Making Lemonade

Life has given me a few lemons lately. I am doing my best to make lemonade.

For one, I didn't get the job offer I was hoping to get this week despite them calling me to say how great my interview went and what a wonderful candidate I was. Also, I seem to be in some sort of job application loop in which I get nowhere. I applied for a job this week a few days before the deadline and received a response saying that I wouldn't be considered as they had "closed" the position, yet it was still advertised on the website. Then, I got another email from another job I applied to saying they would like to interview me, but they aren't looking to hire anyone right now due to the poor economy. I applied to that job in response to their company website which had an entire page dedicated to seeking new employees and instructions on how to apply. Waste. Of. Time.

Additionally, on Saturday morning my dog Tchazo was messing around with something on the floor that sounded off. I swooped in to take whatever weird thing he was about to eat and found that he was tasting and spitting this item out on the floor repeatedly. It was when I picked it up that I realized he was messing with one of his TEETH! One of his premolars had broken at the gum line and fallen out of his mouth. It was the weirdest thing because one minute he was sleeping and the next minute he was standing next to me with his tooth on the floor. A broken tooth means one thing: Oral Surgery. Luckily we haven't had occasion to take any of our pets to the vet since we moved back, but we did have a vet we knew from when we lived here in the past. I got him in to the vet yesterday and he is now happily back at home, minus a few big roots and with the addition of "railroad stitches".

In order to not become a totally crotchety, cranky, stressy mess, I made time yesterday for some enjoyable non-job related things. I got to stop by my dad's place and pick up my birthday present...a new BREADMAKER! He got me a breadmaker as my college graduation present 8 years ago. I used it regularly until right before we moved back to Minneapolis. It was about then that it started to turn itself off in the middle of baking a loaf of bread. It went in the dumpster when we moved and I have been missing my homemade bread since then. He also gave me a bag full of homemade canned goods like tomatoes, salsa and BBQ sauce and bit of birthday cash to be spent on something fun for myself.

Then I met my mom for dinner and dessert at Wilde Roast Cafe. After dinner, we went to listen to her friend Jane's band play Christmas music. It was sort of surreal going to a band concert in a middle school auditorium.

They kept the lights on in the auditorium while they were playing which meant my mom and I could knit through the concert! Here my mom is learning the importance of a selvage stitch:

I worked on one of two remaining Christmas gifts to be finished.

After the concert, we got to eat our second dessert of the evening: Gingerbread Men!

Despite moments of frustration, I am still managing to stay upbeat about banging my head against the figurative wall that is job searching in the current economy. It helps a lot that Paul, my friends and my family have been so supportive of the process and offering me encouragement to keep at it. Thanks guys!