It's officially haircut week!

Well, I know of three people (including myself) that got a haircut this week and I know there must be more.

So here's a before shot:


And after...


Here's a picture of Iris and I pre-haircut.


And... a closeup!

I think she's starting to look more like me. Althought I'll admit she is a nice mix of both of us. Chris's head, my features and Chris' eye color. He told me the other day that the girls at daycare say she is looking more and more like me and the narcissist in me is giddy at the thought.

I love this little person.

I'm better than I thought.

Well, I left the interview feeling... Mostly just relieved that it was done and it was out of my hands now. I was jelly when I got home and sprawled on the sofa. Thinking, thank god it's over. Almost not caring whether I got the job or not. I also started in on the whole "I definitely didn't get it" statements, followed by, "I'm saying that so if I do get it I'll be ultra excited". I had pauses, I said ah, like and hmmm more than I ought to have.

On Sunday my boss called and said they were doing second interview and could I come down sometime on Monday. I picked my time, so at 1:00pm I went down to the library.

I had to do a written "test". This was a sample of a memo I would send to Pat about a certain situation at the Circ desk and how I handled it. Then I had to show how I would set up a simple database in Excel for some Circ statistics. Then after half an hour alone working on this I was asked some follow up questions. She said that she liked my enthusiasm and that I had really thought about this a lot. Then she said "When I offer you the job will you accept it?". I smiled and raised an eyebrow and repeated "when you offer me the job...". Hhehehehehehehe! I would say YES!

SO anyway, I am the new circulation supervisor at the P.L. Yay me! After some initial awkwardness with another staff member (whom I consider a friend) I think things will be really great. I "start" next Monday but because of the time needed to hire another circ assistant and the way we are covering Jean's shift already now I probably won't be starting a new schedule until after I come back from our trip to Canada.

Now for the TMI that is completely unrelated to this new job stuff. I commented to Chris that I am going to become anemic from the near-hemoraging I am going through this week. When I got home from work he had beef tenderloin marinating and he had al the stuff to make an awesome spinach dinner salad. Iron rich! I married a prince, a true prince. This is even nicer than when he made a sausage and pepperoni pizza and rearranged it so it was half pepperoni and half sausage and saved me the pepperoni half! We accidentaly left it out on the counter.. So I never actually ate any of it, but it is seriously the thought that counts.

WTF!???!!!

February 16th: Thunder Snowstorm. Thunder... Snow... Thundersnow. Does not compute! Is it just me or do these words not go together... I thought they were a mutually exclusive thing. Not anymore! The midwest is special! *Special!

I have my interview at 11am today. I have to iron... I have to think about why they should pick me.. and sound semi-convincing. At least I'll look stylin'.

For Valentines Day Chris and I had a giant dinner salad topped with slices of the beef tenderloin we grilled.

****news flash****

A thud was heard. That didn't sound like a toy... OH Crap. ( run three feet to sofa) Find Iris on the floor, see baby scream. I am now a certifiable bad parent! I'm so surprised it took this long. She's fine though... a hug and a little bouncing and now we know she can not be left alone on the sofa... or anywhere else I guess.

So anyway... back to Valentines Day. Chris gave me this cool diamond circle necklace with a little heart attached to the inner side of it. I looked for a picture of it, but I couldn't find it at the stores site. I guess it was just in the flyer.

Well, off I go to get set for my interview! Wish me luck!

Come on big money!

The federal part of my tax refund was deposited in our bank account today! Momma needs a new pair of shoes! Maybe a few shirts... We are taking Iris to daycare pretty quickly and we have plans to go to Madison and do some shopping at Yue Wah to stock up on our asian food. Every few months we go and get spice mixes and coconut milk.. noodles, tofu and the like. They only take cash there and it's in the "ghetto" part of Madison, but!it has every kind of ethnic food you could want and it's so cheap! We can make thai food at home as good as at any restaurant and that is a good thing. I think we are also going to try and go out for sushi. Every other friday we have a morning off from Iris while she is at daycare and I don't have to work. Today is that day. Usually we sleep a little later and then go out for breakfast after we drop her off but this morning I made us get up early! Well, at 7am.. which sure feels early when you've been up twice in the night feeding a baby.

Nikki's post that I read this am made me nostalgic for music. This happened the other day as well when she quoted lyrics from a song I really like that I recognised the lyris to. I had to go dig through my mp3s on cd and listen. A lot of the songs on these cd's are like that. The songs that mark a time, a place or a person in your life. I just realized that all the songs that have meaning to me are from the past. I am not adding any new songs to my life soundtrack! I have to start listening to the radio again. I think that's the only way to hear the new stuff and have it become a part of your memories.

Iris got her passport in the mail yesterday. Her little head is so round!I can't believe tis thing is good till 2011! She'll be so mad that her picture is from when she was 5 months old!

The unemployed thing is getting to Chris. He didn't get the job at Duluth Trading and I think that his confidence is slipping. We discussed how I think he has to step up his search... the way he does it. I wrote a basic follow up letter for him that I told him to personalize and said he should get it done while I was at work yesterday. he did and it's really good. I think it really helped him realize all that he has to offer, and how maybe he isn't conveying it to pospective employers. We talked about how it hurt him to have me basically say "suck it up and do it" but he agreed with the basic point of what I was saying. I felt good about starting the letter for him and how it helped him get over his block. I think that it will help his search to have more job specific cover letters and also a follow up letter a week or so after his initial application. It could be the thing that sets him apart from people that may be equal to him in experience. I think it's competitive out there and I know how great Chris is at what he does and we have to get employers to see that too.

Well, I should go get ready for our morning out.

*buhbye.

Memories: by popular request...

Well, not really. OK... only one request! But I live to please! So, by popular demand (just one, here you go Christine!) my letter to Oprah. hehe. They have a 2000 charachter max including spaces, so it is practially in point form... Thanks to my editor, Toph. As he says, when I write it just flows and when he writes he agonizes over every word. He can finesse what I write so well, I abhor editing and he does it so much better than me.

"My amazing love story has had some amazing highs and some very rough
patches -- but through it all we are still so happy.

I was 23 and recently separated from my verbally abusive husband when I met Chris, who was 34, in a ‘Friends & Family’ webcam chat site. On April 14, 2001 (two weeks after we first spoke), he flew from Chicago, IL to Kelowna, BC (Canada). He spent 10 days in Kelowna and from then on we were hooked.

Over the next year we took turns flying out to see each other until we knew that it was silly to be apart.

I moved to Chicago in May of 2001. Then, in June of 2001, Chris got laid off from his job when the company he worked for downsized. Around the same time, the lease was up on his apartment and we decided to move to Wisconsin in September 2001 for a fresh start. Chris found a job at the beginning of November and did really well there becoming a supervisor in just under a year. I wasn’t able to work because I was a Canadian citizen and didn’t have any sort of permit to allow me to work. We struggled to cover all of our bills but we were together, so not having the “extras” really didn’t matter.

In February of 2003 Chris proposed to me and after some talk we decided that we would get married on the two year anniversary of our first in-person meeting -- April 14th. In February of 2004 we bought our little old house. After more than a year, tons of forms, and so much money, my immigration claim went through. I was finally able to work and got a job at our local public library. This past July, we added to our family with our daughter Iris. Things were going so well!

Then at the end of October, Chris went to work and was sent home for good. He was blindsided. He was fired with no notice at all. So here we are again with him on unemployment, but now there is a lot more at stake with the house and the baby.

Through so much that could make our relationship rocky, we are still so
good together, so happy and looking forward to our future."

It was so hard to write this with out all the feelings... I had it like a quarter done when I realized that I would have to get rid of nearly everythign that I had written. it's so much more than this. Nothing about how I han't help smiling when I think of him or say his name to someone I'm talking to. He's like home, where I'm always safe and I know everything will be ok even if it isn't right now. We are balance, always taking turns to be the one who freaks out while the other is the strong one. I appreciate everything about what he is and does for me. Little things like making dinner or cleaning the bath room, he never does it and makes me feel like I owe him.. like it's my turn next. He doesn't keep score and he doesn't blame, even when I have a moment of passive agressive bitch. I like to say that I have him as payback for how awful Steve was. He is everything that Steve wasn't and so much more, but I think if things hadn't been so bad before I wouldn't know how great things are now.

Here's a link to his old Livejournal right after he met me at webcamnow. You see how he was talking about me... and despite the "but" or "and" he took a chance and here we are now.


Yay.


This is us in April 2001. I think it was Easter Sunday and we drove to Edgewood because it is my favorite place in the world and I wanted to share it with him. I think we were both giddy. It was a gorgeous day and I'm glad we have this picture to remember it by.

I think it was last year... I got Chris a card for something... birthday, valatines day.. I forget. It said "I wish I had met you sooner, so I could love you longer" It was perfect then and now.

Ok then, that was my mushy post for the year. Hope it didn't make you want to vomit too badly. :D

-S

Not a lot.

Well, aside from the fact that I HAVE ANOTHER COLD ( before I was even over the old one), not a lot is new. The baby also has another cold. It doesn't seem to be as bad as the one we had 2 weeks ago.

We are still waiting to hear back from Duluth Trading Co. about the job Chris interviewed for. We should know by the end of the week. So far, no call or kiss-off letter has been recieved. No news is good news. Here's the bad news, I know.. you didn't know there was bad news too, Surprise! Chris' car won't start. He called me at work yesterday morning and told me that he wasn't taking Iris to daycare because his car would not start. Good thing I did our taxes on Friday... We should have money to fix it by the 10th. Oh, and wow... kids are sure a nice tax deduction! Thanks Iris.

I think I am going to write a letter to Oprah about Chris and I's "love story". It is one of the show's they are working on and.. wouldn't it be cool! He, he. I am quite fond of her show, even though it usually makes me cry.

Iris is sitting up really well on her own now and she is also babbling all the time. It's so funny. We talk back to her as though we know what she is saying. She looks so serious about it most of the time, she must be saying very important things.

Well, I am off to draft my Oprah letter. I'l try not to be such a stranger...