Took the Job... Then Brought About the Apocalypse

There were lots of other things in the background, but I did accept the job offer from the Taiwanese company. I will support two large corporate customers in Texas (one local, and one that will require travel).

Since their payroll is monthly, I will start on June 2. I would have liked to start sooner, but no biggie.

Lots of fun things to settle along the way: I need to set up a home office; I need to ramp up my technical skills; I need to figure out a lot of the ramifications of being the only US person in an overseas company. Nothing too difficult, and I love a challenge, so it's all good.

One distraction that's been particularly gratifying is that I'm having to buy a whole new wardrobe... yes, me, the engineer chick who cares nothing for fashion. The irony was not lost on me, believe me.

I went shopping on my own and bought some things at Coldwater Creek. Then I took my wardrobe advisor (a.k.a. my friend Heather the interior designer, who knows a thing or two about color and how things work together) to the mall. We went to J.Jill (which I'd never heard of), Talbot's, Gap... all those stores I'd never shopped in because I didn't fit their clothes. I discovered a few things: lots of these stores now carry larger sizes (i.e., I could have been wearing them for years), and I'm a size smaller than I thought (i.e., I've lost three sizes since I was laid off from Dell in October). So now I have a pretty good start on a basic business wardrobe that's cute and comfortable. And I did take BigMama's advice (see question #3) and get a great pair of black pants and a really sassy pair of trouser jeans which shockingly fit my Hobbit-length legs. Huzzah!

I had never made purchases from any of these stores, so these were big doings for me. Hard to believe, I know, but true. Yes, I know it's pathetic to have never bought anything from Gap. Yes, I was a sad excuse for a chick. But no more! And it was actually FUN to shop for clothes for myself, which I don't ever recall happening. Ever. There were clothes that fit me and looked good. Heather told me she didn't think she could buy this much for herself if she tried; she simply couldn't find that many things that looked good on her in a day. (Heather is beautiful, and I still have two or three sizes on her, even at my new smaller size.)

So apparently Jesus is coming back imminently. Hope y'all are ready.