my God given NEW JOB!

You may {or may not} remember me talking about my life taking a 180 in the last couple months. If you don't remember, read this post, it may be my most clear-headed moment of my life OR as Oprah calls it - my aha! moment. It was also written at the end of the most relaxing week of vacation with the love of my life, which left me feeling all philosophical and breezy. I'm glad I wrote it at that time - since then - we've landed back on planet earth with it's stresses and hassles, yet I still remember the feeling I had at that moment and try to apply those words, His words, as often as I can - if I can only stop for a moment to breathe and recite those verses.

But I left you hanging - what caused my 180, my aha! moment? A blessing I have been searching for and whining for and {impatiently} waiting for a while now.

and if my blog readers are anything like my facebook friends you might have come to the same conclusion they did when I left this facebook status 2 months ago:

 "Stephanie is NOT a good secret keeper. So I'll just say it with punctuation: !!!=)=)!!!!!=)!!!!=)!"

I couldn't tell the whole world just yet, but I was so happy, I had to shout status update about it anyway. So, for the readers that may travel the same train of thought as my facebook amigos - No, there is not a little bundle of joy on the way, yet.

{Do you even know how many messages, phone calls, and texts I got about that one little status? Thank God my mom and mother-in-law, who are also on facebook, already had the heads up and weren't left wondering if they just learned they were going to be grandmas... through facebook.}

So here it is, the "big secret" - that hasn't actually been a secret for 2 months now - just that I never got around to telling you, my bloggie friends, about it: I got a new job!

A fabulous new job. 5 minutes from my house - 10 minutes tops. {The old job: 1 hour and 15 minutes ONE WAY.} With better hours {14 hour days PLUS 2.5 hours driving with the old job (!)}. I also, now, have OVERTIME! Time and a half!! You're probably thinking - yeah, who doesn't? Overtime was not part of the old job - I could easily be asked begged to work 60 hours a week at other stores in the same corporation {*cough* *cough* - CVS} hours away from my house {hours of driving on top of the 60 hour weeks} with no overtime what-so-ever. I'll just say this: that's crap.

I also still get to be pharmacy manager and got an extra week of vacation in the deal as well =)

Am I happy?

No.

Ecstatic.


All of this after a year and a half of the old guys promising me a store close to home, a year and a half where I got worn out, fed-up, and then started the search for a new job. I applied to every job I could find online, printed out hundreds of business cards, handed them out to everyone I saw and finally, gave up the good fight after every pharmacy near home told me the same thing: they had zero positions open.

***Lexington is quite the oddity in the pharmacy world - when every other town {especially in rural areas} is begging pharmacists to move in and work - Lexington is over-saturated with pharmacists, mostly due to UK's college of pharmacy in town and many students remaining in the area after graduation. It is a fight to the bitter death and a who you know kind of game to be a pharmacist in this town. Being from eastern Kentucky and going to pharmacy school in Virginia left me with no connections to get my foot in the door here.

After giving up, I finally settled with what I did have - reminding myself I was soooo very lucky to have a job and to be paid well... even if I was exhausted beyond measure from life on the road, in and out of hotels, seeing my husband, home, and puppy whenever time allowed, and starting to feel on edge, capable of having an emotional outburst 99.9% of the time, seeing no light at the end of the tunnel AND knowing there was no way we could ever start a family as long as I was in this predicament - I was, still, very blessed.

When I was finished trying to handle it myself, I did what I should have been doing from the very beginning - I prayed about it. Especially on the long drives. I prayed for Him to show me what I needed to learn from this situation, to help me become something better from this trial, praising him for the many blessings I had, and asking, if it was His will - could He please find a job for me closer to home?

and then He called me... not really Him - but He did find a job for me... and they called ME while I was at work and asked me to interview for a newly opened position. By the grace of God {seriously now} word of mouth had reached the right ears and THIS. JOB. FOUND. ME.

I was filled with utter disbelieve and covered in goose bumps. I don't believe in coincidences... but I do believe in the power of prayer.

The rest is history. I accepted the job the day of my interview, I worked for both CVS and my new employer {Meijer!} for 2 weeks, which was draining and left me in a blogging drought - I was completely MIA around here - but my excitement saw me through those trillion hours. {I shouldn't even mention on my last day of work with CVS, I had to call my husband on the way home, 11:30 at night, and admit that I needed him to come pick me up at the Waffle House, 15 minutes from the house, where I had parked because my eyes were no longer staying open. I had only made it that far by rolling down the window in the rain to wake me up on and off the past hour - scary, to say the least.}

I am, once again, the luckiest girl in the world. Thank God♥!