I fell asleep earlier than expected last night so I’m still caught up on my sleep. Wow, I didn’t think I’d get to sleep two days in a row for ages!

I was psyched when Tom came in a few hours later and told me he’d been hired by that temp agency. Despite its pros and cons, it seems promising, but of course, so did his last job. They’re sending him to a place called Comtek. I guess they make electronic-related things, but he doesn’t know for sure or even if it’ll be in a warehouse or a manufacturing company. The other good thing is that it’s in Rocklin, our first choice for working/living cuz it has rural areas. Sac may be fine for shopping and things like that, but I don’t want to live there. That’s where the gangs and druggies are. It’s like comparing Springfield to Agawam, or Phoenix to Maricopa and K-Falls.

The bad news is that it’s only $10 and it’s on days, but I’m just so glad he’s hired somewhere! Even if it was for less than $9, we just wanted him to get something. Where he was getting frustrated, my excitement and stress were quickly turning into downright fear! We’re as dumb as we are brave, you could say, to just up and go with nothing more than a few grand. I started beating myself up for believing him when he said we’d be ok, and for not insisting we hold out till we had more like 10 grand saved. We’re still not quite out of the woods yet, though this is the first and biggest step. They gave him an anti-static smock, but he still has to get steel-toed boots, a new alternator for the heap of shit we drive, and then figure out where to go from here.

We can’t stay here cuz it’s too expensive. I don’t expect to find a house right away cuz they don’t usually advertise online like apartments. I guess the best we can hope for is either a super cheap motel (if there is such a thing here) or a 1-bedroom apartment with a 3-month lease. Then we could shop around for the right house in either Rocklin or Lincoln. All I know is that I hate motels and apartments! A tooth house would be heaven compared to that, though I’d still prefer to get a house with some breathing space around it.

There’s no guarantee that this will turn into a full-time job, but from what he’s said and from his qualifications, it looks like it very well could, and I’m sure he could advance quickly. He went from $7.30 an hour in Oregon to $13 in just over a year, and he’s pretty sure they’d advance him further and quicker in a place like that because they know they’re not paying him what his skills are worth to begin with. If he could get overtime, that’d be great, too. For now, we’re not going to be able to make decisions as far as where to go is concerned until we know more about the job.

We’re pretty much on a mission here. If we don’t end up on the streets, first we get him settled into a job. Then we go after the state for the grand or so of Unemployment he’s entitled to that they still haven’t given him, using my ear as his reasons for quitting his job in Oregon, which truly is one of the many reasons, then we go after the government for the benefits that are rightfully mine. That may only be a few hundred a month, but a few hundred is a few hundred. In between all this, we hope to find a smart dentist who will knock all these messed up teeth outa my mouth, and an ear specialist to clean this canal they never should’ve drilled! The temp agency itself has a plan that’ll cost the same for both of us as Tom had to pay for just himself up in Oregon. It’s nice to know, as much as I hate doctors and having to go back to playing appointments, that I’ll soon be insured again after nearly 4 years!

My lungs have been ok and my ear is better. I suppose it’ll take time to see what new problems I’ll develop here. After all, I didn’t get hit with those killer allergy attacks until about a year after moving to Phoenix, and my ear didn’t become a problem once again till we’d been in Oregon for 6 months.

The question as to whether or not God did us a favor in denying our request for the Citrus Heights apartment remains a mystery. Considering that he landed a job in Rocklin, yeah, it’s a favor. But if we end up stuck in apartments for several months, then no. All it’ll do is cost us more money and put us through more chaos and hassles between the motels, apartment and storage.

There are pros and cons to extending our motel time and going straight to a house versus going to an apartment first. The apartment would be cheaper and I wouldn’t have to dodge housekeepers and we could have our stuff, but it would also be noisier and more work for him since he’d have to move our stuff at least twice. But an apartment would also give us time to shop around without as much pressure. In a way, I wish we could pitch a tent and stay in that! But we wouldn’t have any place to shower or an AC.

Lincoln has a lot of Mexicans cuz of all the farms, but fortunately, the blacks didn’t even make the stats list cuz there are so few of them. At least one of us can speak Spanish with these housekeepers. Most of them don’t know English. I gave the extra brushes I didn’t want to the one that came today.

I updated Jessie on what she agreed must be stressful as well as exciting, and we went to Big Lots for some treats and soda. That’s an awesome store. They have all kinds of fun stuff with serious discounts. We grabbed a phone cord while we were there cuz this Wi-Fi bullshit is so unreliable. We’d rather have something slow than be knocked offline every other minute.

Tinkerbell is still alive, to my utter amazement. I wish the spells could be as good at destroying her tumor as they are at keeping her alive. I miss the old Tinkerbell who used to drive me crazy by getting into everything. The one who loved to explore and chase me around the house. The one who fell in the toilet, got caught in spider traps, ran off with my lip gloss, coupons and shopping lists. The one who climbed my pant leg, then up my shirt to perch on my shoulder and watch me do the dishes.