Actually, to be truthful, I never left.  My absence was a simple case of my site needing to be upgraded.  However, with the problem fixed, we can return to our regularly scheduled programming…

I look on my Google home page at the countdown to the big day  which will end our year of being betrothed .  With exactly 100 days until ‘the BIG day’, I am not sure if I’m on top of everything or if I’m falling horribly behind.  I learned a certain form of ‘pidgin Chinese’ while working with my dressmaker.  After finally reaching the conclusion that yes, my thyroid has konked out, yes, I’m going to need to be on yet another medication for the duration of my life, and no, I will probably never be that willowy thin gal I used to be, I guess my measurements are going to be the numbers that they are right now.

Until then, I’ll answer the phone, pick out some bridesmaid’s dresses, and see what’s going on in Facebook.  THAT, unto itself, is an entire topic upon which I will have to elucidate further when the words about it ring clear in my head.

I’m happy to be back.  Even though my entries have not been as prolific as I hoped they would be, I like it here.  It’s MY little spot in this infinite otherworld.  Until next time…sarahanne

But the fact is, there’s SO much out there that I wonder if reading it all is doing any good for any of my writing.  Because you can cruise through this stuff in this sort of zoned out state, how much I’m retaining isn’t as much as if I were sitting and deliberately reading a book.  However, this is solving a very looming problem of ‘If my job REALLY IS to sit in this chair in the event that someone might come here or the phone might ring, I might as well have something mildly entertaining to do to keep from going postal,’ and this really fits the bill.  I can’t read books at work, but via this method I almost find it more to an advantage:  I’m not entirely 100% ultra super focused on what I’m reading, so when the occasional person enters or the more likely phone rings, it’s easier to leave where I was and return to it moments later, and all the time, I carry on the appearance that I AM working. 

Through much of this, I feel I’ve been existing in a cave-much of it is far beyond me.  Even many of the the ‘I’m just a beginner,’ or ‘I’m new at this’ blogs I come across, I feel like I just got dropped off by the little bus.  The fact that I have no real ongoing theme or topic other than what’s in my brain I fear could be a detriment.  I was told that content is key, but I’m a dilettante-I know SOMETHING about just about everything, but not enough to write a book or maintain a blog about it.

All in all, it’s just a big ego trip.  I want to be the one thousands of people link to and check to see if I’ve uttered anything in the last 24 hours.  I want to be the one with the content people check to see if it’s been updated time and again every day.  But how can I become queen of my own universe when I’m so bogged in others’ blogs?  When I get through everything at first, sifting through the hundreds of thousands of opinions, pointers, and ongoings of other people’s lives, will I be caught up, and will enough information have soaked in as to make me a fabulous writer in the ‘blogosphere?’

At the very least, when I do become the illustrious blogger with all of the witty yet brilliant things to say, I’ll be so prepared and it’ll all look so cool people will be thinking ‘damn, I wish MY site looked as good as hers.  She’s probably been here for a really long time….’  Until next time…

Anyways, in 2005 I worked first at an animal center, working with the boarding animals. It was a good physical job, and I figured if I had so many problems dealing with people, perhaps it would be for the best to begin working with dogs first. Plus, I got free doggy daycare for my dog, so we were around each other all day, so it was a good arrangement. Not a well paying one, but a good start. The only problem with these incredibly repetitive kinds of jobs is that you get sick of them, especially if you aren’t particularly enamored with your boss (who you went to school with and was two years younger than you). Fortunately, I was only working 30 hours and they wanted someone for 40, so it was the perfect reason to leave.

From there I moved to the world of folding towels, handing out locker room keys, and coming up with membership campaigns as I began my next job at an athletic club. It was a good job, nice hours, still awful pay. I got reprimanded for not being perky enough (ironically, this has become a running theme in my work life), but I got a good title (“Director of Marketing”) out of it, I and started acclimating to working with people.

This time last year, it was these two jobs and their W-2s I had to deal with when filing taxes. I got pretty much everything back, and then I got this thing called and Earned Income Credit? That was like Christmas! Sweet! I continued working at the Athletic Club until some developer bought it to level it and put in a bunch of condominiums. It didn’t really matter though, because I was moving to Hawaii. My parents were planning on moving there before I came into the picture, so it’s a kind of ‘where they go, I go to’ deal.

So I’m off to Hawaii. In Idaho, my folks had their whole bedroom/bathroom suite upstairs; here I’m 4 feet away from them. It’s been a rough transition for sure, but that’s not the topic. My first job here was through a temp agency which involved the opening and revival of a new restaurant in a mall. This job required a cheerleader person, and I’m not quite that bubbly. After two months, it was again an amicable separation.

The next month was among the worst of my life, when out of nowhere, my dog suddenly has cancer and dies in less than 2 months. I was with him when he left, and I sang him to sleep, but it still was the worst thing I’ve had to deal with in my life. And believe me; the tears are flowing as I write this.

4 days after that happened, I was offered this job. Between this and leaving my temp job, I had been unemployed for about a month. In a way, it helped a lot to have something else to focus on. Sometimes it was a feat to keep myself together, but I did. The days went by, the phones got answered, the year ended, and I kept putting one foot in front of another in my quest to join the rest of the world and be a ‘normal’ person.

I did my taxes this week. The 1040EZ is nothing. It’s the filling out two part time resident ones that suck. Fortunately, I’m pretty good at reading instructions, so though I’d rather be napping, they got done. And what do you know? There’s a fair chunk of change coming back to me! Just like last year! Just like Christmas!

I guess the moral of this story is that a slacker CAN do taxes. And I did them, on my own, no help. When you know you’ve been using the government as a sort of piggy bank by overpaying (yes, I know this is not the smartest thing to do, and that money could be doing a lot of other things, but I’m not at that point yet), breaking it open and getting that cash back is enough to get almost anyone off the couch.