Day 2000 of doing absolutely nothing. Well, it hasn’t exactly been 2000 days and we haven’t exactly been doing nothing. It has, however, been very interesting, boring and numbing being here in San Diego. Days are/were spent at the beach, sleeping in, taking the bus to save money (and to kill time) and watching endless documentaries.

Since the weather has turned cold and windy our beach-going days are over. So I had to find something else to occupy my time. Enter: Mervyn’s. Nanci, Alan’s mom, drove past one and saw a “Join Our Team” sign out in front. After finishing the application from hell and giving away more information than even Alan knows, I sat back and waited for them to reject me. Two days went by without a word from them. I thought they had taken my information and emptied my bank account (since it’s so full). Then I got that fateful call… they wanted me to come in for an interview. I don’t know why I was nervous, but the man who did the interview was very nice and I was hired on the spot.

Fast forward to three weeks later… today. I’ve been working about 25 hours a week folding and putting away clothes, being polite to impatient customers and asking every single person I meet: “Will that be on your Mervyn’s card?” It kills me to ask people to sign up for credit when I don’t think multiple cards are a good thing! But, that’s my job… for two more days at least… and then I bid Mervyn’s adieu! I believe there are two jobs that exist that you can never fully appreciate until you’ve done them: retail and food service. In the last six months I have had the pleasure of working in both of them and I can tell you that people underestimate how much work goes into them. I think I’m going to extend that list to teachers and nurses. However, people understand how hard it is to be a nurse or a teacher because they require a certain of level of education. What people may not understand is that even though no formal education is required to have a retail or food service job, it requires a greater level of patience than most people give them credit (no pun intended) for.

I’m heading up north in a week to say goodbye (once again) to my family. Alan is heading up to Portland to see his sister, Randi. I feel like I’ve said goodbye so many times that I’m starting to feel like the girl who cried Kenya. Part of me is sad that I’m leaving and another part of me just wants to leave already! So for now I’m going to appreciate the time I have here and spend some quality time with my family and friends. The title of my blog was going to be: “Life on hold…” but then I realized that life is never on hold, I’m just stuck in traffic.

So thanks for reading, and stay tuned! Things are finally starting to get interesting, and we’re now set to fly out of here on October 25th!