Run, Lola, Run!!

From January to December is a looooong time!! It had been a very long time since I have had to make such difficult choices in my daily life.  For years its been a given that I would work a double shift everyday......two overtime shifts on Saturday and usually one on Sunday (so I could do laundry!! lol) and neither I or the staffing office every doubted that I would be available for these! All of a sudden I wanted to spend more time with Dan on the weekends.....so I had to decide do I give up my overtime shifts to go to the coast or do I sacrafice that time with him to make money!! Luckily Dan was very busy too so sometimes I didn't have a choice.......it was JUST work dammit......but other times it was hard. We learned to make the time we had together count. We always managed to make time for the ocean when I was there and we had a ball finding out all the little secrets each had for things they liked to do......like I love to cook and he loved to eat that was a match made in heaven but Dan likes to cook as well and some weekends he would cook and make things that were a little strange to me but still very tasty and we LAUGHED!!  We would make each other laugh so hard.  And as the months went by we became closer and closer.

I guess in about June I had made up my mind that I wanted to move to the coast.  So I began putting in resumes in a few places.  I was so excited about my decision and couldn't wait to save the money up for an apartment and find a new job.  When I told Dan he wasn't very happy.  We started having discussions of me moving in here with him.  That wasn't my dream at the moment.  I wanted my own apartment but I wanted to be closer to him.  I was pretty used to living alone and so was he.  But the "frugal" part of my man was bothered by me paying enormous amounts of money for rent to someone else. At first we batted around the thought of me moving in with him and paying HIM rent.........nah, that wasn't gonna work!! I still had it in my craw that I wanted my own place.  Just a little apartment that  my friends could come and visit even if everyone had to sleep on the floor.  He told me that my friends could come and visit here....hmmmm, I was not too comfortable with that thought. You know we're loud and obnoxious at times.......lol Dan is pretty quiet and very gentle......lol

Well finally we decided after lots of laying in bed at night and tossing this subject back and forth.......that I would move in with him.  But thats all we wanted and Dan said that if in three or four months I didn't like it then I could get an apartment.  The companionship was very comfortable and after two failed marriages I really was not ready to go there again.......but you get lonely and having someone to share the everyday things with is kinda cool.  Anyways, I began my trek to move to Arroyo Grande!!  I start packing things, giving things away and throwing things away. I would put stuff out at the dumpster and by the time I took another load out that first thing would be gone.......so obviously someone needed the things I no longer needed. I walked around the hospital with my resignation letter in my pocket for two weeks before I finally gave it to my manager......it was a very hard decision when it came right down to it!! Could I just walk away from my security blanket that the hospital provided me for the past twelve years??? Could I truly pack up my belongings and move out of the apartment I saved so hard to get on my own?? Could I drive out of town and leave everyone I loved and cherished in my life behind?? I loved Dan with everything inside of me and all of a sudden I was in one hell of a dilema!!

I started bringing loads of stuff over here one carload at a time! One weekend I came over and we had a garage sale with a lot of stuff I had brought that week and some of his stuff as well.......oh, because he assured me that he needed to get rid of things too so I would have plenty of room to store my things!!! HA HA HA!! I have been here three years now and am just finally finding places to put things and Lord knows in these three years I have gotten rid of a lot of his stuff that just simply needed to go!!! And on August 21, 2010 I made the move to the coast!!!  My son-in-law and grandson in tow with a truckload and my car filled so full I could barely fit my fat ass in it!!

I diligently started looking for a job!! I have never in my life not been employed!! It was quite a shock to my system to not get the first job I interviewed for or the second or the third!! Depression was starting to set in and Dan would come home and I'd be frustrated and crying!! I could not get a job as a motel maid because I was over qualified!!! WTH???Exactly how many toilets in your life do you think one needs to clean to be qualified??? I so wanted to ask that!!

Then Dan decided he wanted to go to a Peace Corp 40th reunion that he got invited to and asked me to go with him.........of course I would go to Hawaii.......lol  When Dan joined the Peace Corp he was assigned to the Island of Samoa......so they were sent to the island of Molokai in Hawaii for their training.  So naturally the group wanted to have this reunion where they all met and started off 40 yrs ago.  Well it kinda took my mind off of my "pity party" I was trying to throw!!  Noone was RSVP'n anyways!  But I kept pluggin away at getting my resumes out there! Two months had gone by already and it was time to pack for Hawaii........I was scared because I wasn't getting any interviews lately but I didn't panic yet......I still had money in the bank!!!!