobs and projects, maintaining social media, (probably answering phones), and hey, if I'm helping organize jobs, perhaps I could put myself forward for consideration for Russian-to-English translation jobs, or editing jobs.  A girl can dream.  And it's SIX MILES AWAY, which would be some sort of karmic reward for the 70-miles-a-day round-trip commute to my last job.

Oh, and I had a second realtor come in and look at the house about a week and a half ago.  She was supposed to get back to me with an estimate of what she thought it could be listed for.  She also knew I wasn't at all sure I was ready to sell, which I'm guessing is the reason she has totally and entirely blown me off.  Very professional, I'm sure.  If she didn't want to put in the work, that's understandable, but how hard is it to TELL ME THAT?  She's far from the first person I've dealt with in my 50 years of life who's said she'd do something professionally for me and then never did (just for starters, is there a thing about most chimney-cleaning companies that mandates that they must make appointments to come to your house and then never, ever show up?  I'm just extremely lucky that Jerry and I finally found a very professional, very prompt chimney-cleaning company nearby).  It does boggle my mind that people can stay in business with that kind of attitude.  And it makes me appreciate all the more those people who do what they say they're going to do.  Or tell you if they're not.

Two more classes to go in the copy editing certificate course: I'm currently doing an introduction to InDesign, and then there's one more class that won't be offered until mid-October.  I'm still hoping there's a copy-editing job some time in my future, but I'm taking loved ones' advice and not setting deadlines for a while.  I'm waiting for my gut to tell me when I'm ready to move on.  For my heart to speak to me.

Gloomy, gloomy day today, but I'm feeling calmer and more in charge than I had felt in months.  I think I'm on the right path, for now.

BNA

A quick note from the airport in Nashville, TN, to let y'all know I'm still alive. I'm en route home after my first singing trip since January, and it was very good and important to reconnect with so many dear friends and to sing Sacred Harp again.
News update: I'm pretty much sure that it's time to face the fact that I'm not ready to leave my house. Given how many times I've put off listing it, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it took other people pointing it out to me for me to acknowledge it. So it's time to look for a job to tide me over until my gut tells me I'm ready to move on.

No idea if this Android Blogger app will work... more from home. Which still does feel like home, to my surprise.

There go my 40s

I'm not 50 yet, but I'm mighty close to it.  That's a half a century - makes a girl think.  (Extra points if you can tell me where I paraphrased that from, but I'll give y'all an enormous hint and point out that Sunday was 50 years since the death of Marilyn Monroe.)

Accomplishments, lately: sticking with Weight Watchers online, I've stopped the bingeing and lost 11 pounds since mid-May.  It feels really good to have that under control, although walking down the snack aisle at the grocery store is still a struggle (answer: So don't walk down the snack aisle.  Clearly).

The yard: I finally had landscapers show up and whip my yard into shape, so my plan to list the house after my parents' visit next week is still on track.  (I could have done without the main landscaper guy talking about his lack of a sex life with his wife - and I was so totally foggy and out of it that I didn't even realize until afterwards how totally inappropriate that was, and what his point probably was.  I have GOT to get my brain in gear: how could I have missed the turn the conversation took and not immediately put a stop to it?  Instead I'm going, "Oh, I'm sorry, have you talked to her about it?"  D'OH!  I'm not firing him, but he's not coming into the house to pick up a check next time he's here to do maintenance.  I need to be much more aware of things than I seem to be.  But it just never occurred to me that some random guy I'd never seen before a few days previous, and had had hardly any interaction with, would march into my kitchen and hit on me... by lamenting his supposedly sexless marriage.  It was so far from any thought I might have that I didn't even hear it as it was happening.)

Copy editing coursework continues.  The grammar review course I've been taking is less than strenuous, but it ends tonight.  All I've got left to do is one more copy editing course after the "intermediate" course I'm doing now, plus one "elective," which, if I can swing it, will be on InDesign, which seems to be the most popular program for copy editors, based on what I've seen of job listings.

And the anxiety dreams continue: Jerry is alive, Jerry is tattooed with some sort of strange markings on his chest to point out where the radiation should be aimed for the cancer that's spread to his lungs, Jerry loses his grip on a briefcase I'm handing him and someone steals it, along with my cellphone.  I can't find the right train, bus, car.  Josh Holloway is interested in me (that last bit, I can't figure out at all, but, well, yum).  And at 3 a.m. yesterday, I awoke from a dream that I was moving over in bed to hug Jerry, and in that brief second before I realized the difference between dreams and real life, I actually physically moved towards where he should have been.  Except I'm still sleeping on his side of the bed, with a big ol' body pillow and a couple of plush Benny the Bulls and a tiger "pillow" I've decreed is Aubie on my side to take up space.  So I had the sensation of falling off the edge of the bed and ended up with my pulse racing and it took a while to fall back to sleep.

So there's that.