I just received an email that has me jumping for joy.¬† One of the jobs I submitted my resume to responded and are interested in setting up an interview.¬† I have to say I’m ecstatic about this because it was from one of the companies that I was really interested in working with.¬† I have to email them back and setup a meeting sometime next week.¬† I’m not sure if it’s the pizza from dinner or just my nerves but my stomach is in so many knots right now it’s unreal.¬† I’m sure I’ll have more of an update other than just the meeting itself.¬† Never know, maybe I’ll actually get this job and be well on my way to getting things back to normal.

It’s been a rather unproductive week, mainly because I’ve been a bit under the weather. I cleaned up the house and have been maintaining that for the bulk of the week. I got some grocery shopping done, picked up a few odds and ends for the house and basically have been floating around with odd and end jobs and that’s about it.

Lately I’ve found myself getting “click happy”, having the Mac and my digital camera is really sparking all kinds of creativity. So much so that I’m considering setting up a photoblog on my new domain but I’m not really not too sure about that. I’ve decided to pull out some PHP books and refresh my memory so I can recreate the gallery script I used to use on my site (acidGALLERY) it was created for early versions of PHP4 but now that all of my servers are running on PHP5 and a higher MySQL version, naturally a few things are going to have to change It’ll be a fairly basic script, admin panel with the standard category, description and auto-thumbnail options. I’m also going to work it into a script that Jackie sent me a few days ago. I was having trouble trying to setup a very basic gallery (where I did all of the work myself) where the popup was javascript based and had a next/previous option with descriptions. Thankfully she pointed me in the direction of one she uses and I have to say I’m pretty content with it thus far. It’s an HTML based script, you do all of the work yourself – and that was enough to spark my interest in creating a new one.

Anyway…Sean and I have been doing a lot of driving around lately to clear our heads. I’m still patiently waiting on a response from the companies I’ve submitted my resume to. It would absolutely rule if I could land the job that’s closest to my house but I’m willing to do some kind of traveling if it means a decent amount of money in return. I just got really lucky when I found positions that don’t require a Bachelors and I know that with the money coming in there’s the option of banking it all for either moving into our own place, buying a house or maybe even both of us going back to school. Right now we’re both working pretty hard because we’ll need to get some money together for taxes and considering the $8,000 loan and the paid blogging earnings from last year, something tells me I’m going to owe quite a bit of money.

I’m also unsure of where exactly it’s going to go. While I have been living in Delaware for the past year, I didn’t have my photo ID changed over until late December. Something tells me I’m going to have to pay New York taxes as opposed to the Delaware ones and I’m not too sure if I’m happy about that. I do have a few write-offs this year though, that should help me out. Between buying computers and other business related items – I’m sure I’ll break even at some point. It would be great if I could personally claim the Mac but Sean made the actual purchase of it and he’s got his own things to pay. We’re ready to get our taxes done, unfortunately we’re waiting on companies to send out the forms. I know you’re supposed to receive them by February, hopefully these companies can keep true to their word.

And since I’ve been so snap happy lately, I figure I’ll just link them up.

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I crashed around 8:30PM last night. The night before I found myself finishing “Copy Cat” because it got to the point where it was just too good to put down. Sean was a bit taken back by the fact that I not only finished the entire 450 page book in less than 5 total reading hours but he also didn’t understand why I wouldn’t go to sleep and just read it later. It’s one of those times when you’re so drawn in and taken back by everything that you have no choice but to push yourself and keep on going. I kept myself awake by avoiding laying down, which is probably why my back is bothering me – based entirely on how I was sitting. I also had a few cups of coffee and one of my Starbucks shooter things. That was more than enough caffeine to get me through the day and I really did need it.

Karen and I did a little shopping yesterday. She was heading up to Dover so she could go to Sally’s. It’s a beauty supply store and there isn’t one anywhere near us so the 40-minute drive was really the only option. I’m not complaining though. The second we walked in I was like a kid in a candy store. I’m all into the hair aspect of being a female, this may have a lot to do with having a salon-based upbringing. I floated around the shampoo, loaded up on conditioner, oil and other moisturizing leave-ins were purchased as well. I even picked up a new brush to put in my purse and later realized that there was a compass on it. I have no idea as to why they’d put it on a brush but considering it’s meant for purses and backpacks, thanks to it’s small design, I’m sure it’ll come in handy at some point.

I wound up calling my sister while I was in the store to ask her about a semi-new product called “Hemp”, put your bongs away it isn’t for glaucoma. It’s supposed to be a pretty intense moisturizing shampoo and conditioning set, and since I bought both products I was given a cute little see-through bag to match. I’m actually really happy with the bag because the second I saw it I saw myself reorganizing under the sink in the bathroom so I could easily get to all of my hair products. I swear I can’t wait for Sean and I to have a larger bathroom to work with so there’s the option for more storage. While I only have a wet/dry flat-iron and a high-watt hair dryer that doesn’t mean I don’t wish to expand. The way most women are about make-up, I am about hair product so naturally I want everything so I can mix and match and just play around as much as possible for the absolute best look.

Anyway, on our way back from Sally’s we took the long 40-minute drive back down to Rehoboth and stopped in Walmart, while entering the parking lot our female-intuition based radars picked up that someone was having a clearance sale. Rounding the corner there was a big sign on Fashion Bug that caught our eyes, “Up to 60% off”. Quickly parking the car we bolted for the door and went our separate ways, she floated into the skinny section and I pushed my way through some extra-large bbw’s in the plus sized department. Something about big girls and sales, it’s strange.

When I finally made it to the proper racks I floated around and landed myself two new robes (Buy 1 – Get 1) and the cool thing about both of them were the fact that they were already 50% in price ANYWAY. The one robe was originally about $50 and it was on sale for $25, then it was put in clearance for $12.99 when you make the purchase of a second one with equal or lesser value. So now I have a pretty pink robe with hearts on it, a nice blue robe with moons and stars and a new bed shirt that says “Lovable” on it. I almost came home with a new jacket but I really had to wonder if I was willing to spend $50 on something I can only wear a few weeks out of the year, it was also of “lesser quality” in regards to the fabric so that altered things for me as well. It’s original price was around $120, it was on sale for about $45 which is very reasonable, I have to say. I’m not a fan of olive green so I looked into the dark gold color, only next to the green it looked more like Orange than anything, so I guess it was copper. Either way it’s still sitting on the rack at the store, so I guess you can imagine how that turn out went, now can’t you?

The bitter cold made us run to the car so we could repark closer to Walmart, after going around the parking lot for about 10 minutes we finally found a spot close enough to the door where we weren’t going to freeze our butts off and proceeded to finish up our shopping day. I was done about 20 minutes before she was, but she’s known for getting lost in stores so it’s not a big deal. I stood up front for a while and waited, couldn’t see her anywhere so I went outside to load the car and have a quick cig. She’d locked the doors so I had to walk back in and wait patiently, we finally met our glances just as she was coming to the check-out line and I went to wait outside for her, not realizing that the temperature dropped about 10¬? in ten minutes. After she made her way out the door and bolted to the car we basically threw everything into the van and headed home. Upon arrival we saw that the weather channel had us listed at 3¬?F(-16¬?C) and boy does that explain a lot.

We all had dinner, I retired to the bedroom and while my original goal was to begin reading another book; within a half hour of my being in the room I crashed. Sean woke me up about 3am when he was taking Bella out for a walk and then I wound up falling back asleep around 5:30am. I slept until noon and I’ve been up ever since. I’m just now getting around to doing everything I needed to get done tonight and hopefully I’ll be able to send out a few more resumes before I get to bed.

Since there isn’t much going on these days, other than sending out resumes and hoping for the best, I’ve been doing a lot of reading to keep myself entertained. A few months ago I picked up a book at the grocery store. It caught my eye because the author, Erica Spindler, has been a favorite of mine for quite some time now. It’s one of her newer books, Copy Cat, and I have to say I highly recommend it to just about everyone in the mood for not only a romantic story, but a suspense thriller as well. Paperback cost me about $7 but you can find it on Amazon for as little as $1.

The Sleeping Angel Killer provides the chilling focus to Spindler’s 12th bloodcurdling romantic thriller (after Killer Takes All). Kitt Lundgren and Mary Catherine “M.C.” Riggio of the Rockford, Ill., VCB (Violent Crimes Bureau) vow to catch a serial killer who sets the suffocated bodies of 10-year-old girls in their own beds, dressed like angels in frilly white nightgowns, hair spread out on their pillows and pink lip gloss applied postmortem to their mouths. Spindler’s setting of a “meat-and-potatoes” Midwest town provides a fresh background for two believable and very cool investigators. Kitt, a recovering middle-aged alcoholic, tried and failed to catch the murderer five years earlier, during a 2001 killing spree, while her own child was dying of leukemia and her marriage was falling apart under the strain. Now, when eerily similar crimes recur, someone calls Kitt, identifying himself as the original killer and the new perp as just a copycat. M.C., an ambitious, distrustful newbie, is assigned to help Kitt with the investigation. The detectives must overcome their personal problems in order to catch the monsters, a task culminating in a breathless finale.

I’m not done with the book yet, I only started reading it before I went to sleep last night. After about an hour I was 150 pages in and found it damn near impossible to put it down. The only reason I did was based on the lack of ability to keep my eyes open. While I was enjoying the book, my head was still telling me to go to sleep and no amount of fighting it was going to keep me awake for much longer anyway.

The book has a day-to-day theme going on with it and oddly enough the story was set in the February/March time frame of 2006. A few things caught my eye, mainly because March 2006 was such a difficult month for me. I noticed that chapter 7 is the only notice of the ex-husband (thus far) and this fell on the date of March 7, 2006. The reason this caught my eye was based on the fact that the very first line of the chapter read “Hello Joe”. I found it pretty freaky, this character is talking to her ex-husband the same day I lost Joe. I know that it’s purely a coincidence but it stood out for me, and probably had a lot to do with why I sat here for so long reading as much as I could before I dozed off.

I had some pretty strange dreams last night, not sure why but all family members that have passed on came to me and started yapping about something important, what the message was – I have no idea. I just think it’s strange that I haven’t dreamt of my Grandmother since I was 8 years old and there she was standing in front of my desk with some kind of a message that I just didn’t understand. I didn’t hear her, I knew she was talking to me, you can always see someone talking to you in your dreams. I’m just unsure of what was actually being said, I just remember screaming “Speak English” because it sounded like “Womp, Womp, Womp” whenever she opened her mouth.

Another interesting dream happened just as I’d dozed off to sleep. I’m unsure of whether or not it was based on the book or not but I was walking up my stairs (the one’s in NY, not DE) and at the top of the stairs was Tony Soprano’s mother (now deceased). I could literally see right through her, she looked at me with this evil grin on her face and then her eyes rolled up in the back of her head. I went to run inside but I couldn’t get my keys out of my pocket and I stood there screaming “Wake me up!”. When I finally did wake up it had only been about 20 minutes since I’d gone to bed. It was just one of those freaky dreams that chills you to the bone and sticks with you all freaking day.

And speaking of bone chilling, according to my weather monitor it’s supposed to get down to about 3¬?F tonight. A quick snow shower came through this evening but I haven’t been outside since about 1am to see what kind of “damage” was done. Down here you don’t get much, we’re too close to the ocean and everything tends to melt within an hour because of the salt in the air. I hear NY is getting some pretty decent snow, I kind of wish I could be up there right now to enjoy it but I have to accept the fact that Delaware will never be New York and I need to move on. It sucks, but nothing I can do about it.

The carpet cleaning turned out very well.¬† At first we were a little apprehensive about having every carpeted room done in the same day but it worked out OK.¬† The bedroom is squeaky clean and the office couldn’t get much better than it currently is.¬† I was very surprised with the way the living room worked out.¬† All pet stains and most odors (thanks to their deodorizing treatment) are gone.¬† Of course we left the dogs out of the room for a while until things dried up.¬† Unfortunately Princess is still pooping on the floor but when you’re 10 years old and trained to do everything in-house, you just don’t know any better.¬† At least there hasn’t been any urine on the floor, that acid in urine really is what kills the carpet to begin with.¬† So either way it worked out well and it was nice to see what this carpet looked like in a “brand new” state.

Sean and I have done pretty good this week,¬† something has sparked in us that has brought us out of the fighting slump and closer together to the point that we’re constantly joking around with each other and there’s no major frustration between us.¬† It’s not that we were having “trouble”, it’s just that current situations have been taking their toll on us. Luckily we’re over it now and things are great.

I’ve been hitting the bricks for a job in the area, I believe I came across an absolutely perfect one today that I found while surfing the web.¬† Maybe something good will come from it.¬† My main concern is reaching my goals by the end of the year and I’m confident that’ll happen if I’m hired by this employer.¬† The loan will be paid off, a car will be purchased and maybe a shiny new apartment is in the mix as well.

While I’m itching to get back to school, I’m thinking of holding off until the end of the year.¬† Since I’m under 24 and not living at home, even though my father is no longer responsible for me financially, I’d have to include him on the financial aid forms, unless I go towards a bachelors degree.¬† Up until recently I’ve decided upon DeVry and since that’s an associates my financial aid would be based on his income and since he makes like $65,000 a year, I doubt I’d really get anything covered by FAFSA.¬† So I’ll look into other routes and hopefully something will spring up.¬† I do know that I can hold off for a while, getting bills in order is more important to me right now anyway.

With my downtime I’ve been floating around the different dealerships in the general area.¬† I’m giving myself a $10,000 max budget on a car because spending anything more than that just to get me back and forth from work would be completely absurd.¬† Naturally this means I’m looking into a used car but I also find no point in owning a brand new one either.¬† Anything I can get from a dealership down here will be covered under whatever Warranty they happen to have, and that’s all that’s important to me at this point in time.¬† I’m sticking to Chevy though, it’s kind of a family tradition.¬† My father has owned them for years (even though he currently has a Jeep), my sister has a Chevy, my mother, step-father and lord knows who else, even Sean has one.¬† So to stay with it I’ve been looking into the Malibu or the Cobalt.¬† I have to say that the 2008 Malibu is absolutely gorgeous, but the price tag isn’t that attractive to me at this point in time – heh.

Anyhoo, it’s about 1:30 and I need to get myself ready for bed.¬† Time to take a quick shower, brush my teeth and curl up in bed with any random book I pull off the shelves until I fall asleep.