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.