Your Opinion Counts!

I had my last scheduled interview today at 9 am. Even with the GPS I got a little bit lost (it sort of forgot to announce "bear to the right"as I was cheerfully Bearing To The Left), but not a bit deal. I've learned from past experience to leave an extra half an hour plus the time you need to get there just in case - that way if you get lost it's not a big panicky thing, if you make it there the first time you look golden for being an Early Bird. The interview went well and I was offered a job. SO, here are our choices - we can work for either Bayada or Interim per - diem (that means we'll be paid by the visit and used as needed). That is a snappy thing because there is no weekends, no working holidays and no on call. If we want to go on vacation or even just spend a day Lying About and Eating Ghost Peeps we can do that when ever we like. We can get drunk every Tuesday and lay on the front lawn - we are our own masters! The poopy side - no benefits, no paid vacation, sick days or holidays. If they're in a slump or at full hire they don't call us or maybe only call us a couple days a week. Hmm. The other choice is full time, we have to pay in for our benefits (that's the way all home care outfits are so we expected that) but we get boffo insurance for a reduced price, we can use the company car or get paid milege (up to us), paid holidays, vacation and sick days, we were offered a fairly attractive salary with a raise if we behave in an Orderly Fashion and of course it's a guarenteed paycheck. The poopy side is we cannot take off for parts unknown or get drunk on Tuesdays whenever we want, we will have to be on call once a month, and of course be on call for holidays if that is when our week falls. So, I am taking opinions, I have to call them on Thursday morning to give them an answer so don't be shy and don't be sitting there dawdling until Friday afternoon or something. Inquiring minds want to know!

I Needed That.

That was a nice weekend! I left here at 6 am Saturday in the rain and the dark. Didn't like that in case you're wondering. I went straight to the nursing home and visited Grandma H first, she has a sinus infection but was able to gossip about the nursing home so I'm assuming she is on the mend. Grandpa declines everytime I see him, he has a lot of confusion now and on one hand it is sort of funny - like when he was going on about how Amy needed to get Matthew in hand as she apparently lets him do whatever he wants, but it's sad to see him like that. I'm glad I'm close enough to visit once in awhile now. After that, I headed over to Hope and Bob's for a couple of hours and then back to visit with my Mom and Fred. Sunday I did a quick visit to the ocean of course and then went and saw Richard - I was trying to visit the people I hadn't seen on my last visit home. Richard is fine of course and the house looks great even if I can't afford to live in his apartment. Then back to Mom's and back in the car and up to Huntington where we caught the tail end of the baptism, Matthew was already a christian when we got there so we didn't get to see them dunk him in the nifty thingy they have there. The party was at the restaurant down the street - it was really great seeing John and Carleen again - thier kids change every time I see them of course. I sat across from Kelly the godmother - ate too much of course and the cake was VERY good. Then back to mom's and back in the car about 8 am - the drive takes about 4 hours which is a bit easier than the former 10 hours. I have the job interview for the job I want tomorrow at 9 am so keep your fingers crossed - and thank you Amy and Jim for inviting me - I had a great time!

In Summary

In the past month I have quit my job, sent my last child off to the navy, sold my house, had a delay, shipped my belongings to PA including all of my clothes, had another delay, suffered through an unexpected event, had another delay, got my first and worst UTI, got the flu, been umemployed, drove 400 miles with pets in tow, bought another house with another delay, had a bad water tank, bad washer, a cold, had no dryer and no way to hook one up which was sort of ok as I STILL had no clothes as they were stuck in the depot, have too much stuff and too little room, and been on countless job interviews. David of course is rolling right along, fixing things one at a time and working at the same time, but I get frustrated as it seems nothing is easy. We went to get our PA driver's licenses and plates yesterday. Mine was fine but David was told he needed a new birth certificate because his parents hadn't signed it. So we were sent to downtown Scranton in the middle of the day (!!) (can you say traffic?) to have one generated by the state office. David found a spot and ran in, then came out with  a form as he needed to send to NY for it. That would be when I had both of them and noticed mine wasn't signed either. So we drove back and it turned out to be a mistake of the clerk, that's only if you are BORN in Pa. Which we are not. Sigh. You don't get your plates at the DMV, you get them at Leonard's Tags And Plates in Dixon City so off we went with no title or PA insurance which we hadn't been able to get because we didn't have PA licenses so the upshot is I have WV plates and a PA license, whatever. I'm off to LI this morning and David will be here continuing to rip things out and so forth. We have to get a new light for the dining room - I have never in my entire life seen such a cheap-o-la chandelier, you would have to see it in person to truely appreciate it's thriftiness. It's raining this morning so I don't know how far he'll get with the fence this weekend and we really need that to go up soon.

Is It Friday Already?

I interviewed in a doctor's office yesterday, I have no idea why I do that. I am not suited for doctor's offices, they know it, I know it - yet I insist on interviewing and they go right ahead and interview me. I'm glad I got that out of my system, phew. David and I are going to get our PA licenses this morning, then we have to book stuff for Jackson's graduation, I have to do wash and pack and follow up on a few things. I took Pearl walking again yesterday - I told David that until he gets her behavior under control that is IT. We sort of met a couple more neighbors, I say sort of because they have a small dog and when Pearl is on a leash she wants to eat small dogs. She was very bad and wouldn't stop barking - there are some days I don't like her. She also almost ate a chipmunk yesterday, much to the chipmunk's alarm. She flipped a board in the woodpile and there he was, so Pearl, not being able to come up with any other plan of action, picked him up in her mouth. If the chipmunk could have spoken English he would've said "I am so screwed" - it was pretty funny.She let him go and he went racing for the stone wall where I'm sure he's still sitting today pondering the complexities of the universe, or at least the woodpile. We're still adjusting and probably will be for a few months - straightening out the house has turned into a monumental task. We kept too much stuff - we didn't think we had that much actually but this house is about half the size of the WV house so we are effectively trying to stuff 10 pounds of crap into a 5 pound bag so to speak. The basement looks like a yardsale and the garage is no better, plus we have no bookshelves and plenty of books. What we've been doing is trying to go through a bin a day, we have a load for goodwill from us and the former owners so eventually we will wade through all this crap. It's better if you do it slowly as David and I tend to pitch EVERYTHING out, only to have to rebuy it again a couple of months down the road.

On The Prowl

Well, I am finally feeling much better, I still have a little cough and sniffle, but given the past 3 weeks, I can live with that. So yesterday I put on my Sunday Best and started pounding the pavement. It was supposed to be just an application gathering mission but I got roped into filling out all sorts of papers by two agencies. I started off at Interim (thank goodness for the GPS, believe me!).  They can offer me part time with part time benefits - since the Master Plan is we have our own benefits and I work per-diem it frees me up a bit more in what I will consider and what I won't. They work out of a small house in a business district and have patients in my area. As I was driving I spotted another agency - Revolutionary Nurses and popped in there to fill out an application since I was in the neighborhood, what the heck and you never know, do you? From there it was off to Bayada Nurses - freaking HUGE corperate office - glass walls and everything. More paperwork (I stopped at doing the inservices since I pointed out I was not working for them yet...) they offered per-diem no benefits BUT they're opening a Poconos office in the spring and my foot would be planted firmly in the door. When I got home the other agency had called - they offer benefits and a corperate car AND I have an interview today with a hem/onc clinic - after that I am sitting back and trying to figure out what I want to do. In other news David and I stopped at the apple farm the other day, you get a huge basket of fresh apples for $7 - can't beat that. David finished putting in the french doors in the dining room, this house weirdly enough has two front doors and no back. He has to put a deck on but that didn't stop Pearl from using it - David had shooed her away but he turned his back on her for one minute and there she went sailing into thin air - that would be when it occurred to her that the first step was a Doozy. She landed fine of course, she is Pearl The Girl, and raced around as it was very Exciting and So Forth.

Another Day Another Drama

When I got up this morning and turned on the Verizon modem my internet light was red which I (correctly) assumed meant it was not working. I tried thier offliine Help and Support which very politely told me it could not help me. Then I called tech support and I have to admit, was very pleasantly surprised that A) a tech was there and B) he was able to fix it and get me back online. I asked him if I should turn it off everytime I turned off the computer and he was like NO because I would lose my configuration - I told him that was a bit of news because when I asked the online chat tech Ramji that yesterday he had told me to turn it off everytime I turned off the computer which might be why it was not working today. Hmm. Shawn agreed that was a mystery to us all why anyone would tell me that. A Kelly also called last night to follow up with the phone survey David had done concerning thier services (note to companies - NEVER do a phone survey after spending a week and a half of transferring, hanging up on, putting on hold and generally being no help at all to the customer for a service that was requested on AUGUST 24TH and it is now late September and you are still mucking around....) and got an earful from me - they are supposedly sending us a $25 credit so we'll see. Anyhoo, I'm going to LI this weekend to attend Matthew's christening which will be fun unless of course Matthew has secretly started working for Verizon then I will have to not speak to him. I'm hoping things will start to get better - we go through this everytime we move so I know it will. Part of the reason we move (since people wonder about that. Aloud. A lot) is we do turn a profit on the houses we sell, the other is it's just the way things worked out. Moving to PA when we did was a mistake - in retrospect I'm glad we moved back to WV for Jackson to finish his education there with his friends and in a good school (Morgantown HS is ranked in the top 100). Things are starting to smooth out here, it's just a waiting game. Just an update on Jackson's address (although I think he's been getting his mail with the one the recruiter supplied)

SR Lester Jackson

Div 408 Ship 12

3515 Sailor Drive

Recruit Training Center

Great Lakes, Illinois 60088-3127

Moving Foward

We got a call from Verizon yesterday that our DSL was ready to go - imagine my surprise when I hooked it up - and it worked. We had already decided to return the air card, out here it never gets over 40% which means it works, but it's like a bad dial up connection which is too bad. It's a bit more of a pain to have to plug it in whatever you're using but the idea of being able to tote it all over was very appealing. Anyhoo, I am feeling much better except for waking up every morning with a headache - I think that might be due to the massive amounts of goldenrod and ragweed surrounding the joint. But I managed to get stuff done yesterday, I hooked up the DSL, I called the insurance guy and got that straightened out, I called Comcast who wanted $206.16 for no apparent reason when they are actually only owed $22. 44, I have a job interview on Thursday and Pearl and I finally managed to prowl around the old chicken coop. I stuck my camera up in the loft as David had warned me there might be a tenant living up there and flashing a camera in might piss it off. From what I can see I'm assuming mice and how infuriated can they get?? Under the outhouse was not so interesting, the RE had told us he knew people that would dig it up if we ever decided to move it as people used to also pitch stuff down there - usually old medicine bottles and stuff like that. I told David if anyone was going to dig up the privy it would be ME, not the friends of the RE. It's my privy and I'll dig if I want to...... The cats are driving me crazy, we aren't letting them out for awhile due to the road and they are BORED so they either harrass each other or hide by the door in an attempt to get out. David is putting stockade along the front and then fencing in the back with wire so we'll see.

On The Mend

Well, I finally am starting to feel a little better today - it's a bit nervewracking as I have so much going on I have no idea what to blame. Liz said when she had pylonephritis she had headaches and her back hurt. I have that too (or I did up to last night) BUT I am also living across from a field of ragweed, have moved countless bins, have a cold (or flu), so what is causing what is a mystery to us all. My back stopped hurted yesterday and I had a headache this morning but it was easily cured with a tiny bit of tylonol. I applied for my first job this morning after a moderate amount of weeping - cut and pasting your resume to an email is a trauma in itself. When you paste it to an email it ends up looking like an anagram which doesn't make you Spanky to potential employers. I finally ended up retyping it directly to the email and did a CC to myself so I would have it for future reference. Things here are moving foward, we have the washer dryer hooked up - David had to run a 220 line as apparently these people had never had a dryer. The furnace seems to be ok but we still have the electric baseboards so we won't have to do without heat. We got the date for Jackson's bootcamp graduation which is on the 24rth of October. We were told we would get 3 car passes but due to limited space we actually only got 1 pass with a limit of 4 people to attend. But we will deal with it. On the upside the leaves are starting to turn and it will look beautiful very soon, I'm planning on a daytrip to the outlets soon - anyone want to ride shotgun??

The air card is working, but slowly - it only runs about 40% so I don't know what we are going to do. However, it's nice to have internet even if it is very slow. I'm still sick, this is getting very old. Things are quiet this morning, Ray went back yesterday after visiting for a few days which we needed badly. Even though I'm not feeling well it was fun to drive around and go out to dinner. Ray will stay longer the next time, I think he was just excited to see us - instead of a 6 hour drive it's only a 2 hour for him now so I think we'll see a lot more of him. David is going to see Roman today as he has bought a new house and he wants to show it off to David. We're still working out things around the house, this house sat empty for two years so it's not that the stuff doesn't work, but it takes some time to get it all up and running. I'm hoping in the next week things go smoother, I think with all the things we've gone through in the past two weeks, EVERYTHING is an ordeal at this point, my threshold is very low and every little thing that I percieve as going wrong puts me right over the edge as it does David. And of course being tired, achy and unable to breath  isn't helping either.

Uphill Battle

I'll attempt pictures later - it's enough to be online at the moment. We finally got a Sprint air card and will be trying it out for the next couple of weeks, Verizon sucks big time to put it nicely. We ordered the phone and internet back on the 5th and after (not kidding) speaking to more than 50 customer reps and spending a week of being transferred, cut off, put on hold for half an hour at a time, etc got a phone 3 days ago and STILL don't have internet. Aside from Verizon every other service has been smooth.. We have Direct TV - they showed up on time and the one problem I had was dealt with in under 10 miinutes over the phone. The only funny thing was David ordered the Super Cheapy Package which would have been fine if I was a homebound Pentacostal who liked to shop on tv all the time, hee hee. I upgraded to the Normal Channel Package so we can watch things other than the Diamonell Hour or the Polyester Fashion Network. We got the holding tank replaced for the well, the furnace is working this morning, we have a phone and pick up service. I've met a couple of neighbors already and the guest room is all ready for guests. We got a letter from Jackson - he is miserable and homesick to beat the band but that will pass. I'm just miserable - I've been sick since I arrived here - 2 weeks of antibiotics for the UTI, my back hurts, and I thought I had allergies but it seems to be more of a very VERY bad head cold - so that makes being homesick and missing Jackson all the worse. On Monday I'm going to start to look for a job and I think that will help me feel a little less out of my element. David has been busy painting the house and renovating some things that have very badly needed renovating. He already has a deck job lined up and is trying to figure out what he will be doing. I do want to get over to Stroudsburg to the cheescake factory and outlets but I think I need to be feeling a wee bit better than I do now.

Arrgh is all I have to say!

The past week has been an exercise in patience or at least a litmus test for things that can - and will - go wrong. We did close on our house yesterday, but the events of the day included torrential rain, a VERY unexpected event and the loss of our computer - and no, I am not going into details on the blog. Suffice to say it was a race to the finish. After the closing (which Pearl attended due to a very weird Dish Network installation guy that creeped us all out) I went straight to the doctor's as what I thought was stress turned out to be a monster UTI that the doctor was not happy about me not being able to come back for a follow up. So yesterday morning at 6:30 am I bid a very teary adieu to our house - I am missing it already. But I know it was not the place for us and it will now be housing a young couple and five children with plenty of room to roam - because that is what that house was built for. At the moment I'm in the Comfort Inn with two very bored cats who are taking turns looking out the window. David and Pearl are at the house measuring and making plans. We close in 2 and-- a half hours from now and I am hoping with my heart it goes well - and fast. Because this closing will be attended by EVERYONE as check out time is 11 am. Vincent is sitting beside me, he has been enjoying this adventure least of all - in between being subjected to children, tossed in a carrier and carted 400 miles to a hotel, Jackson leaving, your heart just has to go out to the little guy. But he's doing better, when I woke up this morning he was tucked up next to me and started purring when I touched him - life has changed for him greatly but that doesn't mean there will be no joy in it - he'll just have to do what we're all doing - finding our joy in other places.

We're HopingThis Is It.

David let Vincent out first thing this morning, but I wasn't overly worried. Vincent is a creature of habit and came back in around 7 am like clockwork to A) eat and B) use the litter pan as only the lower class cats do thier business outside. 4 years and that cat still comes in to use the litter pans and go back out. It's still pretty early so we have heard nothing from the RE, I'm sure David will be calling first thing this morning to make sure we're ready to roll and that will all depend on whether the loan was posted Friday. We'll most likely be offline for awhile so you'll have to wonder along with us what will happen next. I like that life is an adventure, but I'd like it better if it was a more orderly one, like someone handed you an itinerary - that way even if something bad happened you could look up the next month and see that it gets better and you'd be more relaxed knowing that even if was bad, there will be a stop date. We'll also be calling the recruiter this morning and getting an address for Boy #2, I spoke to Boy #1 last night and he was on his way to voluteer at a soup ktichen with friends, I'm glad to see he's doing something with his time in Norfolk. Well, wish me luck!

Cross Your Fingers

I'm sitting in front of the computer at the moment, on the floor of course because we have no chairs. I have Vincent the Pest here, I chased him around the yard and that's the last time he'll be outside as we are slated to leave Tuesday morning. Even though he's been out all day he is exacting his revenge by using the litter pan and being very odiferous about it in the process. Damn him. David's friend Tommy is coming over with Gypsy to say goodbye - sounds relaxing but this is all very very stressful. Because if they delay it again tomorrow we will  still be without a phone but also without internet or a tv as that is scheduled to turned off tomorrow morning. We plan on being pretty busy, we have one more run to the dump, to Goodwill (although the futon is staying now, the buyers would like to keep that too), we have to turn in the DSL thing and our cable box, do a last wash and pack up the little bit we've been House Camping with. I'll be glad to get back into our big bed that is not on the floor or to be able to eat dinner without being wedged in between cats, the dog and David on the best (and only) seat in the house. But most of all I'll be glad to have this all done and settled, it's hard going to bed each night not knowing what's going to happen or worse, imagining what could happen. We go out shopping each day, we don't buy much but just try to keep busy. Vincent makes me cry - I don't know which is worse, him meowing to be let into Jackson's room or opening the door and watching him look for him, checking the closet and bathroom. I know he'll get over it, but it's not helping me get over it. Tomorrow will be better I hope, I just want to get moving!

More Fun Than A Turkish Prison

This is so stressful, yet so boring. We got more info about what happened with the loan, the buyers hadn't made arrangements for the closing costs and when the first deal for thier house fell through (2 days before closing) they were short about $8000 so they needed to do a home equity line of credit that they didn't apply for until the 28th - we thought things were dragging but in reality the bank has been rushing it as fast as possible. But that is neither here nor there as we are people without a country or at least a job and furniture. The buyers have been fillling up the garage, we have it hard - they have it worse. They're under contract again but had already moved out of thier house furniture and all into the mom's house with thier 5 kids - things are a bit crowded over there we understand. We would love to let them in here early but now we don't close on the other house until Wednesday which means at the very least an overnight stay with the crew. Speaking of crews we will be calling the recruiter on Monday for Jackson's new address, I would love to be able to talk to him but writing will be ok for now. I'm watching BBC tonight but it's so strange without Jackson, since we've moved here we've watched the BBC channel every Saturday night without fail, it's just not that much fun without him.

We're Still Here, Thank You For Asking

We will most likely be here until Tuesday which is the date of the NEXT "definate" closing. I am a bit dsitraught to put it mildly, especially since we were not informed of this new develpment unitl late yesterday morning so as a result of that our stuff is now in PA on the property of a house we don't own and we have no phone service at all except for our cell phones since the shut off date was yesterday morning and we were unable to undo it in time.I would say this can't get worse except we all know that it can and it will, not to mention we really don't have anything to do now except surf the internet and watch bad horror movies from the 80's which gives me tons of time to conentrate on these things plus miss Jackson. But on the other hand the weather has been very nice so Pearl and I have been really enjoying the pool, and since I'm not working I've been catching up on my Useless Reading, knitting and watching cheesy horror movies from the 80's. I still enjoy them but they make me miss Jackson as he and I have, through the years, sat through countless B flicks - the worse they are the better. I developed my taste in The Fine Arts from my dad who allowed me to spend many spine chilling and happy hours watching Creature Feature and One Step Beyond on Saturdays. He, my brother Henry and I would drag out sleeping bags and piles of junk food and sit up half the night watching those awful things - of oourse when you're young they're pretty real and intrguing. So me being me, I passed that along to Adam and Jackson who have both seen every silly cheesy bit of horror that has come down the pike and then some.

Down To The Wire

Well, as far as we know this is it. You can ask David again if you want but he will just shriek. We're making the cats stay inside today - Claw was out all night so she could care less but Vincent is being an absolute pest about it. My big fear is they'll disappear right before we get ready to leave and since the buyers will be here today with thier kids to meet the utilities that's a real possibility. Especially since Vincent has an over the top fear of children and freaks at the sight of them - the few times there have been kids here he's been an absolute wreck - he just hides and shakes. We're going to Clarksburg this morning just to waste time and then it's one more trip to Goodwill and the dump and we are done. David will be escorting Pearl and Claw, Vincent will be riding shotgun with me.The house is cleaned from top to bottom, pretty much everything is packed - nothing left to do but wait. We haven't heard from Jackson so I'm guessing he's well into bootcamp - I miss him dreadfully but I expect to for awhile. Everything feels so unreal right now.

Did You Hear An Echo?

The walk through is at noon today so David and I have been up since the wee hours scrubbing and vacuuming every square inch. We're down to living in 3 rooms, everything else is empty. David and I fuss and bother and then do it again, every mark has become huge and glaring, we pick and pick. This is the worst part - we're trying to get into the other house a little early and will hear back from the lawyer (hopefully) today, otherwise Pearl and I will be enjoying the amenities of the Comfort Inn ALL weekend, along with the cats and David. Speaking of whom, he sort of forgot to call some of the utilities about the delay so when the Dominion Gas guy came up today I was repeatedly and a bit frantically telling David HE CAME HERE TO TURN THE GAS OFF TODAY - David continued to chatter obliviously and point out where the shut off was. I finally got through before we ended up having to endure cold showers and cold food for the rest of the week.  Since things are getting down to the bare bones of it all we didn't need that. We're down to one piece of furniture to sit on which is the old futon from the basement, everyone crowds on that at night to watch tv and eat - we spend most of our time jockeying for position, but it's something to do. Jackson is at bootcamp this morning I'm assuming, he flew out at 5:50 pm last night, he sounded pretty stressed out, but I think once he gets there and gets started he'll be fine.

He's Gone.

You would think with this being the second time around for us it would be easier, it's not. It's different, but not easy. Adam was the first and that was horrible, we had no idea what to expect, he graduated one day and then was gone, just like that, the next. We had Jackson for the entire summer - and that was just as hard. Since he's graduated he's been waiting, as have we. Grief is one of those things in life that visits you over and over again, but in different forms. You always think of it as this straight out sobbing deal - but it's not. It's a vise in your chest that tightens everytime you realize it's done and final, that there is no going back. I'm still thier mother, but I'm no longer a parent, am I? There are no more science fairs, school lunches and dances, no more nagging for them to get up and then racing to get home before they do. We did our job - now it's up to them. We got Jackson up around 11 am yesterday,  we had heard him up through the night so we let him sleep, he'd been packing and sorting, way too excited to sleep I think. He wanted grilled cheese for lunch and that was a bit of a laugh - I'd packed everything but an old baking pan so I had to Girl Scout my way through it. Petty Officer Riffle appeared on time, I meant to take pictures of him and Jackson but I was trying to not completely lose it.  I did not chase the car down the drive,  but watching him go was almost too much. The house is almost completely empty now, the last two containers are packed tighted waiting to be picked up. The rooms echo. I know that Jackson is more than fine - he called last night from the Air Force base in Pittsburgh and had been watching movies and hanging out with the other recruits. I hope he won';t get too homesick and I don't think he will, he's like me in that respect. He's hoping to be stationed with Adam and that would be so wonderful for them to be together, they've gotten much closer as Jackson has headed towards adulthood. And we are doing our own waiting now.