Eye Twitch is Now my Tick

I have experienced so many things since becoming unemployed. During this period of time in my life I have developed new pet peeves. Actually, they are pet peeves that I probably would have had all along except I had just not yet experienced the phenomenon of being unemployed. My biggest one is how companies who post for jobs in newspapers, on Craigslist, or other avenues tell you to either email or mail your resume but then don’t confirm that they got your information. In these ads they tell you “no calls” but fail to let you know if they received your email or regular snail mail. They leave you hanging. Seriously!

The following is my open letter to all Employers on business etiquette and just general, all around good manners (in my humble opinion):

Dear Potential Employers

Please respond to all perspective employees even if it is just to say “sorry, you just aren’t what we are looking for” or “we have all ready filled the position” or “we received your information”. To do otherwise is poor form.

Sincerely,

Kathi

Don’t they know that they can set up an automatic reply to emails? I even think there might be an App for that. Do they realize that people need to move on to the next job possibility? Do they realize they need to hire me so I can do those things for them?

Come on!!

Will Read for Money

I have read the fist 6 books in the Sweep series for a total of 1126 pages since Sunday. It is a teen paranormal series about witches. I have been reading a lot of teen books lately because I had a dream that I was writing a series myself. I love the idea that I dreamed about and decided that research was needed. I wanted to know if the idea had been done all ready so I started Google-ing and reading. So far it looks like it hasn’t. I think I’ll have to get to writing. I do have an awful lot of time on my hands. I may be spending a lot of time at Starbucks then…typing with my headphones on and drinking a chai latte. Well, not so much the latte…those cost money, which means I might be one of “those” people. You know, those people, the ones that take up a table and don’t buy anything. I wonder if it makes a difference that it is inside a Barnes and Noble. Hmmmmm.

Today I decided to keep a list from this point on of the books that I read. Wish I would have started this earlier. I can’t even imagine how long the list would be. It would probably boggle my mind and a few others. It would be so awesome if I could get paid for reading books. I would be happy and rich. I’ve had a secret longing, like forever or pretty much since I was a kid. I would love to own a book store. Not a big one but one that specialized in children’s books or had quirky books in it. I don’t think this is something that could be done nowadays because of box book stores or online bookstores. I always imagined it would be in an old building in a historic district with potted plants outside with window flower boxes and twinkle lights in the windows.

There was a brief period of time when I was a kid that my Dad worked in a book store. At least I think it was a bookstore…I need to confirm that memory but I do remember lots of books, boxes of books, and the smell of books. Anyway, the store was freezing and my Dad would always bring his red plaid thermos filled with coffee to the store. My Dad was a crazy coffee drinker. He used to take the lid cup from the thermos and make me a cup of coffee (mostly milk and sugar). This was Kathi and Dad time and boy did I thing that I was so grown up drinking that coffee with my Dad. The coffee thing never stuck but I still love the smell of it. It reminds me of my Dad. It gives me the warm fuzzies.

I still think it would be brilliant to get paid to read. Or maybe I will write that book series and get paid to do that.

Resolutions of a Non-Resolutionist

It is that time of the year, time to put 2012 on a bunch of checks so I don’t act like a dork and forget and put 2011 on them. It is also time to put the Christmas decorations away. It has actually been fun having them up since I haven’t done so in 5 years. Last year I kind of did, I bought a small pre-lit tree for $15.00. It was the kind that is supposed to be outside on your doorstep. I got it after Christmas for when my parents came for a visit in early January to celebrate our Christmas. Sooooo…I don’t really count that. It is also time for The NHL Winter Classic which is an outdoor hockey game. The biggest thing that happens this time of year is the making of resolutions.

Apparently New Years is the oldest of the holidays and started around 4000 years ago in ancient Babylon. The biggest difference is that it was celebrated on the first day of spring. The Romans are the ones who started messing with the calendar and moved it to January 1 but then Julius Caesar tweaked it even more by moving January so it would match up with the sun. When he did that the previous year lasted 445 days. Talk about the longest year ever.

When I was looking for more good luck New Year’s foods besides Black Eyed Peas and Pork/Sauerkraut I came across a site that said resolutions started in Babylon also. The most popular resolutions were resolving to return borrowed farm equipment sooner. I’m guessing all the toiling in the dirt and on the farm they wouldn’t have had to worry about weight loss resolutions.

Resolution is defined as: “a formal expression of opinion or intention made” or “a resolve or determination.” Don’t you hate when they use part of the word to define a word. A-nnoying!

For me, resolutions are like resolving to set myself up for failure. I really don’t want to take the clean slate of 2012 and write on it with permanent marker. Too much pressure. Something like only 12% (I swear I didn’t make that percentage up. I read it somewhere on the internet so it must be true) of people actually fulfills their resolutions. Not very good odds if you ask me. I hope that I continue to grow, change, and build better habits everyday not just on the first day of the new year. So, I hope I have evolved enough to leave resolutions behind me and just live.

So in closing…essentially, I am saying that I am Non-Resolutionist and I resolve to continue to be as such.

A Glass of Bubbles

SodaStream is burpalicious!

2011 in Review

Another year comes to a close and I can’t say that I’ll be sorry to see this one go. I know for many people it was one they would love to turn from and never look back on. Kind of like Lots wife looking back on Sodom and Gomorrah then turning into a pillar of salt but for me I’m thinking about it more in terms of Medusa. Maybe if I don’t look it straight in the eye I won’t turn to stone.  It had its ups and downs much like any other year but this one apparently had a lesson for me to learn. I got the message but I think it is in Greek and I am still unsure of the lesson. I may never know what the lesson was and I think I might be ok with that or at the very least come to terms with it.

This is the year that joblessness came for me. It didn’t just come for me it bitched slapped me upside of the head. Bastard. This has been a first for me. My first job was as a babysitter at the age of 11. My brother and I were also entrepreneurs growing up. We used to go crickin’ and catch crawfish so sell to our neighbor to give to his coon dogs during training. We also had a couple of rabbits and would sell their poop to people for their gardens. Oh yeah, we were slick. I baby sat all through high school then went to work at a camp during the summers. Once I got to college I worked two jobs while in school and worked at the camp in the summers. Then I became a nanny…well, you get the idea. I have always worked. Always.

I have now been out of work for 9 months. Which I have to tell you is totally sucktastic. It isn’t for the lack of trying to find another job. I have now sent out 33 resumes (give or take one or two). The continued lack of response from prospective employers is totally disheartening. This hard to explain but it is really hard on your self esteem. I have tried to explain it a couple of times and haven’t really done a good job. Losing your job (having it taken from you) and not being able to find another job right away just does something to you. I mean, do I smell? Did I offend? Do I have a booger hanging out of my nose? I have also tried to explain how I feel like I am just on vacation from my job. It is like I will be going back to work at anytime and I have been just playing. I know this feeling will go away once I have another job. I just kind of feel like I am in my own never ending Groundhog’s Day and am waiting to wake up to a different day.

My family also lost my cousin Eddie John this past month. It has been super hard on my Mom who is the youngest of 9 children and because of this has had to see a lot of her family go before her. My cousin, Nettie, (one of Eddie John’s girls) is getting “married” in a couple of weeks but when Eddie John was in the hospital and they knew it wouldn’t be much longer Nettie and her fiancée brought their priest to the hospital and got married in front of her dad. The doctors cut back a bit on his morphine so that he would be aware of the ceremony. He passed away a couple of days later.

Good parts of 2011 have been Virginia and this house. Being in a different place while I recover from the last 5 years (well, 3 really) has been unbelievably great. Getting to reconnect with old friends has been amazing. Angus and Ophelia have been pretty happy having me around all the time. Sitting on a porch swing reading a book and drinking lemonade is my kind of happy.

Maybe I should have gone to the store and gotten some good luck foods. Black Eyed Peas, Lentils, Cabbage, Doughnuts…I could use all the help I can get.

So, 2011, I wish you farewell. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Congress Can Kiss My...

Dear Congress,

I hope that as you sit in your warm house that is paid for off the backs of hard working Americans that you are enjoying the company of your camera ready family, your ostentatiously decorated home, and your snifter of 80 year old brandy that you, at the very LEAST, suffer some sort of twinge of conscience at the mess you left for Americans during this holiday season. American’s who can barely afford to put food on their tables let alone buy gifts for their families.

Just to remind you, that as you play out an old spaghetti western by staging a standoff in the middle of America’s dusty streets while staring each other in the eye at high noon, myself and millions of Americans  are out of work. Americans who are quite eager to work, actually, we WANT to work. Americans, who would be more than happy to be blessed with a simple cup of hot chocolate, a Charlie Brown tree, and give their children at least one present a piece, but please don’t worry about us…we are ONLY the people that voted you into office. I guess we are of no consequence to you.

What really does my head in is the fact that we as Americans voted you into office. We voted you in on promises that you made and that we so naively believed. You like to describe yourselves as “civil servants” or at least that is what you say during an election year, however, the only people I see you serving are yourselves. I actually have wanted to believe in our system but apparently I am gullible enough to have fallen for something that has been nothing but an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors. Does anyone have a bridge in Brooklyn that they want to sell me?

No wonder Americans are disenfranchised with their government. You all sit in your posh offices with your errand runners and your “perks” that you get from big companies trying to look like they aren’t buying your backing. Come on, really?!?!?! Golf trips on private jets?!?!?!?! And you wonder why people took to the streets in protest. What a slap in the face!! It is the modern day “let them eat cake.”

My wish and hope for you this holiday season is that the over abundance of food that you are going to consume offers you not only no feeling of fullness but also gives you indigestion. After that, I hope you can’t find any Tums or Pepto-Bismol.  I hope the sleep that you get is hard won, offers you no real feeling of restfulness, and is plagued by nightmares. My wish for you is that you are blessed with whiny children who suffer from a grand sense of entitlement.  

So as Christmas rapidly approaches and I have to borrow money from my family for gas just so I can spend Christmas with them you will excuse me my anger and disgust that you have left Americans hanging with a dark cloud over their holiday. And you will understand that  I cannot say that I wish you a Merry Christmas, a blessed Hanukkah, and/or the Happiest of Holidays because I would be lying, however, I do wish it for my fellow Americans who are left to wonder what awaits us on January 1.

Kathi Seymour

“To Affirm is to Make Firm”

This particular fortune cookie fortune makes me chuckle (chortle if you will), especially when I add the social game phrase “in bed.” Admit it, you giggled too…or at the very least, smiled. I will try not to let my mind slip into the gutter, where it spends much of its time…and it is never alone (I won’t name name’s but you know who you are). After thinking about what this fortune was actually saying and also putting it into a search engine I realized what it was telling me…and it didn’t have anything to do with staying in bed.

The definition of “affirm” is “to declare to be true; assert positively.” It is said that repeating affirmations can be a pretty powerful brain training technique. I’m guessing this could or would be considered a mantra. To affirm something is to make it firm. This means you are making your desired ambition or goal real. You are making positive statements or affirmations about your end goal. These mantras are repeated over and over again which in turn can train the subconscious mind into finding ways to make your goals become real.

One website I visited had 7 rules to affirming your life: use present tense, be positive, be specific, short & easy, include feelings and strong desire, repeat anytime, anywhere, rinse and repeat. Ok, so it really didn’t say anything about rinsing but my mind sidetracked itself. The last one actually said “You may repeat affirmations aloud, mentally, or by writing them down.” That particular rule reminded me of my impressionable preteen and teen age years. Do you remember when you would have a crush on someone and you would write their name with yours? It could have been “Kathi & Todd”, “Kathi loves Todd”, “Todd loves Kathi”, or “Kathi & Todd 4ever”. Or you would write your name like you were married to that other person (boys may or may not have done this). Example: “Katherine Black”. You would copy this endlessly on your notebook. Every chance you got you would write it over and over and over and over again. I’m so glad this particular exercise in affirming to make firm didn’t work. One…I could have been branded a stalker if my subconscious mind worked to make it come true and Two…it could have worked and I would have ended up with a moniker like “Katherine Butts” (names have been changed to protect the innocence).

I think I will keep this fortune focused on my current state of joblessness. My desire to have a job is strong and my will is most willing, just ask it. It isn’t as if I am not trying…because I am. I have sent out 30 resumes/applications give or take one or two. I have to keep track of them so that the unemployment agency can verify. So, here it goes…”I will find a job in the very near future. It will be a job that compliments my abilities and allows me to still have a life. My employers will be kind and not shady. They will value me as an employee and never take me for granted. They will not ask me to lie or withhold information from customers.” CRAP! That is too long isn’t it? Ok, ok, how about this…”JOB NOW”.

While writing this blog entry I realized that the name of my blog is actually an exercise in affirming to make firm. I am attempting to write myself to the right side of happy. So every time I submit a new entry it is like affirming my firmness in being firm about my intent to be happy. Well, something like that anyway.

Happy side of write…thanks Yoda!