Officially Unemployed

This week, Cary Anne and I each became officially unemployed. Here, we'll break down our thoughts on the matter separately.


First, Cary Anne: 
Its not the first time I’ve been unemployed. I was unemployed just before and after Spencer and I got married, but it feels like such a bigger deal now then it was then, probably because Spencer is going to be unemployed at the same time I am and, in case you haven’t noticed, NOBODY is getting hired these days. Call us stupid, but we’re actually quitting our jobs in this economy and spending a boat load of money moving to a brand new city (that I’ve never even visited before in my entire life!) I feel like I should be scared. But I’m not, not really anyway. A few weeks ago I was absolutely terrified that we were doing this, but now I’m more excited than anything else.


I’ve been though four jobs in the past year. Some were good, some mediocre. I will definitely miss the people more than the jobs. The mall was brief and rather unreliable, but I had fun and discovered how much I would love to make clothes! The call center… well, it was a call center. I met some great people and didn’t always hate being on the phone, but it was just so…full of regulations (to put it kindly).

My favorite job of the past year was definitely working part time at the library. I LOVE the library. I read so much! Mainly when I was supposed to be shelving the books as opposed to browsing through them, but I managed to keep my browsing under control and actually get a decent number for books shelved in a night.  I loved the people: always friendly, funny, and had GREAT book recommendations! There was always great conversation to be had, whether it was about routines and products for curly hair or defining the ‘science fiction’ genre or about physics (I would elaborate here, but I never really understood what was going on in these conversations, people who work at libraries are too smart).  I had a great time every night and weekend I worked and will truly miss everybody at the Beaumont branch of LPL.


Now, me:
Yesterday, after 2 and half years, was my final day at Krispy Kreme. And it was bittersweet.


I took the job back in June of 2009 thinking it would probably just be a summer gig, but it quickly stretched into the longest stent I've ever worked in one place. What I think I liked most about the Double K is the people. Believe it or not, after graduating from a small Southern Baptist college in rural Kentucky, my friend base was not very diverse. (A lot of white bread in that crowd.) Working at Krispy Kreme, I've become friends with people of different ages, and races, and backgrounds, and Wing Feast on Sunday Afternoons (where a bunch of us from Krispy Kreme gather at Buffalo Wild Wings) has become one of the favorite parts of my week.


While working at a fast food joint can be extremely tiring and frustrating (which I've written about over on my comedy blog and even wrote a stand-up routine about), some of favorite memories are also from my time at the doughnut shop.

Over the past several months my manager, Clayton (the guy up in the boxes on the right), has been trying to scare me into staying. (Believe it or not, hard-working, reliable people aren't always easy to come by in the fast food business.) He keeps saying that Cary Anne and I won't be able to find work, that we'll end up on the street, and that he'll have to come save us when he takes his vacation in December. I think he's joking (for the most part), but it definitely is a real fear. I'm leaving steady work at KK and I even turning down an offer to come back to work at Geno's (a formal shop here in town that I worked at during prom season and loved) to move to Chicago. It's a big gamble, and hopefully it pays off.

A New Beginning

It's official. We're moving to Chicago.

They sent us the lease to our new place this week, and our apartment is already starting to fill with boxes.

Before Cary Anne and I got married, we were already planning on heading to Chicago. For me, Chicago's appeal lies in the fact that it's basically the Mecca for studying comedy in the United States, with training centers like Second City and Improv Olympic. Cary Anne is excited because she hopes to put her Theatre degree to good use, and because she'll be able to ride public transportation all the time. (That's right, a good public transportation is seriously one of her requirements for where we live. She's saving the Earth one Metro ride at a time.)

We currently live in Lexington, KY, in the apartment we moved into right after we got married last year. We thought saving up for Chicago would take us at least a year and a half, but over the past year we've been pretty frugal, so we've been able to raise enough funds in just twelve months. Though our financial situation is hardly stable since we're moving to Chi-town on faith, because neither one of us has secured a job there. (I can hear your "Really? You're doing that in this economy?" from here.)

Much like with our current place, I was put in charge finding us an apartment. Last week, I spent four days in the city getting lost, looking at places, catching up with a couple old friends (neither of which I'd seen in roughly 5 years), seeing lots of improv shows, and crashing at a local hostel. Luckily, I was able to find us a "spacious" (note the quotations) studio in the northern part of the city. Sadly, "spacious" for us means moving to an apartment about half the size of our place now. We've already started selling off some of our furniture on Craigslist. (Anybody need a sofa?) While I'm sad to see some of the stuff go, I'm reminded of the lyrics from one of my favorite Death Cab for Cutie songs: "Flames and smoke climbed out of every window / and disappeared with everything that you held dear / but you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need / 'cause you knew you were finally free."


Since we're now moving away from many of our close family and friends, we figured starting a blog would be a good way to keep everyone up to date with what's going on in our lives as well as record our family history. When our friend Chris heard we were moving to Chicago and starting a blog, he exclaimed "You can call it 'Chi-blog-o'!" So maybe our name isn't quite as catchy, but we hope you'll keep reading.