Damn Near Blew Me Away!

It’s 3 pm and the rain is coming down with pressure harder than that of my showerhead. It’s windy, breaking trees and we’ve been text-messaged a Tornado Warning. It could very well happen, but I doubt it. It’s hot and cold and humid. The kids are all sitting in the doorway listening to the weather and playing with the rain. They’re all bundled up in their winter rain coats and Derrick and I are sitting on the couch next to each other. The power is out and there isn’t much to do. I can’t go chat on Twitter or update Facebook with the wild weather updates. Oddly though, we’ve gotten 4 phone calls since the storm started 20 minutes ago. I hate that the internet is down and I can’t get online. So I’m sitting here, on the couch, in a humidity filled house, waiting for the power to kick back on, so I can post my blog.

I woke up to a bunch of tweets, replies and retweets from the dads on Modern Dads the TV show, so we chatted back and forth for a bit til the kids were ready to be walked to school. I had a meeting this afternoon with the District Manager of Payless for Riverside County in southern California at noon. I walked the kiddos to school and came back and got back on the computer and emailed a few people before I got off to make myself a PB & Chocolate Protein Shake for breakfast. My favorite part of the shake is the Chia Seeds…am I weird? LOL After breakfast I decided I might as well start getting ready because hair and makeup can, honestly, take an hour if I’m doing it right. I picked out my outfit and laid it on the bed while I went and brushed my teeth and washed my face. I got my makeup done in 20 minutes and got dressed. It took me 10 minutes to do my hair all cute in a chignon.

I’m a pretty confident woman and I tend to go after what I want, so I happen to be a power color player. I wear notice me colors and I’m not afraid of rocking them. I have long nails that are currently painted blue ombre with glitter and I wore hot pink lipstick. I could almost pass for a New Yorker. Derrick says I looked classically cute today and I thank him for that because if he tells me I look good, then I KNOW I look good. I decided against wearing heels because heels could be interpreted as either sexual or domineering, which could still be misconstrued as sexual as well—either way I woulda been screwed-ha! So I wore simple, black ballet flats and a nice outfit. Too bad I didn’t remember that my blouse is see-thru and that there’s a simple white camisole underneath and that if pulled too tightly, the cami slips under my bra and shows everything through my shirt. I have no idea how long the cami has been under my bra, but that’s how I noticed it when I got home.

So, this afternoon I took the bus to the Galleria at Tyler Mall to have a meeting with the Payless District Manager about my employment whereabouts and he was a pretty cool guy. We literally BS’d for the whole meeting, just up until I literally had to leave to catch the bus with only minutes to spare. He showed me the program I’d be using, trained me in the conversion software and toured me through the backend of the store, which is vaguely similar to all the other Payless stores. So he said, you learn one, you learn em all. He scored me highly above average in the “second interview” process and offered me the job right on the spot while we were joking about his buddy who had a falling out with Dollar Tree. So, I officially have 2 jobs. I am a Cashier at Kmart and a Sales Associate at Payless. I know I can make this work. I have to. We need to get on our feet. We need to move to a bigger house. 4 kids in a small 2 bedroom apartment isn’t going to fly much longer. We need space.

I got home around 2pm and Derrick was cleaning the kitchen and the kids were all doing their homework at the kitchen table. I got on the laptop and checked my emails to see if any other closer to home job leads came through, but none yet. While I was at the mall, I checked in with Torrid, Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works and Motherhood Maternity. 2 said they weren’t starting interviews till October and the other 2 said they’d take my information and call me within a couple days. I know I have 2 jobs already, but they’re kind of out of the way and I need something closer to home *aka* one bus ride to and from work versus 2 to 3 different buses. Don’t get me wrong, I am completely grateful and happy to have Kmart and Payless and they’re not that far away from home and who wouldn’t want the employee discounts, but I’d be spending 90 minutes plus both to and coming home from work. That’s a lot of time I’m missing with the family. But you gotta do what you gotta do to make the family survive and have the things I didn’t have growing up, right? Exactly.

Funny story, at the mall today, this Sales guy who was trying to sell moisturizers to all the ladies shopping, caught me by the hand while I was walking by in a hurry and asked me to sample a few of their products. I’ll admit it, the guy had some gorgeous blue eyes and a foreign accent, so I didn’t say no. I tried the body scrub, the body butter and the facial cleanser. All worked wonderfully, but this Salesman worked his ass off in the flirting department just to make a sale. A sale that would never happen, because mama was broke, had no cash and 2 maxed out credit cards in her wallet, LOL. But I let him sweet talk me. I let him joke about me being too young to be married for 10 years and for having 3 kids (I’m 28 BTW) and I laughed at his “trying too hard” sales pitch. But when he got desperate, that’s when I had to cut ties and run. Run from the blue eyes and the thick Greek accent. He gave me his business card and told me he’d remember my face and would see me again when I came back to work. I smiled, nodded and ran for the bus—I had 5 minutes til departure and I was ½ the mall length away from the depot.

Now I’m home and relaxing and the power is still out. I took turkey out to thaw for homemade Meatloaf for dinner. The kids all need to take showers. But instead, I’m letting them all play a boardgame since I’m writing. Derrick hasn’t moved from the couch in the last 60 minutes as I’ve written this…technically I haven’t moved either, if you don’t count my fingers. The rain has stopped and the humidity is high and I’m starting to sweat my makeup off. I need some water. Maybe I’ll watch Shaun of the Dead while the power is out, but I doubt my laptop battery will survive a 2 hour movie after I’ve sat here typing this long ass blog for almost an hour. Derrick is listening to Nightwish on his cellphone and I’m listening to the kids play their boardgame. Who do I join once I’m done writing? Choices. Choices.