burnt toast life

onward and upward!

Goodbye cigars, hello organic bean sprouts!

I’m beyond pleased to announce that after nearly a month of phone calls, interviews, writing tests, freelancing, and waiting on pins and needles, I’ve been offered (and have ecstatically accepted!) a new position.

Not just any position… a full-time with benefits position at my dream company. The company I’ve been applying to every few months for the past five years. (That’s no exaggeration.)

It’s at a place called Rodale. It’s a massive publishing company, and if you’ve never heard of them, I’m sure you’ve heard of some of their titles: they’re the folks who publish magazines such as Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Bicycling, Prevention, and more. They’ve also published popular books such as An Inconvenient Truth and Eat This, Not That.

So you can see why, as a writer, the place is like the Promised Land to me. In the past I’d been applying to editorial roles and never got so much as an email back. A friend of mine (another writer/editor) and I jokingly began referring to Rodale as “the iron fortress,” because it seemed all but impossible to get in, at least in any kind of writing capacity. A current Rodale employee friend-of-a-friend looked at my resume and explained that I wasn’t getting callbacks because my work experience was “too commercial.” So when they posted an opening for an e-commerce copywriter, I’ll admit my hopes were up a little higher than they were the 497 times I had applied before. For the past 4.5 years, I’ve been writing product copy like nobody’s business. And you know what? I’m actually good at it.

The position is with their e-commerce site rodales.com, which was just launched last year. All of the items are carefully selected, and they only choose products that are responsibly sourced. If it’s clothing, it’s most likely organic cotton. If it’s imported, they guarantee the workers received fair wages. So in other words, I can feel good about all the things I’ll be writing about. Gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn’t it?

Bonus: they happen to be headquartered in Emmaus, PA, a mere 35 minute drive from my house. AND, super bonus, my neighbor across the street works there, so we can carpool and save some serious cash on gas.

The Rodale campus has a running trail, a gym with free fitness classes and discounted personal trainers for employees, a café with organic produce sourced from their own farm, and… wait for it… a daycare on premises.

Of course, the daycare thing is awesome (since I get an hour for lunch and can walk over to play with Molly! How amazing is that?!!). But, it’s a really good daycare, and it’s also open to the public. Hence…there’s a waiting list. I left a message to find out more details and I haven’t gotten a call back yet. It’s all right, I’m not in a huge hurry. The whole concept is bittersweet anyway, since I love that she goes to my sister and is bonding so much with her cousins. Even when Molly “gets in,” we plan to split the time between Aunt Ashley and daycare so that she gets the best of both worlds.

WAIT A MINUTE, I didn’t even tell you the best part yet. Are you ready for this? Are ya? Are ya?

I took a peek at their healthcare handbook, and lo and behold…they have infertility coverage. That is unheard of in Pennsylvania. And considering we’ll be trying for #2 sometime next year (with our frozen embies) and an embryo transfer is $2,600 minimum… this is AMAZING news.

It’s always tough to say goodbye. Over the past 15 months, I’ve really come to appreciate cigars more than I ever thought I would, and the people I work with are awesome. BUT, they work long hours in cigarworld, and now that I have the baby, getting home at 6 or later sucks (especially on the nights she decides her bedtime is 7:00 sharp). Working nine and a half hour days is something I just won’t miss. I also won’t miss my clothes and hair smelling like smoke all the time. But the people, yes, I will miss them.

So, onward. To the next stage of my life and career, a place where hopefully I can plant some roots and stay for a long, long time. 2014 has really been the best year ever.

gettin’ weird

Ever have one of those weeks where you think to yourself, “Where am I and what happened to my life?” That’s how I’m feeling right about now.

First – the new job. Without giving away too many specifics, I will tell you that I’m working for a pretty big cigar retailer as their first official full time copywriter. Me, a girl who has had approximately two puffs of a cigar in her entire life is now tasked with speaking eloquently about a topic that has a shocking number of insanely knowledgeable devotees. Intimidating? Yeah, a little. And lest you think I’m sitting there filling out new hire paperwork and smiling sweetly, the answer is no, I was thrown right into the mix with a gigantic amount of copy to write on my very first day. My motto of the week? Fake it ’til you make it, baby, and hope like hell that these cigar dudes don’t see right through me. I can’t help but compare it to a fertile Myrtle introduced to an infertility blog with no compass, attempting to decipher “ZOMG the bitch got a BFP after my BFN on an HPT on 9dp5dFET after an IUI, good CM, primo SA and so now I hope AF doesn’t come before the beta!” That’s me, at work, except it’s all like puro and figurado and ligero and I just look at them like, “Whaaaaa?”

Granted, my employer knew my level of interest/exposure to cigars (um, NONE) prior to hiring me, so they must have just liked something about my writing. Or, they made a terrible mistake. Hopefully not the latter. So far it’s been fun, and everyone clearly loves working there, and I feel important and respected with less than a week under my belt. So it’s not bad, it’s just… different. Just wait, in 6 months I’ll be this kickass cigar smoker with a terribly refined palate. And if you’re a true friend, then right now you’re saying, “No, Amanda, in 6 months you’ll be pregnant and not smoking cigars at all.” Right?!!

Next – I got my period today! And a week early by my count. Which is good, because I was about to bust out the zipper on my fat jeans (you may recall that I’ve done this once before) and have been crying at Zillow commercials for the past few days. Good to know it’s for a reason and not because I’m going cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Aaaanyway, the first thing I wanted to do when AF showed up was call the doctor, because seriously, doesn’t everyone call the doctor when they get their period? I texted Eric and said, “We need to talk about my period,” to which he was understandably confused, but yeah I just felt like more action was necessary. I have spent the entirety of 2013 calling people to announce the advent of my period. Literally, since January. I’ve either been pregnant or getting ready to get implanted. This is my first break all year… it was weird to accept. But I did sit down with me and ask, very gently, if I even wanted to call New Hope. And the answer was no, I’m not ready. I know we had already decided to wait, but I was secretly worried that when the time came, I wouldn’t want to wait. The truth is that I do need to wait, and I want to wait. So it’s alllll good.

And of course a tiny annoying voice kept saying, “Maybe you’ll conceive on your own this month,” and of course I was like, “Shut up, stupid tiny voice, what makes this month different from the freaking two and a half years preceding our IVF cycle?” It’s not. I mean, the difference is that I’ve been pregnant. So now I think my subconscious got cocky, and she’s like, “Girl, we got this.” But we don’t. I got pregnant from pre-fertilized embryos, not from a glass of wine and an OPK. It’s just insane to think it could happen. But damn, that would make things so much easier.

Which brings me to my next weird moment. Today I was perusing my new benefits package when I came across a line that made my little heart stop with hope. Under Infertility Services it said “covered in full after deductible.” Which is totally too good to be true, and which isn’t true at all, it turns out. I went running in to Eric squealing like we hit the Powerball until I saw the next line, which said Assisted Fertilization: not covered. Why are those two things separated out? Could it be any more unclear? I’m assuming it just means they cover the testing and not the treatment, because they are total and complete assholes, but did they really have to get my hopes up like that? I guess I will have to ask to confirm (hello, awkward conversation with HR department at a new company).

One thing that is surprisingly covered, however, is infertility drugs. They give you up to $2,500 for your lifetime. Of course we’ve already spent more than that, but there’s more to come, and that’s pretty good. Better than what I had before ($0), so no complaints here. Why are they covering drugs and not treatment? Because they suck. Insurance companies: blah.

That’s all for now, dear friends. I no longer have time (or, ahem, permission) to sit there catching up on blogs and Facebooking all day, so I’m frantically trying to catch up on all my feeds at night while still doing the cooking, general household maintenance, and oh yeah, working later in the evening. Phew. Is it Friday yet?

big changes (and also the story of the panic attack)

I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath to hear the story of my most recent panic attack. Sorry that I made you wait so long, but I had to tie up a few loose ends before I could share.

First, the good news – I have been offered and have accepted a new job. Of course I am sad to leave coworkers who have become genuine friends over the past few years, but I’m also excited at the prospect of trying something new. Admittedly, my job has become monotonous lately, and it’s gotten to the point that I’m just going through the motions as my brain turns to mush. I need a new challenge. While I’m not big on change as a rule, I do want to develop my talents and grow professionally. My current job, while wonderfully flexible and easy, does not offer these kinds of opportunities. This new job? Tons of potential for growth, with the added bonus of business travel. I have always wanted to travel for work (I know, some people hate it, but for now at least it seems glamorous). Plus, the places I’ll get to go are pretty awesome. It’s exciting. Nerve-racking, but exciting.

“But Amanda, this all sounds so great, why are you having panic attacks?” you might wonder. Well, nothing about this whole new job thing has come easy. I first put in my application on May 7th. Yes, May 7th. Over the course of the past few months, I became convinced that they were just going to hire someone else. I am fortunate enough to know someone who works there (not a close friend, more of an aquaintence friend-of-a-friend type person), so I did have the inside scoop on where they were in terms of the hiring process the whole time. It just took a while, and there were a lot of applicants. The (first) interview was literally four and a half hours long and involved meeting six people. It was quite a day. There was even a second interview (thankfully not four and a half hours long), a personality quiz and a writing test. They clearly take hiring very seriously, and I appreciate that. It also made me feel pretty damn good when I was the one they chose.

All of these things, while not panic attack worthy, were stressful. I wanted to know the outcome and prepare accordingly. Finally, I got the call – I was hired! I just had to do a quick background check and drug test and we’d be all good to go.

Somehow I’ve made it through 29 years of my life and have never had to take a drug test before. It really doesn’t matter; it’s not like I do drugs. I had nothing to fear. But this particular drug test coincided with my miscarriage and the prescribed medication that I’ve been taking for it. I went into the company to quickly fill out background check paperwork and to pee in a cup. Interestingly, the receptionist was the one in charge of administering and reporting on the test. I warned her that I was on medication and showed her the bottles, which I was smart enough to bring along. I peed. I waited. A second receptionist got involved in the reading of the results. And then the HR person pulled me into a conference room and informed me that I failed the test. I had tested positive for opiates.

Well, yeah. That’s when the panic attack happened. I started crying pretty hard and explained that I was going through a miscarriage and was on this medication, which had to be what made me fail because I didn’t do drugs and I certainly didn’t do drugs while pregnant, which I was up until a little while ago. I’m sure it’s not the first time an HR person has had to hear someone cry. But still, it was embarrassing. I didn’t even WORK for this company yet. He was very nice about the whole thing and sent me off saying that it would all get straightened out once they sent it out to the lab for further clarification. But still, I couldn’t help but feel like the receptionist thought I was some huge heroin addict. Failed my first drug test. Just craziness.

It took several days (which felt like an eternity), but it did all get sorted. I had failed for the drugs that were precribed to me – and for future reference, Tylenol with codeine comes up as opiates on a drug test. You know, in case you were wondering.

And of course, because I am me, after being hired my mind immediately jumped to treatments. For all the negative things I can say about my current job, one invaluable thing that’s remained is their unceasing flexibility when it comes to leaving early, coming in late, working from home and not working at all when I need to. It’s been such a blessing. I’ve felt totally comfortable sharing what was going on, and my sort-of boss and friend has been known to say things like, “Please stay home today with your legs up” and “Take all the time you need to process and don’t worry for one minute about work. It’s all taken care of.”

It would be silly to expect that kind of environment at this new place, especially in the uncertain first few months. Taking a break from treatments is one thing, but for how long? What’s going to happen when I start up a cycle again? Of course I can’t predict the future at all. Maybe they’ll offer flexibility, too. I can only hope.

So one week from today I am embarking on this new professional path, which will hopefully feature positive change and new opportunities. I will truly miss the girls (and guys) I work with, who always seem to make me laugh when I feel like crying. But I’m not too worried about staying in touch. It’s a tradition I’ve kept up with almost all the places I’ve worked. I’m just going to bully them into hanging out with me and scare them too much to flake out. Sounds like a good tactic.

Here’s to new beginnings and taking chances (and passing drug tests).