Annnndddd, no.

I didn't get the job that I wasn't sure I wanted. I must say that I'm sort of relieved. My mom asked Master J what he would think if I got a job and he said he would be sad because I wouldn't be able to spend as much time with him. He's never really known me to have a job. Even though I have worked in his lifetime, I always made it so I could drop him off and pick him up from school so it didn't really affect him. I also think that while Mister C would love for me to bring in the extra money, he would be sorely disappointed for me to actually have a job. I do a whole lot of things around here with and for him. Need someone to go for a walk and listen to you vent? I'm there. Pictures need hanging or drywall repaired from the last guy? I can do that. Need work done around the house that I can't do? I'm the one that makes contacts and schedules the people. Packages need to be mailed out? That's me. Lunch? I'm on it. Getting stuff organized, advertised and sold? Yup, me again. Picking out and purchasing his clothing so he doesn't have to? My job. Shopping for holidays and birthdays for his family? Guess who? I'm basically an underpaid personal assistant. But it works for us. So, for now, I'm not going to send out any more resumes or apply for any more jobs unless they really look interesting to me. But after re-reading what I just wrote, I might have to ask for a pay increase!

So about that interview

I showed up 40 minutes early. Because that's just the kind of gal I am. I was afraid of getting caught in traffic and not showing up on time. It's about five miles from my house. When I got there, there was a young man waiting for his interview. He had on a TON of cologne. I loooove me some cologne, but I want to be within two inches before I'm smelling it and I definitely was NOT within two inches of this gentleman. He seemed nice enough though. I signed in and saw that there were only supposed to be four interviewees and I was one of them. It didn't look like the first person had shown up since they hadn't signed in. The guy was next and he got called in about a minute after I arrived. About 10 minutes after he went in, an older woman came in. She was the next interviewee and she went in about five minutes after arriving. About five minutes after she went in, the school secretary came out and locked the doors and turned off most of the lights. Hmmmm, this doesn't look promising. Mostly I was worried that I would fall asleep sitting in the quiet semi-darkness by myself. I have to say though, it was very peaceful there. It was almost meditative. They finally called me in and for whatever reason, I was "on". Let me tell you, if they hire me it won't be because I'm such a talented all around gal. It'll be because I had them laughing their asses off. Cause I'm nothing if not entertaining. Just ask Mister C. I can't even tell you what I said because most of it is a blur, but apparently they found me amusing. So I'll keep you posted on the results, but unless they were specifically looking for the class clown, I'm not really holding my breath.

Let's see how this goes

Prior to moving to Sunshineville, all the way back to April when we first started thinking about moving back here, I started applying for jobs. I've sent my resume to many, many, many companies. I've applied for many, many, many jobs. I have even sent my resume to the local temp agencies. I have not heard one word from anyone. Back in late October I sent in (yet another) application to one of the local school districts for (yet another) supposedly available job. I called several times to check on the job, never actually managing to talk to a person. So eventually, I just thought I really wasn't meant to have employment. Maybe I've been out of work too long being a stay at home mom to be of interest to anyone. But today, out of the blue, I got a call from the school asking if I was still interested in the job. They want to interview me tomorrow afternoon. First things first, I needed a simple black skirt & decent top. I haven't had a full-time, permanent job for over eight years. My closet consists of jeans and tank tops for everyday and a few really nice dresses for parties and weddings. Mister C offered to come with me to pick out my new outfit and he was pretty helpful. On the way out of the store I asked him if he would hire me in my new outfit. His response? "I'd hire you if you were naked." Delivered with a smile. Ahem. Anyway, I'm fairly nervous about interviewing for the first time in forever. I'm also a little worried about the stupid questions they will inevitably ask me because that's the latest thing in interviews. The "why do you want this job?" and "where do you want to be in five years?" questions. Because I can't honestly answer those questions. Because an honest response on the first one would be something along the lines of "Well, I don't really want this job. I don't really want any job. Mostly I'm applying for jobs because Mister C works from home. And I use the term "work" quite loosely here. It seems to me that he spends an awful lot of his work time in my kitchen, hunting for food. And honestly, working in the accounting department of a school for not a whole lot of money wouldn't be my first choice, but you're the only ones that called me. So here I am. In an interview. Answering stupid questions." And then they would thank me for my time and send me on my way. So I guess I'll try a different approach. One whereby I answer the questions as though I actually want the job. Wish me luck with my dishonesty.

Why so personal?

I've been noticing since we moved to Sunshineville that there are a whole lot of people driving around with vanity plates on their cars. I've never had a vanity plate in all my many years of owning cars. Mister C had them on his Bananamobile before we moved here. He has a bright yellow SUV style vehicle and he used to have plates that said BANANAZ. I came up with this for him because, as I told him, he was nuts for buying this vehicle in the first place. However, a bright yellow vehicle with vanity plates in lieu of a 20 year old for his mid-life crisis works for me. I don't necessarily mind vanity plates in and of themselves. I just have issues when they make no sense to me. I can understand BANANAZ. It's readable as is. I don't have to sit at a traffic light sounding it out to get it. Just today I saw one that said NICU RN. Obviously a nurse that works in the neonatal intensive care unit. Makes sense to me and I didn't struggle to understand it. But what about HRD2HDL? I think that the 20 something blond behind the wheel of this cute car was trying to say "hard to handle". But where's the n? Who wants to be "hard to headle?" Or how about PLNAPRV? Does it mean "plan approval" like he's in the business of granting approval of building permits? Or does it say "plan a pervert"? Could go either way couldn't it? The last one I noted today said WHJD4U. My first thought, based on their fish emblem, was that at least the last part means "Jesus Died For You". But what about the first two letters? "Woo-Hoo Jesus Died For You!" seems to be a bit exuberant about the death of our Lord and Savior. "What Has Jesus Done For You" would work I guess. The main point here (and I do have one) is that if you're going to have a vanity plate, it should at least be somewhat obvious to the common man. I shouldn't spend my time trying to figure out your plate. You're obviously trying to send a message, so make it clear. If I ever do get a vanity plate, I'm going to make sure it's easy to read and obvious. It's going to say ACRONYM.

Changing my view

I'm normally a pretty generous person. If I see someone in need and I have a way to help them, I usually do. Having said that, I hate all the begging for free stuff and handouts on Craigslist. When I go into the "wanted" section, I'm looking for people that want to buy things that I want to get rid of. When I place an ad, it's because I want to sell something. If I'm giving it away, I'm really upfront about that and it's listed in the "free" section. I cannot tell you how many times I have put an ad out there only to have some person respond with a sob story and their hand out. I think most (not all) of these people are scammers just looking to get free stuff so they can sell it. I'd probably be more inclined to give to them if they were honest and just said "I make a living getting stuff for free and then selling it." I can totally respect that.

But sometimes, times really are tough. Here in Sunshineville there are a large number of foreclosures and short sales and the like. The economy isn't the best it's ever been. I personally have sent my resume to numerous companies and never heard one word. I even resorted to sending it to all the temp agencies and still got no response. Employment is hard to come by right now. And this affects people. People just like us.

While Mister C & I were on our daily walk we got to see it first hand. As we were walking past a house, the man living there was talking to the representative for the local power company. She was telling him that he had one hour to go pay his bill or she would be back to shut it off. He had a toddler in a diaper standing behind him. It broke my heart. But what can I do? Even if I had the money to pay his bill, is that going to be enough to stave off the bill collectors? Will it just mean his power can stay on for another month, but he's still going to get kicked out for not making the payment? My first instinct is to help the guy out but I guess I don't know what to do to be the most helpful. I'm really at a loss. Reading it in the paper or on the Internet, it's fairly easy to just skim over the problems and say "hey, it doesn't affect me so I'm not going to worry about it." And that worries me because it reminds me of the poem by Martin Niemoller.

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Life going on..

Apparently, I've been very busy the past five days. Too busy to blog anything. Very busy indeed. Doing what? Ummm, I'm fairly sure I've made my bed a few times. I might have emptied the dishwasher once. There was coffee, walks, buying a fish...well, I'm sure there's more I accomplished. I just don't remember everything. I did manage to empty three more boxes and locate the bolts for Master J's bunk bed so I can sell it. That was a huge thing. I was starting to think I had lost those bolts and was going to have to go through all the packing paper that I had boxed up to find them. Turns out I'm just an idiot (again) and had set the bolts on top of a box. Which I then put another box on top of. I did search through the boxes but when I went to look through the bottom box, I lifted the top box and the lid to the bottom box at the same time. So I didn't see the bolts on the lid of the bottom box. Today I took the time to remove the top box and there they were. I also sold my moving boxes today as well. Half of them got picked up a few minutes ago and the other half will get picked up tomorrow when the guy's brother can lend him a pick up truck. I'm trying to get a few more things out there yet today so I can clear out some room and bring in some cash. My hope is that I can earn enough money to buy myself a bookshelf. Turns out that it's hard to get decent ones for not a lot of money. I've been searching. Anything under $150 is either made of press board or pre-dates the Hair bands of the 90s. All I want is a very specific size, solid wood bookshelf that will not look out of place in the same area as my dining room set. You'd think I was looking for a left kidney made out of gold. Ah well, I'll keep selling stuff until the amount of money I have matches the amount of money I need to get what I want.
In other news, I mentioned above how I bought a fish. Since I went to cichlids in my big tank, there was no way to put a betta in there. Since I've had a betta (or 2, or 75) for the last eight years, I just figured I'd get one and put it in it's own tank. So I went shopping and found a giant betta. These guys are pretty recent to the wholesale market (they've been available from breeders for a few years now). Anyway, I found a cool one and he's now sitting on the table. And guess who's sitting next to him to keep him company?

Yeah, she's very helpful that way!

I also finally spoke with a friend of mine that I've known for about 17 years. Turns out I should have called sooner, that way I could have gotten the bad news a little bit at a time instead of all at once.

First, her husband lost his job and is struggling to find a new one in this down market.

Second, they had to put her dog to sleep because he had gotten so sick recently.

And third, her thyroid cancer is back. She already had the surgery to remove the nodules on Halloween. Unfortunately that was the easy part. The hard part is coming up in January. It seems that in order for the radiation treatment to work, she has to go off her thyroid medication for at least a week. This gets all of the medicine out of her system and allows the radiation to work. But this is a miserable task. When she went through this before, all of her friends signed on to help out on different days just to try and help her though. We would bring her food and make her eat at least a little. We would take her for a walk as far as she could go (maybe a quarter mile, round trip, on a good day) just to get her moving. We would sit with her and talk and listen and know that whatever we had going on in our lives was nothing compared to what she was going through. Your thyroid affects so much that we don't even think about. When you get totally depleted like she's going to have to do, you aren't hungry but you want to eat. You're restless and exhausted but you don't have energy to move and you can't sleep either. You just float along and everything you should do, you can't. And it is miserable. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone. And this time, I can't even be there physically to help her out because I'm 1500 miles away. So I'll do the only thing I can do, I'll ask the God of my understanding to take care of her. And I'll send her cards while she's going through it that she won't appreciate until after she's gone through it and recovered. I'll call her and most likely talk with her husband about how she's doing. And I'll pray some more. Because that's what she'd do for me.

Blonde moment

I did all my grocery shopping today for the next two weeks. I've started going to three different stores now. I get my paper products, chemicals & canned type food at a big name box store. I get my produce from Sprouts. Then I get my meat & dairy products at a "regular" grocery store. I hit the box store first, got everything I needed and dropped it off at home. Then I headed over to Sprouts for my produce. The parking looked a little full so I just took the first place I saw and started for the door. I walked in, grabbed a basket and started walking around. The first thing I notice is the Ortega taco shells. I didn't know they were organic. Hmm. Good to know I guess. I continue heading to the back where the produce is. As I walk through, I notice that there is an entire aisle dedicated to soda. What the hell? Boy this place has really changed since he last time I was here. Then I see another aisle that has nothing but Christmas decorations. What is going on? I finally get back to the produce section and it's pitiful. I mean just awful. Individually wrapped peppers and apples and tiny bags of salad. Holy mother has this place gone down hill. I notice a cooler of milk and it seems like the containers are really small so I go to check it out. Yup, only one quart containers. Okay, now I'm really confused. What happened to Sprouts? Were they taken over by someone that is completely clueless or what? In absolute disgust I start heading towards the front of the store to leave and that is when I start noticing all the signs everywhere screaming "EVERYTHING JUST .99 EVERY DAY!!!" And that is when I realize I have walked into the wrong store. I put my basket back, head out the door, turn right and walk 20 feet to the entrance to Sprouts. Just another day in my life.