People Notice Your Attitude

Life can be funny sometimes.  I’m in the middle of a lot of interesting things.  Tonight was my third night at work and shortly after I got to work today my boss pulled me aside.  We were going to go into his office but he was looking for someone else we work with to join us.  He went to great lengths to find him, searching all over the office and outside which was making me increasingly nervous.  Did I screw up?  Did I mess up something on some paperwork somewhere?  What’s going on?  We meet up with a guy I work with out in the parking lot (he was on his phone) and my boss tells me that he’s noticed that I’m a good employee, a hard worker and I’m always willing to help so he wants my help.  In our exit department (the final person people talk to if they don’t buy anything) they need some help at times when there are too many people waiting.  He said if I want to, they’d appreciate my help back there when they get bottlenecked.  It’s an awesome job and pays ridiculously well.  For literally 5 minutes of work I’ll make $120 when someone buys something from me back there, I’m definitely ok with that.  If they don’t buy, it only took 90 seconds of my time.  Those are some pretty good odds for me.  So I said I’d love to and I was trained on that tonight.  What’s even more exciting is that my boss told the guy who runs that department that if he ever needs help to make sure I’m the first person he calls on (there’s currently about 4 other people who know how to do it) for help.  Considering I’ve only been here for 3 days I’d say that’s pretty freaking good.

He also gave me tomorrow off, which I’m incredibly thankful for.  Jackie and I are going to be spending the day moving in.  It’s going to make for a very long day, but it’ll be freaking great to finally get in there, I can’t wait.  We really aren’t going to have much stuff to start out with, but it’s better than nothing.  It’s going to be fantastic.  Jackie spent her night tonight slaving over the closets and bathroom and other stuff, being a lysol warrior or, as she put it, “the Hitler of germs.”  Such an awesome girl.

And she’s about out of the shower so I guess this is all for now.  Seeing as we won’t have an internet connection over there at first I’m not too sure when I’ll be on here, it might be a while in between, but I’ll throw up some photos on here as soon as possible. 

First Day At My New Job!!

Tonight was my first night at my new job.  I’m definitely digging it.  I didn’t take any tours, instead I sat in on other people’s tours and listened to what they’re doing to try and get an idea for how people’s presentations go.  I did, however, help out with someone’s contract paperwork.  The manager asked me to help because I worked for the company two years ago and have definitely done my share of contracts and half of the people on the floor have been there less than two months.  It’s such a relief getting back to their contracts which are all of maybe 6 pages.  At the last two places I’ve worked they’ve been deeded property so the paperwork is massive, similar to buying a home.  Definitely nicer and quicker with this.   I think tomorrow I’m going to start taking tours.  I also really like my new schedule, 4:45pm until somewhere around 9pm.  The downside (and it is a really big one) is that it’s basically the opposite of Jackie’s schedule so I’m not going to see her much, except on our days off.  I have a feeling most nights are going to be like tonight where she’s already sound asleep when I get home from work.  I tried waking her up (I’m annoying like that) but after about 10 minutes of her waking up for 30 seconds and falling back asleep I gave up and decided to hop on here for a bit.  I figure it’s only right that I wake her up when I get home since she wakes me up in the morning when she’s getting ready  :p

She’s so freaking awesome though, I love her so much.  Tonight when I got home, even though she was already asleep, she had put dinner in the microwave for me so all I had to do was warm it up.  She’s so awesome.  I can’t wait until we can move fully in and start living there, it’s going to be so fantastic.  Our apartment is super rad and my girlfriend is like the raddest girl ever.  She’s a smartass and a pain in the ass sometimes, but that just makes me love her all the more.

Depending on how things go over the next, say, week and a half I’m going to start looking into getting a second, daytime job.  I don’t think I’ll need one but I’ve definitely learned over the past couple years to take any opportunity when you have one, and working this schedule certainly qualifies as an opportunity in my book.  Plus, I really don’t want Jackie to ever have to worry about bills and stuff.  I want her to not worry or stress ever about money, knowing that we have at least a couple months worth of rent set aside just in case.  I want to start saving and setting money aside for a house.  That’s something that’s been on my mind a lot lately.  Not that I’m necessarily going to live in Ocean Grove for the rest of my life (though if Jackie has her way it’ll certainly be w/in about 45 minutes of this area) but the idea of spending the same money on rent instead of a mortgage and having nothing to show for it is really seeming idiotic.  Plus, with all of the help you can get with loans now, especially for first time buyers and being young, I figured it’s a real good idea to try and take advantage of that.  So hopefully by the time this lease is up we’ll be able to start making a move in that direction.

My mom was giving me all sorts of grief on the phone tonight about moving home.  She wasn’t happy when I told her that I probably wasn’t going to be moving home anytime soon.  If I were to move, as things stand right now, Jackie would be coming with me and right now I think It’d be easier to build a tunnel w/ a high speed train from NJ to Wisco by myself than talk her into moving out of this area.  I would absolutely love it if that were to change in say 4 or 5 years time but… only time will tell.  On second thought, maybe I should start digging now…

Our apartment is going to be so rad.  It’s such a freaking weird place.  I’ll explain more on that once we’re in there and I can put up pictures to demonstrate.  One thing I will say is that it’s a really strange layout and I think sometimes that’ll work in our advantage.  Like the living room closet.  It’s in the corner and inside is a water pipe with shelves cut out around it.  The shelves seem like the perfect place to put a tv and dvd player and all that and have it just hidden away in the closet so you just have to open that up whenever you want to use it.  The shelves below could hold DVDs and what not and it’d just be nice.  In our bedroom there’s a door that has drywall behind it.  Our doors are crooked as are our windows.  I don’t know, I really like it, it has character.  I can’t wait to be in there with Jackie.  My plan is to start running either in the mornings (when Jackie wakes me up as she’s getting ready) or at night (when I can’t wake her up to save my life) right along the ocean since we’re a block and a half away and there’s a boardwalk running right along it.  It’ll be beautiful.  Anyways, that’s all for now.

Beatlemania!

Last night Jackie and I went down to Atlantic City.  For Valentine’s Day she had bought me tickets to Beatlemania at Harrahs which, as you can probably guess, is a Beatles tribute show.  I was definitely impressed, I had a blast.  They did really well and all of the stage effects were fantastic.  I’d say it was equal parts entertainment from the music and the show as well as from watching the older people in the crowd really get into it.  I’m definitely happy we went. 

Today we were supposed to go and clean the apartment but the building manager hasn’t been answering his phone yet so we haven’t been able to get over there.  The worst part is I got the car all packed up and we started driving over there before Jackie called him and got his voicemail.  Apparently he told her the other day to just give a call and, since he’ll be working in the area, he’ll just stop by to let us in.  He can’t give us our copies of the keys yet because he’s still waiting on the city to do the CO inspection.  If we had our copies then none of this would be an issue to say the least.  Oh well, such is life.  Just another challenge for us to get through (God knows we’ve had plenty of those lately and it doesn’t appear they’ll be going away anytime soon.)

Joint

Hopefully within the next 8 days we’ll be all moved into the apartment.  Tonight we’re going down to Atlantic City for the Beatlemania show.  Jackie got me tickets to it for Valentines Day so that’ll be super exciting.  Tomorrow we’re probably going to spend the day cleaning the apartment, as we will Monday.  Throughout the week we’ll start moving smaller stuff in (boxes and what not) and then next weekend we’ll get a uhaul and move all of the larger stuff in.  So hopefully by next Sunday we’ll be all moved in so that next Monday I’ll be able to sit around and enjoy my day off and enjoy our new little city.

Jackie and I went to open a joint checking account yesterday, one where we can put our rent money into.  We both have the same bank so it was easy to open another account.  The nice thing is we can move money from our accounts into this account online so it’s real easy to make sure the rent money is there.  I’m thinking that if this new job does direct deposit then I’ll set it up so each pay period half of my portion of the rent gets put into that mutual account and the rest into my personal account.  I should probably read a bit more of the handbook thing they gave me and try to find out if that’s an option.

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New Job

Tonight I went for an interview at a New Jersey branch of a company I worked for in Wisco.  They started out telling me that it was bad timing and there were no openings and I’d have to keep in touch.  The VP of Sales remembered me though and told the office director to give me a job as they “always have room for a great sales rep” according to the VP.  So I’ll be starting Tuesday.  Right now I’m trying to decide when I’ll be quitting my current job.  Do I even go in tomorrow?  Do I work through Saturday?

I have a few issues I’m tossing around.  One being tomorrow is pay day.  Once they deposit it into my account I’m golden.  It’s not much money, but I want it.  If I quit before it’s in my account then they’ll hold onto it in case any deals kick, which is the last thing I want.  So if it’s been deposited into my account before I go into work tomorrow then I can quit.  However, Jackie and I have tickets to Beatlemania! in Atlantic City on Saturday night, which she got me for Valentines Day.  Since we’re going to need to be down there anyways, should I go into work Saturday?  That can go one of two ways… (1) I go into work in the morning and then she joins me later, requiring two cars down there and both of us having to drive back afterwards; or (2) I quit and don’t go in and then once Jackie’s done with work on Saturday we drive down together.  The reason I’m leaning more towards quitting is because I won’t get any money for any deals I write over the next couple days since I won’t be there to collect it.  The way the company is setup is they hold any pay for 90 days once you quit in case any deals cancel.

So that’s all news.  Now I’m also looking for an A.M. job.  I’m hoping to find one that requires basically no energy or much effort as my night job will take all that.  I just want extra money coming into us, we’re definitely going to need it for at least the first few months.

Jackie’s mom is frickin awesome.  She’s been helping us out in a major way, as has most of her family.  Her mom went to Habitat for Humanity today and put a deposit down to hold a few things for us so we could go take a look and see if we liked them.  We did.  And some other things.  So we’re going to have a sleeper sofa, a lamp, a chair and a leather desk chair.  It’s going to be fantastic.  Her family has a bunch of other stuff for us too.  Not much of it is going to match, but it’s going to be freaking awesome 

I really hope this phone comes to Verizon for Jackie.  I know she’ll looooove it…

And somehow she manages to put up with me and my stupid antics…

New Pictures of Jackie & I

Click them for larger versions. 

 

Everything’s New

I’m officially living at Jackie’s house now.  I have been for the last 8 days.  So much nicer coming home and not worrying about who’s drunk and going to go on a drunken rampage.  Such a relief.  We went and signed the lease for the apartment in Ocean Grove last Thursday.  Probably about 2 weeks until we move in, maybe 3 weeks at most.  It’s all dependent on when I can come up with the security deposit.  Hopefully soon.

I’m 99% sure I’m leaving my current job to go and work for the company I worked for in Wisconsin.  My current job keeps extending the hours to do training, but the problem is no matter how much training you have you can’t put money in someone’s pocket.  The only people we’ve been seeing lately for the most part are people who rely on our free gifts as money to get gas to get home with.  They’re broke.  I’m not happy driving an hour and a half each way to and from work, working 11 hour days and only getting the “steady pay” which is our guaranteed pay of $250/week.  Most definitely not worth it.  So unless things drastically change over the next few weeks I’m out of there.  I’m staying until we’re in our place because I need to make sure I have the money for the security deposit and if I quit they freeze any money coming my way for (I believe) 6 months in case of any cancellations.  So I’ll be sure to quit when there’s a small check coming my way.

Jackie’s family is seriously hooking us up with stuff for the apartment.  Her mom has been a major help to us.  Not only giving us some of her stuff, but also making calls to Jackie’s aunts and grandma and other relatives to see who might have some stuff we could use.  Extremely cool of her mom.  It’s awesome because it also shows that her mom is behind us in this move and is supportive of us, which is also very helpful.

At this point I’m kind of tempted to try and sell some of the few things left that I own, just to guarantee we have enough money for the apartment.  Things like my camera and my laptop and other stuff that I like and love, but can also do without.  Maybe see if I could get like $100 for my PSP or something as well.  I might be heading to see a pawnshop soon I guess.  I could try putting it up on craigslist or something but…  I think a pawnshop is a bit quicker, which matters right now.

I’m still totally excited to finally be in our place together.  I can’t wait to live with Jackie and not have to worry about who’s around and what we’re talking about or what we’re wearing or what we’re doing or anything like that.  I’m looking forward to cooking for her.  I’m looking forward to her cleaning.  I’m looking forward to us functioning as a couple, you know?  Should be real nice.

The weather today is beautiful so I can’t wait to be in our place with weather like this.  Sitting on the balcony and relaxing… will be so nice.  It looks like Jackie and I are going with her mom and maybe her grandma to do some measurements on the apartment for curtains and what not and get another idea on what we’re doing with decorations.  I’m going to be bringing my camera to take some pictures while we’re there.  I’m really looking forward to all this change.  New place with my new(ish) girl and a new job.  It should be awesome.

Jackie and I are just awesome.  She’s finally seeing how much of a pain in the ass I can be to live with when I’m stressed or hungry/tired and crabby.  But she’s ok with it as much as she can be and she’s a real angel about it.  I haven’t had to concern myself with my actions and stuff and how all that affects someone else in quite a while so it’s a process for me but I’m getting there.  In the mean time I think she’s the perfect girl for me.  She’s just as fucking weird and goofy as I am.  She’ll make random noises and weird things with her hands and make faces and… just weird stuff I usually do around people I’m comfortable with.  She’s fantastic and I’m so happy with her.  As soon as she’s gone to work I miss her and can’t wait to be around her goofy ass again.  …we’re just freaking strange together and we make one hell of a weird couple but we fit so incredibly well.  I don’t see her and I breaking up anytime soon, if at all.

You know, I think the only thing I can really complain about right now (other than my job and lack of money and ZOMG STRESS) is my sinuses are a mess.  Can’t shake this congestion.  But, back to Jackie again, she works her ass off to try and make sure I’m taking vitamins and meds to help me feel better and get better.  She’s a perfect fucking angel 

Purging My Room

I’m so tired.  I wanted to drive out to Jackie’s tonight and officially move in there for the remainder of the month tonight.  I had a long day at work and when I got home I started the process of purging all of my belongings and getting rid of anything I don’t need.  By the time I was done with that it was a bit too late to head out there.  It looks like I’ll finish packing stuff and move it out there tomorrow after work.  My hope is that tomorrow is slow.  I wrote a deal today, but there were problems with the money so they’re coming back tomorrow morning after going to the bank.  Hopefully I’ll have them come in in the morning, write that deal up, maybe see one more tour and then get to go home early-ish so I can finish this up.

The guy who manages the apartments we’ve been looking at said it’s almost a sure bet we’ll get the place.  Jackie went and filled out the application and dropped that off today and I guess we’ll find out for sure whether we’re approved for it on Wednesday.  Fingers crossed and all that.  I really can’t wait to move in there.

I talked to a lady I work with today about Ocean Grove (where the apartment is) and this job in Princeton that I want to move over to.  She had nothing but great things to say about both and it was really encouraging.  I’ll be giving this job until at least the end of the month but once we’re into the apartment I may be doing a change in employer.  She said the drive from Ocean Grove to Princeton is a much easier drive as well, very much a straight shot and almost entirely highway with no stop lights involved.

When Jackie and I move into this place it’s going to be so ghetto, just because we’re broke and won’t have much in the way of furniture or decorations.  We’re probably going to be sleeping on an air mattress for the first month and eating ramen or something similarly cheap.  I’m going to try to talk my mom into buying us a futon when she comes to visit instead of spending money on a hotel room.  We’ll see how much luck I have with that.  That would be real nice to have in our living room though.

I think tomorrow I’m either going to stop at the Uhaul place in Absecon and get a couple cardboard boxes or I’m going to just throw all of my stuff in plastic bags.  Just about everything that I’ll need to move is clothes.  The rest is my computer and some small stuff like papers and books and magazines, but there’s very little of that.  At this point I’d say it’s a safe bet that everything I own can fit in my car so I should only need to make one trip up to Jackie’s.  This will also make moving into the apartment very easy and quick.

I desperately want to be in this apartment.  I want to be sleeping next to Jackie every night.  I want to have that balcony to chill on in the summer.  I want to be able to wake up slowly on my days off, put on some light music and just hang out with Jackie, maybe walking around the area shops and the ocean and just enjoying life on my days off (think warmer weather).  I’m sure I’ll have a ton of photos up here once we move in.  I have a feeling I’ll be taking photos all the time actually.  I’m also going to like being closer to NYC.  I think (once we have a bit more money) I’ll be trying to talk Jackie into going up to NYC for shows and whatnot whenever we have off.  If/when I switch jobs I’ll be back on a night schedule again, working from roughly 4pm to 9pm so I’ll be able to have a night life again when Jackie doesn’t work the next day.

I would love to write a massive deal tomorrow in addition to the one that’s coming in in the morning.  Once I got paid on it I would quit, take a couple weeks off work and grow back my facial hair (at least some of it) and then switch jobs.  That sounds nice.  Actually, more so, I’d like to win the mega millions lottery which is up to something like 380 million.  Granted half of it goes away to taxes but for some reason I think I can live with 190 million in my bank account.  That’s just silly money.

Stress Before Happiness

Wow, it’s been a few weeks since I wrote on here last.  Time has been flying by lately, it feels like I don’t have any time to do much other than work and see Jackie.  That’s not a bad thing.

A lot has changed lately.  I’m spending most nights at Jackie’s house and driving to work on workdays in the mornings.  We decided over the last couple weeks that we wanted to get an apartment together and we’ve basically solidified that decision over this past week.  To try and make things easier in regards to saving for the security deposit we’ve decided that I’m going to move in with her for the remainder of this month, most likely effective tomorrow.  That way I can save the rent money I would be paying and put it towards this new place, especially since I’m already spending most nights at her place and not here.  We found this awesome one bedroom in a city called Ocean Grove, only a block and a half off of the ocean.  It’s beautiful.  Recently refinished and they added a new private balcony on it as well, which is huge.  We can see down onto the street but people below can’t see up.  It’s nice.  Jackie and I have slightly conflicting views on decorating it (it’s a pink and sparkly vs titanium and shiny war) but I have no doubt we’ll make it work.  Once we get into this place April 1st, I’ll be able to make plans for my mom to come and visit this summer, which is exciting.  I’m definitely excited since we’ll be right on the ocean now.  What’s also nice is this city is a lot of like St Augustine in Florida, in that it has a ton of little shops all over and has a very small town feel to it.  Should be nice.

I’m also thinking of switching jobs.  I’m thinking about going back to the company I worked for in Wisconsin before moving to Florida.  They have an office closer to the apartment and I did better with them than I’m doing now, so I think it might be in my best interest.  I’ll be making that decision shortly after getting settled into the apartment.

Right now I’m feeling exhausted.  The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity between the apartment situation, moving in with Jackie and work.  Has me quite stressed.  Once this next month is over I will be much more relaxed, which will be very nice.  I’ll be looking forward to sitting on our balcony with a mojito or a gin and tonic in my hand and relaxing with the ocean breeze coming in.  Just thinking about that relaxes me.

I need to call the IRS tomorrow and get last year’s W2s for the company I worked for in Florida sent to me so I can file my taxes and hopefully get a return, which would also help tremendously with the apartment’s security deposit.  I’m really hoping it doesn’t end up that I owe money.  I need all the money I can get right now.