Feels Good

I am DYING to talk about this. Out loud. With people. Because obviously my husband's ear is about to fall off from all my stressed out rambling. Only, it's not quite appropriate for me to spread the news just yet. But everything finally started happening today so I'm just gonna talk about it now while it's still fresh and post later when I can.
And with that, I HAVE A NEW JOB!!
I'm putting the double life on the shelf and simplifying things in anticipation of house-buying and kid-making. I love, L-O-V-E, working with the choir kiddos and I can't really think too much about leaving or I get heart palpitations. It's an absolute dream come true, but other dreams are taking priority for now. Not to mention I've had a genuine good time learning so much at my retail job for GMS Tactical. I'm leaving some very good things for (hopefully) something better.
It may not be what one would call a "dream job" or what I'm necessarily passionate about but it will provide us with much needed stability and job consistency (not to mention some heftier paychecks).
And I have some wonderful friends to thank for it. Thank goodness for word of mouth and recommendations. I waited almost two weeks to hear if I could get an interview with this company and this past wednesday while I was out at the garden for my biology class I got a call from Tanner that they wanted me to come in for the highly anticipated interview!! ....the next day. Panic!
Thursday was one of the most stressful days of my life. I won't delve much into that because it's messy, long, and will only accentuate the already present splitting headache invading my private head space. The day did end though, and I was no closer to knowing if I had a new job and a better ticket to fulfilling some of our dreams as a family. At the interview they told me I needed to go to a clinic to complete a drug test and physical exam as well as get a copy of my diploma and social security card to them. I had absolutely no time left on thursday to complete those tasks before the day was over and prepared myself for a hectic morning today. It felt like too much to hope that being asked to do all those things was a good sign and we decided to not call it anything and not think about it or talk about it.
So this morning! I woke up with Mark and realized I probably shouldn't wash my hair if I wanted it to be curly for the Grease show tonight. Heh, irony. After getting my hair in some semblance of a retro-do and gathering up the essentials I'd need for going straight from work to the show. I made it to the clinic about fifteen minutes after it opened and the waiting room was already occupied by about thirteen people. Goodness gracious. Luckily my wait time was said to be a total of an hour and thirty minutes which fit perfectly into my tight schedule for the morning.
But then it got weird, and mostly awkward. The nurse lady I got was indian or some sort of eastern brand of foreign and I didn't understand most of what she said, not to mention she was very abrupt and never faced me when she spoke to me so I never knew when she was telling me to do something or talking into her super sneaky hidden micophone walkie-talkie thingmabob. Also, everyone has mega shifty-eyes around the drug-screening pee bathroom. Like we can't own up to the fact that yes, we are handing someone a tiny bucket of our own urine without going red-faced. A man passed by me while I was doing said pee-handoff and his eyes looked everywhere but at my own. She led me to another room where I stood on a scale and she took my weight and height before I had a chance to realize I was slouching like a sad, wilted plant. Then the blood pressure test which I HATE and have/will always HATE. The necessary tightness of it stresses me out and it kinda hurts when the blood gets pumping through there. Then she actually handed me the thermometer to take my own temperature, like what? I am fine with you putting that in my mouth, why do I need to be trusted with that particular chore? Which I should not have been because you know what happened? I didn't pay attention to the fact that it was attached to the cart by a very tightly wound springy cord and the second my fingers fumbled just a tad it went flying back with great crashing noises. But she didn't scowl like I expected, she laughed a little. And I felt better.
Then she asks if I wear glasses or contacts and I know; the dreaded eye exam is up next. I am SO bad with these it's terrible. I stress out and panic and miss all the instructions so then they probably think I'm legitimately blind because I just don't answer.

And there you have our whole exchange. Except a lot more of,
"Oh wait, my hair's in the way..." (remember I'm all retro today, it's great)
"Um, I think it disappeared...."
"Oh, no I just scoot down, okay got it."
"Uhh, they're all the same? I guess, right?" optical illusions are the worst. They're changing! I don't know which one sticks out more!!
"8, 16, 354, and uhhh...a bunch of squiggley lines?" By the time I get to the end of it I'm just mocking myself and my inability to function and you know what she says?
"Oh, there isn't a number on that last one, it is just squiggles."

Only it wasn't. Rude.
She then leads me down the hall, around a corner, down another hall and into an examination room with the crinkley paper table and a funny lookin' medical-ish recliner. She invites me to take a seat but just as I'm squatting my bum over the chair she goes,
"Oops! No, you're supposed to have an audiogram as well, this way please."
Back down the hall around the same corner, down the same hall, and around another corner and into a small room with a large metal box in it rigged, I should think, to look exactly like the electric chair from "The Green Mile".

K, not totally but it had the same effect on my stress levels. I've had lots of problems with my ears in this lifetime and I was not anticipating a remarkable score on this particular test.
I sat and watched her mouth move as she gave me instructions but I couldn't hear over the sound of my own panic rising and taking up all the space in the teeny tiny box I was now being shut into. The back of the door had a million little holes in it probably so the scratch marks wouldn't show of previous torturees but if I looked at any inner surface of the box it would begin to swim and swirl as my vision went crazy from the illusion. But if I shut my eyes I lost concentration and involuntarily began day dreaming and kept missing the impossibly soft little "bleeps" in the vise-like headphones wrapped around my skull that meant I was supposed to press the clicker that would probably engage the electrical current sequence. My right ear took eternities and there was a lot of silence for my left ear.
She finally freed me from my avant garde vertical casket and took me back to the examination room and left me there. I waited and was determined to not pull my phone out and pass the time with facebook or pinterest because I was convinced it was a test to see if my attention span was adequate or just plain pitiful.
Go figure, turns out it's pitiful.
The doctor I had looked remarkably like the wise ancient turtle sensei in Kung Fu Panda...

Only less grandfatherly and more pedofile-ish.
In all fairness he was very pleasant and didn't waste time blabbering. Asked the necessary questions, looked in my ears and remarked, "I'm surprised your hearing test went so well, looking at these scars in both your ears..." which more than surprised me. I guess the nervous twitch in my clicker hand did me well.
He waved a bright light in my face multiple times, confusing me with instructions to either not look or do look, follow the light, but never told me before he started the exercise.
Suddenly, and terribly randomly, he points to my arm and spouts off all this medical jargon that ending in "eczema". Apparently I have very minor, subtle skin irritations on my arms that make it look slightly red beneath my freckles. It won't necessarily get worse or effect me in any way I just get to be self conscious about it for the rest of my life, same as Mr. Regan's uneven eyes.
He had me stand up and breathe with his little stethoscope on my chest and for whatever insane reason I made eye contact that he reciprocated. For the whole entire first breath we just STARED. It was intense. I never faltered. He broke to go around back and have a listen there as well and I felt proud of my snippet of backbone. Then I realized how unnecessary and weird that really was and wondered why I did it.
All in all, turns out I'm the picture of health and they sent me on my way with a bunch of paperwork to give the new company I was interviewing with.
I immediately headed back to my interview site to hand over the requested items and while I was there, something amazing happened.
They told me I was hired!! So long as the background check and drug screen go well. I will be more shocked than anybody if they don't. I beamed all the way out the door and to my car and out of the parking lot on my way to a costume shop to pick up a piece of necessary clothing for the show tonight and tomorrow night. More on that later.
I felt so good and so happy driving away from Maxis, knowing I'd worked very hard to get those simple words, "We would like to bring you on the team". I hit preset station 6 on my radio and heard the very last syllable of a commercial and the very beginnings of my absolute favorite song start up.

My JAM was playing right after I got the coveted job. It was like my very own movie moment. I pumped my fist, I squealed, I danced and I sang. It was a happy moment. I went and picked up the costume, I could afford it even with our current restrictions and on my way to get lunch before work, my boss texted me and let me know I could have the day off. Save money on food and go home for a few hours?
WHAT IS HAPPENING?!
Prayers are great things guys :)
I'm doing laundry for the first time in like, 3 weeks and I'm actually blogging! A nice, long (maybe too much, eh?), detailed post about important things! Oh, it feels good to be me today.
It certainly feels good.
Also, here's a conversation with my husband I just wanted to share, for some reason. I don't even remember what it's about as I'm typing this, I just know there's a screenshot on my phone that I wanted to post in this...

Oh, right! My husband asked for veggies, guys!! Yes, he wants ranch with them, but still! Ve-ge-ta-bulls.
He ate all the yummy snacks, though. Boo.