Four months of unemployment -- deep, thoughtful insights right here

Tada! It's been four months now since I got the boot. What have I learned? I bet you're on the edge of your seat wanting to know, haha.

I feel like I've gone through a lot of grieving-like stages in the recent months -- the feeling of shock, getting angry, getting really angry, a cookie-dough binge, rampant cake-baking, depression including boo-hooing on my awesome hub's shoulder, a renewed interest in chocolate pop-tarts and more recently a basically full-time volunteer gig in politics that I love and makes me feel like I'm contributing to society. :-) I would describe the most recent phase as "tax time". For some reason, entering our W-2s and 1099s into the tax form over the weekend made me sob like a baby on my laptop. Oh man, really? Yeah, really. I know I'm due with a baby in two weeks and am therefore a Category 4 hormonal wreck, but geez. Fortunately, my outburst was short lived. Unfortunately, I still have to finish the taxes, ugh. Maybe when I have a job again I can pay someone to do them for me.

Speaking of public service, The New York Times ran an interesting piece on what college grads are doing in a tough economy -- an increased number of them have landed public service jobs because the fatter paycheck jobs just aren't there. Wise, and kind of cool. The story didn't mention anything about what unemployed 42-year-old pregnant mamas are up to along these lines, but that's OK. We know who we are.

Actually my outlook is not too bad. I've done, and am still doing, all the stuff you're supposed to do to land a job. Spring will arrive here one of these days, and that cheers a lot of weather-sensitive people like me up. And I will someday not resemble a whale and actually fit into a suit. Life is good.