I am bored out of my gourd and feeling chatty...

[Selissa]

so how are you doing today?

[Max's Mami]

Blah! I feel awful. The spearmint oil is really helping and I am so out of it I just now (after being at work for 2 hours already) put it out on my desk.

Plus I just ate half a donut and cinnimon toast cruch cereal for breakfast - totally not healthy but that is about all I can stand right now.

With Maxi I ate HORRIBLY for the first 13 weeks - just whatever I could manage to keep down and after that had a really good diet - very healthy, organic, lots of veggies and whole grains. Plus it was summer so really great fruit too.

I just cant wait to get past the sicky point and feel good - I LOVED being pregnant last time (after 13 weeks!) and just want to enjoy it again!

I am also feeling really nervous for the u/s on Thurs and trying to prepare myself for not seeing a heartbeat again. I dont know how I will handle it. All I can do is hope that there is one since its totally out of my hands.

Wow looks like I am feeling chatty too! :LOL

[mmgarda]

Me Too!!

I'm at a standstill with work today. Just sort of took it easy yesterday, thinking I'd have tons to do today, and lo and behold, I DON'T. Plus, our heat is off and I can't get a fire going and we're out of kindling and fatwood, so it's better to stay in my office (a converted closet) with an electric heater at my feet and a blanket on my lap!

It's actually really scary that I don't have any work to do. Sometimes, when I think about my situation, I just want to cry. The short story is that I went back to grad school to get my MBA because I was stuck in a dead end job. I finished last Dec. and still haven't been able to find full time work. I work from home, and I love the things I do, but nothing is paying well enough for us to make all our bills (and we live frugally!) and now we have another little one on the way. Money problems SUCK. All told, we're about $65k in debt. I feel like we'll never climb out and we'll never buy a house and I'll never find a job and do you think this is the hormones talking?

Sorry, pity party. It's my birthday today and I'm not feeling very festive. The holidays always stress me out. We haven't had a pot to piss in since we got married. Oh well.

What are you girls up to?

[Max's Mami]

Melina - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! I am sorry you are feeling down. Money problems definitly do suck. I feel like we wont ever be REALLY secure either. My DH is a professional baseball player in the minor leagues so he only gets paid half the year. This year he had a really good job lined up for the off season and I thought finally we will have a good winter and a week before the season ended he tore his Achilles and had to have surgery. Now he cant work, is in rehab 4 hours a day, workmans comp wont pay him (way too long of a story) and he cant even collect unemployment because he didnt make enough money in any one state (he got moved up and traded and played in 3 states over the season).

Luckily I put a lot of money away in saving while he was getting paid since my pay check doesnt cover all of our bills but I HATE using our savings and having NOTHING to fall back on in an emergency. Plus we dont know if he will be ready for spring training and resign with a team for next year.

It all sucks. I am also in a dead end job that I dont care about but have to stay for the money and medical insurance.

I know it could be a LOT worse - it just seems we never catch a break. We knew he was getting called up to the big leagues for Sept - it was pretty much a sure thing - finally reaching his dream and he got hurt!

Anyway enough of a pitty party for me.

Have you guys thought about leaving LA? I am from the Bay Area and we lived there for almost a year after we moved in together - we just knew there was no way to get ahead there so we moved to AZ - here our mortgage on our first house is $20 more a month that the rent we were paying for a tiny studio appt. in the bay. Just a thought. California is so crazy now - I miss it a ton and my family but we are doing better here.

[mmgarda]

Leaving LA

I really wish we could, but my DH is a screen writer (unsold, of course ), so it's just not reasonable. If he sells something, then we could leave, but until then. . .

I have a real love-hate relationship with LA. I actually don't mind living here and we have a great house that we rent and it's not too bad. I just go through these periods where I think, "F***! Why did we go so far into debt so I could become UNEMPLOYED??" And I have to constantly remind myself that I love what I do (recruiting, HR outsourcing, Organizational Development consulting) and that something is going to take off really soon and I'll be making some money and I'm lucky that DH has a steady job with good insurance or I wouldn't be able to do this. I also know that I *could* go find a FT job if I really wanted to, but I don't. So, I have to suck it up.

I'm so sorry to hear about your DH. With his injury, will he be able to play again next season? I'm assuming from your post that he isn't getting called up, but will he be able to go back to the minors? What kind of work does he do in the off season? I don't mean to pry, but I feel like our situation is similar. Do you get scared that he won't be able to realize his dream? I feel like my DH is never going to sell a script and I worry really hard about what that will do to him. At least now he's working in the entertainment industry and touching a part of the business he likes, so that's something.

[Max's Mami]

DH has been in AAA for over 4 years (that is one step below the big leagues) and has been so close so many times but something ALWAYS happens. I feel like we have the worst luck in the world. He was actually with the Dodgers last year until Aug. when the traded him to the Royals. The trade was a huge shock since he is a free agent and they traded him a guy in the big leagues. But the Royals really like him so we are hoping that if he is physically ready for spring training they will sign him and send him back to AAA. If he has even half the season he had last year he should get called up - the Royals really need pitching. He is relief pitcher and at one point last year had 21 strait innings without giving up a run - that is amazing!

So we have to see how it all plays out. Its very frusterating though because if he had a regular job he would be home all the time and making good money and we would be fine - really comfortable actually.

He makes good money playing but when you factor paying 2 sets of bills and rent on top of our mortgage its like having 2 households and a rental car etc. so it turns a really good salary (especailly for 6 months) into a not so great one. We can deduct everything so we get a big tax return but still.

The job he had for the off season was at the company I work for in our operations dept. He would be making just a little less than me to start which was AWSOME. But its a physical job and being hurt he cant do it - its not like sitting at a desk. Even if he had a desk job he couldnt do it - the Royals have him in rehab 4 hours a day 5 days a week.

[BinahYeteirah]

bs"d

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Melina!!!



I'm sorry you're feeling so down, too.

[mmgarda]

Thank you

Thanks for the birthday wish, Binah. It doesn't feel like much of a happy day. Funny thing, though, DS was really upset that DH got me a present but didn't get one for him. Since his b'day was the 16th, we had a party with friends, then he got to celebrate with my inlaws who were here for T'giving and seriously have boundary and restraint issues. (The kid got more gifts from them than from everyone else combined. Seriously.) So now he's upset that he didn't get a present when I did.

MaxsMami - Oof. Sounds really, really tough. I hope the rehab goes well and things get better for you guys. DH and I have actually talked about moving to Arizona before. There are times when I feel like I just have to get the hell out of Dodge, you know? After I graduated last year, I looked all over the country for a job. I would have moved to BFE if I found something, but to no avail. The economy is still tight and especially for my specialty, sad as that is. It IS picking up, but slowly.

[orangebird]

I'll join, since my DH doesn't know about the pregnancy yet I need to talk about this stuff with somebody! I feel OK, not nauseated any more. I don't drink milk or eat cheese but I am not super careful about what dairy I eat, I mean I'll eat it in chocolate or other junkfood basically. I noticed that now, more than ever, if I have even a little bit of something with dairy it shuts my whole digestive system down. I had a few sips of a strawberry milkshake at work the other day at 3:00 pm and I was up until at least 11:00 pm that night with it still sitting in my stomach and causing terrible indigestion and acid reflux. Once milk hits my stomach now it just stops. I bought some cookies today at wild oats, I thought the chocolate on them was dark chocolate and assumed there was no dairy in them, ate one and started feeling all "clogged". I read the package and there is powdered milk in them. Argh! What is up with that?

We don't like where we are living either and now having another baby we are going to need another room within a few years for sure. We have two tiny bedrooms in this house, tiny, the size of my closet growing up. We live in Utah and have no family out here. We want to move back to the midwest but coordinating it all is going to be a nightmare, I am afraid we will be stuck here for ever. I could get a job easily but getting DH's whole band to also move will be a bit more tricky. They would be closer to all their "people" out there (label, studio, etc) so it would be better in the long run. I called yesterday to try to enroll my oldest DS in a Catholic school and no one has called me back yet. If we are staying in this town he needs to go to Catholic school, the public schools around here, especially jr high, are scary. Our house is a mess, the 2 1/2 year old is like a non stop hurricane ripping around, I am terrible unmotivated to clean as he will just be right behind me tearing it all up again. I swear, if you look around, none of the mess is mine, DH's, or DS1's, it is all David's. All of it.

Man, what is up with this economy. After DH lost his job 4 years ago (he was a technical writer at a cancer research hospital) he has not been able to find another job again. Despite sending out hundreds of resumes he never got one call back. He got his licence to teach English at 7-12th grade and put applications in all over the county and there is not one position for an English teacher. He get's frustrated.

[leosmama20]

Well, I have been very sick with m/s. I still am. Sitting here slowly reading posts trying not to be sick. So, I am definitely chatty since actually talking makes me sick. Lonely....

The KEY to job searching is KNOWING SOMEONE! You have to network to find a job and that is that. You can't just send out resumes because the employer is going to get hundreds and chances are, some of those are from people they know! Anyhow, that is my 2 cents on that. I hate job searching too.

We live in a tiny little bungalow. It is about 950 square feet. It is cute but I think we will be moving into a larger, new home in one of those boring subdivisions this next year. This house has a big back yard with an apple tree and right next to a beautiful park. DH is a student and he will graduate NEXT Dec. I am a student and God only knows when I will graduate. I co-owned a cloth diapering co. in 2003 and sold out to my partner last year. I have been getting payments every month but those will be ending soon, so it is going to make our budget significantly tighter. I was hoping to be working or starting a new business, but I am so sick. If the m/s will actually start going away at around 12 wks this time around, I will be so thankful.

Well, I was going to type more but I just don't have it in me. I do enjoy lurking with you all and I will hopefully be a little bit more fun member of the board when I get feeling better.

Emily

[mmgarda]

Networking and jobs

It's true that you have to network when you're doing a job search, but that isn't always fruitful, either. As a recruiter, I can put a few suggestions out there for anyone who needs them:

Make sure your resume is on Monster and Hot Jobs

Make sure you have more than one version of your resume

Make sure that when you put it on the job boards, you have a title to it that will catch a recruiter's interest (Consummate sales professional, strong management exp)

Go to networking events for anything in your field

Join Plaxo or Linked In and update everyone in your contacts on what you're doing - it's a great way to keep connected

And, if you're like me, it might not make a difference. :

But seriously, applying to jobs is not a BAD idea. The thing is, if you send your resume to a company, no recruiter can represent you there and you're much better off working with a recruiter. If you can find out what recruiters work wtih the companies you want a job at (try calling their HR depts and asking if they work with any specific recruiting agencies), then you can get your resume into those recruiters. Then keep in touch with the recruiters on a monthly basis or so, so that you're always on their radar screens.

[Fisherb]

Mara -- how / when are you going to tell DH about being preg? I can't imagine not blabbing instantly -- I went straight to him with the pee stick!