While I only got to see the mountains from a distance as we drove through them this week for my interview, I look forward to exploring the trails and hiking some next summer if I get this job. The mountains up there remind me a lot of the mountains in North Alabama, except that the people are far nicer and more liberal.

  
If all goes well this next week, today may be my last day to sleep in.

And here’s a bonus picture since today begins the college football season.  GO GOLD!!!!

Before my interview Thursday, I began to freak out a little, okay a lot. I knew I was prepared, but I still got incredibly nervous and on the verge of a full blown panic attack. My boyfriend was working, so I couldn’t disturb him, so I texted a very good friend of mine who always seems to calm me down. When I told him I was freaking out he told me that everything would be okay and that I would do great. Then he texted me this:

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

When I couldn’t think clearly, he knew exactly how I am able to calm myself. Mama used to sing “You Are My Sunshine” to me when I was little. It has always calmed me when I have a panic attack. It’s one of the few things that work. It’s puts me back into perspective and allows things to slow down. So I sang:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away

The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamt I held you in my arms
When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I hung my head, and I cried

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away

I’ll always love you and make you happy
If you will only say the same
But if you leave me to love another,
You’ll regret it all one day

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You never know, dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away

Please don’t take my sunshine away

Before I knew it, I had calmed down and had been able to convince myself that I was ready for this interview and that it would go great. And it did. Thank you everyone for your prayers, but it’s not over yet. I still need your prayers. They won’t decide until next week after the other two people are interviewed. I’m hoping that I was memorable enough that they will offer me the job. But I have to be patient and wait. So my true Moment of Zen this week was a friend reminding me: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

And while I could have used most any picture for today’s Moment of Zen, I chose the one above. It looks kind of sunshiny.  If you don’t know who the guy in the middle is (and if you don’t, what rock have you been living under?), it is Pietro Boselli. Boselli has a PhD in mathematics and paid his way through graduate school by modeling. He lectures at the University of London.  He’s also Italian. (swoon) I’m not a math person, so I do not understand what he actually studies. Advanced mathematics is something that is way over my head. Isn’t it just unfair that someone can be that beautiful and that brilliant? He posted the above picture to Instagram which shows the math teacher/model striking a pose with Spanish model River Viiperi and Texan model Parker Gregory.

About 4 p.m. yesterday, I got an email from a friend of mine.  She suggested that I check out a book review she had just read.  She said that she thought I might be interested in the book.  I clicked on the link, and it was a review for Jamie Fessenden’s By That Sin Fell the Angels.  Once I read the review, I knew it was a book I wanted to read (if you read the review, you’ll see why she thought of me).  The book is available on Kindle so I downloaded the sample to see if I’d really like it or not.  By the time I finished the sample, I wanted more, so I got the whole book.  I’m a slow reader so it usually takes me a while to read a book, but this one I sat down and read from start to finish with barely a break.  I just needed to know how it ended, and I finished just before midnight.  I’ve only ever done that with one book before, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.  By That Sin Fell the Angels was really that good. I’m sorry it ended.  I’ve never read a book by Fessenden, but I know I’ll be checking out more of his books.

  
Sexy abs are something I will never have, but the sure are fun to look at, especially when you get that little glimpse when a guy raises his arms and his shirt lifts up or when he scratches his belly and you get a little skin. It’s even sexier to me when there’s a little bit of a treasure trail.
PS: I did not get the job yesterday. Long story, and long day. Major waste of time. On to the next interview Tuesday, this time for a job I actually want.

This post is for Susan and all the backside connoisseurs out there. Susan commented the other day on my post “#FreeTheBacon” about more male nudity in Hollywood, “No negative response here, Joe, although I do admit to being more of a backside connoisseur. :-)”. Clothed, exposed, or totally nude, the male backside, especially a nice rounded one, is a thing of beauty.

FYI, my job interview seemed to have gone pretty well. I’ll just have to wait and see if I was what they were looking for. Hopefully, I will know sometime next week.

I’ve had what I would consider a pretty productive week. I told my mother that I couldn’t help out with my granny this week, because I had to get in more job applications (though I did go,stay with her for a few hours yesterday). I have submitted well over a dozen job applications to museums, historical societies, and colleges. Please keep your fingers crossed that one of these leads to something. I wasn’t as productive on my novel as I would have liked to have been, but I spent nearly all of my waking hours fine tuning job applications, cover letters, resumes, and CVs.

Shortly after I lost my job, a dear friend of mine and one of my regular readers sent me a very sweet letter and a quote. I’ve been wanting to share this quote, and I think now is a good time:

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” –Ella Fitzgerald

When I get discouraged, I look at that quote and remember the words my friend wrote in his note, “Ella knew what she was talking about.” Thanks, TG, you like many of my readers are a true inspiration to me. You have been there in my time of need, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

You sometimes don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s gone.  I’ve missed my coffee the past two mornings. I’ve been with my granny (with limited internet access, only from my phone since she doesn’t have internet) for the past few days.  She will soon be moving to an assisted living home but right now she needs around the clock care and my mother needed a rest, so I’ve been here.  Although no internet is hard enough, having to drink instant coffee is awful.  It honestly doesn’t taste like coffee to me, but it’s the only thing Granny has since she won’t have a coffee maker.  She likes instant coffee for some reason, so I’m desperately ready to get home and be able to have areal cup of coffee tomorrow morning.

PS If you have emailed me in the last few days, I’m thinking of you, but it’s hard to email anything more than a short email from my phone.

I have been very busy this past week, but there are two things that have made me very happy this week: reading and writing (two out of three of the 3 R’s isn’t bad, but not arithmetic please).

First, I have been reading Go Set the Watchman by Harper Lee, and whereas there seems to be a lot of unflattering reviews of the book, I find them misplaced.  In fact, I’m not so sure some of the readers even read the book, and if they had, they already made up their mind before they read it that they wouldn’t like it.  I still have about 100 pages to go, but so far I am loving the book, and I think it is an important piece of history.  No matter what you think of the book, it captures the nuances of changes in the South in the 1950s, but more on that when I finish the book.

Also, I have been writing.  A few weeks ago, at the encouragement of friends, I began writing a novel.  I’d tried to write one several years ago, but life got in the way and I never finished it.  However,  this book is one that I have had in my head for a while and thought that it needed to come out.  So I put pen to paper, or more accurately fingers to keyboard, and I began writing.  I will also talk more about that in the future as well.