Anybody have any advice on how to survive six months without your husband? Because I am clearly not set up to live by myself.

We are a military family, so it’s part of our life. He left two days ago, and I definitely miss him already. We do have plenty of ways to communicate, at least. I talked to him on Skype today, and he is there and fed and got some sleep.

Here are some issues I see with him not being here:
– Who am I going to put my cold feet on to warm them up?
– Who is going to trap and release the spiders roaming through our house back into the wild?
– Laundry. I put some in several hours ago and just remembered it. This is going to be happening all the time.
– Weirdly quiet house. He always has the TV on and I never do unless I’m watching something.
– It’s inevitable that something’s not going to work and I’m going to bang it around in frustration like a caveman. For example, there are seven buttons on the space heater. I know what roughly two of them do.
– Heaven forbid I have to put something together. If I buy any new furniture, I’m calling in back-up.
– When I can’t decide what to wear, who will pick the most horrible outfits, until I kick him out of the room and suddenly can find something?

I’m just kidding about all of these. I mean, they’re all real, but I don’t mind dealing with them. All I want is for him to be safe and sound.

Recently (okay about 2 months ago), I celebrated my 28th birthday. I don’t know what happened this year, but I am on a completely different path than I planned just a couple years ago. I went from enjoying my job, to feeling bored and unhappy (could I do the same thing every day and feel like I was pulling some coworkers’ weight all the time at a place I couldn’t see any growth?), to searching for the next step.

And as scary as it is, I quit my job. That’s crazy, right? Luckily, when I left I left on good terms and my boss told me clearly that I was welcome back, so it isn’t as terrifying as it could be. But still terrifying!! I am jobless. Sort of.

There’s nothing like a change in your routine to make you appreciate what you have. I’m away from home for training (for the next month or so) right now, so I’m looking at you, weird hotel room that makes me miss my home.

While I sit and contemplate my need of husband / cat snuggles, I thought about all the things that have changed since I first moved out on my own after graduating college.

When I first moved out, I moved from South Carolina to Delaware and lived with my future husband and two roommates; all four of us were jammed into a two-bedroom apartment. It was a nice apartment, and one of the only problems we ever had with them was the official notice we got stating not to feed stray cats. I am a cat feeder, okay! It is what I am.

But, I noticed that there are a lot of things that have changed since first moving out on my own. Here are a few things that are different:

I no longer eat box mac and cheese and frozen biscuits as meals. Although, midnight cereal snacking is still a thing.

I buy the good toilet paper.

We no longer have roommates, just one playful boy kitty and one disgruntled, crotchety lady kitty.

My wardrobe has expanded to include dresses, skirts, and bottoms that aren’t jeans. Although, I’m still a fan of sweatpants when comfiness is needed.

I cook myself food almost every day, and frozen food doesn’t taste the same.

The only fast food we eat on the regular is Chipotle. I don’t see any reason to give that up!

Pajama time on the weekend is 9 PM on a late night.

I should probably also make a list of things that are the same, such as: I still can’t afford to buy that closet that Cher has in Clueless with an endless combination of outfits.

How much has changed since you first moved out?

In two weeks, I am…..quitting my job! And I have no idea what I’m doing. That’s not quite true, but it’s not at all clear right now. I will actually be working through January or February doing some training for my other job, but after that I will not be working at a full time job.

Needless to say, I’m kind of freaking out, even though I am leaving of my own free will. It feels like I have reached a point where it is time to try to move on. And naturally, I shall freak out a lot.

While I try to decide what I want to do with my life in my current career miniature crisis, I thought of some jobs I would NOT want to do.

1. Theme Park Ride Tester
I get motion sickness just by riding in a bumpy car ride, so thrill rides are not for me. I ALWAYS close my eyes on roller coasters.

Last time, I opened them because I thought I would live adventurously, and got SO sick after riding the swinging ship ride. Did not puke, but also did not go on any other rides that night. I still ate a fried oreo later, though, so it wasn’t that bad.

2. Cologne Spritzer Lady at the Mall
I don’t like smelly things, so that also rules out hanging out at the Yankee Candle store and Lush.

3. Crawlspace Inspector
That’s probably not really a job title, but I’m not crawling under a house unless scientists have actually brought dinosaurs back to life, and it’s the only place the Tyrannosaurus Rex won’t find me.

I’ve seen way too many movies, and my fear of spiders is very strong.

4. Furniture Builder / Woodworker / Craftsman
If you’d seen me assemble a piece of Ikea furniture before, you’d understand that I am not skilled at building objects. And if you try to bring a hammer into the mix, it can only end in someone’s pain and suffering.

5. Herbologist
I think that’s actually only a Harry Potter job, but let’s just say I have not had a great record with flora. I am crazy about plants, but I have no idea how to care for them without, you know, killing them.

6. Uber / Lyft / Taxi Driver
Even with GPS, I am still possibly the worst person at directions. When I say I have no sense of direction, I am not exaggerating. When I get in a car, my route is based solely on experience of driving that way every day or GPS.

My husband still makes fun of me for driving in completely the opposite direction of his house for several miles while we were still dating, because I had been there several times before. I had to call him to get help finding his house, and drive all the way back the way I came, then towards his house.

All those things I will not be adding to my resume. Luckily, those are not on my dream job list. What jobs could you not see yourself doing?

I have been at my job for a few years now, and I have enjoyed it for most of the time. Lately, every day, I want to jump straight out of our one-story window, Scott Pilgrim-style.

When I first came to my job, I was completely terrified, because my boss moved me up into someone’s spot who had just left, and I had no idea how to do it. I had worked there before doing something else and briefly left, only to return, but the new job came with all kinds of responsibilities that I had never had before.

I had to ask a thousand questions, and my coworker gave me a hard time, because she liked the guy who used to work there before I came, and she gave me a little attitude.

On the other hand, I thought that one of my coworkers had the answers to everything, and he always made me laugh.

After being there for a while now, I have learned so much, and I am capable of doing anything I need to do, and don’t have to ask for help, except for special cases that might involve calling up our tech support guys.

The same coworker that used to make me laugh all the time, makes me frustrated by his laziness and short-cut-taking, and I feel that way about a lot of my coworkers. It’s hard to care about your job when it seems like everyone else just wants to take the easiest way and doesn’t care if it’s right.

There are also the people who refuse to learn new skills, even though they have been there for 3x as long as I have.

If they have been there for 15 years, I should not know more than them after being there for four.

I’ve been really frustrated with myself, lately, because I ask myself why I have stuck around so long. I want to have a positive atmosphere at work and enjoy what I’m doing.

I have to remind myself that I WAS happy, until recently, and I’ve come a long way since I first moved here five years ago, unsure how anything was going to work out.

I can also get pretty grumpy when people keep dropping stuff on my desk, because they refuse to learn how to do it themselves.

They’re also cracking down on monitoring everyone way too closely, and our computers now have NO internet access. For company emails, I can’t even click on the links they send, because technically we are on production computers, which don’t have access. I would have to log onto the ONE computer on the floor which has access to visit them.

And we have to record everything we do in a day on a form, because they want to know how productive people are being. It’s driving me crazy, and ever since our company was bought a few years ago, the new owner company has been making these nit-picky changes.

My boss asked me how I felt a couple of months ago, and I we both agreed that there’s not much to learn right now. We work within a fairly small location, and people stay for a long time, so there’s no room to progress right now.

It’s not terrible, I’m not working in some hellscape, it just feels like that sometimes, because I’m frustrated with myself. It’s hard to run out of challenges and feel like I’m treading water.

It’s not that bad, but I do get stuck in an endless loop of frustration.

The good news is, I plan to take steps and have been taking baby steps towards new things.

At the end of next month, I have the very scary plan to leave my job *knock on wood*, because I’ll be going to do some required training for my Guard job for a couple months. After that, I have plans for more learning, which once I set it all in stone, I will let you know.

At this point, I’m so stressed out sometimes, I change my mind about 15 times a day. I just need to hang in there a little longer.

Change is scary, but stagnation is scarier. I want to appreciate what I have, but I don’t want to feel like I can’t do more. I don’t need to be the richest lady in the world, but I want to be able to relate to my coworkers and do things that challenge me.