Tanks:  Rebellia & Old Navy // Jeans:  Rebellia // Flip Flops:  Old Navy

6 MONTH FLORIDA UPDATE

Ok, first of all, I cannot believe that we have been in Florida for 6 months.  How did these past 6 months fly that fast???!!!  It’s been quite an emotional last 3 months with my grandparents both passing away, and just last week we lost our 14 year old handsome little maltese.  That’s been the hardest part of this whole move, is not being able to be there with my family, or even be there with my mom in this hard time.  I wanted to get into what’s happened since my last two updates here and here.

THE GOOD

MY NEW JOB

If you remember from my last Florida update post (here) I talked about my job hunting situation.  I went into the first job I had and how that quickly stopped when I quit after only a few days.  I just knew it wasn’t for me.  When they talk about the position online or even in the interview, they are really good salespeople and good at selling you the job.  However, when you actually get out there, it’s a job where you just annoy people all day long.  Then, I called my “dream job” and asked if they had filled the position because I wanted to work for them and was willing to take a pay cut.  I was willing to start at the bottom and work my way up.  I truly believed I would do really great at this job.

I. WAS. WRONG.  You can read ALL about how my dream job turned into my worst nightmare here, but to save you a little bit of time, I’ll tell you the short story version.  Basically, the one owner (it’s a husband and wife operation) made the company sound so romantic.  Don’t get me wrong, they have an absolutely beautiful story and I admire the hard work and perseverance that the both of them had, because you can tell that it took blood, sweat, and tears to get to where they were.  However, she had apparently forgotten where they came from.  She had forgotten what being humble was.  Her husband was always very nice and polite to me, but I never had to work with him, so I’m not sure how he is to work for.  However, the one thing I learned from the female owner, is how NOT to act as a business owner.

She was so rude and demeaning towards her employees, except for her favorites.  She had accused me of lying, all because she displayed favoritism.  She told me to fuck off for no reason one day, and she was never happy with anything that I did except for a video I compiled and one e-newsletter.  Being a teacher’s pet and throwing people under the bus at this place was encouraged.  The female owner had also told the entire office about another employee’s addiction problem.  As someone who has lost loved ones to addiction and had to watch someone very close to me battle an addiction and make it out alive, I did not appreciate this one bit.  That is not your story to tell, and you can get someone into a lot of trouble for spreading that kind of information around.  Especially because after she told the office all I heard were whispers on trying to figure out what the person was addicted to.  THAT. IS. NO. ONE’S. FUCKING. BUSINESS.

Since I was let go (thank the friggin lawd!), I have “found” another job working for the family business.  My fiance and his brother have me working as the main person at the store.  I am able to do whatever I want.  There is work that has to be done, but once I’m done with that, I can work on my blog, macrame, or just binge watch Netflix.  I’ve never been so relaxed at a job, and I actually enjoy coming to work.  It’s because of the industry that we are in with this store, that I’m able to help people on a daily basis.  I had a few customers cry when they purchased from us because they couldn’t find anything else that worked.  When I have people telling me that they have been able to stop using drugs whether street/pharmaceutical (pain killers, etc), it honestly makes me so happy.  I get to go home after a day of work and actually feel like I helped someone that day.

MEJ PHOTOGRAPHY OPENED

I have finally opened my photography business!  Check out my website for more information, or like my page on Facebook!  I’ve already booked three sessions here in Florida and I also did my first ever family session.  I knew that photographing kids can be extremely hard, which is why I’m glad I was able to do it.  I’m so excited for this adventure!

LILLY IN PINK REOPENED

If you read this post, you would have found out that I have reopened my Etsy shop.  My macrame is now on sale!  I’ve been working on macrame for a few months now, and finally decided to try and sell some of the pieces, because I don’t need that many pieces in my home.  Some pieces I won’t be selling because they either took too much time for me to be able to part with, or I made them specifically for that room of the house.

REBELLIA AMBASSADOR

I became a Rebellia Ambassdor!  If you don’t know anything about Rebellia Clothing, it was a company started by a super badass female named Chrystal.  I wrote more about the company and even included testimonials in this post.  Long story short, Chrystal started this company for women who have bodies that don’t fit society’s standards.  What I love about Rebellia, is that there is also a group that Chrystal has on Facebook called Rebel Babe Cave.  It’s not just about the brand, for example new arrivals that come in every week, but it’s also about supporting one another.  There are girls in the group who are going through some serious shit and we all support one another.  There are also epic meme threads.  It’s basically one of the best Facebook Groups I’m a part of.

HOUSE TOUR

I FINALLY put up a house tour in this post.  I’m so sorry that it took me so long to put one up, but I just didn’t realize how much time had gone by, and we were still waiting for our furniture.  Which, btw, keep reading for an update on that situation, it’s absolutely unreal.  We are still working on the house, and I’m still coming up with more ways to decorate.  I’ll probably put up an updated house tour, once we have all of our pieces of furniture that aren’t damaged, and once I’ve decorated a little more.  I’ve been slacking in the decorating department, only because I’m trying to save some money, so I’d rather spend some extra money on things we need in the house, rather than things I want.

THE BAD

BAD THINGS COME IN THREES:  LOSING 3 LOVED ONES

Since my last update, my family has lost 3 loved ones.  Both of my grandparents (my mom’s parents) passed away within two weeks of each other.  Both of them had been sick for some time, and my grandma’s cancer came back with a vengeance, so we were expecting something bad to happen.  However, we weren’t expecting for both of them to be taken from us.  I just couldn’t believe that both of them had passed within two weeks of each other.  These are the grandparents that I had been visiting in Poland.  The next time that I go back to Poland, it’s going to be very strange.  I was really only going for them, so I won’t be going back for a long time, but I honestly don’t want to.  I’m not ready to go to the cemetery and visit them there.

They say that bad things come in threes, and the third death happened just last week.  Our 14 year old maltese crossed the rainbow bridge.  He was my 18th birthday present, and was so tiny when we got him that he fit into the palm of my hand.  That was back when little dogs were trendy and Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton had the little ones.  Maltese dogs are also hypoallergenic, so my dad wasn’t allergic to him.  That’s why we didn’t have a dog for so many years because he didn’t know he was allergic to dogs until my parents got my childhood bestie, our German Shepherd.  Anyway, Kuba (that is his name, pronounced kooba), eventually took to my mom more because she was giving him really yummy human food, and what animal prefers their gross dry dog food over human food; none haha!  So, my mom ended up taking over the mom role to him.  That’s why he stayed with my mom when I left for Texas and Florida.  The past year has been rough with him because he started peeing everywhere and he lost his hearing and he has been wearing diapers.  He’s been in and out of the vet, and it wasn’t too serious until last month.  The vet actually told us that she didn’t think he would make it through the night.  He had to wear a catheter, along with eating mushy baby food.  They couldn’t figure out if he had kidney failure, or cancer.  The last few days before he crossed the rainbow bridge he had stopped eating, and we found out that it was because he had a tumor that was blocking him from being able to eat and drink.  My mom texted me one morning and I video chatted with him one last time and my parents went to the vet.  About 45 minutes later my mom had told me that he was gone.

It has been extremely hard being so far away from home because I have not been able to be there for my mom.  I haven’t been able to comfort her.  She’s had a really rough few months, from losing both of her parents, and now her favorite child (that’s what she called Kuba haha).  It’s been a rough few months for my family to say the least.

ASHLEY HOMESTORE:  FORT WALTON BEACH

Remember in my three month update post when I talked about our furniture situation?  Well, we STILL don’t have all of our furniture and it’s August 7th!  We ordered our furniture at the beginning of February and 6 months later, it’s still a living nightmare.  Since the 3 month update post, we have had them redeliver 3 times.  The one time they didn’t have the final piece (guest room dresser) and they charged us for it, so my fiance had to physically go to the store and tell them we do not have that piece and that a few other pieces were damaged and have not been redelivered.  The second time they redelivered they had the dresser, but it was damaged.  We called them and told them and one of the people actually told us that judging from the pictures we could just respray it ourselves, HAHAHAHAHA!  They told us, to fix our brand new furniture which shouldn’t be damaged to begin with.  They just redelivered that same dresser on Friday and it’s even worse than the previous one.  Y’all, I can’t.  To anyone reading this in the Fort Walton Beach, FL area, please, whatever you do, DO NOT GO TO ASHLEY HOMESTORE!  The worst part, is this is a franchise, so there isn’t even a corporate headquarters number where we can actually speak to someone with authority.  Hopefully by our 9 month or even our 1 year update post I’ll be able to say we FINALLY got everything we ordered because this is a joke.

NEEDED TO TAKE A SOCIAL MEDIA BREAK

If you read my posts here, here, and here, I had to take a break.  It was during this break that my grandma passed, so I did have to get on social media to talk to some of my family regarding arrangements and if they knew information.  Well, it didn’t go as planned.  First of all, to this day, I still do not know the exact cause of death of my grandmother, neither does my mom.  I also saw a very heated argument play out where I only got involved because, I will not allow people to bad mouth our family on social media, especially in a time of mourning.  It’s highly inappropriate, and completely uncalled for because it’s Facebook.  There is no need to air out dirty laundry on there.  Because of that argument and the fact that most of the people didn’t like that I didn’t sugarcoat anything and actually told them to stop, I have lost quite a few toxic family members from my life, which is what inspired me to write this post about toxic family members.  I will NEVER apologize for calling them out, especially because of how one of my cousins treated my mother.  She is much younger than me and she had the audacity to attack my mother when she was not involved in anything, she didn’t even know that my brother and I basically hijacked that post on Facebook.  I normally don’t get involved in politics or anything like that on Facebook, but because I put family before anything else in my life, I could not sit back and bite my tongue.  Which is why, because my week off from blogging and social media wasn’t as successful as I would have hoped, I will most likely take another week off to unplug 100%.

LACK OF SUPPORT FROM SOME FAMILY MEMBERS

As of recently, I have come to notice a lack of support about my move here to Florida.  I’ve been called an idiot, pathetic, unhappy, etc. for moving.  Let’s make something clear.  I did not move here to follow my fiance.  We discussed it and he told me that if I was not on board with this or that I had hesitations, we would not move.  I chose to say yes, because I didn’t see my life changing at all in NJ.  I saw myself working the same type of job for the next however many years until my retirement.  I didn’t see a future.  While I miss my parents terribly, I don’t miss my old life.  I have more here in Florida, and am more relaxed than I ever thought was even possible in NJ.  Just because I post about how much I miss good pizza or a taylor ham egg and cheese sandwich, does not mean that I want to move back.  Was it a huge risk to move to Florida?  Why yes, yes it was.  I do not regret it.  Is it completely different here?  Absolutely, because what people think is good pizza is absolutely horrendous haha!  Have I adjusted yet?  Absolutely not!  I will adjust eventually, but I’ve only been here for 6 months, and I lived in NJ for 31 years of my life (give or take a few months for when I was in Texas).  I never went away to school, and my parents were always maximum, 20 minutes away from where I lived.  If I seem unhappy to anyone, I mean, it might be because 3 very important loved ones in my life just died and I was not with my parents when this happened.  But what do I know?  It’s not like I’m in control of my mind, and apparently everyone else knows what I’m thinking except for me.  I’m a very honest person, and when I’m upset about something or don’t like something, I will be the first one to admit that.  If I was unhappy and wanted to move back to NJ, I would have by now.

IN CONCLUSION

Ok, sorry, the last few things turned into a little bit of a rant, but this is the place where I put all of my thoughts into one spot, and I’m always super transparent with all of you.  I like being able to show y’all that I’m a normal person with issues just like every other person.  In conclusion, I still haven’t fully adjusted to Florida living.  I still can’t believe that I’m living a permanent vacation to be completely honest.  The pace is too slow for me (haha), and the food is definitely nowhere near as good as NJ, but at the end of the day, this was the best decision.  I’ve learned how to cook, I’ve started not just one, but two small side hustles, and I’ve actually made friends.  I’m 110% an introvert and have to force myself to go out, but these new friends of ours actually understand that and don’t judge me for it.  It was a rough few months with the deaths in our family and that last job that I had that really brought me down mentally, but all in all, this was the best decision I’ve made in a long time.

Now that I wrote a novel, let’s move on to the linkup!

xoxo Monica

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 I do deClaire  // Elegantly Dressed & Stylish // Glass of Glam// Shelbee on the Edge