Rollercoaster January
Well, we are two weeks into 2007, and I must say, so far I'm not doing much better than I was in 2006. Granted, it's only been two weeks, and there's 50 more to make up for it, but here's what's been going on since the New Year rolled around.
I've been out of work since December 12. I applied to many, MANY jobs, and accepted one at an entry-level marketing firm. I went one day and had such an awful time that I called the next morning and quit. Basically, I was gone for about 12 hours, we drove around all of creation, stopped at 76 businesses, and made one sale. I was going to get $200 for 3 days of training, but I would not get the money until I made $400 on my own. The girl I was training with made $35 that day. So I freaked out, decided that I really didn't want to spend my entire day in a car, and quit.
I had a few more interviews after that and was finally hired at a place called DirectBuy in Naperville. It's basically a higher class Sam's Club type thing. We specialize in home furnishings, and a membership allows a person to buy high quality home furnishings directly from the manufacturer, without the retailer's 40+% markup. I start there tomorrow. The hours are afternoons and evenings, and it would be about 30 hours a week. I start out at $10 per hour during training (2 to 6 weeks) and then I am paid $125 for each person I contact that actually becomes a member of DirectBuy. My job title is Marketing Associate, but what it comes down to is I am an appointment setter. I call leads that have already been generated for me and invite people to come to the DirectBuy facility to learn more about the company and to have the opportunity to become a member. I'm excited about it because my target income is only midway up their scale. There is a lot of income potential, but it's not all commission-based because I will make a minimum of $10 per hour. I also applied at Jewel last night for a part time morning cashier position (or whatever they have), just to add an extra source of income. Money is tight right now since I've been out of work for so long. Luckily Derek makes decent money at Cheeseburger, but he's even looking for another opportunity.
Other than my financial situation, I found out yesterday that one of my uncles (Tom) has died, either Friday or Saturday. Now, before any of you starts offering me your condolences, this particular uncle is my dad's next oldest brother (they are 2 years apart). About 15 years ago he decided to basically stop talking to the rest of the family and moved from the Effingham area to Ohio. The next time I saw him, which is ironically the last time I saw him, was four years ago at my Uncle Chuck's funeral (Uncle Chuck was my dad's oldest brother). Honestly, we were all surprised that he even showed up there. The only contact I've had with his family is through his daughter, Mary Lynn, who works at Wal-Mart in Effingham and would come in to Subway every day. I didn't even realize who she was until she started asking about my family. Anyway, apparently Uncle Tom had been in pretty bad health...he suffered a heart attack about six months ago, and I guess he was really overweight and smoked a lot. I was shocked when Mary Lynn told me that my dad was in a lot better health than hers, because at Uncle Chuck's funeral, Tom and my dad pretty much looked like twins. I didn't even know who he was when he first came up to my dad. So anyway, my whole feeling towards him dying is pretty much of indifference. So he died...that really sucks, and I hope my dad's okay, but it really has no effect on me since I barely knew the man. Yes, he was family, but he was more of an acquaintance to me, if that.
On a more positive note, yesterday Derek and I celebrated our one year anniversary. This is huge for me, especially because I've never made it to a year with anyone before. Obviously I'm going to spend the rest of my life with Derek, but getting to that one year mark was really something special. We didn't even do anything special. We considered going to a museum downtown, but they all closed at around 5 p.m. and we didn't even get out of bed until noon or so. We decided to head up to Woodfield to wander around. We didn't buy anything at all, but we did enjoy dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was pretty yummy. We got our cheesecakes to go and came back home, where we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and ate our cheesecake. And that's pretty much it!
Healthwise, I haven't been feeling the greatest for the past two weeks or so. I've been dizzy a lot and sometimes nauseous, with a lot of headaches as well. Sarah told me yesterday that I was probably dehydrated, and I think that was true. I drank a lot of water yesterday, and i don't think I got dizzy or nauseous once! Guess I'll just have to keep that up...I'm going to lay off the soda (which I never drank a lot of soda before we moved into our apartment) and up my water intake.
I can't wait to start working tomorrow. There is no way I could ever be a housewife...this month has bored the shit out of me. It will be really nice to actually contribute to the household monetarily.
Well, I guess that's all for now. Laters.
I've been out of work since December 12. I applied to many, MANY jobs, and accepted one at an entry-level marketing firm. I went one day and had such an awful time that I called the next morning and quit. Basically, I was gone for about 12 hours, we drove around all of creation, stopped at 76 businesses, and made one sale. I was going to get $200 for 3 days of training, but I would not get the money until I made $400 on my own. The girl I was training with made $35 that day. So I freaked out, decided that I really didn't want to spend my entire day in a car, and quit.
I had a few more interviews after that and was finally hired at a place called DirectBuy in Naperville. It's basically a higher class Sam's Club type thing. We specialize in home furnishings, and a membership allows a person to buy high quality home furnishings directly from the manufacturer, without the retailer's 40+% markup. I start there tomorrow. The hours are afternoons and evenings, and it would be about 30 hours a week. I start out at $10 per hour during training (2 to 6 weeks) and then I am paid $125 for each person I contact that actually becomes a member of DirectBuy. My job title is Marketing Associate, but what it comes down to is I am an appointment setter. I call leads that have already been generated for me and invite people to come to the DirectBuy facility to learn more about the company and to have the opportunity to become a member. I'm excited about it because my target income is only midway up their scale. There is a lot of income potential, but it's not all commission-based because I will make a minimum of $10 per hour. I also applied at Jewel last night for a part time morning cashier position (or whatever they have), just to add an extra source of income. Money is tight right now since I've been out of work for so long. Luckily Derek makes decent money at Cheeseburger, but he's even looking for another opportunity.
Other than my financial situation, I found out yesterday that one of my uncles (Tom) has died, either Friday or Saturday. Now, before any of you starts offering me your condolences, this particular uncle is my dad's next oldest brother (they are 2 years apart). About 15 years ago he decided to basically stop talking to the rest of the family and moved from the Effingham area to Ohio. The next time I saw him, which is ironically the last time I saw him, was four years ago at my Uncle Chuck's funeral (Uncle Chuck was my dad's oldest brother). Honestly, we were all surprised that he even showed up there. The only contact I've had with his family is through his daughter, Mary Lynn, who works at Wal-Mart in Effingham and would come in to Subway every day. I didn't even realize who she was until she started asking about my family. Anyway, apparently Uncle Tom had been in pretty bad health...he suffered a heart attack about six months ago, and I guess he was really overweight and smoked a lot. I was shocked when Mary Lynn told me that my dad was in a lot better health than hers, because at Uncle Chuck's funeral, Tom and my dad pretty much looked like twins. I didn't even know who he was when he first came up to my dad. So anyway, my whole feeling towards him dying is pretty much of indifference. So he died...that really sucks, and I hope my dad's okay, but it really has no effect on me since I barely knew the man. Yes, he was family, but he was more of an acquaintance to me, if that.
On a more positive note, yesterday Derek and I celebrated our one year anniversary. This is huge for me, especially because I've never made it to a year with anyone before. Obviously I'm going to spend the rest of my life with Derek, but getting to that one year mark was really something special. We didn't even do anything special. We considered going to a museum downtown, but they all closed at around 5 p.m. and we didn't even get out of bed until noon or so. We decided to head up to Woodfield to wander around. We didn't buy anything at all, but we did enjoy dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was pretty yummy. We got our cheesecakes to go and came back home, where we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and ate our cheesecake. And that's pretty much it!
Healthwise, I haven't been feeling the greatest for the past two weeks or so. I've been dizzy a lot and sometimes nauseous, with a lot of headaches as well. Sarah told me yesterday that I was probably dehydrated, and I think that was true. I drank a lot of water yesterday, and i don't think I got dizzy or nauseous once! Guess I'll just have to keep that up...I'm going to lay off the soda (which I never drank a lot of soda before we moved into our apartment) and up my water intake.
I can't wait to start working tomorrow. There is no way I could ever be a housewife...this month has bored the shit out of me. It will be really nice to actually contribute to the household monetarily.
Well, I guess that's all for now. Laters.