A light unto my path…

I had some revelations this week.  I feel so much more confident in where I’m going and where I’ve been.  After hearing about improved relationships at my old employer, I know in my bones that I made all the right moves there. 

I also know that my dismissal was a fantastic gift. 

Not only are politics pretty much the same where I was at (aside from the one improved relationship)… but the forecast is so much sunnier where I’m headed!  My school held a little banquet for the students, staff, and area employers.  It was largely intended for networking, which I appreciated.  So I sat at a table with people I didn’t go to class with, and I recognized one of the women. 

I had worked with her before!  She was in HR at my last employer.  She recognized me right away, and carried on about how awesome I was (too bad my instructors weren’t right there).  She also told me that her employer is looking for a QA person, and she’d called our previous HR asking about me.  She was trying to recruit me at the table! 

If I didn’t want this degree so bad, I’d probably have seriously considered it… but there are many reasons why I need to just continue on.

But how utterly flattering!  Not only did she remember me, but she’d asked about me!!  And told my classmate I was AWESOME!

That all felt pretty good.  God is looking out for me and letting me know I'm headed in the right direction.  It's a good way to be.

Easter

What a great week!  Easter was lovely.  I have pictures to prove it. I was actually able to get a couple shots of the boys together!  They aren’t super duper shots, but they’re good enough to post!    They still have their name stickers on from Church… LOL.

After church and the egg hunt, we went to the park.  Cosmo practiced tricks on his skateboard.  Swing played around with the pooch.

Aren’t they adorable?

Sleep is for the weak

So I confess, the main reason I’m here is because I can’t sleep.  My knee hurts for some reason.  Aleve is about the only thing that seems to help the joint pain I’ve been having.  So I’ve taken some, I’ve put my thoughts down and shared my darlings  (BTW… Swing has been telling me “Mom, you are my angel darling”), the meds seem to be helping, and I better off to bed while I still have the remnants of a nice, cozy “had a glass of red tonight” sleepyhead.

Happy Easter!

Easter Egg Hunt

Today was our church’s Easter Egg Hunt.  It’s a very large church, and it was a very large community event held at a local high school.  The soccer field hosted the school aged kids, and the football field hosted the littles.   The parking lot filled up, and people parked way down the street.

I’m blown away at how well thought out and organized the event was.  There were thousands of people there, and it was so effortless to attend.

It was also chilly with a gusty wind.  My boys lacked coats.

I shouldn’t feel so guilty.  After all, I reminded them several times to get their coats before we left, but they preferred to chase the dog, or otherwise run around like screaming banshees.  It’s hard to be little and contain excitement.

So I’m there in a coat and gloves with a hot cup of coffee while Cosmo is in only a long sleeve tee.  At least Swing had on a fleece top… , right?

Though in all honesty, I don’t feel THAT guilty.  They are big enough to get their own coats or jackets.  They were reminded, and chose not to heed my advice.  Besides, it was 44*, they weren’t going to die or lose digits due to exposure.  And they still had fun!

I also forgot the camera.  So I have no pictures of the adorableness.  Swing was intent on only picking up blue eggs at first, so it started off kind of slow, but he had fun.  Cosmo was on his own at a different field (5 areas based on age). 

In the end (a whole half hour later), we all had a fantastic time despite the weather (that wasn’t even wet).  I’m looking forward to Easter Services tomorrow.  I think we’ll watch “The Passion of the Christ” as a family tonight.  We should make it a tradition to watch it on Good Friday.

Internship

So I was offered an internship!  I’m so excited!  This community health organization is growing, and they need someone to document their systems, specifically one of the IT processes.  I guess there’s a good potential for future employment there, too.  I’m excited.  I’m not sure what the specifics are: hours, length of service, etc, but I’m still jazzed.  The folks who interviewed me were personable, and I’m optimistic that I’ll enjoy this project!

Road Trip

Let me tell you about a recent road trip I took to visit the fam.  It’s about a 375 mile trek.  The trip as an adult isn’t so bad.  But when you are 4 or 8, it’s dreadfully boring.  The trip in was perfect for about a half hour.  Then the boys decided they would rather fight than sit in a car reading, playing with cars, etc.  I was mitigating so much fighting that I blew right by my first exit.  I drove 30 miles before I realized I should have turned South by now.  So I drove the 30 miles back to my southerly turn and corrected my course.

I drive another hour or so and decide I want to find something in my purse.  But I can’t find my purse.  I pull over and check the trunk; surely it must be in there.  It was not.  I’m nearly half way to my destination before I realize my options are to turn back, or see if my parents can meet me at some point to refuel me.

I did not want to go back.  I did not want to drive 6 hours with crabby kids for nothing, only to have to do it again (I was running an errand for the Woodsman). 

You can imagine the frantic calls to the Woodsman and my parents.  Turns out, the Woodsman confessed it was his fault.  (How on EARTH could I have missed my purse?).  Like most people, I put everything that needs to be in the car by the door to be loaded.  If it’s by the door, it’s as good as loaded.  I had both my computer bag and my purse there.  Therefore, they were both in the car, right?

Well, the Woodsman is fastidious.  As this incident proves, sometimes TOO fastidious.  He thought I’d moved my wallet from my purse to my computer bag (as I do for school), so he put my purse away in the closet.  While I was loading. 

Of course I was utterly frustrated and pretty upset when I discovered I was not to “blame” for the whole debacle.  But… we all have our annoying habits that sometimes work against us in a big way, no?

Thankfully, I have the best parents in the world, and my dad drove 75 miles with a 5 gallon tank of gas to fuel me up.  Thankfully again, we were able to get all the way to a state park, so the boys had a place to play while we waited. (The refueling trip was not perfectly timed, but who could complain about that when someone makes such a heroic rescue?)  We played on the swings, found “snake holes,” ran around… it was really the perfect waiting spot.  It couldn’t have gone better!   Plus, Dad brought us lunch!  We were hungry.  No money = no lunch stops!

It’s really amazing how helpless you feel without ID and a debit card.  I felt like I wasn’t an adult.  I was so dependent.  My mom gave me a spare wallet and some cash, which was such a blessing, but the feeling of utter dependence didn’t magically disappear.  The Woodsman had my wallet mailed to me (second day), and all was better when I received that package!

The visit was nice.  I completed the task for the Woodsman, despite his error. 

The drive home was lovely.  The boys could NOT have been better behaved.  I am really very proud of them (still).

No Meds

Though this posting is already quite the tome, I wanted to talk about one other aspect of the “Mystery of the Missing Purse.”  I had Cosmo’s meds in there.  5 days without them?  Could I do it?  I had called the Ped’s office to see if she could call my parent’s physician to write a script to be filled in town.  I knew it was a long shot, and ultimately I wasn’t able to do it.  the Woodsman attempted to mail them, but that was also foiled.  So we had to suck it up and work with the ADHD kid off the meds.

I gave him coffee.  It worked pretty well.  It wasn’t the same as medicated, mind you, but it “took the edge off.”  I gave him a cup in the morning and a cup in the afternoon. 

Quitting School

So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.  This school schtick isn't easy.  At least not with two small boys, so I'm going to take a different route.  I've signed up to be a representative with "Close to my Heart."  My mom and my sister are big fans of their product, so I know I'll have a good customer base to start off with.  This company sells tools and equipment for scrapbooking.  It's a solid, growing market, and I'll be able to spend more time with the boys, and enjoy walks in the park with Swing during the day.

I haven't yet decided if I'm going to finish out the semester.  I'm current and all, but the end of term projects are coming due, and it's really going to be very busy.  There's SO much work!

If you haven't figured out why I'm quitting school and upending my entire career roadmap, check your calendar.  If that doesn't help, I don't know what to say.

I Love Coffee

It goes without saying, really.  But I really do enjoy a good cup.  I also like to pop in to my local Starbucks to study.   Which I’m foolishly attempting to do now.  It’s free pastry Tuesday, and the place is swarming.  But the library is closed for another 12 minutes, and the hubs works this afternoon / evening.  So here I am. 

I’ve decided to blog instead.  But I have everything and nothing in my head.  Which is why I haven’t been writing.  And I’m wondering if I should continue the diary style writing I’ve been doing, or pursue a more organized article-type blog.

Because I’m not a journalist, and because I have a litany of things I just want to get out of my head and on to paper, I’m thinking I’ll stick to the diary shtick.

Bypass Surgery

My mom recently had bypass surgery.  She went in for an angiogram and possible stent placement, but the angio determined a triple bypass was necessary.  The triple turned into a quadruple. 

So I went down to be with my family.  It was nice.  And a bit scary.  But mostly nice.  My dear, dear, lifelong friend watched my boys three full days so I could spend time with my mom and family at the hospital. 

She’s doing very well.  I’m so pleased.  Because I’m just not ready to lose her.

Heavenly Weather

It’s been increasingly lovely here.  While I am loathe to change the time on my clock, I’m quite thrilled that the sun is setting much later.  There’s more time in the day to “be alive.”  I bought some balls and rackets, and we’ve been going to our fantastic park to play tennis, basketball, horseshoes, ride bikes/scooters/skates, walk the dog, and just plain be outside.  I’m thinking we’ll suspend our gym membership for the summer here pretty soon.  It would be criminal to be indoors.  Maybe.  There is a nice quietude to listening to my iPod on an elliptical and then doing weights.  So we’ll see. 

Internship?

So.  I’ve applied for one whole internship.  The Woodsman and I talked about it, and decided I should try for one if I can.  Not sure what that will entail.  I don’t want to give up my spot in the food room.  So hopefully, if I can get an internship, they’ll be willing to work with me on hours so I can do both.  The drawback is that they aren’t generally paid (here in this area), and I’ll have two kids that need childcare.  Which isn’t free.  So we’ll see.  I think it would be good for me (and therefore the family) to get some experience under my belt.  If I can see what life is like on “the inside,” I’ll be able to retain what I’m learning more.  Plus, I’m (gasp) middle aged with no industry experience, and two internships can only help my resume.

Politics

I’m too frustrated to talk about the recent events regarding our government and recent changes to healthcare to talk about them.  Might be best to just not be too loud.  Right now.  Or perhaps I’ll coagulate my thoughts and write about them at a later time. 

I Do Windows!

Not sure where this whirlwind of energy came from, but I’ll take it!  I’m thinking my VitD must be kicking in.  Let’s hope this round takes.  I really like feeling normal!

At any rate, I got quite a bit done today: I cleaned my windows.  Inside and out.  It was above freezing, not really windy, and bright and sunny.  The windows called me by name.   They are beautiful.  The daylight coming in is somehow different. I have a nice, clear view of the outside.

Which sparks a debate: are windows worth the effort?

Of course they are.  However, my contrary friend from B.C. disagrees. I think this stems more from her odd inkling to refer to slurpee flavors by their given names (Super Sunshine Raspberry Circus) instead of the correct nomenclature (by color).  This might be fun to discuss here at some point in time; she’s done that topic (in)justice already. The Great Slurpee Debate

But I digress.  Window work… Do you do windows? 

It doesn’t really take much time.  I just take vinegar and water, a scrubby sponge and a squeegee  and make it happen.  About twice per year.  Not only does it allow better quality light to come in, it makes the whole house feel clean.  I also get a chance to clean the casing, which can get really ucky. 

So tell me all about your window washing ways!

Woe is me??

So life is slow and good right now.  Well, aside from the hemorrhaging money part.  The “check engine” illuminated the other day, and the whole re-tighten-the-tank-lid thing didn’t help.  Allergist fees - $100, vet fees - $250; now the mechanic costs… good thing we’ve saved up, eh?  Otherwise we’d not survive this whole living “quarter employed” deal!

Yeah, somebody call the whaaaaambulance here.  I’m not in danger of losing the house, and I have a kitchen full of food.  I also have a wonderful family, better friends than I deserve, and so much more to be thankful for. 

TGIF?

Because every day is the weekend when you’re unemployed!

I have no plans for the weekend.  Other than taking the boys to the gym to swim, maybe, and church on Sunday.   And homework.  Let’s not forget the homework!

Allergy update

My eyes are mostly normal now, but they ached all day.  I had no idea swollen eyes hurt.  But they do.  Gumption was lacking today, on account of the eyes.  I might just go back and get that epi pen, anyway.