Sean and I are celebrating our 2 year anniversary. While we’ve known each other for more than two years, we’ve only been together since July 21, 2006. Knowing that we’re tight on cash, when we happened to be running errands last night in New Hyde Park we wound up stopping at this place called “Charlie Browns Steak House”. I’ve never been there before but Sean went numerous times when he was living in New Jersey. I picked up some ribs and the salad bar came included. He got himself a burger with the add-on of the salad bar as well. It’s a bit healthier than picking up the mozzarella sticks for an appetizer. Dinner was relatively nice, the food could have been a bit better (something we both agreed upon) but it was nice to just get out for a little while and have it be just the two of us.

For the last couple of weeks it’s mainly been family-time for me. I’ve been around my mother’s, I’ve hung out with my aunts, grandmother, father, sister, friends from around town (which are considered family in my opinion) so it really just hasn’t been the two of us, so it was nice to get out for a bit.

We’re in the process of figuring things out in regards to who’s going where. Unfortunately, I have too much going on up here where my life in Delaware is just not an option anymore. I love DE, and I adore Sean’s mom, I just can’t be down there at this point in my life. Too many family members are sick, and I’ve really missed my friends. I only have two people in Delaware. Sean and I are fine, and I get along great with his mother but I do need the friend input and I don’t go out and ‘make friends’ I’m comfortable with the people I grew up with. I know if I were ever able to FIND a job down there I’d be able to meet some more people but with every 100 applications sent, I’d get one phone call back and it would either not work out or just be such a shitty job that even wasting my time there just wasn’t worth it.

So the answer - I move back to New York. I’ve put in some applications up here so that I can bring in enough money where Sean and I can afford an apartment here on Long Island. My most recent application was sent to human resources as the hospital. It’s per-diem work, which isn’t even ‘Part-Time’ it’s a “call you as we need you” position. It’s my mother’s old job and per-diem work can very quickly turn into a full time job with the way people are rotated in and out of departments. When my father first started at the hospital he was working per-diem on the weekends, the guy he was covering for (full-time employee) decided to pick up and move to Florida a week after my father started. Dad was then asked if he wanted to switch to full-time and the rest is history. Five years later he’s still with them and making pretty decent money. He’s still in debt but at least there’s a solid paycheck coming in to take care of the bills.

So it’s my hope that I’ll be able to do that. I think it’s kind of funny that at this point in my life I’m about the same age as my mother when she first started working there. While I, in no way, see myself going down her route in life, I know there’s a lot of stability working for one of the top 3 employers on Long Island. Unfortunately, even with the economy, medical based jobs aren’t going to change, especially in the ER.

After a few months of working I’m hoping to be able to refinance my current loan so I can get some money for a down payment on a car for myself. I’ve narrowed it down to three choices - Chevy Cobalt, Honda CR-V, or VW Jetta. At this point, however, anything with reasonable mileage that I’m not going to be putting a lot of money into will do just fine for me. Maintenance is one thing, having to constantly fix engine parts is quite another. So I’m setting myself up with a budget of about of $12,000 MAX and I’ll see what I can come up with. I’m sure I’ll be able to find something really good with that amount of money, especially if I’m working at the hospital considering employees get a discount at numerous different stores, including car based ones.

Once everything else is taken care of, Sean and I will begin looking for an apartment up here. We just need something big enough where we can have a less-cramped bedroom, a decent sized office and it would be nice to have a formal living room, so I guess we’re looking into a two bedroom. On Long Island that doesn’t come cheap but we’ll also have a budget so we’ll be able to work it out. He’ll get to experience life with a very attached puppy, based heavily on the fact that she’s never been away from me. We’ll also be able to start our lives together without any outside influence from family members.

Should be interesting.

I was woken up about 8:30 this morning by the landscapers.  I assume that with the past series of storms they were delayed a few days on getting here.  They showed up this morning and I was happy to see that the one doing our lawn actually went out of his way to get as close as possible without considering it to be ‘trim work’ which costs an extra $30 or so a month and they don’t even do a good job so it’s better to spend $30 on your own weed-whacker.

I went to roll back into bed when I saw that Bella wasn’t going to be a problem.  She tends to bark her head off when landscapers come through in the mornings.  Today she was relatively calm, not even a grumble so I figured getting a few more hours wouldn’t be such a bad deal - until I looked down at the floor.

Sean didn’t take her out last night for her nightly walk because of the rain, being as she was sick for most of last night I figured that would be OK considering she’d dropped a few monster loads in the house that weren’t formed at all.  I wasn’t too happy to see them on the bedroom floor this morning.  That typically means she’s very sick because she’s good at not doing anything on the floor in here, you don’t shit where you sleep - you know?

So I woke up and cleaned up what I could, my mind was awake but my body was asleep so I did half-ass it a bit.  After I woke up a few hours later I pulled out the “Little Green” and cleaned up what was now soaked into the rug.  It did the trick, and after the heavy-duty clean and the disinfecting - I’m not too concerned about something coming up in the future.

I’m not sure why she’s sick, she’s really been up and down for the last couple of weeks and I’m starting to get concerned considering the large bump on her stomach has grown to epic proportions over the course of the past couple of months.  I unfortunately can’t afford to bring her to the vet to have it taken care of.  She’s had it since she was a puppy, the original vet said it was a non-cancerous tumor and I had nothing to be concerned with.  When it’s about the size of a golf-ball now and her horrible up and down days - I really don’t know what to think anymore.  I just don’t have the $500 it would take to cover the vet visit which would include all of her shots and a biopsy on the area.

So after the carpet cleaning, I wondered outside and accomplished some of the minor yard work.  I’ve been good at keeping up on things for the past couple of weeks so it was really just getting myself to the side of the house and chopping down some of the overgrown grass along the house (that isn’t even considered trim work when it comes to our landscapers) so having that $30 weed-whacker isn’t such a bad idea is it?

I eventually got myself into the shower and now I’m sitting here working on completing some updates to my portfolio and a few other things.  Email was the first priority today but that’s based on the financial matters.  I’ve submitted my resume to a few different companies and I’m waiting on response for a few jobs I put bids in on.  Hopefully something will stick.  I know of quick blog work with a previous client and the possibility of being accepted for a corporate site but after that I’m still going to get myself out there as much as possible - hence the updated Portfolio.

In any event, it’s half past six and I need to get something on the stove.  I know Sean is pretty hungry since he only eats once a day and I’m starving because I haven’t had anything since lunch and it’s hard to stick to a diet if you’re only eating once a day.

I didn’t get to sleep until about 9:30 this morning, I found myself floating around MySpace Jobs hoping to find something absolutely perfect for me. I luckily did. There’s a company about ten minutes down the road in search for an XHTML/CSS Designer and you start off on full-time salary, have a 401k and full medical benefits (medical, dental and optical). I emailed back and forth with the listed contact for a little while and now I’m just waiting patiently to find out if I’m going in for an interview or not. Based on what I’ve seen of the company I’m going to bring in at least $25,000 so that will certainly help out with the bills. I just hope it actually happens. Sean and I will finally be able to afford a new car and hopefully an apartment so we can get out of where we currently are.

:: crosses fingers ::

For the past few months I’ve been working my butt off to get back into school. With the way the economy is right now, it’s really important to me to gain a proper education so that I can get down to the nitty-gritty and grab up the position of my dreams at any of the local design companies in the area. Unfortunately, even with 10 years of experience under my belt, the wet-behind-the-ears 18 year old errand boy stands more of a chance on landing the job than I do. Why? Because a piece of paper is more important than experience in most cases.

I went floating around craigslist for jobs in my area. One of the most common requirements is at least 5 years of experience. I’m almost instantly interested because I have double that, so I continue down the page to the remaining requirements. 99.9% of the time…a bachelors or masters is required to even be considered for the job. What I find amusing about this is the fact that the person LISTING this job more than likely doesn’t meet the college requirements that he’s looking for in staff members. Now, that’s fine and well but why is it “fair” that a dear friend of mine spent over $35,000 on school to become a designer and is still asking me simple questions about DIVS/Tables and other things that should be common in the classroom? I’m not saying the route he took was wrong, by any means. I just don’t think it’s fair that a piece of paper can determine where you’re going in life - and where you’re not.