Aloha

As usual it's been a long time since I've took fingers to keyboard (as opposed to pen to paper, which I can't stand doing anymore since I type so much faster than I write. lol) and as of right now, much is different than it was the last time I wrote.

My grandpa had been suffering from Alzheimer's for quite some time and was getting progressively worse over the last few months. It ended up being necessary to put him in a nursing home only about a month or so ago, and since my temp job had recently ended V and I decided it was a good time for me to come down here for a little while. I didn't make it here before he passed away - it happened on the 29th of last month and I got here on the 3rd after a long drive down. I did get to stop and meet one of my cousin-in-laws on the way down and spend the night in Red Bluff, which broke up the drive a little bit (13 hours on Monday and 4 on Tuesday)and was a lot of fun. It had been a while since I had spent hours into the night girl talking. =)

The funeral was on Monday, which is hard to put into words. He was my grandpa, and now he and my grandma are both gone, but he had been suffering for a long time. I hadn't been planning on saying anything at the funeral, but I had a few thoughts floating around in case the mood struck. After my stepdad and my brother both got up and said something, I decided I needed to as well. Me, my brother, my cousins, Gage, and Dale's son Harlan all wore flannel shirts over our dress clothes in honor of Grandpa, since that's what he wore every day of his life. =) It brought a little bit of a bright spot to a sad day. I wish I had gotten a picture of all of us dressed up with flannel shirts on over our nice clothes. =)

With Grandpa's passing comes the need to clean up his property, which is quite a feat, and one of the reasons I won't be headed right back home. It's not a cheap or simple decision to drive 1,000 miles away from home, so we decided this would be a good time to help out my family and tie up some of my own loose ends - namely, helping to begin the cleanup of Grandma and Grandpa's property, and taking the last class to get my A.A. In Washington the requirements are different, so the one class here would translate into three or four there. Since we didn't make the decision for me to come down here until it was almost time for the semester to begin, I wasn't able to get into the class I wanted (showed up at 8 am the day of the funeral, which started at 10, and was way too far down the wait list) - but the good news is, I won't have any problem getting into a Math 70 class (or whatever their equivalent of it is) in Merced. So I'll take Math 70 at Merced this semester and 90 during the summer semester at MJC, and be all set to transfer to EWU (Eastern Washington University) when I go back home.

In the short time I'm here (feels like a really long time since I'm away from my husband and my home, but in the overall scheme of things it's not) I doubt we'll make much of a dent in the cleanup at my grandparent's house, but that was a big reason for staying so long. I've been away and out of the loop for the past year, which in many ways has been nice - not being away from my family of course, but just being independent and being out from underneath the microscope you (as in everyone) inevitably end up under in a small town - and I want to take advantage of this opportunity to help my family since I haven't been around.

My grandparents lived on 20 acres of property, 17 of which have always been populated by almond trees and 3 of which, other than the house, have always been filled with cars and the myriad of things my grandpa had collected over the years. You name it, it collected it. Hard to believe I lived there for 6 years and never saw inside his shop - well, maybe not so surprising when you consider what a klutz I have always been - V calls me his bull in a china shop. :-p It was amazing to walk around there and all these rooms I've never seen and look at his collections. There were many things I knew he collected, because his storage space was not limited to outside or in the shop, etc. I grew up manuevering through makeshift aisles inside the house because no space was off limits to Grandpa's collections. It probably sounds unbelievable if you grew up in a pristine house, but I look back on it fondly because it was just so.....Grandpa. =)

My brother was always closer to Grandpa than I was, and I was closer to Grandma - but even though this was Grandpa's funeral, it felt a lot like losing Grandma all over again. We grew up there, playing in the built-in pool shaped like a P for Prouty, complete with a slide and diving board, listening to Garth Brooks blasing from my brother's tiny bedroom - particularly "Two of a Kind" and "Friends in Low Places", playing for endless hours in the orchard, jumping around in the mud during irrigation time.....there are so many memories. There were endless things to do around there with a little imagination and my favorite playmates, my brother and my two cousins. Grandma and Grandpa taught us that marriage really can last forever. I believe they were married for 55 years before my Grandma passed away. They were like our second parents....they taught us so many life lessons that have helped shaped us into the people we are and will always continue to guide us throughout the rest of our lives. Even though I miss my husband terribly, I'm glad I could be here to say aloha to Grandpa, (aloha, not goodbye, because when Grandma was in the nursing home and Grandpa would leave after a visit, he would always say aloha) and glad I can help with starting to clean up the property. It will be a wonderful tribute to them when it gets all cleaned up,a nd I'm glad I can be a part of that.

Six months - that's what we're anticipating our stay here to be - is a ridiculously long time to be away from my husband, but we are going to try and see each other once a month, and of course we talk constantly throughout the day between texts and phone calls. And absence really does make the heart grow fonder - I can't wait to see him for the first time after being away from him like this. =)

Another thing I'm going to work on down here is my writing - on one of my visits back, we're going to get me a laptop (a Mac, of course - he's kosher with PC's, but after using an Apple, I can't go back. lol. So I'll have a lot to keep my busy while I'm here. Tonight I start taking a Shakespeare class at MJC from my sister-in-law, who is an English professor there, so that will be fun. =)

All in all, despite the sad reason for my arrival, I've got a lot of good things in the works for my time here. Faith is going to go to school with some of her old friends from the Christian school, so she's excited about that. We're just waiting for the go-ahead from the school that they've received all her records. London isn't old enough for kindergarten later this year by Washington's standards (their cutoff date is in August), but we're going to test her into it since she already knows a lot of the things you learn in kindergarten thanks to having four older siblings. In order to help her prepare, my ex-sister-in-law, who was Faith's kindergarten teacher, is going to homeschool her.

So that's about it for what's going on in my life right now - missing my husband, missing my grandparents....but at least I get to see my family and friends for a while (which is good, because I don't plan on coming back much after this visit, and I'm going to use this time to get a lot of good things accomplished. =) Wish me luck!

Working Girl

WOW, dear keyboard, it has been a while hasn't it? :-p I haven't sat down at the computer at home for more than a few minutes and only to do something absolutely necessary in more than a month - I finally truly understand the concept of not wanting to do anything at home that resembles what you do at work. That's right, I am FINALLY a full-fledged working woman! lol About two months ago I got hired at a temporary agency to work for an insurance company in Spokane. It worked out perfectly, because my training ended the same day my parents brought the girls home from California - training started at 7:30 and now I don't start work until 8:30, so that gives me time to get Faith ready for school and drop London off at her babysitter's house.

I've never been a fan of putting my children in daycare and still wish I didn't have to, but she goes and plays at the home of a family from church that's only about a mile from my work, so I'm much more comfortable with that than with traditional daycare. Of course I wish I could spend more time with my kids - Faith comes home with Braden after school and I don't get home for another 2 1/2- 3 hours, but at least Vernon gets home right around the time they do, and it makes me feel good to be contributing to the family - not to mention the perks of professional success and the completely different world of being around adults all day.

I've made some great friends thanks to work, which was an unexpected bonus. I went into this thinking that it didn't matter if I liked it or if I made friends, I was there to do a job and help support my family - and I ended up LOVING the work that I do and being happy to spend my day with the people that I do. My workspace has four desks - mine, an empty one, and the other two are occupied by two of my favorite people from my training class, and we have become true friends that genuinely care about each other and not just acquaintance-level friendly co-workers. I can literally talk to them about ANYTHING, and we often spend the first ten or fifteen minutes before starting work talking about what's going on in our home lives. One of my co-workers and best buddies is a few years younger than I am, and the other is 6 or 7 years older than my husband, so she often has advice and wise words for us youngins. lol

What I actually do - besides talk with my friends (lol) - involves working on the computer all day, occasionally making phone calls, and using several different programs to set up information for the sales people to give companies quotes for whatever kind of insurance they're requesting. It's actually really interesting, fun, and fast-paced. It's also kind of high stress because we're constantly under deadlines, but it's the kind of stress we can leave at work, so I don't mind that part of it too much. Not only do I love my job and have great friends there, we also have a cafeteria with seriously AMAZING food. AND, as if that weren't enough, I earn way more than I ever expected to be earning at an entry-level job after being out of work for almost 7 years. Ironically I work on a lot of quotes for the East Coast - or maybe not so ironically, since our sister office is in Bethlehem, PA.

So let's see....in the time since I last posted an entry besides getting an awesome new job, I got my girls back (yay!) and got to spend a couple of days with my parents - they drove the girls back up here and stayed from a Wednesday to a Sunday, so that was really nice. One of the downsides of living here is missing all of my family and friends back in CA, but it's so great to finally be out in the world every day, making new friends and working. One bad thing that happened in the last month is that my clumsiness really got the best of me - I fell and sprained my ankle so bad I nearly fractured it. I had to hobble around on crutches for a week or so, then got a giant boot to wear - I just saw the doctor this morning and FINALLY got permission to keep the boot off and only use the splint for another week or so, by which time hopefully it will finally be healed. The only downside of that is that I got to park in the visitor parking (right next to the handicap parking) at work, and I won't be able to do that anymore. lol

Another bad thing that I'm really sad about is that we have to get rid of our dog. =( It's really upsetting because I love her so much and she was my constant companion when I wasn't working and my girls were gone, but now that I'm working it's not fair to keep her in a kennel all the time, and I don't have the time to devote to her and housetraining her.....as logical as it is to find a home more advantageous for her, it's still really sad to me.

Tonight is one of the very rare nights where it's just me, Faith, and London here at home - it's Friday night in September, which means highschool football! My stepson plays in the band, one of my stepdaughters is a cheerleader, and my husband volunteers to do the lines at the games, so they're all gone right now. It's nice to get some time with my girls - and will also be nice to finally have some time with my husband! I feel like we barely get to see each other with both of us working.

Speaking of time with my favorite people, I'm going to take advantage of the time I have left with the girls, and Vernon will be home soon. =) I'm so happy it's Friday! And even happier that Vernon and I both have Monday off. I hope you enjoy your weekend too!

Blah, blah, blah.....

As usual, it's been forever since I've posted anything, and for once a million different things have happened since the last time I wrote. For one thing, the job I was essentially "auditioning" for didn't work out - I've since discovered that it appears they continue to interview, test, and NOT hire groups of 50+ (my guess is maybe they're trying to get creative ads like the ones they had us come up with without having to pay the people that come up with them)since it came down to two of us and they didn't hire either, and over the last three or four weeks, or however long it's been, they have continued to post ads on the job website I check every day on a regular basis. Even though I was disappointed to not get that job, I discovered after the fact that it didn't pay quite as much as we were hoping for, and it's quite a drive, so it turned out to be a blessing in disguise - especially when I got a call to interview for a different job that's in downtown Spokane and pays MORE than we were hoping for. After testing my computer skills and going through the interview, they offered me the job on the spot for an intake analyst at an insurance company. The training for that starts on the 27th (day before my birthday!) so I have a couple of weeks to continue sitting around with my thoughts.

It's been pretty quiet around here for the last few weeks already, since Faith and London are in California with their bio-dad. On June 18th, I believe it was, V and I drove down to Klamath Falls and met Spencer to give him the girls for most of the summer - they'll be back right around Faith's birthday, August 12th. I can't even explain how strange and unsettling it is for them to be gone. I don't sleep well, and I constantly feel like I'm forgetting something. Sure, sleeping in is nice, and it's given me the opportunity to job hunt and go on interviews without having to worry about securing a babysitter, but the perks are few and far between compared to how unnatural and unsettling being without my children is.

V and I did take a little trip last weekend, something that is considerably more difficult with two small children, to Silver Mountain in Idaho. It's an indoor water park, which was a lot of fun. =)This weekend we're probably going to take the boat out, and next weekend we're finally going to get the bunk beds built in Faith and London's room and a bookshelf built in ours (something I've always dreamed of - bookshelves built right into the wall. =))

Despite the fact that a lot has happened since the last time I wrote - my girls going to California, getting hired at exactly the kind of job I've been hoping for and with even better pay - I don't feel like there's much to write about and this has quickly turned into exactly the kind of boring, one-dimensional entry I DIDN'T want to write, so I think I'll save the rest of my thoughts for when I can get them out in an entertaining way. ;-)

Cute Pics

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go......

I haven't gotten the offical word yet, but when I went in for my second interview with the company I was talking about in my last post, it turned out that out of all the candidates that had applied and interviewed for the position (at least 30 or 40, probably more) it was down to five of us who had done really well on the tests the previous day. There was one person from my group, and the other three people were women I didn't recognize. We went in a conference room first and went over some of the job duties and perks - and boy, does this job have awesome perks! Aside from the basics of things like an IRA, medical coverage after six months, and paid time off, they also offer a paid gym membership (which you HAVE to use twice a week for it to be paid for, so sweet!) AND an annual all expenses paid company vacation - the last one was in Vegas. =) After that, we went back to the computers for more tests. For the first one we were given a document that had pictures and descriptions of the products that this company uses and we had to make a flyer from scratch advertising whatever products we wanted in whatever way we wanted. When we were done, the person in charge of the "orientation", as they called it, went around grading each of us and taking notes in our files. Next she had us write a description of our last job as if we were writing a Craigslist posting. I decided to go out on a limb and show off my personality by writing a funny ad about being a stay-at-home mom. I was the last one to be "graded" on this, and was thrilled that after the woman in charge had gone around straight-faced to everyone else's computer, taking notes and making generic comments, she laughed out loud and mine and said it was hilarious and she loved it! =) She even had one of the other women in the office read it AND bragged about it to the owner that we met during our exit interviews. After that we were given a short stack of papers with information about their company and had about five minutes to go over them, and then she asked us questions about it and said that our group caught onto the information better than any other interview group ever had. We were also the first group to have every single person heed literally the ONLY instruction for the flyer - don't put the prices in the ad. (How difficult is that?? People just don't take the time to read directions.) We sat around for a little while after that and chatted while we waited for the owner to come and do our exit interviews. When I went in for mine, she had already told him that I was funny, which is awesome. Definitely helps when half your face doesn't work and you can make fun of yourself. lol Again, I got a call on the way home from the interview and said that they had narrowed it down to me and one other girl - after all those people! Feels pretty good. =) Before they make their decision, we're each doing a full day of work, paid of course (yay! lol). I was supposed to go in and do mine today, but I got a call yesterday that the manager I'll be working with is really sick, so I'm going in from 9-5 on Thursday. I can't wait! I don't relish the idea of being away from London and not home when Faith gets home, but London loves daycare and Faith is just fine with her older brother and sisters when I'm not here, so I'm not worried about them, which is great and will leave me totally free to focus on work and keep showing them why they want to hire me. =) Of course I REALLY hope they choose me (and they may choose both of us, because it turns out they might have two immediate openings) but it is such a great feeling to have gone through two days and countless tests and to know that I aced the tests AND they loved my personality. It's been awhile since I've had the opportunity to feel any sense of professional accomplishment, and while I'm still not quite there, I've been hired for the one job that still doesn't start for a few weeks AND am being considered for this other one, so together they would just be perfect. Wish me luck! Or better yet, pray! =) Hopefully this means, as I said the other day, that we are on the upswing of this streak of bad luck. Although it will still be a while before my face returns to normal. Ugh. Again, a good sense of humor is a real bonus for this kind of situation. lol I need to get some things done around the house after spending most of the day thus far continuing the job hunt (can't stop until it's official!) but I'll leave you (in separate posts, since apparently Blogger is having a terrible time uploading all of them at the same time) with this adorable video of Clancy barking at a mouse trap and a few cute pics - a couple were taken at Faith's kindergarten celebration yet - I swear those things are designed to make you cry and mourn over how quickly your kids grow up. One is far away, but it's of Faith hugging her teacher, who is so awesome. The one of me I uploaded to Facebook the other day with the caption "New shades, new clothes, new jewelry.....now if only my face was capable of producing any other expression....." and the other ones are just cute and random. =) Hope you like!

The Rule of Three

They say bad things come in threes, and the last month or so has been no exception for me. It started just days after we got back from California - first there was the flu. I think Faith got it first and we thought it might just be something she ate or something like that when she was over it in about six hours and no one else caught it - until the next day, when I was holding London and she threw up ALL OVER ME. I was next, then Shae, and Vernon wasn't feeling well either for a few days, but he never throws up. We had a reprieve for a little while until the quad accident, which I still have marks on my hand and elbow from, and my wrist isn't completely healed, either. Then, the third, latest, and I would say worst thing - the Bells Palsy - happened this last Monday.

Thankfully, I think we're on the upswing of this string of bad luck, because I went in for an interview - or what I was told would be an interview, but turned out to be a series of tests - yesterday for a full-time administrative job, which is exactly what I'm looking for. There were four tests - the first was a typing test, which is one of my strengths. Then we had three handwritten tests - the first was data comparison, then math, and finally abstract reasoning. Apparently I did well, because they called me before I had even gotten home and asked me to come back today for a second interview! It may mean giving up the awesome summer concert job because of training conflicts, but even though that job would be so much fun, it's more important for me to get something full-time right now. So wish me luck, because I'm going to do that at 1:45 today. I'm not sure if it's just an interview or if I'm also going to be doing some observation of the job duties, because they mentioned yesterday that if we got a call back after our tests, we would be asked to come in and do observation for a few hours, so I guess I'll just see when I get there.

Speaking of jobs, I was looking around my Hotmail yesterday and realized that over the last month, I've put about a hundred applications in anywhere and everywhere I could find to apply that would be worth the drive (living as far away from town as we do, it wouldn't be worth it to take a part-time job in Spokane that only pays minimum wage, for instance). In the folder where I keep application confirmations and responses, I had 83 emails over the last month - and that doesn't include applications that I haven't gotten a confirmation for or jobs that I've mailed out applications for - and there are a few of those that I've mailed recently that I'd LOVE to get.

Other than those recent developments, it's been awhile since I've done my "3 things". I'm such an analytical person it's always good for me to enumerate the things I've been blessed with and take a look at what I need to work on. So without further adieu, the three things I'm grateful for today:

1. Settling into a rhythm here. We've been living here for a little over five months now, and though I've been in the habit of doing all the daily cleaning up for pretty much the whole time I've been here, now that I'm searching so diligently for a job I've really gotten into a schedule. Some of my time on the computer in the morning is spent checking Facebook and, lately, blogging, but for the most part I get on the computer after the older kids leave for school and look in all the places I can for what jobs are available. The state unemployment website is a great resource, so I always check that one first and apply for as many of those jobs as I can - the second interview I'm going on today is one that I applied for through it. Of course there are interruptions with taking care of London and now the puppy as well, but I am on the computer looking at every possible job opening until I've exhausted them all for the day, and then it's onto cleaning and usually lunch for London and I by the time I'm done, then a nap for her and a shower for me with very little downtime until about 3:00. I always try and watch The Talk at 1:00 and Dr. Phil at 3:00, but usually when I'm watching The Talk I'm folding clothes or doing something otherwise productive. I used to sit around and watch a lot of tv, and I just don't do that anymore. I have a couple of shows at night that I like to catch when I can, like So You Think You Can Dance, but even that rarely happens. It feels so much better to be active on a regular basis and spend most of my time doing productive things.

2. The second job interview I'm going on today! I'm so grateful that there are employers who are willing to look past the fact that I've been a stay-at-home mom for almost six years now and look at what I'm capable of doing instead. This data entry position would be the perfect opportunity for me to get back into the workforce and do something I'm good at.

3. The fact that London is actually excited about going to daycare. I got so lucky there! I never wanted to put my kids in daycare because I feel that I chose to have them, so it's up to me to raise them - but with a total of five kids now, things have to change. And now, even more unfortunately, Washington has pushed back the age that children can enter kindergarten, so instead of going to preschool this August, London won't even be able to start preschool until NEXT August so that means more time in daycare, but she is super excited about it. When I told her yesterday that we were meeting Vernon so she could go with him while I went to my interview she asked me, "Mom, when do I get to go to daycare?" and when I told her that she would be going to daycare today her response was, "Woo hoo! YES!" lol I got really lucky there! On that note, I'm really glad that I was able to find a daycare so quickly that I'm completely comfortable with, because I didn't think it would be that easy given my strong reluctance to put her in daycare at all.

And the three things I need to work on:

1. I keep saying that I want to get back into writing and I'll do it for a little while and then either get writer's block, get busy with other things, or both, but that is always something I really want to do. I think I'm just going to have to block out half an hour or an hour each day or something like that and set it aside specifically to work on the ideas I've come up with over the last month. I think that's a good idea, because otherwise it doesn't get done nearly as often as I'd like.

2. I hate to ask for patience, because you know what happens when you pray for patience - and I think I've had enough tribulations, thankyouverymuch - but that's probably exactly what I need for the often complicated process of blending two families. I'm reading this amazing book called "Stepmonster" by Wednesday Martin, which has to be the best, most honest look at being a stepmother/remarrying with kids that I've ever seen. I have been familiar with stepfamilies since I was 8 and my dad remarried, then even more so when my mom started dating Bob when I was 14 and eventually married him, but experiencing it for yourself and seeing things from the other side is a different breed of cat altogether, and I know my faults and that there are always things you can improve on to make a situation that can sometimes be difficult a little easier. Patience is probably the best place to start.

3. I've been thinking about doing something like couponing to save money since I have a few friends that do it and the amount of money they can save is staggering. Saving money is always a great thing, but when it comes to a family of seven it's not just nice, it's NECESSARY! Whether it's couponing or budgeting or whatever, I want to find some way, especially until I actually get hired at a full-time job, to contribute to saving money.

What are the odds?

With the odds of something like this happening once, let alone twice, I really need to become a serious lotto player. About five years ago I got Bells Palsy - where one side of your face literally just doesn't work - that lasted about six weeks, a relatively short time for the duration of this particular disease. Now, I have it again - and the odds of that happening are pretty rare, so I figure I better take advantage and play the Washington Powerball. lol After all, it IS up to 200 million, and I wouldn't turn my nose up at that kind of money. :-p

In better news, we have a puppy! We just got her (we think it's a her - when the kids and I were all debating about what she was or what we should name her, I said "since it's in question, why don't we just name her Gaga?") this last Friday. She's a chihuaua, so she won't get a whole lot bigger than she is now, and she is so adorable. She's everyone's puppy, but I'm the one who is home all day and thus feeds her, cleans up after her, bathes her, even lets her sleep with me and gets up at least two or three times a night to have her go to the bathroom or tolerate her spurts of energy at 3 am and 6 am that have her trying to bite my ear, my fingers, whatever she can feasibly reach. It's a lot like having a baby - except she'll never talk back. lol

In even better news, I have a job! It's a part-time summer thing, so I'm still looking for a regular, full-time gig, but this is possibly one of the coolest jobs ever - it's at a big casino a few towns over, and I'll be working in their VIP area for their summer concert series, which means that I get to see a bunch of awesome concerts this summer and get paid for it!! Reba (with Sunny Sweeney, who I also love), Toby Keith, the Steve Miller Band, and the Beach Boys are just a few of the awesome artists I'll get to see this summer. =)

One of the pictures, the one where I'm holding up my elbow, is the remaining battle scars from a quad accident the other weekend. My stepdaughter had friends over and they were running around on the quad and found a gigantic puddle to drive through - even Faith and London were having a blast riding through it, and I decided I wanted to go, too. Jessica's friend was driving, and somehow we hit a patch of something that luckily everyone else had been avoiding, and we tipped over and the quad came down on my side. My hand was bleeding a little when we got back, but it didn't seem all that bad until the next morning when I could barely move my right arm. I had scrapes on the heel of my hand and on my elbow, bruises and scratches all over my body, especially the right side. I couldn't use my right hand until that next Wednesday, I think it was. I'm all for battle scars once they've healed, but while all those injuries were healing, it was pure torture. I had never been so happy in my life to be able to do a sinkful of dishes as I was that Wednesday after three days of not being able to even move my hand.

School will be out for all the older kids next Monday - hard to believe I started dating, got married, and moved out of state all in the span of less than one school year. (Even harder to believe that the dating and getting married part happened in 2 months. lol) Faith and London were going to go visit their biological dad for five weeks beginning the week after school ended, but in order to make it possible for my parents to drive them back here and visit for a few days, we're pushing that back until July 2nd......I am so not looking forward to being away from my kids for that long, but I keep telling myself it was a condiiton of us getting to move up here in the first place, and the end justifies the means. Still.....that won't actually make it any easier.

Well, I think that's it for now. I just had to write something about the things that have been happening recently after finally posting that blog that took me like two months to write. lol