Lord, it's been ages since I posted...

First order of business: November is approaching! My spot on Blogger is claimed. 2008 NaNo blog. I'm still ridiculously bound up in last year's story, but, every time I start thinking about my idea for this year, I suddenly come up with all sorts of things for it, and I can see elements of it so clearly...I think it'll be good. :) Will post a general summary up there for people to throw feedback at me, uh, as soon as I hash out a few more details.


Meanwhile, uh... it's seriously been like six months since I was back here. That's ridiculous. Uhm.

Admitedly, my life's been pretty hectic and scheduled oddly and just generally busy. I'm sure there are posts here about the drama of the Penny Saver - it got an awful lot better, once we got into a groove with Mary and Dolores and I. Like it was really, really nice, and I really enjoyed the work, and the people I worked with. There was all kinds of awful manipulations and screwings-over among the salespeople and the bosses and the accounts, but in our little office, it was really pretty cozy and great, apart from car ads coming in last minute.

However, Tom's gotten screwed over at WalMart. They decided to invent a 4pm-1am shift for his department, and guess who got put on it. It's a pretty ugly shift, and that was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back. So once he'd been there a year and was eligible to do so, Tom put in for a transfer - to like 15 of their stores in California. We looked at potential apartments online, did a lot of math, plotted out locations for everything...

That was August. It's now halfway through October, and we still haven't gotten anywhere. After a few weeks, he called one of the stores he was shooting for. His info wasn't in the system - he resubmitted it and made sure it showed up. Called again, as they'd sounded all enthusiastic about bringing him on, buuuut, a week and a half of phone tag later, and still nothing solid to go on. He's called another store, but apparently nothing came of that... and Tom, like me, haaaates making phone calls. So he does what I'd probably do, and puts it off 'til he forgets, and then doesn't call until a few days later. Which I understand, but.. *he's* the one that wants to get out of here so badly.

I'm excited and terrified about the whole prospect, like we have a pretty good plan for making it all work, we just can't do anything 'til we get a definite answer from them. Given the economic climate, I'm not going freaking anywhere without a solid job waiting for at least one of us.

I quit the Penny Saver a few weeks ago, so I had some time to work with to sort and pack and get my life together...not, of course, that I'm half so productive with that time as I should be, but.. ^^;;; Staying on at the Paper Factory as long as I can, it's Halloween and it's insane there. Halloween really is about on par with Christmas for us, we go all freaking out, and there are gazillions of high school and college kids that make a mess and try to steal things, and small children making a mess, and people needing all kinds of oddball things, and, hi, over a thousand rental costumes to keep tabs on. I love it, but it's nuts, and we only have, what, five kids who've worked through a Halloween before? (Two of whom have other jobs and can't work every night, one of whom's an airhead who doesn't pay attention to customers.) And six new kids who've worked there barely two months at most. So I'm kind of glad I can still be here to help them out.


I've been on a crocheting binge now that the weather's turned colder. Katie and Jane dropped by for a few hours tonight, which was absolutely wonderful. I've been doing sketches, but can't quite bring myself to finalize anything and I'm not sure why. Tom and I bought a gorgeous tea set from the wonderful people at the Teavana store at the Galleria, and their tea is amaaaaaaazing, and I'm so happy to have finally found tea that I really love. I've always wanted to like tea, but could never find anything I liked. (This teapot, but in a really pretty celadon sort of color. Cups and coaster in the same color, but dragons on the cups, and adorable little leaf-shaped coasters. <333)