So considering I hardly put any effort into my new job and am now an official clock watcher and I scramble out of here at the stroke of 5 pm, I received a "Meets Requirements" which in the corporate world is grade equivalent of "C" grade. My boss said she was very happy with me, but that I needed to take more initiative and not be afraid to speak up at Board meetings. Whatever.

A "Meets" will still get me a 3% or more merit increase which is like a $100 more or less a month, and in this economy that's not a bad increase. At my last company, we didn't even get that much. I also get a $3,000 company bonus in March for our company's 2004 performance. If I factor the 2004 bonus in and the pay increase I received in this new job, I received the equivalent of a 10% merit increase in 2004. And that's incredible given the bad economy out here.

So I can't complain at all about how things turned out job wise, considering where I was around this time last year. I have a job where I work hard but not too hard and still get paid well, and where I can leave at 5 pm without guilt and work on my writing. Nope, can't complain at all.

Now if only I could say the same about my personal and my writing life. But I intend to get those two areas handled this year. I'm definitely laying the foundation for my writing life. It's my love life, I have the most doubts about and what's always been the hardest for me to get a handle on.

I think most people have the opposite problem. They seem to be able to handle their personal life issues better than they do their work life. I'm backwards. Work and other outside activities have always been the easiest areas of my life to control.

When I was getting my massage at Osmosis on Monday, the massage therapist told me that "you get into relationships with people to complete your issues from childhood." I was thinking about this last night and freaking out. My red-headed guy was like cross between my grandparents who raised me, and I'm like no wonder I was miserable. I was reliving my bad childhood with my boyfriend. What is up with that? There's got to be another better way to complete my childhood traumas without having to relive it with a boyfriend or worse yet in a marriage. I am so not having another unhappy childhood at this stage in my life.