Things I Lost in the Hospital

Most of my 13 blog followers know that I've been dealing with a health crisis since the end of October... my liver exploded. Well to be honest a tumor (aka Frank) in my liver exploded. Either way, it wasn't pleasant and I'm not going to go into the gory details here, and you can bet your ass I won't be posting a pic of my brutal/kickass stomach scar. The good news is that as of today I've been out of the hospital for 1 month (yay!) and am gearing up to going back to work in 2 weeks.

Anyway, I got to thinking about my time in the hospital and I misplaced a lot of things during my stay there. It's amazing what you can lose in a month! Without further ado, here are the things that I've lost:
1. My dignity - First rule of lengthy hospital stays - they don't do underwear. Between the multiple surgeries, sponge baths, and those hospital gowns I've got the sinking feeling that everyone in the hospital has seen me naked. More than once. And lets not forget the time where I got out of bed, fell on my face, and 5 male nurses came to pick me up. Remember the no underwear rule? Dignity flew right out the window.
2. My caffiene addiction - I used to drink a crazy amount of coffee and soda... and I haven't really had any in the last 2.5 months. In the interest of full disclosure, I had a sip of Pepsi in the hospital and it didn't agree with me, and I've had several glasses of Sprite, which is non-caffienated. Absolutely no coffee has passed these lips though. I'm looking at the fact that caffiene headaches are no match for morphine as a gift, and I'm really trying not to screw this up. Honestly, I'm a little concerned about when I go back to work - Marketing/Advertising is tough and it screams for coffee or some other pick-me-up.
3. My fascination with scars - I realize I may be the only girl in America who doesn't mind having scars, which is great because I have a lot of them. Each one tells a story, and it shows that I'm not some shrinking violet who doesn't do anything. Now I have what seems like 50% more... and they look pretty brutal. Personally I think it looks like I got gutted by Ghostface from Scream and then beaten with a baseball bat. Right now I have a love/hate with them and eventually I'll be one with my new scars. Until then, I'm rethinking my swimsuit strategy for next summer.
4. My sanity - ICU Psychosis is fascinating, but I wish I never had it. Lack of sleep in the ICU, all the meds, the toxins in my body, they all made me certifiable, paranoid, and aggressive. I even had a slight detour into spousal abuse when I laid a right-hook right on Parrish. I even punched and kicked at the nurses. The best part of ICU Psychosis is having the nurse tell Parrish that he had to agree with everything I said. How's a girl supposed to know she's sane when her hubby is agreeing that he heard a demon in the ICU speaking in tongues? Looking back it's kind of amusing and Parrish & I have compared notes on what actually happened, but I still cringe to think that I wasn't myself. Luckily for me once I got into the "step-down unit" and had my own room I was able to sleep and get everything back to normal.
5. My appetite - To date I've lost 20 pounds, mostly because I'm just not hungry. I like to call it the "LiverSplode" diet... it's effective, but I don't suggest it. One of the doctor's told me it's not uncommon for people with stomach trauma to lose their appetite for up to a year. A whole year. Right now I'm eating 3 meals a day, but I eat breakfast because I know I should eat breakfast, not because I'm hungry. Now I hate to cook AND eat. Where's the fun in that?
6. My clothes - Parrish swears he put me in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt to get to the hospital... but I mysteriously seem to be missing my only pair of jeans and my favorite tank top. Sure they can be replaced, but I really REALLY liked that tank top.

I hope this didn't seem like a bitchfest because I really didn't mean it to be. Honestly, I could have lost a lot more than just what I listed here. It's nice to get it out on the table once in awhile =)

Crazy Song of the Day: Crazy by Patsy Cline

My Top 10 List

I love lists.

Wait, that's not right --  I LOVE-love-LOVE-love-LOVE-love-LOVE-love lists.

I use them at work, at home, to keep my wishlists in order, to decide what to do for a day, sometimes I write them just to write them and sometimes I write them to decide what blog post to write. Funny how that happens right?

Without further ado - here's my Top 10 for the last couple of weeks:

 

IN	OUT
40's Pin-up Photo Shoots	Low Self-Esteem
French Rock	Same Ol', Same Ol'
Sterling Silver w/Lego Jewelry	Gold (you can get cash for that!)
Apps with whistles	Sitting on the Couch
South Korean Movies	Lame-ass Hollywood Remakes
Reading	TV
Living The IT Crowd	Watching The IT Crowd (for now)
Your Mom	That's What She Said
Regular Coffee + Cream + Sugar	$5 Mochas
Man's Weekend	DH Skipping Man's Weekend

Song of the Day that Contains a List: Kiss Off by Violent Femmes

How I Discovered the Silmarils

For those who know me well, finding out that I like French Rapcore isn't going to be that big of a shock. I mean I tend to like all sorts of strange music and most of the bands I like are dead or were huge before I was born. I haven't outgrown alternative rock or punk, and I have a secret love affair with pop (Justin Timberlake), rap (Flo Rida), and on the rare occasion, country (Kane).

What it all boils down to is that my taste in music is TERRIBLE, and I'm perfectly okay with it.

So with that being said, lets start at the beginning. Being that I have terrible taste in music, and an unnatural interest in actors, I watched a little French zombie film called The Horde the other day on Netflix, and it rocked my socks off. I'd attach a link but Rotten Tomatoes didn't like it as much as I did (which should tell you something about my taste in movies too).  As I'm prone to do, I checked out all the actors on IMDB, particularly Jean-Pierre Martins, aka my new second husband, and low and behold he had a band.

And that, kids, is how I discovered the Silmarils, France's version of the Beastie Boys. Huge in the mid-90s-2007. Toured with AC/DC & Sugar Ray. The band name appears to be a reference to J.R.R. Tolkien. It's like it was meant to be.

In my experience actors who have bands are 99.9% terrible, but apparently the band has been around since the early 80s and it turned out to be pretty good. For the record, I have no idea what they are saying, occasionally I catch an English word or a French swear word and that's about it.


Here are a couple of my favorites. Enjoy!

Guerilla

Va y Avoir du Sport (the video for this is totally ridiculous)

Rollercoasters, Bad Jobs, and Life Lessons

 

Away we go!



 To say this year has been a roller coaster is a major understatement. Like a "does-a-bear-shit-in-the-woods-I-can't-believe-you'd-ask-me-that" understatement. As I sit here now at the beginning of September I'm in a much better place, but in the last 11 months I've lost a job I loved, got a job that I hated, attempted to sell my house, been unemployed twice, lived with my in-laws, got a new job that I love, and moved to a new city. Looking back, that is so much stress in one year I can't believe Parrish & I survived it or at least didn't climb the nearest clock tower and start shooting. If Nietzsche were to come back to life for the sole purpose of telling me "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." I would haul off and punch him in the groin.

While it's been an eventful year, it hasn't all been negative and I've learned a lot along the way. Stuff that at the whopping old age of 33 I probably should have had a handle on before, but what can I say, I'm a late bloomer. I won't bore you with the ol' "Parrish & I can do anything" swoon-y crap because quite frankly it would get gushy and it's not my style to make everyone want to dry heave. So we'll just get to the second most important lesson I've learned:

Thank goodness I've had a bad job.

I know, I know I'm sure everyone reading this will think I'm a total freak, but having a job I hated really made me think about what I wanted for myself, not only in a job, but how I wanted my life to go. It was a risk taking that job, and I knew it from the minute I left the first - and only - interview that I had. They threw a lot of money at me, and after being unemployed for 3 months, it seemed like taking it was the right thing to do. 4 weeks later I was hating life and wondering about all those other opportunities that I had turned down. I'm proud I took the risk, because I am not a risk-taker, and I like that I paid off all my credit cards AND my car while I was there. Looking back, there were a lot of red flags from the get-go - a 3.5 hour interview that didn't include the head of the marketing department, being asked if I'd ever consider being a CMO even though I'd been an account manager for 3 months, not being offered a water (OK that isn't horrible, but I had cottonmouth BAD). Without further ado - here is all the wisdom I gained from working there:

1. Listen to your gut. I mentioned the red flags earlier - if only I hadn't pushed those feelings away, but it was REALLY easy once they offered me an outrageous salary.
2. If the office gives you the creeps, don't work there. My first thoughts were the place wasn't finished and I didn't want to be there for an extended period of time. That and they only had 2 unisex bathrooms. For 30 people. You will be there a lot, make sure you are comfortable.
3. If upper management doesn't sleep and is stressed out all the time, you will be too. One executive existed solely on Coca-Cola and 3 hours of sleep while another was twitchy and talked a lot. And I mean A LOT. This doesn't make for a peaceful work environment.
4. In a small company you will work the same hours as your boss. And I mean answering correspondence when she emails you at 5 am while you're half asleep and hanging off the bed. My boss was an ex-criminal defense attorney turned marketer. She knew her stuff but she still worked those 90 hour weeks and expected me to also. I believe in working hard, but that is just cray-cray.
5. Keep your commute to under 45 minutes. My commute was 1.5 hours. ONE WAY and that is just ridiculous. The plan was to sell our house and move closer. Luckily I got laid off before that happened, but anything over 45 minutes will kill your will to live.
6. Sometimes getting laid off isn't so bad. In the end, getting laid off was the best thing that happened to me. It made me realize that I needed to fight for a work-life balance and in my second job hunt that's something that I really stressed in my interviews.

3 months after I got laid off (again) I'm at a new job in a new city, and I'm loving every second of it. I see Parrish now more than ever and I can go to sleep without thinking about work the next day. I don't work any less than I ever did, but it's more about efficiency and working realistic schedules than just working to be at work. Life is good.

Song of the Day: 3 Little Birds by Bob Marley. I'm taking it back bitches!

Jamie's Back. Back Again.

So much has happened since my last post - mainly I got a job, been here about 6 weeks and started to notice that "the squish" has come back. Ladies, you know what I'm talking about - all of a sudden when you move there's a roll. Unpleasant but sometimes a fact of life.

Seriously, you'd think with all that time I had being unemployed I'd be doing push-ups like this by now:

Alas, that is not the case. Instead I chose to fill my time with job hunting, interviews, the after-interview-mocha, chocolate, and Criminal Minds marathons on three different channels (I love me some Derek Morgan). Quite frankly I wouldn't change that at all, I did what I needed to do.

Now it's time to get back in the saddle - mostly because of "the squish" and because I have an insanely long commute and I'm sure things are going to start expanding here shortly. Parrish & I have the Kinect and yesterday we started the Your Shape training program, which I'm excited about. So far, I've only done the physical test for it but I'm sore as all get out. Sonja and I are also talking about the logistics of running twice a week... it's a little harder since I now work 2 towns over but I think we can both use the girl time.

Today was supposed to be my first work-out and I woke up at 5:30 am, and I immediately went back to sleep. Honestly, it was awesome, but I feel like I have to AT LEAST set some goals to make up for it. So here goes:

April Goals

1. Mochas down to 1 a week. No apple fritters.

2. Work out 4 times a week.

3. Start 1 painting in April

4. Read 1 book a week

5. 1 blog post a week. To keep me honest.

Ok, so some of them aren't exercise related, but they go to my stress level so it all counts, right? Right?!

I think these are do-able, and with Parrish acting like my Drill Sargent (which is much appreciated) I think I'll have it covered.

Song for the day: Without Me by Eminem

Lots (and lots and lots) of Interviews

To say I've been on a lot of interviews would just be ridiculous... ridiculous because it's true. Since mid-November I've been on roughly 2 interviews a week - that includes phone interviews, recruiter interviews, informational interviews, regular interviews, coffee interviews, surprise group interviews... and still no offers.

This must be what the Three 6 Mafia meant by "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp".

I've been on second interviews, second choice for some positions, and in one company I went on 5 interviews for 2 different departments and met the entire senior marketing staff. I've been on interviews where people are so impressed with me I wonder if they're crazy (but the sentiment was much appreciated) and on some where they obviously didn't know what they wanted in an employee in the first place. I've been following up with some companies for more than a month and have had some just come right out and say that I wasn't the right fit. I've worked with 3 recruiters and an unemployment agency contact who all say I'm making the right decisions, my interviewing style is fine, my resume is "impressive" and that there isn't anything for me to improve on, it's just the current job market and I have to keep on keeping on.

Is this frustrating? Hell yeah, but I'm not letting it get me down. Why?

This week I have 7 interviews in 6 days for 7 different companies and I'm ready to kill it.

In which I lose my job, but learn some things along the way

Losing your job sucks. I found that out the hard way in mid-November when the small advertising agency I worked at had a round of lay-offs. I had a job that I loved, at a company I believed in, and with co-workers that were absolutely awesome. Then I was told I couldn't go back. *sigh* All I can say is that it wasn't my finest moment, because I cried - while they were laying me off, while cleaning out my desk, on the way to the parking garage, on my way home, for most of the week afterward. This isn't going to be bitch session, because honestly, I decided somewhere between work and home that I enjoyed my time there and I wasn't going to let this take me out. I'm not going to lie, some days its been a real struggle, but I've learned a few things in the last couple of months that I thought I would share.

1.) You need your support system. Immediately: I can't tell you how awesome my friends and family have been through this. Between the vent sessions, teary phone calls, and the cheerleading while I've sent out my resume, I know that I couldn't have done this without them. Having someone I can talk to who is going to be on my side no matter what really helped me work through this tough time.

2.) You're going to be angry... and in denial, and depressed, and confused, and lonely. Sometimes all at once. Losing a job is a loss, it's okay to grieve (Read about the stages of grief here).

3.) Pants are overrated: Pretty sure this is where my interest in Pajama Jeans came in. If you aren't going anywhere, do you really need to put on pants? Now I'm not talking pants are overrated in a "I'm so depressed and can't get out of bed" type of way, but more in the "all I have to do is clean the house today..." way. If you can do your job search and walk the dogs in your pjs I say more power to you. And please don't buy me pajama jeans, they are ridiculous!

4.) You will start to do weird things: Like talk to your dogs, or wear make-up when you have a phone interview, or start watching HGTV obsessively (I love me some House Hunters). All I can say is that you'll have a lot of time on your hands to fill. Which leads me to:

5.) You need a project: other than job hunting that is. I've downsized my 1932 sq ft house into 330 sq ft in 2.5 weeks, and helped my in-laws finish a bonus room. My next "big" project is doing needlepoint or maybe finishing that quilt I started 3 years ago. Doing something is so much better than sitting around watching TV and you'll feel better about yourself in the process.

6.) Tough decisions aren't so tough anymore: Selling my house and living with my in-laws may be many things -- embarrassing, not where I wanted to be in my early 30's for sure -- when the writing was on the wall the decision wasn't that hard. Doing what you have to do is much easier when it's your only option.

7.) Network! People can be really helpful: Most of the people I've networked or interviewed with have been laid off and share their stories when I tell them what happened. They also are more than willing to try to help out and pass resumes along. Just remember that asking for help is good, being a pest about it isn't.

8.) Someone else will want to hire you...eventually. I keep telling this to myself. With the job market the way it is and all the competition that's out there, I'm pretty proud of myself that I've been interviewing steadily since I started looking. Even got to second and third interviews at some places. Just keep networking and talking to as many people as you can, and interview when you get the chance. Perseverance pays off!