Wow, a really bizarre day. I got laid off from my job. I am still in shock. I was told they are completely restructuring the legal department at Home Depot. I was the only one laid off from my group, however. My case load has been down. I was not particularly surprised.
Several
of my close friends have been laid off recently, so I am in good company.
When
I got home, I was checking emails and ran across this quote, that I really
like:
“If there is no struggle, there
is no progress." - Frederick Douglass
True words, Mr. D.
I came home and told the kids. They took it well. I
reassured them I have a severance package, and then I can apply for
unemployment. We won't starve or be homeless. We are OK. They didn't freak out, which relieved me.
Alesia apologized for her behavior last night. Mother
said she apologized to her, also. She is growing up. We didn’t coerce the
apologies. She was sincerely remorseful.
I took the kids to see the film Angels and Demons.
Good movie. I had to explain a lot of unfamiliar stuff, like how the Catholic
church chooses a pope, and they learned some new vocabulary. I had read the
book and liked it. A lot of things from the book were changed, though, at the
end. Alesia guessed the bad guy correctly and I told her she was wrong. She got
it right, though. She is very smart.
Michael said he only agreed to see it because of the
title – he thought Angels and Demons meant it would be a supernatural movie or
a horror movie.
I enjoyed hearing Italian spoken. I still remember
enough of it to understand a lot of what was said without subtitles, which was
fun.
Lesleigh came over late this afternoon and we had a
good visit. She stayed for dinner. I fixed spinach soufflé, fried chicken, and
Sister Schubert rolls, which are wonderful. We were laughing about the fact
that Alesia loves butter and slathers it on everything. Michael loves Stouffer’s
spinach soufflé. Les and I decided they are The Butter Queen and The Spinach
King. We thought that was very funny. The kids just looked at us like, y’all
are so weird…
I am not sitting around weeping about the job
situation. I have had a feeling all day that this is going to be a good
transition. I haven’t cried. I turned it over to God and told him to show me
what I am supposed to be doing now. I just got through proofreading my book not
long ago, and THAT 18 month period before I got Alesia home was a terribly
stressful time in my life. This is not so bad, in comparison. I have my kids, I
am reasonably healthy, and something will work out.
[But, just in case you’re in the Atlanta area, any openings where you work? All my experience is as a paralegal but I would love to learn something else, particularly if I could use my writing skills…]
**********************************************************
Mother sent me the funniest email I had read in a long time. It made me laugh out loud:
Yesterday I was buying a 2 large bags of Purina dog chow at Walmart, for my dogs Winston, Chief, Gus, and Maximus. I was about to check out when a woman behind measked if I had a dog. What did she think, that I had an elephant?
Since I had little else to do, on impulse, I told her that no, I didn'thave a dog, and that I was starting the Purina Diet again, although Iprobably shouldn't because I ended up in the hospital last time. On the bright side though, I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of every hole in my body and IVs in both arms.
I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again... (I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was enthralled with my story by now.)
Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food had poisoned me. I told her no; I had stopped in the middle of the parking lot to lick my butt and a car hit me.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard! WAL-MART won't let me shop there anymore.
Handle every stressful situation like a dog..
If you can't eat it or play with it,
Just pee on it and walk away
[HAHAHAHAHA - If you don't laugh, you'll cry. Laughing is better...]