{"id":5840,"date":"2011-07-25T07:25:08","date_gmt":"2011-07-25T12:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=5840"},"modified":"2011-07-25T07:25:08","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T12:25:08","slug":"in-which-she-remembers-to-thank-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2011\/07\/25\/in-which-she-remembers-to-thank-the-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"In which she remembers to thank the Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"drop_cap\">I<\/span>t went something like this&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>*ring ring*<\/p>\n<p><em>Hello?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Hey Universe, it&#8217;s DaniGirl calling.<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nDaniGirl!  Good to hear from you!  I&#8217;ve been peeking in on you lately, I&#8217;m surprised you found the time to pick up the phone.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>No kidding!  Each time I think I reach a new high in busyness, and think that things can&#8217;t possibly get any more crazy, they do.<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s nice to see that your photography business has taken off.  That must feel pretty good.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It feel amazing!  It&#8217;s been an incredibly busy but validating month with five family portrait shoots just in the last ten days.  And the clients have seemed to really love the results &#8211; one family bought a print of every single proof in the gallery.<\/p>\n<p><em>Great stuff, DaniGirl. No wonder you&#8217;re feeling so busy. And I hear you had a blast at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.socialcapitalconference.ca\/\">Social Capital<\/a> this weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Oh my goodness, it was amazing! So many interesting people, so many great connections.  I learned a lot, met a lot of amazing people, and really enjoyed having a captive audience for a while, even if I was a little scattered in my presentation.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mouth getting a little ahead of your brain, eh?  Yeah, that happens to me, too.  It&#8217;s been a busy vacation for you this year, no wonder you&#8217;re feeling a little discombobulated.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ha, and that&#8217;s hardly the tip of the iceberg.  I seem to be caught up in a whirlwind of change right now.  Did you see that we finally found a new daycare provider for Lucas?<\/p>\n<p><em>I did see that.  She seems like a warm, lovely lady.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I think so, too.  I really like the fact that some of the older kids who come for after-school care have been with her for nine or ten years. That kind of endorsement speaks for itself.  And she&#8217;s literally right around the corner.  We start with her at the end of the summer, right around the time I hope to be starting my new job.  Cuz, yanno, if you&#8217;re going to change one thing, you might as well change everything.<\/p>\n<p><em>New job, right. I noticed you were working on that.  What&#8217;s up with that?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Well, remember back in 2007, you were up to your usual antics.  The very month that the Canada Revenue Agency created that special social media manager position especially for me, I found out I was pregnant with Lucas.  I managed to work in the position for about six months before I went on maternity leave, but then when I left they hired a friend of mine to replace me.<\/p>\n<p><em>Right, I think you cursed me out for quite a few months on the timing of that one.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Um, yeah.  Of course I was delighted to be pregnant because we had been trying for months, but I was truly heartbroken to lose that job.  And when I came back from maternity leave, even though I was disappointed, I could completely understand why they didn&#8217;t want to just bump the person who had been doing the job for a year.  So I took a position in another part of the public affairs branch.<\/p>\n<p><em>And then you started managing the Army Web site and all the social media channels there shortly after that, right?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, that&#8217;s when I joked I was quitting the CRA after 20 years to run off and join the Army.<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nThanks for the history lesson, but what does that have to do with your current situation?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Well, the person who took over for me in 2007 is now moving on to other opportunities and she called me up to see if I&#8217;d be interested in coming back.  <\/p>\n<p><em>Don&#8217;t you love it when a plan comes together?  Easy-peasy, right?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ha, you&#8217;d think so, wouldn&#8217;t you?  You&#8217;re such a joker, you know you pulled the rug out from under me again on this one.<\/p>\n<p><em>Hey, you passed the hiring committee with flying colours.  It&#8217;s not my fault you forgot to check to see whether your French levels were up to date.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Sigh, you&#8217;re right.  It&#8217;s just painful that they were ready to issue a letter of offer, and now I have to pass my reading and writing exam before we can move ahead.  I tell you, the last thing I expected to be doing on my summer vacation is spend an hour or two each day snuggled up with Schaum&#8217;s French Grammar and a stack of practice tests.<\/p>\n<p><em>There&#8217;s a plan B though, right?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Actually, I&#8217;m calling it Plan E.  There&#8217;s a chance they can move me to an English Essential position in another directorate and transfer me over.  But I&#8217;d rather just pass the French test, because I&#8217;m not sure how solid that option is.  Think you could help me out on that one, maybe make my rusty old brain a little more fluid for the next week or so?<\/p>\n<p><em>Sorry DaniGirl, I&#8217;m just the omniscient overseer.  I may be omnipotent, but it would be bad mojo if I rigged the outcome of your French test.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Okay, I suppose that&#8217;s fair.  And besides, the reason I called wasn&#8217;t really about that anyway.<\/p>\n<p><em>Oh really?  Why did you call then?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Well, first to once again commend you for your sense of humour.  You&#8217;ve got me going literally in circles again, back where I started four years ago if this works out.<\/p>\n<p><em>It&#8217;s not like you haven&#8217;t enjoyed the intervening loop, though, right?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Fair enough. And that&#8217;s the other thing.  I wanted to say thanks.  My life may be so busy right now I&#8217;m breathless with the pace of it, but it&#8217;s all really quite good. <\/p>\n<p><em>I&#8217;m glad you&#8217;re happy, DaniGirl.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I am, Universe.  I know sometimes I call you up to bitch and complain when things are going poorly, so I thought it would be nice to drop you a line and let you know that aside from being a little dizzy at the pace of it all, I am really and truly happy right now.  And I&#8217;m proud of myself, too.  I think I&#8217;m on the right track right now, and I&#8217;m trying to acknowledge that out loud, if for nothing else than it will serve as a good reminder when I do something dumb to derail myself again!<\/p>\n<p><em>Great idea, DaniGirl.  It&#8217;s important to be grateful for the good things in our lives, the things that make us happy.  Keep me posted on the job situation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I will, Universe.  Take care&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It went something like this&#8230; *ring ring* Hello? Hey Universe, it&#8217;s DaniGirl calling. DaniGirl! Good to hear from you! I&#8217;ve been peeking in on you lately, I&#8217;m surprised you found the time to pick up the phone. No kidding! Each time I think I reach a new high in busyness, and think that things can&#8217;t &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2011\/07\/25\/in-which-she-remembers-to-thank-the-universe\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;In which she remembers to thank the Universe&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-is-all-about-me","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5840"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5846,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5840\/revisions\/5846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}