Vixie’s Blog

Welcome back,

It’s 11:30pm on a Monday night, and I have nothing better to do… So I’ll take a few moments and try to summarize my experience in my new home.

Let’s see, Well first off the weather has been at an all time low, well below seasonal temperature wise. My rule of thumb is that once the temperature goes below freezing, it doesn’t matter after that.  Sure I’m use to below freezing temps in Massachusetts. Sure I’ve seen it go as low as -2F and -5F with a wind chill, but last night it was seriously -20F, that is down right Arctic if you ask me!

I’m coming up on the 3 week mark since I quit my last job, so I’ve spend a good portion of this weekend applying for jobs. I would really love to get my foot in the door at a bakery, one in a grocery store so they offer training on the job… But I will admit to not feeling all that confident in getting a position in a bakery.

I have applied with 2 Chrysler dealerships, 1 Nissan, 1 Chevy/GMC, 2 Hotels for the front desk customer service position, Canadian Tire for a Parts Dept manager, another for a Parts consultant, a couple of entry level bakery/pastry positions, and a few others I can’t seem to remember.

In all fairness, I started my search on Friday, and I have been doing the lazy man applying online for most of them, with the intention of actually cleaning my car off and going out tomorrow.  I am secretly waiting for my phone to start ringing… Obviously not at this hour, but during normal business hours.

I am trying not to feel overwhelmed, or stressed out… but there is a part of me that can’t help it.  I don’t have any money coming in, and I still have to pay Transport Canada $204.75, pay for my new license, pay for registering/insuring my car and pay for 2 bills before the end of the month….

My sister in law offered to help me with money if I was going to be short, and as much as I do appreciate the offer, I just have a hard time accepting help and feeling like a charity case.  I have never been without a job for more than 2 weeks, and anytime I’ve quit, I always had something lined up…. But not this time.

As much as I would have wanted to start my job search BEFORE I got out here, I didn’t know when I would actually be out here. That being said, made it really hard to plan most things. I don’t like feeling that I am not carrying my own weight, and I don’t want to burden others with my financial obligations.

On another note, the air is a lot drier out here. Waking up with dry mouth every morning, my skin is extremely dry. I use lotion every day and it doesn’t seem to help. Just another minor adjustment, in no way am I complaining.

There certainly are plenty of jobs out here. Most start paying @ $10-$15/hour, which is better than Western Mass. However, the cost of living is alot more out here. James and I were looking at apartments, duplexes, condos the other night, just to get an idea about the monthly rent. A typical 2 bedroom apartment that includes heat/water/electric goes for $1300/month…. That is a mortgage payment in Western Mass! never mind any other expenses we have.

Here’s my plan…. I find a  job that pays better than my old job (to make up for the cost of living), I need to make enough money to cover the rent and at least my bills (credit card debt). James is self employed and it’s not steady income… Sometimes he’s bombarded with work, and other times he has nothing going on. I know he will find a steady job if we really need the money, but once his business of web designing picks up, he’ll quit the steady income job.

He’s also hoping to launch his product in January 2010 and hopes that all of his hard work will pay off. I hope it does as well as he anticipates. So much so that he expects to make at least $500,000 from this project. The product hasn’t even launched yet and his parents already have that money spent. *sigh* They are entitled to a percentage of what he makes, but they are hoping to clear over $300k to pay off their debts and to have money to live on for the next year, you read that right… the next year!

Needless to say, That only adds more pressure on James to make this attempt, his most successful to date. As if he doesn’t have enough to worry about. He has been working on this one project for the last 2 months, the job is redesigning a website for a Kitchen refacing company that has a few location with in Canada. This guy Mike has been giving James a hard time through out the entire project. Mike has this bad habit of not giving James ALL of the information up front, James has sent numerous emails asking questions, Mike doesn’t respond in a timely manner, which then puts the project on hold… A payment agreement was made, when it came time to pay, Mike shorted the check $1000 and sent it out 2 weeks late and post dated it for the next week. At this point James has had enough and it tired of being jerked around.  Mike wanted a new website, and was quoted over $10,000 from a few places. He thought the price was too high and a coworker recommended he go with James. Since James knows the coworker, and considered the information he was given at that time, he quoted Mike under $ 8000 for a new website. Both parties seemed happy…. That didn’t last very long.

Well I can see that I have rambled on for far too long as it is already 1am….

Time to download the last episode of Dexter and call it a night.