Tuesday, July 31, 2007

I'm back

I realize that I disappeared for a little while, but I'm back. You see, first Morgan and I went to the cape for a week. It was awesome. I had a great time. If I have time, I'll write you more about it later. We got back Saturday around dinner time. I was exhausted. So we didn't do much the rest of the day Saturday. Sunday we packed and Monday I went to work. I'd been out for a week so there was a lot to do. Then I came home and Morgan's sister and brother-in-law helped us move our washing machine, then we packed some more. Tuesday I took the day off work and we rented a U-haul and moved. And I called Comcast so they would move our cable and internet to the new place. Wednesday I went to work again, it was Morgan's birthday. She also stayed home to wait for the gas and cable man. So Wednesday night we went out to dinner to celebrate Morgan's birth. Thursday I left work early to finish packing and cleaning our old apartment. We had to be out by Friday. Friday I went to work. Saturday we mostly unpacked and cleaned and I spent 40 minutes on the phone with Comcast trying to get the internet working, it wouldn't connect. So I had spotty internet connection, on for 10 minutes then it'd kick off and we'd have to reset the modem. So, I hadn't posted. Now it's Tuesday and we're going to go see the Simpson's movie. So I have to go again, but if you've been tracking your miles send them to me and we'll get back on track for our race!

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Moving

I took Friday off work to work on moving as you all know, and I was very productive Friday and pretty productive Saturday, today is going kind of ..... badly. I haven't accomplished very much yet. I have realized that I have a lot of stuff. Not only stuff, junk. But it's things I'm not ready to get rid of. But it's everywhere! And it's hard to try and be organized at the new place because we haven't quite decided where everything should go. I'd kind of like to bring home 3 more pallets and just stack everything in the basement except the furniture of course. Then, as we get organized we can bring stuff up and put it away as we find a place for it or need it. And anything that's still in the basement after a year we can consider giving away, except of course for such treasures as, "Why I'm Specile by Lauren Harvey" (One of the things that bugs me is when Michael calls me "stoopid" or an "idjit") and the results of my two (yes 2!) tests to see if I have a learning disorder. Those things are priceless! So today I've packed up my foodsaver and the toaster oven. And I've emptied the toaster oven holder/storage thing in the pantry. It has a name I'm sure, but I just don't know what that name is. I might try to bring it over today, but I'm not sure I can do it by myself. I know we'll need it since our new kitchen has a serious lack of storage and counter space.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Done with School!

I finished my class. Tonight we took our fourth and final test. My test scores (in order) were 100, 100, 98, 97. You can see that as class wore on I was more and more tired so my grades suffered. But the teacher said that I will end the semester with an A. He also said that if they gave A+'s I would have gotten an A+. Not bad, eh?

So, now I'm done with class and I'm soooo tired. I am not going to work tomorrow, I'm taking the day unpaid so I have a three day weekend to work on packing. Yesterday (the fourth of July) was a holiday so I did not go to work. Morgan and I spent the morning packing and cleaning and then we went out for lunch, took the boxes to the new apartment and went to the grocery store to pick up a few things since we were having people over for dinner. But, the point of this story is that the morning of packing, from 10 - 1 I got surprising little done. Packing takes forever! This is even worse than the last move. At least the last time a lot of the common stuff was staying and Morgan and I only had to move our stuff. Now everything is our stuff! There is so much stuff!

So, we've taken 2.5 car loads over so far. Today at work I got someone to give me a pallet so I could put some boxes in the basement without worrying about them getting when when it rains all day tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday like it's supposed to. We had been just putting the boxes in the kitchen because they were full of things like my childhood memories in tangible form that I brought from the Tangletree house or some of my video games and clothes we hardly ever wear and winter sheets and blankets and books which we can't unpack until we move the bookshelf. So today I put the pallet downstairs and moved all the stuff that we don't need to unpack for awhile (pretty much everything listed above except the books) to the basement. So now, when we bring more stuff over we'll have more room to put it.

Morgan's family is going to help us move, we are trying to pick a good day for it. I really hope it's sometime next week, because we're out of town the next week and the week after that is our last week in the old apartment. We have to be out by Friday, so I really want to have most of it done before we go on vacation. That's another reason I'm taking tomorrow off of work.

Monday, July 2, 2007

My future 2

They have decided to expand my child's picnic table into an "L". They're going to add some (hopefully usable) horizontal space, something I seriously lack now. The director was trying to think about how to fit a table in the room. And she was looking around and she really sincerely wanted to try to get me some work space. It made me feel bad because I was sitting there so angry about my job and how it sucks and she really wanted to make something work. So, I took advantage of the fact that the director moved from a cubicle to an office with a door. I went in to her office a minute after she left the room and asked if she had a minute. I told her that I was unhappy and that what was hardest for me was that I didn't a place for me to go with PJ that would satisfy what I need.

She said a couple of really helpful things. She gave me 2 thoughts wearing 2 different "hats"
The PJ Library hat/personal hat: She said that they were very glad when I came along but part of her wondered if this was enough for me.

I told her that at first I didn't think it was a good fit for me, but there were a few things that drew me here. One of which was a chance to work at a foundation and since PJ is thinking about separating from HGF to become it's own thing, I thought I might be able to learn something that might help us with our fund.

She said that PJ would support me in whatever I choose to do, that I could have time off for job searches. She said she would be willing to talk to some people with in the foundation to see if there was another department looking for some help that I could do part of.

Wearing her Mom hat: She said that I have a lot going on right now, I'm moving, Morgan's looking for a job and if I were one of her daughters she would tell them that maybe now wasn't the time to be starting a job search. She would suggest picking a date in the future (like September 15th) to say, I'm here until then and after that I'll see what I want to do.
She also said if I choose not to take that advice she would totally respect it and give me a glowing recommendation.

So, I feel better because they know how I feel and that I've been considering leaving and if something comes up that is not mindless work, I think they'll give it to me. In the meantime she suggested I sit down with the executive director for an hour or so one day to talk about the workings of a foundation. So if we decide to make our fund a foundation I might know something about it.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

the future?

It is officially July. Morgan and I took a load over to the new apartment. At some point she's going to talk to her sister to see what day she can come help us move. Morgan's Mom might come help us too. We have until July 27 to be out of our current place.

As far as accounting. I am enjoying the material of my class. I'm thinking about going back to school for accounting, but if I do I'll need to quit my job. That might not be such a bad idea. I hate my job. I hate it so much. I am so unhappy there. I sit at work all day thinking about quiting. But the question remains, if I quit, what will I do? I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to school, but I'm sure I don't like my job. So, what have learned. I warn you that this may be boring, but I will now go through my past jobs and list things I liked and disliked about them.

Job 1: Dierberg's Cashier
Likes: It was fun. I got to deal with the public. I got to deal with money. It was relatively easy to take a day off
Dislikes: It paid terribly. I had to deal with the public. I had to work evenings and weekends.

Job 2: Camp Emeth
Likes: It was fun. I got to do neat things. I worked with fun people. I got to be outside. I got to work with kids.
Dislikes: It was a LOT of work and the camping trips and overnights were exhausting. The pay was terrible. I had to deal with the kids parents.

Job 3: K.B. Toys
Likes: It was fun. I got to play with toys. I got to deal with the public. I got to work with fun people. I learned a lot about toys and what children likes. It was fun to try and make our numbers for the day.
Dislikes: I had to work with the public. I had to work nights and weekends. It was really annoying when people would try to steal stuff.

Job 3.5: Temping at Yankee Candle for 6 months
Likes: The people were very nice. I was good at the work. I didn't mind going to work every day. It's the only job I've ever had where I came home smelling better than I did when I left the house.
Dislikes: Sometimes it was very boring. Sometimes it was very stressful. It was a temp job, so there were no benefits.

Job 4: APT
Likes: I met some nice people.
Dislikes: Some of the people were terrible. I strongly disagreed with many many of the companies policies. They (pretty blatantly) paid men more than women. It was boring, it wasn't challenging and I really hated it.

Job 5: The PJ Library
Likes: Many of the people are nice. It is very easy to take time off (unpaid of course).
Dislikes: They really don't pay me enough. It is very boring and very not challenging. Even though I've had 2 conversations about how I'm not feeling challenged, I'm bored and I'm unhappy, their idea of fixing this is to give me busy work to do which just makes exacerbates the problem. I am really really really really really really unhappy, pretty much all the time. Mike and I and Josh can have depressed parties.

So, what should I do? I've thought about just quitting my job and looking for something temporary, just to pay the bills to see what I like.

I don't like that when working in an office I am pretty much sedentary all day every day. There's something that I'm kind of drawn to about a job where the harder I work, the more I get paid, but I'm scared of commission based work.
Also, I'm really not a risk taker, but I also want to go into business for myself, but I have no idea what kind of business. And, just quiting your job is kind of risk too. So, I'm trying to decide my next move (with my life, I'm in the middle of my physical move).