Back among the employed

Yesterday I accepted a position with a local marketing firm. I'm back among the employed. I can't tell you all how much of a relief it is to have a job again. With a baby coming, Gina and I are about to have some expenses that her salary and my unemployment check just weren't going to be able to cover.

I go in for a little bit of training today, but my first official day is Monday. That's February 6. I was laid off September 6. I will have been out of work 5 months exactly.

We'd been praying about me finding a job. We knew that our timing wasn't necessarily God's timing. We would have loved for me to find a job right away, but I didn't. It got frustrating at times. Especially those times when it seemed like something was right around the corner. I had a couple of very promising interviews with one company early on. I was sure that I was going to get that job. Then we didn't hear from them for more than a month. Finally, around Christmas they called to tell me that, while they liked me and thought I interviewed well, they went with someone else. That crushed us. Well, me for sure. I think Gina had already written that job off.

But this job that I accepted came up quickly. I heard about it and sent my resume to them on a Wednesday morning. Talked with the woman who will be my boss that afternoon. Interviewed for a few hours on Friday. And less than a week later I got hired. I have to think that it was pretty divine timing. When it's the right job there aren't any roadblocks in the process.

As for what I'll be doing in the position, it's mostly editing. There will be some writing and some coordinating of freelancers. This seems like the ideal job for me. Much better than the one that got away early on. It lets me take the skills that I spent 15 years building at the newspaper and use them. Plus I get to do some things that are new. New challenges were part of what I was looking for when I was searching. I really am very excited about how it all came about and about the new job.

For those of you who were keeping me and Gina in your thoughts, we thank you. It was tough, but we know that we're much better off than many people out there.