BLESSINGS

I've had this post sort of rolling around in my head for several days, yet never quite found the time to sit down and actually work on it. Not that I didn't HAVE the time, I just didn't choose to do it. A week or so before I went back to work, we decided, in the interest of eliminating some of the chaos and allowing everyone to focus a little better, even for short periods of time, that we would no longer eat dinner in the living room, watching television. We've moved our dinners into the dining room, most nights, and it's kind of nice. We all leave our phones turned to silent, and spend that half hour or so with just those of us in the house. It does, however, cut into my computer time in the evenings, as by the time I get home, it's nearly 6, and we try to eat between 6:30 & 7. Then there's that little thing called a J.O.B. which keeps me away from the computer for most of the day, which, actually, is a HUGE blessing.
I know that I have a tendency to allow myself to get bogged down in the negative, and lose sight of the blessings which are present in my world every day.

• I have family members who love me, quirks and all, though we may not always see eye to eye
• I have friends and chosen family who love me, sometimes especially my quirks
• I have a safe roof over my head, and food to eat
• I have a church home that has been a blessing in my life for most of my life
• My commute involves very little traffic, and the traffic report virtually never affects my commute
• My co-workers are good people, and I have the opportunity to really be a part of shaping the office

I am endeavoring to keep my blessings in mind, rather than letting Negative Nelly rear her ugly head again. Next month I get my medical/dental/vision insurance, and will really be able to get back to taking my wellbutrin every day, instead of just on work days.

Looking Forward

Tomorrow I start my first FULL week of work in 4 months. It will be broken up by a couple of appointments, one set prior to even interviewing for the job, and the other the result of Friday's appointment with Texas Workforce. On Tuesday, I expect to lose 2-2.5 hours, hopefully not more than that, and since I'll only take a 30 minute lunch tomorrow, Weds & Friday, that will make up an hour and a half of it. Thursday I expect to lose another hour, which, after taking only a 30 minute lunch will work out to only losing about half an hour. I am also going to see if I can go in about ½ hour early every day after tomorrow, which should more than make up for my lost time.

This afternoon I took a dear friend shopping so she could get a few things for her upcoming trip to PA and a visit to her children & grandchildren. I have avoided the mall for so long that I'd forgotten what a nightmare it can be! Too many kids (and adults) with no respect for anyone, including themselves it seems. We had to use a regular dressing room because the handicapped stall was occupied. Once my friend was settled into a regular room, which, thankfully (and Kudos to JCPenney for providing them) was large enough to accommodate her power wheelchair and give her space to try on what she needed to try on, I saw 2 women, who appeared to be mother & daughter, and 2 kids, around 9 or so, come out of the handicapped stall and meet up with a man who was waiting outside the dressing room area. SERIOUSLY??? You are all 4 able-bodied. Only one of the adults was carrying anything that appeared to have been tried on, the other woman and the 2 kids were empty-handed. I would say JCP, you need to mark your larger, handicapped stalls as such, because clearly, based on the traffic I saw entering and leaving the stall over the 45 minutes or so I was waiting for my friend, there are some seriously either STUPID, INCONSIDERATE people out there. Since there was space in the regular stall for my friend in her chair, the 18x18 stool, and my fat ass, with enough room for me to move around and help her as needed, you dopes can certainly fit 2 slim women into one, since only one of you is trying anything on. Also, please note that there is a nice couch in the dressing room area, where your friend/mother/sister can park herself and your 2 children, so that someone who REALLY needs the space has access to it. I would also like to give Kudos to JCP for having plus sized mannequins in their Women's department as well. Granted they aren't as plus sized as I am, but they are definitely somewhere in the neighborhood of a 14 or 16, instead of a size 6 that has a size 14 outfit on and all tugged and pulled to give the appearance of "fit", which does not actually show the true fit on a plus-sized gal!

In other news, I think it's time for a haircut. It's longer now than it's been since about 1977 or 78. It's lovely, but it's starting to get on my nerves. I know that I want it long, but I have no idea what I want to do with it, and I do know that the longest layers are about 2 inches too long and keep getting caught in my shirts and under my arms. Perhaps over the holiday weekend I'll find an inexpensive place to have it cut… if I can find the cut I want. The last time it was cut was May of last year, so it's gotten quite long. I've also started having some almost hive or rashy discomfort on the back of the right side of my neck and my right shoulder. It's that sharpish stinging sensation sometimes caused by freshly cut coarse hairs. Typically for me it signals the possibility of a fibro flair, but I suspect that this time around it may be a reaction to the mousse I've been using when I scrunch it and let it be wavy, so I'm going back to straight with the shine serum and will see if that alleviates the problem.

Now off to bed with the kitties, 6 comes early these days

A Fresh Start

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. Back in January, I submitted my 1028^th resume in response to a posting on the Work in Texas website. The qualifications required generally matched my experience, though the field is not the construction areas I'm specifically experienced in. I didn't hear anything until the first week of February, when I got a phone call to set up an interview. My typical preparation for interviews is to do whatever research I can on the company, in order to have some information going into the process, and to print out some questions that are a combination of general information questions, such as why the position is open and what the timeline to fill the position is, and more in-depth questions, that I believe demonstrate both an interest in the position, but also an ability to think ahead, such as "What are the short and long term goals for the position?" I felt pretty good going into the interview, and that I was as well prepared as I possibly could be for the interview, as well as the abstract reasoning, spelling, and MS Word/Excel testing that I was told to expect. After I finished all of the testing, the interviewer called me back into his office to discuss my salary requirements, as well as let me know that I had scored quite well on the tests. Based on that conversation, I did expect that if I did get an offer, it would be significantly lower than what I'd really like to be making, and certainly not enough to get me back out into my own place before sometime next year. I was fairly confident that I'd interviewed well, with all 3 people who were involved in it, and frankly, was willing to accept a reasonable offer, however I tried not to get my hopes up, or feel too confident. On the 9^th, I got the call back, asking me to come in on the 10^th, (which, coincidentally, would have been Mom's 71^st birthday) and discuss an offer. The money was more than I had hoped for, and one of the best things is that I will be working 4 10-hour days each week, with Fridays off! I am THRILLED with this, I assure you. All was contingent on a clean background check, but since I've not been in trouble, I had no qualms about passing it. On Thursday I got word that the check had come back and I was cleared to start tomorrow. I also received my tentative 11 week training schedule. 1 week in the office, 4 weeks in the field with an inspector, then back to the office to learn the next steps in the process, each building on the previous. I am very excited about the opportunities it is affording me for personal and professional growth, and while I fully expect to take a few days to get back into the swing of a work schedule, I have no doubts about doing it now. I am going to work for a utility engineering firm, and my construction admin background will definitely help, however my understanding is that this is earlier in the process than what I'm accustomed to (as I would assume that by the time construction is actually happening, permits have already been surveyed, applied for, and processed.
My lunch is packed. I've a suitcase packed with an extra day's clothes, just in case the weather turns bad, or is likely to turn bad enough that I wouldn't be able to get up or down the hill safely here at home to get there on Tuesday. Now I'm off to bed for a good night's sleep… it's already not going to be 8 hours, but I'll take 6 or so and be pleased with that!

Beginnings

Today was the first day of my new job. 15 weeks I was unemployed, and while that's not the longest I've ever been unemployed, it was certainly the most difficult. My new position is less than half the distance that the old was was from my house. Tomorrow I may make the drive home at lunch, just to try it out, since I think I could make it in about 15 minutes, which would give me time for a sandwich and checking emails before I had to head back out, and I would STILL not put as many miles on the car as I did just going to and from the old job! It's pretty well insisted upon that we leave for lunch, cuz there's not a breakroom, and they consider that we need to get away from the work and the phones for a bit during the day. I am pretty well pooped, and am going to hit the bed EARLY tonite, and will hopefully put together a better post tomorrow.

1/5/09 Well, today was my first day back to work after the 3 weeks I had off between the holidays and recuperating from my surgery. I was up the first time the alarm went off, and was out the door by 5:45 in an effort to get to the office before the icy rain started. I made it by 6:15, and lasted until about 1:45 or so, which got me about 7 hours in before I had to come home and lie down on the couch. Dinner smelled fabulous. I did a chicken & rice thing in the crock pot with brown rice, 2 cans of cream of chicken soup, and some boneless, skinless chicken breasts. For seasoning I used some wild garlic dip mix. This was one of my learning recipes, I guess. Too much soup, rice was too mushy, not enough seasoning. Yeah, the chicken itself is pretty tasty, but the other stuff is just bleah mushy gross! So I’ll take the chicken out and shred it for chicken salad and toss the other stuff, having learned a lesson. I would have done all of that tonite, before I started getting everything together to throw into the big crock tomorrow for my soup, however, at about 8:15, our power went out. Yeah, it’s 9:30 now, and it’s still out. The whole block on our side of the street, plus the opposite side of the street behind us, except for a couple of houses on the next block in a cul-de-sac on our side of the street is out. Plus on the street behind us, there’s another little cul-de-sac that has like 4 houses with nothing, then 1 with full lights as far as we can see (porch light, etc.), then 2 houses with nothing, then another 1 with full lights, and all the rest are out on that whole street. It’s bizarre. The opposite side of my street is fine. I’m near a corner, and the other side of the cross street is fine. I went for a drive through the neighborhood to see how far the outage ranges, but didn’t find any power trucks doing anything for us. Yeah, it was like 34 degrees when the power went out. We had some rain today, but the power lines in my neighborhood don’t look terribly icy, nor do the trees, but perhaps the trees nearest the main transformer that our grid is on had a problem. Since I use a provider other than TXU because I have a better deal, well, I’m SOL on trying to find out what the status is because TXU won’t talk to me. So my house is currently about 65 degrees and dropping. I sleep better when it’s cold, but not when I’m shivering! Too many covers drive me crazy, but I’ve got my usual winter set of sheets, 1 blanket and my quilt, plus a flannel- backed lap quilt, plus 2 more lap quilts piled on top of me. Hopefully the power will come back on soon and I can actually sleep through the night. Ok, the power came on around 1 a.m. and while I'd slept some up to that point, it wasn't restful, and since my alarm goes off at 5, I got about half the rest I actually need to be able to function. *sigh* AND when I got online this morning to check mail, there's a 'past due' notice in my email about my electric bill, WTF??? So I went to the website and what do you know, they show I have a $0.00 balance. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is a big fat ZERO balance, because, well, I paid the bill on 12/17/08, and it was applied that day, a full 5 days before it was due. I dunno what they are thinking, other than they are clearly nuts.