Thursday Two-fer! :) An award and a meme!

OK, so I've been a bad blogger/blog buddy as of late. I've been consumed with getting things organized and prepared for teaching a class this semester. I know, I know, I'm supposed to be a stay at home mommy... but in reality, I still am mostly a stay at home mommy. I was supposed to be teaching 2 classes, but as I blogged/bragged about it ;) one of the classes got canceled... not quite enough students enrolled. So now I'm only teaching one class. So I'm only away from home two nights a week for maybe two hours.

Have you ever noticed that if something really exciting happens or is about to happen or is going on and you blog about it - it falls apart or stops happening? It seems to happen to me quite often... I blogged about my son sleeping all night in his big boy bed. And that was the last night it happened... there have been many other such happenings, but I won't bore you with all the details... but I will not blog about D peeing in the potty twice!! Instead I will complain about him just wanting to sit and play on it for hours on end with no results... he will tell me he has to pee and poop, but usually won't do a thing but sit there. At least he is comfortable sitting there.

Anyway, on to what I really started this post for! :) I'm totally one for beating around the bush and never quite getting to the point ;)

Last week, during my last minute flurry of getting my stuff together for teaching, one of my good blog buddies, Jen, tagged me for this award: The BFF gold card Award!


Needless to say I was completely thrilled! Who doesn't love to get an award?? Unfortunately I didn't have the time to think about who to pass it on to! :) this one is a little different, you are supposed to pass it on to 4 people who have been following you for a long time and then a new follower from another country. Sadly, I don't think I have any followers from another country, so I will just have to pass it on to a new follower...
So, I will be passing this award on to:
Suzie from Up The Hill Backwards she just continues to be one of my favorite blogs and one of my favorite followers :)
Nut Nut from Nutty Tales who is one of the most prolific and hilarious bloggers I visit often and who reciprocates the visits :)
Missy from Bees and Boo-boos cause she's so sweet :)
MamaGeek from What Works for Us cause she's got some mad photo skills!
And the new follower that I will tag for this award is Honeywine because she tagged me for this meme! :)

So... onto the meme:

Here are the rules:

1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

My 6 unspectacular quirks? I have too many quirks... but aren't they all pretty spectacular? ;)

1. I hate, hate, hate touching raw meat. And despite that complete and utter hatred I actually, for the first time in my life, cut up a chicken and put it in the crock pot! Man was that gruesome!! And very difficult. I guess I need some real kitchen knives or swords or whatever it is that best cuts up a chicken!

2. I have to chew food equally on both sides of my mouth... which leads to #3

3. I have to get an even number of food items, so that I can properly chew evenly ;) (ie.. 4 oreos, not 3 or 5, it must be either 2 or 4).

4. If I don't have to go anywhere, I won't.

5. If I don't have to go anywhere, I will stay in my pjs all day.

6. I absolutely hate making phone calls. Which is probably why I do not retain friends ;) I will never call them.

So there are my 6 unspectacular quirks in all their glory...
on to the tagging... the first 4 are easy - I tag the first 4 people I tagged for the BFF gold card award! :) Suzie, Nut Nut, Missy, and MamaGeek (linked above - I'm too lazy to link again) and I will also tag Jen and Kelli from Gohn Crazy. Have fun!!

Guess who got a job?

That's right ME! Kind of funny that when my husband got a job I said that "we" were employed (meaning him/the family). Because now "we" really are employed! The cool thing is that we are working at the same place! And my husband can flex his schedule around mine, as I will be working part time.

Yes, as you all are suspecting, my husband got me the job ;) And mostly you would be right. Although, my qualifications certainly stand on their own. He was in a meeting with the Dean at the community college where he works, and she asked about me. He told her that I had an MA in English and had taught at community colleges before. And she said that I should get my application in asap as they might be adding some English classes yet this semester - some were pretty overloaded. So long story short, I spent all day Wednesday getting my stuff in order and emailed to the college... went in to meet with the Dean on Thursday and got hired to teach 2 classes later that day.

So now I've been spending most of my time getting ready to teach these courses. It's very last minute, which is a little nerve-wracking ;) I haven't taught in a couple of years now - not since D was born. At first I was really nervous about it and full of self-doubt - I have not been in an "academic" frame of mind for a couple of years. But once I started looking through the materials and gathering myself up - I started finding my confidence. I am just really excited about teaching again and really looking forward to the experience!

We are Employed!!

Yes it's true. And so its not actually me that's employed... but my husband has just finished his first week of work. I didn't say anything sooner because I didn't want to jinx it!

Last week things were looking pretty bleak for us. Here we are with $44.44 (yes that # is exact) in our bank account and no job offer in sight. Although it was quickly becoming a dire situation, we knew that things could get a lot worse - we were not yet at rock bottom, but it was sure to come.

I joined in the job search. We were both applying for every job under the sun. And let me just say that I was not looking forward to calling up the only references I have (all academic) to see if they would be a reference for me for a bank teller job... how humiliating that would have been. It's just amazing how you can come out with a graduate degree and still be compelled to apply for jobs that require no degree.

My husband had applied for this particular job back at the beginning of July, even before we left Iowa. When he called to make sure they had gotten his app materials they said they would have to call back as they were "overwhelmed" with applicants. It didn't look good. And by the time we made the move back up here we figured that he wasn't going to get called for an interview as it had already been almost a month. But then 2 days after our move he got the call for an interview. The interview wasn't for another 2 weeks! So more anxious waiting...

A week after his interview we hadn't heard anything and of course began to assume the worst. And we were getting quite desperate for employment of any kind. And I was ready to have at least one of us out of the house for a few hours a day after spending about 30 entire days together ;) He got the call last Thursday! And started on Monday. We were thinking he didn't get it because when he interviewed they said they were looking to hire someone asap as the school semester will be starting next week.

Needless to say we are beside ourselves with glee :) Neither of us had to take a janitor job :)

7 Facts about me

I got tagged by Karen at Busy Mamas for this 7 facts meme.

Here are the rules:

-List these rules on your blog.
-Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog.
-Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

1. We are moving back to the Northwoods of Wisconsin in a matter of days! So I probably won't be posting again for at least a week!

2. I have an MA in English. Which you probably never would have guessed from my writing! ;) Once I return, I plan on concentrating more on the writing aspect, so I will probably not be posting as often. Its too easy to write too casually in this forum.

3. In one semester I taught 5 or 6 English Composition classes at 3 different community colleges! And they were all at different levels or different types (developmental writing, technical writing, business communications, comp I and comp II)

4. I started this blog because I love writing. And because I wanted to meet other moms and I'm too lazy to actually get out and go somewhere.

5. I love to crochet! I really love to crochet baby stuff! I love it so much that for the past couple of years I have crocheted all the neices and nephews x-mas gifts (which is a LOT).

6. My favorite food is anything Mexican! Sadly, there are no Mexican restaurants up north :( We have to drive an hour for a halfway decent one.

7. I really can't wait to get back to my fenced in yard back in Wisconsin! At least we will still have about a month of decent weather to enjoy it! Winter starts way early up there :)

OK, phew... now for the seven lucky people I tag for this meme: Suzie at Up the Hill Backwards, Jenn at I Hate Whine!, Nut Nut at Nutty Tales, Nissa at Nissa's Niceties, MamaGeek at What Works for Us, Beth at Around the Funny Farm, and Pepper Scraps.

It's official...

Now we know what we are doing. After a couple/few weeks of anxiety... we are headed back to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Back to our home. It feels good to finally know what we are doing. And it feels so good to be going back home.

Of course there is still some uncertainty, as we are headed back home jobless. My husband has applied a few places, and he will be job hunting more as soon as we get back there. But at least we have our wonderful house!! And our wonderful fenced in yard!

Would we have stayed here in Iowa, we most likely would have lost our house in Wisconsin. Which would not have been good at all. Aside from all the other crazy issues my husband was facing at work, the word came last week that they were most likely going to a mandatory 32-hour work week come September - which would mean, aside from the paycheck decrease, no health insurance.

Just keep your internet fingers crossed for us to find a job when we get back home!

In the meantime, feel free to donate to help keep me in internets until we find a job :) Of course, considering all the scary stuff, not having the internet is not the closest to the top of that list.

Mentally, I feel so much better. In reality, we never should have left. Of course part of the reason behind the move to Iowa was for a better life for our kids. Unfortuately, that just was not happening. Our life took a step down on that ladder with our move. We were living much better up in Wisconsin with less of a paycheck. And not to mention that our 11-year-old daughter was not fitting in well at the school here, and was very unhappy with the move here.

Anyway... not looking forward to the physical aspects of the move... but we did get at least one and a half rooms packed up over the weekend! It's moving right along!

Luck Luck Luck :)

I can't help but think that our luck is changing for the better!
We waited around all day Saturday for the mail... my husband was still short one recommendation letter for his application materials for a job back up north. He ended up asking 5 people (he needed 3), and as of Thursday we only had 2. He asked all of his references in plenty of time. We were ready to send it out one letter short this afternoon - otherwise it wouldn't have gotten there in time - even overnight. Apparently, some places overnight means 2 days... anyway, we didn't get anything in the mail on Saturday. No economic stimulus payment either (which was supposed to be delivered that day according to the IRS)...

But today in the mail we got 2 more letters of recommendation AND the economic stimulus payment!! Woo Hoo. And just when I was on cloud nine about all that... after mailing off the application materials we walked to the grocery store and discovered that we had the winning ticket for the weekly drawing! We won a $50 gift certificate to the grocery store!! Double Woo Hoo!! I should so go buy a lottery ticket! :)

Needless to say, I feel really good for the first time in a while :) Today, I have hope that things are turning around for us and that everything is going to work out just fine.

Mass Quantities of Sanity Needed!

It's amazing how things can go from bad to worse to completely surreal. And everything in between.

The past few months around here have been pretty damn awful and stressful to say the least. My husband's job has just not been going well. I feel really bad for him. And for myself too of course, because I have to listen to everything that's going on with his job ;). It is all pretty unreal. It all started out with issues in upper management, which were crazy in a bad way... then came the internal personnel issues that he's had to deal with among the people that work for him. He actually sought out "family counselling" for his employees because they were more like a dysfunctional family than a department. It's been completely ridiculous. And just when he thought things were as bad as they could get - they got worse. He discovered that the one person in his office that he felt was capable of actually doing their job, and who he had felt like he could trust, was actually behind a large part of the problems going on in and around his department. He's had a really impossibly awful time of it.

And sadly, we've suffered two great losses in our family, which I just really can't and won't discuss in such a forum... but amazingly the people that work for my husband took advantage of his being off for funeral leave to pull a bunch of crap. What kind of people take advantage of such a situation? Not to mention the weight of these issues on our personal lives, we've had to deal with the issues at his work...


Anyway, long story short we are in a bit of limbo at the moment. He went on a job interview on Monday. I really hope he gets the job. Either way we will be moving. If he gets the job we will be moving about 2 hours away - to another somewhat small town in Iowa (of course don't know which one because we will have probably have a hard time finding a place big enough that allows dogs and is affordable). We will find out about that job by the end of next week. Our other option is moving back to Wisconsin. He did apply for a job there too, which if he doesn't get the one here in Iowa, I really hope he gets the one back in Wisconsin. At least we have a house there. If he doesn't get either of the jobs... we will be moving back to Wisconsin and getting some kind of job to make house payments and get by until something better comes along.


It's all so uncertain at this point. And it's a horrible position to be in. But it feels better having made a decision. And we felt even better when my husband gave his notice yesterday. With all the issues he's had at work, it's been impossible to deal with the issues we've had in our personal lives.

Regardless, by the end of next week we should know whether to start looking for a place to live here in Iowa or head back to Wisconsin. And at that point we will take another step up on the feeling better ladder ;) because we will know a little bit more about what we are doing.

Ugh!!!

I am so completely frustrated with everything at this moment.

I've done good all week keeping my pigsty of a kitchen clean! That's the one good thing this week. Oh, and I actually maybe took 2 showers so far this week - which is probably a record! ;)
But I have this long list of things I really wanted to get done today - which includes things that I have been meaning to do all week or for weeks... I did manage to get a few things done today, but at this point I'm just tooooo frustrated to do anything but blog about it.

I found a job posting yesterday that I really want to apply for. I spent almost the entire day yesterday doing the online application. I really hope that they aren't keeping track of how long each applicant is logged into their system... It took all day because it was fairly involved... spent hours copying and pasting info from my CV and looking up info online and in my pda to fill in the gaps. It also took all day because I had to stop about every 5 minutes for damage control (to pull D off of table, off of back of couch, keep him away from my computer, keep him from laying on top of baby B, keep him from throwing toys madly around the living room), to feed diaper or clothe one of the little ones, or let one or both of the whiny dogs out. I've seriously about had it with the little wiener dog!!! Yesterday I was about ready to boot her in the behind (and that's putting it mildly). Half of the times she whined at the door she didn't even have to go to the bathroom! She wants to go outside and sun herself or chase squirrels. I really miss our fenced in yard!

So I finally finished the online application just in time to fly out the door to pick M up from school and go pick up husband from his sucky new job. His starter went out a few weeks ago and we just haven't had the time or money to fix it yet... and that's so far off the point, but it adds to the little daily frustrations.

So today on my priority list was to scan my transcripts to attach to the application. Update my CV and cover letter - also to attach to the application. I managed to almost get those two things done between breakfast, loads of laundry for M and about 3 or 4 diaper changes. Then realized that I did not have my signature jpg file attached to the cover letter - going back and forth from laptop to desktop emailing stuff... ugh... couldn't find signature jpg, decided to quickly do a new one... got it scanned and emailed to self. Then all hell broke loose while trying to download it from email!! And of course that was when both of the little ones decided to have dueling meltdowns.

Computers and kids crashing at same time = complete and total insanity!

Closed and re-opened writing program several times to try to recover my new and improved cover letter to attach my signature jpg... cursed at computer and damn near killed it. Closed everything out and tried again. Restarted computer. Went outside to regain composure.

Calmly made lunch and waited for everything on computer to reload. Finally got my signature attached, wondered if it was really all that important anyway. Went back to job application online, looked at the job position posting, clicked apply for this position. To which it pretty much tells me: ha ha you thought you were done, but here are 5 brilliantly devised essay questions that you must answer before your application is complete! Ugh! I hate these questions. Why couldn't they have included these in with the regular application? Why wait until the very end of the process to spring this on your applicant? Why wait until you have already uploaded your application to the vacancy listing? Because then I just had to hit the withdraw your application from this job listing & Yes I'm sure buttons so I can spend another day or two crafting brilliant answers to those questions.

The funny thing is that this community college was the very first one that I applied to after I got my MA. I was faced with those very questions 4 years ago. And I did spend an entire uninterrupted day crafting beautiful answers to them. And back then it was online also. And somehow when I was finished and submitted the information online, I didn't save it. I tried to go back and get it and it was gone. Their online system was different and impossible to retrieve info once you submitted it. I regretted that so much after working on sets of similar essay questions for community college application after application (I did save the second set and just kind of revisited and tweaked them for following apps). Now, more than ever, I wish I would have had the foresight to save those answers! Now I'm going to have to go back and forth from desktop to laptop again sending myself saved answers that with a little tweaking will hopefully cut it.

I just don't have the energy to do that today. I spent most of the afternoon going up and down the steps trying to no avail to get D to take his nap. I give up! :) For today anyway.