LUCKY LEX

I'm hosting my very first guest blogger today - my daughter Alexis! I was just reading her MySpace posting of our recent visit there, and decided to share it with you. I like her version better (especially the part where she's bragging on her parents!). She also has some news to share:

My Charmed Life

I must say, I have the most unusual lucky streak ever. I will never win the lottery or come out ahead at a casino; if I'm playing a sport where things are flying through the air, I'm guaranteed to be hit in the head by it; I can't loose when it comes to jobs and careers though.

About a month ago I realized that I wasn't actually making enough money to pay all of my basic bills, and make payments towards the debt that ben and i created. So I started applying at restaurants for a second job since I knew there was no chance that I would get any money out of Ben (he hasn't contributed a penny in months). After two weeks, I was offered a job at a new upscale restaurant that was opening up down town to work nights as a server. The only catch was I would have to take off a week from my current job for training before the restaurant opened.

Today, I sat down with my boss to work out how I was going to make up the 20 hours I would be taking off. Instead she started talking about how she doesn't want me to take the job because it would inconvenience the firm at a really bad time (we are swamped with three multi-million dollar projects, one of which is in China). I was starting to think that I was up shit creek without a paddle. That is when she continued on and started explaining that in order to keep me from taking a second job, she was giving me a raise, adding me to the company health insurance, and would now start paying me time and a half for any overtime I work (I am now allowed to come in and work on extra stuff on saturdays and during the evenings as I see fit)! All I had to do to get all of this was call the restaurant and say I changed my mind.

This kind of stuff happens to me all the time. I never have to look for a job for very long. On the rare occasion that I don't get a job that I want, something even better typically falls straight into my lap soon after.

I'm very glad I don't have to actually work a second job. I would have been so exhausted for a reason that wasn't even fun.

I'm also flying pretty high because my parents came out to visit me over Labor Day weekend. I always have such a blast with them. The short version of what we did is as follows: walk walk eat laugh shop eat eat walk walk walk laugh repeat. We did a lot of exploring around various areas of San Diego (like la jolla and little italy). We ate at a lot of really great restaurants and hit up a farmers market that was to die for. I always feel so free and easy around my family, I'm never afraid that they are going to stop liking my company because of an opinion or value I might have. I can also talk to them about whatever is on my mind.Not many people inspire that feeling in me.

While here my dad went on a shopping spree (like usual). The man can't go on vacation without spending wads of money on stuff. He never buys stuff for himself though, He isn't having fun unless he is spending money on me or my brother. So after three days I owned a set of new speakers for my stereo, a radio antenna, a new printer/scanner (because my old one was the one he bought me in high school and that is not acceptable!), clothes, art, and a bag of goodies from bath and body works. I am spoiled. The really funny thing is, that I actually refused to let him buy me most of the things that he wanted to buy me. I sad no to about 5 things out of 6 that he wanted to buy me. I turned down a new flat screen tv, and he is still pouting over it.

I'm seriously spoiled.

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Hello, me again. I have to add one more thing about Lex and her amazing "luck", which she failed to mention. She seems to have a gift for animal magnetism - but not in a good way. When she was tiny and we took her to visit a pumpkin patch at a farm, who was the only kid there to get attacked by turkeys and covered in fire ants? In Indonesia, when we went with lots of other families on "hashes" through the jungle, who was the only kid to get chased by a water buffalo? When we bought peanuts to feed the monkeys in the jungle park, who was attacked by a crazed monkey who ripped the whole bag out of her hands, before she could even get it open? In fact, it was probably her fault that the ostrich tried to hump our van, and wouldn't let us past, the time we drove through the safari park. So, it's good she has better luck when it comes to jobs, just for balance. Poor thing - other than her bedroom set, those two old bucket chairs in the photo (used to be my "nursing chairs") are pretty much the only furniture she has right now.

And by the way, Lex. You SO deserve any spoiling you may get!