New Year, New Hope

Well, welcome 2009! Who would have thought? I graduated from high school in 1979...wow...so very long ago! Well, my hope is to find a really good job before June 2009 where no crazy people work. (good luck, huh?) I was laid off Dec 5Th from LVD Strippit and I finally feel like I am ok. My best friend, my Grandma died on December 18th...so it has been a not so Merry Christmas. My Grandma was the love of my life and we could talk to each other about anything. She is the only person who really loved me and who loved me unconditionally. If you know me you know I have been having family issues for the past three months and I will just say Grandma was there for me. I still cry all of the time over her death. So many things that I do and places I go remind me of her. I was always taking her little goodies and spending time with her and signing her out of the home when I could and now she is just gone. Nobody from my family calls...it is just Al and I and the pets. Al has his own teenage life... I need to find a job! I am considering volunteering or something while waiting for some sort of job call. I have applied for dozens of jobs. I really want to get a job in an engineering department doing CAD or Admin work. I have realized that CAD is my first and true passion work. I lost my 2 best buddies in 2008, Grandma and my mentor, Judy Mohn. I hope 2009 is a better year.

FRIDAY is JEANS Day!

I LOVE Fridays! Fridays are casual days and we get to wear jeans to work! And it is also "hard roll day." My boss brings in hard rolls from Costnazas bakery...and there are all kinds of toppings for them! You can have jelly or apple butter or butter or cream cheese or crunchy peanut butter. I always eat the crunchy peanut butter, even though it does give me DOG breath! Usually the glut of reports have arrived and been completed by Friday. Everyone seems to be in a good mood on Fridays. Ahhh...I am thankful tomorrow is Friday...to be continued...

Brown dress pant update!

I have completed a thorough search and located my brown dress pants! They were hanging in the closet where they belong! Ugh...I hate when I do that. Tomorrow I will wear them in celebration of their being found...to be continued...

Eureka...A Yellow Vacuum...

Well, we purchased a Eureka yellow and gray vacuum cleaner. It works wonderfully! It almost seems like a "self-propelled" cleaner. But we still needed more ammunition to fight the fleas! Yesterday I was off work, it was a New Year Holiday. I made a trip to the veterinarian and bought "Advantage" for all of the pets. I also bought some spray they were selling to spray on the rugs, etc. I have "advantaged" everyone except kitten and will spray on Saturday, I think. Everyone is supposed to be out of the hour when I spray. I went back to work today. Same old stuff, another day. I had to spend 2 hours in "purgatory." I have three reports left to complete before the next batch of mail arrives tomorrow. Two are in Canadian, ugh! I like my department. I like my bosses and coworkers. I guess I love my job, I am just tired tonight. Last night we took both kids for eye exams, glasses and contacts. And we returned the "Craftsman Toolbox" for the second time, and hopefully the last time. I am not sure if Alex has assembled it yet. Megan ordered new glasses. She is so funny, she walked up to the rack, reached for them, put them on her face, and voila, she had her new glasses. I told the eye guy she MUST have set a new world's record for fastest choice in glasses. He laughed. Alex ordered contacts. Both the glasses and contacts will be in a week or so. I have lost my brown dress pants. They are slightly boring but a wardrobe staple. I will search again for them. I hope they did not end up in the Goodwill bag?!? ...to be continued...

Burning vacuum cleaner...

OK...with the new kitten came FLEAS! Yuck! We have not had a problem with fleas in years...I hate this! So I got some flea medication at Wal-Mart and as I was vacuuming up the disgusting critters as the web site said to...I hear a pop and the cord is on fire! This is in mid-air so I unplugged the cleaner and it stopped flaming and smoked a bit. I put it out in the garage for the garbage. It has served it's purpose...$59 from Wal-Mart three years ago...DirtDevil...I don't need my house burning down! Meggie and I are going out in a few minutes to buy a new cleaner. I would wait a day or two but I can't stand the FLEAS! I studied all of the ads and am checking K-mart first and then Linen and things. There is a nice "Shark" in the LNT ad. There is also a 20% off coupon which brings it into my price range. If anyone has any ideas on flea extinction please leave a note! I might check out flea bombs, but it is 32 degrees here and I can't take my flea bitten animals anywhere else while I de-flea the house...so I think flea bombs are out. I love the kitten but this is getting trying...to be continued...

Money conversion....

Some of the places that my 17 technicians work use FOREIGN MONEY! Eeeek! And then I have to make sure the expense reports have both the American amount and the foreign amount, mainly Canadian and sometimes Mexican. So Bernard (one of my bosses) shows me a website called "x-rates.com" that will convert American dollars to various other currencies. This is good, except now I have to figure out how to look up the exchange rate for the days the technicians were in the foreign country using foreign currency. Luckily only one guy seems to be a regular in Canada, this is good and bad. Good because his paperwork is usually all correct, bad because the other guys don't fill out said paperwork often enough to do it correctly. Oh well, this makes for paid work for moi! I got a gift card and tonight I bought an Amish book. I am going to my room and read my Amish book until Grey's Anatomy comes on at 9PM. I will report on the book after I get into it. Now, I should be finishing the Quantitative Decision Making Report...but the Amish Book is calling me!...to be continued...

Back to work...

Well, it was back to work today. It was really nice to have 4 days in a row off work. I was swamped with work today and I also had to cover the switchboard for 4 hours. I was asked to cover the switchboard tomorrow for 4.5 hours. It is hard to get my own work done when I am tethered out at the switchboard. It is hard to focus on the figures when there are constant interruptions. I finished 6 reports while I was out there today. I am waiting for information from 2 techs to finish 2 more reports. There are 17 techs that I support by reviewing and correcting their paperwork every week. This would be easy if they filled out their forms accurately and completely, but most have mistakes in them and it is my job to find the mistakes and correct them. This would not be too hard except I am constantly being interrupted. Or...I almost get them done and I need to verify information that is available on my terminal but not at the switchboard computer. I should not complain because I really wanted to work where I work, it is just tough being the person with the least seniority and the person who covers the phones for breaks and days off. To be continued...