What a Memory

There was a guy I went to high school with that was...a little slow. I think he had a crush on me but I was never interested in him. He always would come up to me and give me a hug. I was always nice to him and would hug him back and chat for a bit. After high school, he got a job at the grocery store close to my home. He always came up to me and hugged and talked with me when he saw me in the store.

When I moved back to Texas, my mom and I went to the grocery store together to get some stuff. She told me that the slow guy from high school still worked at the store. I had actually forgotten about him and we didn't end up seeing him that day.

My mom left for Pennsylvania today and I decided to help my dad out by doing the grocery shopping. While I was shopping, I saw the "slow guy" and finally remembered who my mom was talking about. I ignored him at first and kept on walking but I noticed that he was following me. He finally caught up with me and gave me a hug. He said, "It's Kristin, right?" I couldn't believe it!!! If it wasn't for his name tag, I wouldn't have remembered his name at all. Can you believe that after 7 years he still remembered my name? We were never friends in school or anything. I was just some pretty girl that was nice to him. I'm still in shock that he remembered my name! We talked for a few minutes and he showed me a picture of his fiance. I wasn't surprised that he recognized me, but I am surprised that he remembered my name. Crazy! I can say that this small event really made my day!

Job Success

After I lost my job back in October, I thought it would be close to impossible for me to find another one.

And when my life started falling apart in Utah, I felt like a loser for having to move back in with my parents at the age of 26. I see most of my friends with college degrees, excellent careers, happy marriages, one or more children, and living in beautiful homes. It depresses me to see what I could have if I had made better choices when I was younger. Being unemployed for about 4 months has left me penniless and unable to pay my bills. I wanted to find a job as soon as possible when I arrived in Texas because I didn't want my parents to have to keep paying for my debts. I started looking for jobs on my third day here. I started off looking online and applying for jobs that had been posted. I looked in the newspaper everyday and sent resumes to offices and emails. I had no success my first week on the job hunt. I decided my second week I would hit the mall and apply for different retail stores. I was immediately discouraged while filling out the applications because they all asked if I had ever been discharged or forced to resign from a job. I have two jobs on my resume that I've been fired from and both with my most retail experience. If I risked not mentioning them, I have 3 years of unemployment making me look like a bum. If I kept them on my resume, I risked being asked why I left those companies. My older brother gave me some advice and told me to keep them on my resume. He said that most companies won't contact the previous employer and if they do, the previous employer (by law) can only confirm my employment dates. He told me that most companies will contact my references before contacting the previous employer. I started to feel better but then I came across another problem. I don't have any good references. I was required to list at least 3 professional references. Where was I going to get 3 professional references when my two most recent jobs fired me? I called an old friend from Macy's to see if she would be a reference. Turns out, she got promoted to management after I left and she told me she would love to give me a good reference. She also told me that the store manager that fired me, got fired himself shortly after I left. That bast**d deserved it! Anyway, I asked her if she would see if my old department manager would give me a reference or any of the other managers. I was beginning to look up. She called me later that night with bad news. Evidently she was the only manager willing to give me a good reference. What was I going to do with only one reference? I turned in the applications anyway in hopes that someone would give me a call. I went to Victoria's Secret first and they asked if they could just interview me right then. I agreed and apologized for my attire (I was wearing jeans). The interview went really well and I got along great with the two managers I spoke with. When they saw my reference page, they didn't seem too happy though. I ended up giving them a personal reference hoping that would be enough. I was told that they would contact me after they called my references. That was a week ago. When 4 days went by and I didn't hear anything, I decided to hit the mall again. On Monday February 22, 2010, I walked into the mall discouraged. I went to Gymboree first and the girl who gave me the application told me that they needed an Assistant Manager really bad. She asked if I had retail experience and to turn in my application before the end of the day. I then headed to Palais Royal. Turns out they were hiring and interviewing that day. I started filling out the application when a manager approached me and asked to interview me then. I agreed and we had a fabulous interview. She told me they would most likely call me back for a second interview with the store manager. I then left and went home feeling really good about this interview. I filled out the application for Gymboree and took it back to the mall (good thing my parents live 5 minutes away from the mall). While in the mall, Palais Royal called me back to set up a second interview for the next day. I was super excited but extremely nervous at the same time. My second interview started off pretty bad and I wanted to leave the room and cry. I think my nerves got the best of me. I ended up pulling myself together and the rest of the interview was perfection. The store manager and I were talking as if we have been friends our whole lives. It was awesome. They made me take a drug test (the whole cotton swab thing) and she mailed it off. She told me they would give me a call in a few days. When I got out to my car, I had a missed call from Gymboree. I called them back and set up an interview with them. Since I was already at the mall, I walked right back in and interviewed at Gymboree while I was still in interview mode. She ended up offering me the job right then and there. I took it since I didn't want to risk not hearing from Palais Royal. She told me that the Assistant Manager position was full time but that she would have some part time sales lead positions available soon. She told me with my experience, I would be a great sales lead. So I may have an opportunity to move up soon.

At about 8:30 this evening, I received a phone call from Palais Royal offering me the job. I decided that I would try and work both jobs until I start school. Palais Royal has agreed to work with my Gymboree schedule and I couldn't be happier. I'm just so glad that I finally was able to get, not just one, but two jobs! Thanks to everyone who kept me in their prayers.

Tetris

Back in the day when Tetris was new, my parents loved to play the game. My little brother bought my parents a Wii for Christmas and downloaded Tetris Party for them to play. My dad couldn't remember how to play the game and so we had to teach them how when they came to Utah. After my parents were able to remember how to play the game, they would play it all day! I would play a little but would get bored after about an hour. But I always wanted to be involved and so I would try to enjoy playing the game. I wasn't very good to begin with but I started to improve. After we got to Texas and got all settled in, we started playing Tetris again. Without my sister and brother here to stomp us, I am now the undefeated leader. We play almost everyday and I win most of the games. I have found that I actually enjoy playing it now and I sometimes dream in Tetris. Pretty lame....but I see moves in my sleep. I even tried a online game and found that I still need to improve. Anyway, I just thought I would share my new found love in the game of Tetris!

Coincidence

Several years ago before I moved to Utah, I started to fall for a boy that I worked with. I was right out of high school and working as a cashier at Office Depot. The boy, John Doe (since I want his identity to remain private), introduced himself to me and we became friends almost instantly. He was 4 years older than me but that didn't seem to matter. He was in a relationship at the time and I was dating someone myself. Through time we both grew to be extremely interested in each other. We were both dumped about the same time but we moved very slowly into a relationship. Around this time, my parents were trying to convince me to move to Utah so I could have more dating experiences with Mormon boys. I finally agreed to move and turned in my two weeks at Office Depot. I really liked John and I was really sad to leave him. Our last night together was magical and I will remember it for the rest of my life. However, he didn't handle my move very well. I feel as though he took it personally and felt like I was moving to get away from him. He never said good bye to me and we lost all communication between each other. He was the only person that I thought about on my plane trip to Utah. I looked out the window on the plane and relived my last night with John over and over. I grew to realize that I had fallen for him. I had to let him go so I could move on with my life. And so I started dating other guys when I got to Utah and a year later was married. I still had my moments when I would think about John and wonder how he was doing and what he was up to. I missed him as a person but would banish him from my thoughts. When I joined facebook about 2 years ago, John was the first person that I looked up. I had no success but I was okay with that. I figured he wouldn't remember me anyway. I looked for him again after my divorce but failed yet again. I started a new relationship with Carlos and became very happy. I loved Carlos more than I had ever loved anyone before. Sometime back in October, November OR December, I had a dream about John. It was a weird dream but I was reminded of him yet again. When things started to go bad in my relationship with Carlos, I decided to look up John on facebook again. After looking at about 500 results, I decided to give up. I continued to dream about John and wonder.

On Friday February 5, 2010, I started my long drive to Texas. My father and I arrived in Albuquerque late that night and I decided to check facebook. I saw that I had a friend request and so I clicked on it. Guess who was requesting my friendship?

JOHN DOE!!!!!!

I couldn't believe it. I actually thought I was dreaming and that the long drive had made me delirious or something. When we got to the motel and were ready for bed, I went back on facebook and sent him a message. We have spent the past week and a half catching up on things but I was discouraged to find out that he wasn't living in Texas anymore and also that he has a girlfriend. I wanted more than anything to tell him how I felt about him, but it would have been highly inappropriate to tell him with his relationship status. So I decided to keep my feelings to myself and enjoy the friendship that we did have.

I woke up this morning to find a message from him explaining that he still had feelings for me after all these years. We spent the whole day expressing our feelings for each other and reminiscing on the past. I haven't been this happy in a few months. He told me that he wants to keep having chats like this more often.

I'm not saying that anything is going to come of this, especially since he lives out of state and has a girlfriend, but at least I was able to express to him my true feelings. In return, he was able to get similar things off his chest.

I'm remembering back to a post I made in January about how my life is in some ways like the book New Moon. I wanted more than anything for John to be my Jacob Black. Now I think that our friendship will really help me through my trials. I'm so grateful to have him in my life again and I never want us to fall apart again either. Who knows....maybe something will happen. I just don't want to be the cause of a breakup. I'm sure I will keep it posted if anything does happen.

The Olympics

The 2010 Winter Olympic games started last week. My family has always loved to watch the Olympics. I didn't watch them too much after I got married but now that I'm living with my parents again I'm watching them almost all day. I'm watching events that I've never watched before. I'm really enjoying routing my fellow country men in bringing medals home. We don't always win but I'm proud to say that we have won the most medals for our country. Yeah! Go USA! My favorite winter event has always been the figure skating. The pairs skating was the past two days. Our two American pairs weren't that good but they were better than some of the pairs that passed them up by other countries. Oh well. Tonight the men's skating is on. I'm really excited. My favorite male skater ever is Alexei Yagudin who won the gold medal in 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic games.
He isn't doing the Olympics anymore but he was AMAZING!!!!!

The first male skater just skated and it was beautiful!! Should be a good night full of excellent skating programs!
If you haven't been watching the Olympics, I suggest that you start. You will enjoy it.

I Made It

So my dad and I finally made it to Texas on Sunday afternoon. We left early Friday morning and drove for 2 1/2 days. The drive wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. The first day was kinda difficult because we drove through the mountains and there was a lot of construction. We tried to keep the car in cruise control but it would kick out of cruise when we would go up steep hills. It was rough going a max speed of 55 mph. Even though the first day was tough, it was a beautiful drive altogether. The second day was smoother and we were able to drive 60 mph but it was flat and ugly going through New Mexico and Texas. The third day was our shortest drive and I was able to drive us all the way. I'm relieved to be done with all the driving. Today we unpacked the trailer and returned it. Tomorrow I get to tackle unpacking all my clothes (which is a lot)!!!!! Now I have the stress of finding a job. I worry that I won't be able to get a well paying job. My hometown has turned into a trash pit in the years that I was living in Utah. The people and living situations are different and I know this will take some getting used to. Wish me luck. I hope to be able to get a job by the end of the month!

All Ready To Go

The past few weeks have been pretty stressful for me. The second week in January was spent packing all my belongings from my apartment and moving to my sisters. My parents came from Texas for a visit and while they were here we had my car inspected for the long drive back to Texas. We also had to have a hitch installed on my precious Camry and we rented a trailer for packing the rest of my belongings that have been in storage. It doesn't seem like much but it really has been a stressful sequence of events. Today my dad and I packed up the trailer and closed my storage unit. We leave tomorrow morning for the long drive! I'm not really looking forward to pulling this trailer. My poor car looks like it is pulling a load too big to handle. I hope the car will survive. Reality has finally kicked in and I'm really sad to leave my home. Even though I lived in Texas for 19 years and only 6 1/2 here, I still call Utah my home. I hope that I'll be able to come back to Utah again. I'm not sure how long I will be staying in Texas or if it could become permanent. I'm just hoping for the best and Carlos reminded me last night that we are destined to see each other in the future. Wish me luck on my new life!