Merry Christmas, Here's a Job!

Ahh... Smell that? That is the smell of success. It smells vaguely like garlic salt.

After months of enduring unemployment, borderline-poverty, illness, and the eventual Great Sadness of the Decade, we've finally caught a break: J has a new job.

If we were both women / possibly sisters and had a trampoline, we'd be doing this.

Does this make everything all better? Hardly. But it's a start. A HELLUVA start. A new start, hopefully, that will no longer entail the possibility of having to put all of our crap in storage and move in (e.g. crash on the sofa) with my mom and her terrier in a 1bd apartment-turned-condo some 35 miles away from our current location. Cause, y'know, that would've gone splendidly.

Above all else, I'm grateful for J. He's being rewarded for his patience, perseverance, ability to handle inordinate stress and pressure, and intelligence. I couldn't be more proud of / happy for him.

This cat is also quite happy and proud. Rainbow pride!

Now that I've gotten the 'pride' emotion out of my system, let's delve into the next one in line, shall we? I call it 'grelief.' A mixture of the words 'greed,' and 'relief,' it's designed to encompass the messy emotions associated with being able to resume a certain lifestyle.
.......(i.e.).......

'I can get my HAIR DONE and go to TARGET and we can MOVE! and EAT OUT and I CAN GO TO TARGET, and we can send Maggie to the GROOMER and I can get my CAR FIXED, and ICANGOTOTARGET!!!!'

Ohh, Confessions of a Shopaholic. The Sophie Kinsella book series is so superior to the movie. Sorry, Isla Fisher.

I realize that I'm jumping off the deep end here and making it seem like we'll now be rich and famous and go swimming in all of our Target purchases. Or if not, that we'll at least be firmly back in the middle class. To insinuate as much would be incorrect; we're definitely still flying by the seat of our pants (in coach), and we won't be buying anything extravagant in the near future -- Christmas is still very much canceled (and we won't be flying back East). But hey, I'm just happy that I can pay my monthly medical premium now... Ten days late. Oh well. Suck it, Health Net*.

*Who just raised my rates. Again.