My late winter saga

In December, I started to get desperate about finding a job. Housewifery was just *not* working out for me. Since we only had the one car (my beloved Sylvia) and with the weather so cold and yucky, I basically was not getting out of the house at all. It was very bad. So I started to look for jobs in places I had originally ruled out - not because I didn't want to work for these organizations but because I was sure that they would not want me. See the afore mentioned Clinic was a women's health clinic and most Catholic organizations don't look too kindly on them (go to any clinic that provides birth control during lent and you'll see what I mean). I started looking at Catholic Hospitals and Clinics thinking that they'd never call me back, but at least I had tried. When I got the call, St. Hospital wanted me in for an interview! I was so excited.

The interview went well until the secretary knocked on the door looking for me. "Is this Ms. Bee?" "Uh, Yeah" "Good. Security wants to see you right away!" I ran downstairs coming up with hundreds of scenarios for why security would need to see me during a job interview, each more ridiculous than the first. I got down stairs to find that an employee had driven right into my parked car, then immediately called security and the police. She happened to have amazing car insurance which even paid for me to have a rental car while they fixed Sylvia up! After talking to the cops, I went back upstairs and completed the interview. It went well and a week later they offered me a job. This was early January.

I told them when they offered me the gig that I had a family trip scheduled in February and they assured me that I could take the time (unpaid) off. Perfect. I started orientation and met my coworkers and everything was great. After three weeks I left for my week long camping trip to Arizona (I had a blast!) and came back tanned and relaxed Monday morning. I went up to my nurses and said hi and they said "Did you hear about Boss?" "huh?" It turns out that while I was gone my immediate supervisor was fired and now my 'break-in' period during which I was to have a designated 'peer-helper' to ask questions of and no extra work until I got a handle on my regular duties was over 6 weeks early. It has been a rough month since then with many overtime hours logged.

This week, two months to the day since I started, they called a meeting. I knew nothing good would come of it but I thought they would just explain to us that they wouldn't be hiring a replacement for Boss or a replacement for the coworker who left just as I started to be a stay at home mom. But no. Instead they explained that they were laying us all off and creating a new position which we'd have first dibs at but with the knowledge that there will probably not be enough jobs to go around. Shit.

Now, just two months after starting this job (which I was really enjoying, I have amazing coworkers and I love the work I do) I feel like I am back to the drawing board. I will apply for one of these new positions, but I'm low woman on the totem pole and if they're going to cut anyone, it will be me. The best part is that I haven't even worked there long enough to get unemployment benefits.

Moving right along

Still no definite news on the job hunt front. I am more comfortable with my housewifeness now though than I was a month ago (not that I want it to continue, but at least I will be able to look back at this time in my life fondly).

I have really thrown myself into my hobbies which is a good thing, but I'm less productive by far when I have infinite free time than when I am on a schedule. Luckily though all my big projects right now have deadlines. I also broke down and joined twitter as of tonight - oy! I have been dragged kicking and screaming into the aughts with only two weeks to spare. So, all in all, I have been keeping busy.

Housewifery

Still unemployed although I've some promising leads so we'll see how that goes. In the mean time I have been doing a lot of laundry and working on my crafting projects. Today, for example, I dyed silk! Other than not having a job things have been going well -Boybee is enjoying his job, the weather's been great (two days of rain were sorely needed), and I've been getting to see my family a lot which I really appreciate.

While I love the rain, it's been showing me how many little leaks our house has :(. Our patio flooded yesterday after a torrential downpour and water got in through the basement door. We also have two small spots on the basement walls that are leaking. It's no good. To top it all off it turns out that the repair we had in the contract on the house (one that needed to be made for us to buy the house) was not actually made. The previous owner just slapped some fresh caulk on and said she'd fixed it and we'd have had to have taken it apart to check so we believed her. Not Cool. The bright side is that we can live without the repair as long as we are careful and we wanted to do a full overhaul of the area at some point any way... some point being in a few years but oh well. We planned for a bunch of repairs on the house and so we're not in hot water (oh yeah, we need a new water heater thingy too - at least that's covered by the warranty!). Oy. The joys of home ownership - at least our house is really cute and we love the location.

Summer's end

Wow. I just finished my graduate program last week and for the first time since I can remember, I don't have school starting in the Fall. Such a weird feeling.

I don't have a job yet, which is... ok. Not great, but not bad either. Being married to someone who is employed helps a lot in decreasing job search stress. I'm thinking of doing part time work at The Clinic and am going to talk to The Boss there on Wednesday. That way I'll make some money and get out of the house while I'm looking for full time work. It's funny, two weeks ago I would have said that I'd never work there and that I didn't want to go to back to school for at least 5-10 years if ever... but now with the weight of all of it off my shoulders I'm thinking about how much I enjoyed the work at The Clinic and that another graduate program is sure looking interesting.

We're going to GenCon Indy next week (did I mention Boybee and I are big dorks?) and then I'll start seriously thinking about things. The big question now is, do I buy a new camera (remember the old one got stolen in May) or do I make do without photos (or possibly with film pics on my film camera or a disposable?).

Expectant Parent?

Not me, but you! A friend just opened up shop with a new service for expectant parents for pregnancy and baby personal shopping and gifts. She's been working in high end baby stores for years and before that she worked in day cares and as a nanny (so she knows the low end too). She's a mom who cloth diapers and does all that other crunchy stuff and boy, does she know how to shop! :)

Check out her new website:

www.allinthehips.net

Almost There

The summer semester is now is full swing. I graduate at the end of this summer; the official date in Aug 13th but I hope to be done before then. All I have is practicum at The Clinic and one class, basically Research Methods 2 - Where You Actually Do Research (The Revenge of Research perhaps?).

I lost my camera over Memorial Day at an event and so far no one's said they know where it went. I am really bummed. Luckily I got a bunch of important pictures off of it before losing it, but still. So no pictures for a while until I either find it or get a new one. I refuse to buy a new camera though until I am absolutely sure that the old one wont just randomly show up. I am partially sad because of all the people with cameras at the event who posted pictures to the internet, I'm the only one who took pictures of the aspect that I coordinated (and many people worked their butts off on) and I wanted to post them because they were cool. We made things Meant To Be Destroyed so not a lot of the folks got to see them (since they served their purpose and got destroyed). Oh well. If I find the camera I will post the pics here because they're awesome.

No AC

On this glorious first weekend of warm weather I went for an amazing 7 mile hike here:

Yes, the whole trail is rock steps and hills. It kicked my ass.

I am really lucky that I have a hiking buddy but she's leaving for grad school on the East Coast in July and I will need to find someone else to hike with... I'm also going to be far away from one of my closest gal-pals and I'm going to miss her a lot. It's rare that I have friends who are self-identified women who I am actually close to and it always sucks when they go away (even if they have great educational opportunities awaiting them). 

The temperatures are hitting the 80's which means it is time to turn on the AC! This is not the first time we've turner on the air this year (the first time was when we had 80+ temps in March and 50 people over for a party) so we knew it was working. So we turn on the air and... it's not getting cooler in the house. Bummer. We found an AC repair company on Angie's List and they're coming out tomorrow to have a look but in the mean time we are just a bit too warm. All the windows are open and the fan is on so it's not as bad as it could be but sleeping was difficult last night. 

In other exciting news, I am making a silk bliaut for recreationist fun! The dress is brown silk, about the color of my hair with a pale pink linen underdress (the pink is just about the color of my skin) and it has a dark blue, almost black, silk lining the maunches (giant sleaves) and edging the neckline. I'm basing the cut of the dress off of the woman on the left here:

 My maunches are going to be slightly longer though. 

I also plan to get hair extensions to make my 'braids' as long as hers and twine ribbon in them like hers. I hope to make a pair of turn shoes out of leather to go with the outfit as well so I have the whole thing. I am currently thinking of using either the forest-green leather or the dark purple leather that we already have for the shoes... I guess I will decide based on how much I have of each. 

Yay for crafting and hikes, boo for no AC.