What's going on

I guess y'all are due for an update as to what's been going on around here!

No, I don't have a job yet. But my old one is keeping me pretty busy with freelance stories. It's nice. I can still do what I love, make a couple of dollars, and I still have time for other stuff (like job hunting). I almost wish I had enough stories each week to equal a paycheck, but at least it's something.

My food stamps came in. I ain't too proud to jump up and down about it! I figure it this way, unemployment will pay for the roof over our heads, and food stamps will keep us fat and happy. You think I'm kidding! Let me tell you, I get two-and-a-half times as much money now to spend on food as I was spending before I got laid off. I'm used to buying just what we need to cook meals, and maybe splurging on a bag of chips or popcorn. I went to the store the other day and was super excited to be able to buy a pot roast. There are other yummy meals now waiting to be prepared.

My kids only had one demand: buy snacks! Y'all...I stood there in that grocery aisle just staring at all that food like I've never seen any before. It was like sensory overload! I can buy anything I want...except it is possible to spend too much. (It might have taken another grocery cart, but it could be done!) I kept thinking do I get cookies or chips? Do I make cookies or buy packaged? Pudding cups or pudding mix? What kind of snacks do they want?? Too many decisions!

I think the kids are happy, though. They won't eat their snacks up in a day. It might actually take three. And they don't even know yet what I've stuck in the deep freeze! ;)

On a completely different note, I'm seeing a guy who's kind of incredible. I've been hesitant to talk about him much because I don't want to jinx it. But yeah...he's pretty awesome.

Okay, I'll gush a little bit. I figure it's fair, since one of his coworkers just today said he'd heard I was a good cook. :)  He's as sweet as he can be. Every morning I get a text with the title of my song for the day...some song that he says reminds him of me. I have playlist of them going on YouTube, and sometimes I listen to them when I'm working on stuff. We're up to like 23.

There are two main things that make him awesome: 1) I sense that under it all I have a friend in him and 2) there are all the ways he doesn't make me feel -- anxious, insecure, distrustful, dissecting or beneath him in any way. I don't wonder what I should do next or what he's up to when he's not with me. This is new to me, but I like it!

It's early yet, but I think he just might mean it when he says he wants to be around a while.

I met him online about a month ago, but within an hour we wondered how we haven't met before. Hope is one of his good friends from middle school. She almost set us up last year...but I was going through a breakup. On a seperate occasion, she told me to call him as a source for a story I was working on. I didn't. And she invited him countless times to come to Margaritaz with us, but he didn't. (Yes, he sings. He's a bigger karaoke nut than me. :) )

But there's more. Christopher and his oldest son were in the same class at Walker. Catie's friend Danielle is his uncle's granddaughter, and they live in our neighborhood. He grew up maybe two miles from where I grew up, so if I hadn't moved in with Daddy when I was 14, we'd have graduated from Butler together. We even know some of the same people from Winn Dixie, because that was his first job, too. (Different location, though.)

One of his co-workers asked him recently how we met. He just said, "It was fate."

Yeah, kinda. Oh, and you know what else? He's really cute, too! ;)