All better

Thursday and Friday were rough, but I think I'm pretty much all better. Most food still freaks me out though, so I've been sticking to soup and bland stuff. In other news:

1) I'm turning down the job in Tallahassee because it isn't going to pay enough. I understand the concept of working your way to the top, but I refuse to take the job if it isn't going to even pay what I'm getting now (which, quite frankly isn't enough!) especially in a city where the cost of living is going to be a little higher.

2) Dane hasn't heard back from the Gainesville job yet. He does know that one of the "hiring people" has been out of town since last Thursday and won't return until tomorrow. But that does nothing to ease my mind. I'm losing hope fast for that job even though he is still a little bit hopeful.

3) We now have a date set for my new niece's arrival. Miss London Grace will be here Friday, August 21st. So if the Gainesville job doesn't work out I'll have to look into a plane ticket for a long weekend shortly thereafter.

Flu??

I am sick! I woke up feeling kinda yucky, so I went ahead and called into work. Then it REALLY hit. Throwing up, the big D, sore achy skin, headache, fever of over 100...you name it, I felt it. So Dane came home from work to make sure I didn't die. So not kidding. Sounds a hair dramatic, but I don't think I've felt that sick since I had mono. Even the raspberry incident didn't compare. I talked to mom early in the day and she gave me the "you need to go to the doctor tomorrow if you're not any better" shpeal. THEN, she called me later in the afternoon and woke me up from my Tylenol PM indused nap to tell me that dad thinks I should go ahead and go to the doctor so they can test me for swine flu. Swine flu! Way to freak me out dad!

So anyway, that's what I did today. :-)

Weekend recap...surprise!

We're back! What a great weekend! For the amount of stuff we squeezed in such a short timeframe, the trip really didn't seem all that rushed. On Thursday we drove down to Lake City and spent the night at my parents' house. Friday morning we woke up fairly early and I drove mom's car over to Tallahassee (hour and a half drive) for my interview. It went really well. The place was really nice and I practically felt at home with all the old folks. :-) I may know by the end of this week if that's going to be my new home. I'll spare all the details until I know more. After the interview I went to lunch with Nicole and Amy at Sonny's (YUM!). Meanwhile, when I left for Tallahassee, Dane took my car to Gainesville (45 minutes south of my parents' house). He had an hour-long phone interview with the Follett recruiting people and then he met with the store manager down at the UF bookstore. I know this is vague, but both of us did really well, and we hope that one of us has gotten a job out of it. We should both know something soon.

We met back in Lake City and set out for Orlando. We got there just in the knick of time before the clouds opened up. It was SO GOOD to see all the Orlando peeps...it always feels like no time has passed. So this is where the engagement party was to take place...

It was a really cool place...brick walls, exposed pipes and beams, great area of town. Well, boy did Hazel and Chuck surprise everyone...it wasn't an engagement party. It was THEIR WEDDING!!! Surprise! Their parents didn't even know! Needless to say, Dane and I are so so glad that we went. I didn't get too many pics, but here are a couple...

A few years back, "all of us" had sit-in-front-of-the-computer-all-day jobs and we would email back and forth by "reply all" ALL day. At the time, Dane worked for Department of Health in Tally, I worked for Department of Law Enforcement in Tally, Hazel & Katie (bride and girl in yellow) worked for a graphic design firm in Orlando, Jennifer (in pink) worked for the government/Army in Orlando, and Ant worked in Tampa. At some point after our jobs all changed, someone dubbed us "the email possee". Great times. So here we all are:

And here we all were last summer at Katie & Ant's wedding:

And here we all were at our wedding 3 years ago!

The next morning Jennifer met us at our hotel and we went back to the Farmers Market where the wedding too place. It was awesome. We grabbed a bagel and lemonade and proceeded to melt a little. We couldn't think of anything we really wanted to do or anywhere we wanted to go, so we decided to head on back to Lake City. We stopped in Gainesville for awhile and I took a drive down memory lane. I went and saw my old apartment...even though about 8 years has passed since I lived there, I remember it like it was yesterday. We drove through the UF campus and I found the spot where a friend and I carved our initials in wet cement. :-)

Then we headed on back to the LC and when we got close to home I decided I wanted to take a few pics. It's so beautiful in its own way. It's just home. I get a serious case of the homesicks just looking at them...

Meet Bucky the burro. She's been our neighbor for as long as I can remember. :-)

And here's another neighbor. My parent's house is just past the trees.

That pretty much concludes the trip. :-)

Upcoming Trip and News and Stuff :-)

Hi! It's been a boring couple of weeks for the most part. Next week will be a little more interesting for sure. As previously mentioned, we are headed down to Florida next Thursday for an engagement party. That trip has snowballed into something more!

About 2 weeks ago I was looking through the Tallahassee retirement community websites and came across something very similar to what I'm doing now. Do I love what I do? Not really. But do I love the industry? Absolutely...in that sense, it's the best, most rewarding job I have ever had. So I called the HR department at that facility and asked what the pay would be. The pay range was perfect. So I hung up and got a nice cover letter to go with my resume and even got a nice recommendation from my boss (yes, she knows of my plans to leave). I submitted it all and within a few days I got a voicemail saying they'd like to see me for an interview. Woohoo! Even more woohoo-worthy is that they can see me on one of the days that I will be down there already. But of course nothing can fall into place perfectly...when I finally spoke to the Marketing and Sales Director on the phone to set up an interview time, she informed me that she had ALREADY FILLED that position by promoting someone on their marketing staff. So she still wants to interview me, but for the now open marketing position. Ugh. The job would be fine, but I fear that the pay won't be enough. We don't want to make a move out of desperation...things (especially pay!) have to be right. We aren't looking for unreasonable salaries. We just want to "get by" comfortably. If that makes sense. :-) So anyway, we'll see what we can do in the interview. It's going to be next Friday morning.

Moving along. I'm more excited about this than my own interview. :-) Dane also has "a meeting" about a job when we go down there. Of all places.......UF in Gainesville!!!! The day I see him wearing orange and blue to go to work the camera is coming out. You folks cannot comprehend the loyalty he has to the Georgia Bulldogs. You just can't. The job is actually a textbook manager at the main bookstore on campus working for his current company's main competitor (Follett). Technically, the actual position is a step down from what he does now. But not really because this store is HUGE and it would pay more. So he will be meeting with the store manager next Friday as well.

So what would we do in the event that Dane and I are BOTH offered jobs in different cities?? Well Tallahassee is obviously where we really want to be. We'd actually go with the Gainesville job. Here's why I'm more excited about this than I am my own interview. If Dane could get the Gainesville job we could actually move down there at the same time. Because what you may not realize is that we both HAVE to have jobs in order for us to officially move. Our whole plan has been whoever gets a job first will go ahead and move down there and move in with our friend Amy. The other person stays here in Raleigh and keeps their job while still searching. As soon as the other person finds a job, THEN we could get a house down there and officially move. Stinks huh? That's just the only way we can do it though. So we thought. :-)

If Dane could get this job in Gainesville, then we could move in..............with my parents. Eeks! But this could potentially be the best thing to happen to us financially. We could pay SO MUCH off by just living there for 3-6 months. No more car payments, no more loan payments, no more debts at all (except for our student loans). If we could pay everything off and only have student loans to pay monthly, we would feel as if we hit the lotto. We didn't tell too many people this, (not big on feeling pitied) but when the sale of our house fell through in Tallahassee on closing day, we were counting on that profit in order to make the move. We ended up having to take out a loan just to move and get stuff turned on. We didn't have hot water for months! So anyway, we are still paying on that loan. So much good could come of the Gainesville job. We could finally turn our bout of bad luck around and actually begin a happy rest of our life together.

With all that said, a lot is riding on Dane's "meeting" (not an official interview is how we understand it). However, I will not be devastated if it doesn't work out. When the right job(s) come it'll all be worth it and we'll understand why certain things/jobs didn't work out.

So wish us both well next week! :-)