Somewhat employed for a bit

I am somewhat employed for a short time, working from home.
SWEET

It is a short-term gig which will get extended if we all get along and they like what I do.

We all like each other so far, but it's the details, they liked the ideas I had, but now I have to write for them :) and that they have to like.

If the gig gets extended, sweet, if not, at least it's a new, current bulletin on my resume, AND, I'm working from home, did I mention that?

It's perfect since I have two classes left from my master's and can't really afford daycare just yet for the twins. What I want, though, is full time salaried eventually, because lets face it, contract work is nice but not stable.

I've got a 'we've got someone who can hook you up with gigs' response, but honestly, that never has worked for me. We shall see!

actual news

I....


I....


I....

have news.....

Scrooge McLahdeeda

Was I a scrooge the year before last?

I can't recall.

All I know is I am Swamped. With a capital S. SWAMPED as in all caps.

I have a 15 page paper due Sunday (working on) and a term project for a class I barely understand due the week after, but of which is somehow more time consuming.

I have Christmas presents to buy (have I done any Christmas shopping? Heck n crap no... too busy) and we are going through a thing with Drama Girl which requires weekly appointments for the next month (well, through Dec. 21).

I'm not looking forward to Hubby McRed's office Christmas party at all.

...and by the way, what does one do, actually, when one finally gets a masters, but hasn't been in the work force? It's very difficult to find a job, no matter what you do or what you have, but I've essentially given up (I think) a job in writing, public relations, or communications, because those three areas seem incredibly unbelievably difficult for me to get into, and perhaps I should just read those signs...

(Yes, I am going to join the communication's writers group Blister to My Eye sent me, as soon as I can find the link, but I've given up hope. I can't decide if I'm an idiot or I'm just not really in the field I think I am)

Well,

Wish me luck, I'm off to a phone conference for my incredible difficult class! Tah!

Oooh and if I"m lucky, I can still GET to the Enterprise's Christmas Party... argh.

37 feels like 29

I understand that the 'feels like' degree underneath the actual degree is wind chill, but it seems silly. It's 37 degrees, but it feels like 29 degrees... I'm in a very good mood, but it feels like a crappy mood.... I ran three miles but it felt like five....

Anyhow, I've applied to a few jobs but it feels like I've applied to a hundred... ha ha ha.

I know that is January's resolution, but I'm getting an early start. I think I mentioned that I generally get, for three months worth of looking, one or two interviews or phone interviews. I'm not going to go into long laundry lists of who I applied to or where, or my networking attempts, or anything like that, but every now and again I'm sure I'll feel compelled to blog about this hunt.

See, it gets under my skin. I start dreaming about it. I dreamt, for instance, that I was hired as a crisis communications coordinator, and that I had to fly to Kansas to help a small start-up hard-drive manufacturer handle their crisis communication plans, mainly contingency plans for what to do in case of tornados, (run to the basement and hide under a mattress?) and how to get their men in the separate shop out of dodge, (secret underground tunnel to basement stocked with mattresses?) as well as corporate scandals that may arise. Now I didn't say the dreams were accurate, but the amount of detail is a bit spooky and they are very weird.

Start up hard drive manufacturer in KANSAS?
With top secret shops (to hide their uber secret that will make them an uber corporation)
The fact the guy had three kids (weird, I know)
And, we all drank amber beer.

Dreams never have to make sense, but it felt a little eerily weird. I woke up feeling like I actually worked!

Nanner nanner, coulda shoulda but didn't

31-28

Pats.
Eagles.

They coulda won. But they didn't.

It was a good game and don't tell me my team is the evil empire. They play really well.

But, for you, my 'stuck in Korea' friend...

....

nanner nanner nanner my team kicked your team's ass nanner nanner nanner....

Let it snow let it snow

So, we have snow. Even now, we have little bits of white floating down heavily. I think it's a wet snow, but I haven't been outside to verify.

Drama Girl is being incredibly obnoxious about it. It's not even two inches, and worse, not even 8 a.m. Ah, yes, the children woke up at 6 a.m. today.

Turbo is not feeling well, and sleeping on the couch, with his 'throw up' bucket. I gave it to him after the previous night's (night before last) event. It came to my attention that my almost-four (two weeks) son was so eager to throw up and get every icky thing out of his stomach that he paid no attention to how perilously close to falling into the actual toilet head-first she was. Flooded by horrendous thoughts of my little baby getting up at 3 a.m., yakking into the toilet, falling in and well.... yes, I'm a mother, these thoughts occur to me... I told him we don't throw up in the toilet without mommy, and handed him a throw up bucket. It's just his head was so close...

Bear is being silly and happy, and Drama Girl is irritating him, so we may banish Drama Girl, on account of her being too freakin obnoxious this early in the morning.

So the snow is well, white. And it's, well, cold. And I have to go out today and pick up a pie. Weeeh.

At least it had the courtesy to snow politely the day BEFORE the holiday, though it probably sucks for travelers.

the resolution

Okay, so my sons, three days later are still fighting. I gave up untangling them.

My new resolution, made in November, well, there's two.

The first is to finish the first draft of my book idea. I should be able to start this once the holidays are over and, more importantly, school is.

The second one is to find a job. Not just any job. A job I actually like, in my field, no less.

Those who have read this have heard about me and my job and so on and so forth endlessly. I'm not going to whine, or fuss, or mope or moan. I'm just going to keep an update, and just write about it, and we'll see, for ourselves, how long it takes, you know, all in good fun...

This of course is not like other job searches where people have had jobs. I've been out of work for four years, ostensibly to get my masters :).

So we shall see.

But that is my New Year's resolution, which I'm starting.... now.

To kick it off, I've applied to three jobs. Go me. Keep in mind, I"m not going to bother about jobs I've applied to, I"m only keeping track of things that actually 'happen.' I figure, so far, I average interest once every three months...

WOOOO.

As for the book? Well, I have a break in classes over Christmas, and the characters and plot will be hashed out. They are in my head, have been since i moved here, and are the major reason I ditched the freakin 17 chapters already written for another book, so go me.

The Resolution

To be update shortly,

After I untangle my fighting sons.

The Changed Me

Doesn't that sound like I'm suddenly changed and enlightened?

I'm not.

But I did a bit of reflection and realized, without realizing it, how much I've changed, for the better, but they are all, except for the first on the list, internal changes that haven't yet manifested externally.

In other words, I've changed a lot on the inside, and now some of those changes are beginning to affect me 'outside'.

Since moving to Colorado, I've lost about 20 pounds (and we shall not discuss how I managed to put on those 20 pounds without really even noticing it...) going down two and a half sizes in the process... so close to three... That is the biggest internal change that is clear and obvious.

Here are some that are only evident to me, and that's only because it came to me in a moment of sudden insight.

I used to whine I had no friends in close proximity. I still don't, but I realized, I don't need friends in close proximity so much as I need to like me. It wasn't that I didn't like me, it was that I was very unsatisfied with what was me.

I used to obsess about writing... must...be..published... now, I write for the sake of my stories and the love of my tales. I guarantee I will now finish stories. I lost the most important ingredient to successful writing... letting the story be what it is. I would force it to a convention that I didn't like. Writing the story I want to tell, well, much more fun. And in doing that, I realized, the writing that is true to me, not the genre I have been trying to write in. Feel like slapping myself for that I do.

I wanted to do everything right. I wanted the house to be clean, the grades to be A's, the stories published, the dinner a culinary delight and enough time for it all. HA. Now, I realize the grades can be A's, the stories one day potentially published, and well, frankly, we don't have a lot of company and pizza works for us all.

I used to obsess that my kids just weren't like other kids. They aren't. So what? So I will never be a soccer mom because my kids don't do soccer. Nor will I be posting Drama Girl's grades. So my daughter has ADHD and acts a bit immature and needs more hands on parenting. Whatev. Right? She's mine. We'll do our own thing. The boys? Who knows who they'll be. But they're mine.


So, overall, I'm calmer about things. I have an inner confidence I seemed to have misplaced. Exercising has made my brain less cluttered somehow. Oh that didn't happen at first, but it's been about six or seven months of exercising a good hour a day for three days a week, and something has changed. My mind seems, lighter... full of oxygen.... not toxic....

I've almost finished my degree.

And, to be honest, I'm getting bored at home.

Ruh-Roh.

Gods of the NFL

YES>


Sunday. I am so there. I"m doing some classwork early so I won't be distracted by 'not doing classwork mindfully' guilt.

Colts vs Pats

I can't wait.

But let me just say here, with all this whining about how the Patriots are not being 'honorable' and going for those extra points instead of 'being nice' and not rubbing it in too badly... well...

um.

If every one of those teams hadn't jumped on the Pats and name-called and whined and cried about how they were cheaters, than perhaps the Pats wouldn't have to put up these points to show the NFL that while what they did was wrong, it was only a more advanced form of getting the same information all other teams try to get.... (logic may be a bit flawed, but I don't think what they did 'changed' games)

Anyhow.
No one can say the Pats aren't the best team in the NFL right now. They dominate. They just do. I think the Colts are the only team that can stop them right now.

Which is why I'm so stoked about Sunday's game.

Go Pats.... yeah.... and I hope it's a good game, but don't whine to me about how many points they put up. You don't like it, well, play some frakkin' football then!

November!

What happened to October?
Had birthday, underwhelmed. We didn't do much, October was just a crazy month.

Trick or treating was nice, since Drama Girl elected to go with a friend to her church event. I took the boys out, but this neighborhood is not the most festive. I'm hoping they have a little more enthusiasm over Christmas.

I have just officially gone under 30 percent body fat... thank you all very much... it helps to sign up your kids for programs at the place you work out. You're kind of trapped into doing something exercisey...

I know I used to be a daily blogger, and now I'm turning into a weekly one, well would you believe, I'm busy now? Not just busy, but overwhelmed busy! So busy, that I'm reading "I Don't Know How She Does IT?" the Only Thing is, it's about a mom who works and is jugging everything and handles it. I relate to her, only, the part where we aren't alike is where I don't have a job.... and I STILL am barely doing it! Yes, October was overwhelming. November looks to be overwhelming as well. School... ah... school.... is killing... me....slowly....

I'm striving to not procrastinate on these next assignments... seriously... send... help...

So here's the quick update:
Turbo potty trained
Bear still adamantly refusing to use pot
Drama Girl very moody... it's a tween thing... has glasses, very cute on her, but overpriced... went to wrong place so paid out of pocket, and can't seem to remember to submit 'out of network' forms... someone please remind me
Hubby McRed cranky about work, that is norm.

Hoping to not forget to register my truck this month....

Pajama Tuesday

It is 1:40 p.m. and I am still in my pajamas (nice, top quality ones, too, btw, Eddie Bauer if you must know).

Some of you are saying 'lucky beatch!' or 'damn wish I were' or 'hey, me too...'

Others might be saying,

"WTFRAKKINHECKNCRAP are you doing woman, at 1:40 p.m. in the afternoon wearing pajamas?"

The answer is, a whole lotta crap that needed to get done.

I started this morning at 8, at my computer which is now right next to my bed. I ordered a new cell phone and cell phone plan with a new carrier online (some people go to the phone stores, I live in fear of cell phone plan salesman...) Then I started through my stack of index cards (All my to-dos are on index cards... most people use notebooks. Notebooks don't work for me. I need to constantly jot, rejot, and jot again on cards...)

I made appointments.
I called about our crap television (HDTV, DLP.... color wheel gone, bulb fading, what IS the point?) /// we're using this as an opportunity to see if we miss cable, if not, bye bye crazy bill...
I paid some bills.
I called the school.
I did transcript ordering stuff.
I did other things, all these other little nit-noid things that only take a a few minutes each, but because the few minutes is extended by web pages that are down, phones that aren't answered or have long hold times, letters that have no stamps, forms without information et al et al, they don't get done.
Ever.

Well, for months.

You all know what I mean. There's a list we all have, secretly, not so secretly, or simply lost, full of things that NEED to be done (emissions testing and registration for my vehicle is one I have managed to put off for months...) but never gets DONE because it's just a little nit noid thing that can wait, and wait... and wait.....

You get the idea.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to pay my overdue library fee before I get dressed for the da.... night.

Back to it!

Wow,

I've been gone a while.

It's been a busy week or more...

Drama Girl is having tween angst and we need to deal with it before it becomes full-blown teen angst. There's so much going on with her, I really feel for her, I do. I wish I knew where it comes from, but I don't really. We seem to be making progress, slow but progress....

The boys... well, TURBO IS POTTY TRAINED! Weee! My goal is to have both potty trained by four, but Bear is being a BEAR about it, and I do mean a BEAR. He won't even sit on the toilet, not one of them, not the cushiony ones we bought for the boys, not his own personal little one, not at all... not for candy, not for stickers, not for hugs or love or anything.

I informed him that we had to, and that this was his last batch of diapers for the day. I ALREADY said this, but it didn't work. He just watches Turbo use the potty and makes encouraging noises, but, he won't go near the thing! Well, to be fair, he goes. He sits on it with the lid down, and fills the toilet part with lego.

Great. ha ha. But I still have one and a half months left before their b-day, and my goal is before 4. Once Turbo got on the pot and went, it was a matter of hours before he 'got it' and he only had three or four accidents total. He's now in underwear full time. So I have hope.

Hubby McRed had some work drama, but that is over, as well.

Life is mellow, and if it gets dramatic again, I'm going to scream.

HA and I had a funny dream a blogger called me. It was ironic. Odd, but ironic, how our mind works.

Help, no sleep.

My sons are ill. They hack, cough, sneeze and cry. Their eyes and noses are runny. So they do the same thing all other non-feeling-well children do.

They climb into our bed at night.
Only, there isn't room in our Queen sized bed for two adults and two squirmy, bed-hogging germ incubators.

Yesterday was Hubby McRed's turn to go to the couch at about 4 a.m.
Today, was mine.

They are playing well, with their sniffles and moodiness, but I can't take them out today. Turbo boy missed swimming twice, but it's okay because he starts again next week in a new session and is repeating the same level.

I wanted to check out the Y downtown because I need an indoor exercise outlet that has good programs for kids, since um, it's proving difficult to leave the cozy smell of coffee and peace in the morning to go running in the cold.

So instead today i'm going to clean and write and hope the boys are tired enough to nap.... plleeeassee

Kids and Rooms

So I've given this a lot of thought.

Drama Girl is almost 11.

Where do I stand on room cleanliness?

It seems to be a physical impossibility for her to keep her room clean.
There are many people who say that having a clean room helps clear the mind, that they feel better when their houses/rooms are clean.

This does not seem to apply to my daughter.
Drama Girl has a simple rule to follow.

I need to be able to see the floor.

In order to allow me to see the floor, she has shoved everything into the closet or in boxes behind her chairs.

When I was doing her laundry, her rule was to also fold and put her clean clothes away neatly in the closet. This was so I wouldn't redo her laundry over and over... which has happened on many occasions. But, after months of re-washing clean clothes, I gave her a crash course in laundry, and now she does her own. I give her 50-50 odds on whether or not the clothes she washes are actually dirty, and the ones she wears actually clean, but you see my dilemma.

It's her room, I can see the floor, should I just give in, and let her exist in that pile of clothes, art projects, books and junk, occasionally handing her a garbage with instructions to throw out ten percent of the junk, and just let her have her little refuge al a crappola? Let her exist in that pit, buried between American Girl books, tween mags and clothes?

Maybe just a sign on the door that says 'this room not representative of the house' or 'quarantine, do not enter' and call it a day?

Dr Who

Where are my Dr. Who fans?

I loved last night's episode, but am confused about 'the Master' particularly the scene, the final scene, where the Doctor apologizes to the Master.

Was he apologizing because the Master was insane and he felt sorry, or was he apologizing because he didn't address the Master by his proper name, or was he just apologizing, for the hell of it?

So I thought the whole pointed teeth thing was silly, but then, what good is a Doctor episode without the Doctor being stranded on an alien world and being chased.

And, my general opinion question, for my Doctor fans (I think there are, what two?) Who is your favorite Doctor?

Ah the fun of it

And yes, there is another job that requires with my resume a one page expository writing sample.

I really wish I had one stocked somewhere, or that one of my previous clips would do.

So here I sit, writing a one page expository writing sample, already annoyed that this is not even a guarantee of an interview, and while I should view it as an OPPORTUNITY, at this stage, I only view it as another potential waste of time. I know I know, I shouldn't pre-view it as a waste of time, after all, I could conceivably get an interview out of it, but that's not the point, is it.

The problem really isn't the job posting requiring this, the problem really is I have no idea where my writing skill stands compared to others, so I honestly can not tell if this particular job is in or out of my writing league, so I get frustrated easily, because I imagine the world is filled with far-brighter people than me.

Oh that I had more of an ego!

Theraflu

Hubby McRed was on a three day business trip, and didn't get home til Saturday. This meant that I didn't take any medicine for my little plague until Saturday night. See, I can't take theraflu or nyquil when it's just me with the kids. I don't know why, it's just, those medicines are meant to help you sleep, and I don't want to sleep so well I don't wake up if my kids need me.

So I took thereaflu last night and felt immensely better this morning. (I really think I needed just the full night sleep, but the actual medicine part probably helped) and nothing all day, and tonight I'm taking theraflu.

I live for theraflu.

My parents lived for Robitussin when I was a kid. Everyone who was sick, Robitussin, or St. John's children's asprin.

Me?
My husband gets theraflu and the occasional Emergen-C tablets.
I do the Theraflu.
My children? Tylenol and Children's Benadryl (mainly for Drama Girl and her many allergies. We used to give it to her whenever a cold started to prevent a full blown ear infection, now I keep it on stock for the strange allergic reactions she, and occasionally a boy, gets).

Anyone have any medicine cabinet staples they want to share?

Running in the Rain Means Sneezes from the Brain

Totally not scientifically accurate, but I ran the other day when it was chilly and raining. This was Monday.

I was fine alllll week.
Til today.

Now I"m sneezing and have the WORST head cold and headache, well, not worst, I've had worse, but it's icky.

At least I finished some of my class stuff!

ahhhh


choooooo

An Idiot

Apparently, I am an idiot.

But not enough of an idiot to not be slightly offended when the e-mail read 'pleasantly surprised by the high number of quality candidates' that totally outshone me, only to find the job re-posted.

So essentially I failed the pre-screening test.

Okay. Maybe you were trying to make me feel good.
Unfortunately, seeing the re-posting made me think you just thought I was an idiot.

Maybe I really am an idiot.

I know I know, they don't really care, la la la, I'm just one of a gazillion people who'd like to work, waah waah me.

At this point, I think it would be easier for me to get published than to actually get a job.

I KNOW you're not supposed to give up, and you're supposed to keep trying, but my word.

I don't know what hurt me more, staying home with the little babies for a few years or the industry I was in prior.

I'm going to drink a beer and feel sorry for myself.