I thought I was supposed to go into work at Rubbermaid last evening – I’ve just started the night shift – 6 PM to 6 AM, but when I got there, I discovered that only half the normal people were there, and no temporary employees like myself.  I guess I should have known – that’s what they do for the Thankgsgiving holiday.  So I went home, unsure of whether I should be happy or sad.

Since I hadn’t seen Emily (my daughter) on Thanksgiving (she didn’t feel like participating in the gathering at my brother’s house), I called her.  When she said she wasn’t doing anything, I offered to take her to a movie (the “dollar” theater, that costs $2.25 on weekends!) – seems to have become a standard thing for us.  So we did that (after I had already made 2 trips to Hartville and Canton yesterday to help Andrew (my son) purchase a truck.  He is so excited about that, by the way – has been wanting to get a Ford F-250 for ages.  Emily was also quite excited about it.  He even let her drive it.

I tried to stay up late in an attempt to get my body adjusted to this new work schedule, and made it until about 3 AM.  Then woke up a little after 8.  I don’t know how I’m going to make it all night tonight.

It is kind of nice to be able to get up in a more leisurely fashion, without the aid of an alarm.  The plan, generally, is to go to bed as soon as I get off work, and sleep until I wake up naturally.  There are a couple of problems with this. I have a tendency to stay in bed too long.  Another has to do with church.  One of the reasons I switched to this schedule is because I wanted to be able to attend  every week, but now it seems like I will have a problem going every week, not just every other week as it’s been – the work schedule is on a two week cycle.  I don’t think I’ll be able to stay up all night and not go to bed until 11 AM or so, which is about the only way to work Saturday night and get to church at 9 AM.  But this also presents a problem even when I’m not working on Saturday night because I need to get into a routine or I just won’t be getting enough sleep.  I guess I’ll just have to try sleeping both before and after church on those days.

When I woke up this morning, I was feeling depressed as usual, thinking about my situation.  I need a lot more direction.  I want to get married and out of debt, both of which hinge on increasing my income, but finding a good job has been such a struggle.  I’ve been trying for 4 years now and have kind of given up.  I keep coming back to the idea of self-employment.  That seems to be my only hope, and it’s what I’ve known for most of the past 25 years.

Andrea called me.  I need to talk to someone, and it helps a little to talk to her, but it seems we always end up in a debate, and I don’t feel very comforted.  She’s always been opposed to the idea of self-employment so we can’t talk about that.