Thursday, September 25, 2008

...and today I cried

Not the cute, sweet crying with the dabbing at the corners of your eyes with a delicate lace-edged hanky and quiet sniffling, but big deep, snotty, puffy-eyed, red-nosed, chest-heaving sobs. And no kleenex within reach.

Why, you ask?

Well, the wonderful job that I got. The one that I was gonna be at until I am bowed and grey-haired (okay, more bowed and yes, my hairdresser does know)? The one that seemed to care and that seemed interested in me and my career? The one that moved us 2800 miles? Yeah, that one. Well, they are having "Workforce Reduction" (ummm, yeah, euphemism for layoffs). Right. Last in. First out.

I got the notice last month. They gave me 5 weeks severance, which just ran out. They said that I could apply for internal jobs and I would get 'preferential' treatment. I applied for, like 50 or 100 jobs in various places. Many of which are like reading verbatim off of my resume. All I got was the computer-generated "Thank you for your interest..." form letters. Did any human actually read this? Anyone???

I had a great local interview last week. Thought it went really well. Today I got the flush letter. This city has virtually no other places that I can apply. I can't be a waitress anymore (even if it paid enough, even if I didn't just have hip surgery). I don't know anything else I can do except software. And there are no software jobs here.

Right now, we have enough money in the bank for one more mortgage payment (thanks to the 60 hours of vacation pay...yeah...I took virtually no vacation...actually only the ones I had to take because of plant shutdowns over Christmas and the week of the Fourth). My unemployment doesn't even come close to my mortgage (I will get a whopping $360/week...whoopee...).

I don't want to move. God I hate moving. We have done that so much in the past few years that it just makes me want to curl up in a corner and cry some more. I am tired. I am tired of being the sole support for my family. I am tired of sending out resumes. I am tired of explaining.

I am tired.

On a lighter note, I have lost 10 stress-related pounds.

Now excuse me as I move the dust bunnies out of the corner and curl up with the last box of kleenex I could find.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

WWC - all caught up...

Now I am caught up with the Weekly Word Challenge. This week's words were modern and primitive.

The computer on the right is almost 12 years old, which for computers is primitive. It has a whopping 20 megabyte harddrive and 16 kB in memory. My thumbdrives have more capacity than that. Still works though. I use it to download embroidery designs onto my sewing machine.
...speaking of sewing machines... Okay, this machine is 6 years old, which is bordering on ancient, but I love my Pfaff.

And this is a primitive sewing machine. It still works too.

Monday, September 22, 2008

WWC - A week late...

Well, I seem to be a bit behind lately so here is last week's Weekly Word Challenge or "By God, I remembered to take the shots so I am damn sure gonna post 'em..."

The words were Male & Female. As can be seen by the last post, we went to an airshow last Sunday (remember this was supposed to posted last week, so this was really...oh, you figure it out...) and I noticed this Air Force guy walking on the wing of a KC-135 so I took this shot:


A bit later I looked behind us and noticed this female airman walking on the opposite wing.

Unfortunately just as I started to take the shot some big-headed woman with ugly-ass sunglasses walked in front. The wing is really not damaged, this is just my clumsy attempt to photoshop Ms. Big-Head out of the shot.

The next shot is a real-life example of my bathroom counters. I swear to GOD that I didn't rearrange anything before taking this picture:

Male (side of the) countertop:


Female (side of the) countertop:

...and I set my coffee cup on the counter to take this shot. Normally my side isn't that cluttered.

*sigh* I will try to get back on track for next week's WWC or, rather, this week's WWC...*sigh*

I am also working on a couple of real posts, you know, with words and stuff. Hopefully get to them sometime this week, too.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Thursday, September 11, 2008

So, how was YOUR morning...?

One little white dog...

One stupid, whining, little white dog...

Whining about a sample of CAT food left on the counter... ...is MY cat fud, stupid little white dog...

SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP. I feel better now.