I Got a Job

I have finally been hired! Found someone to give me a job! The pay is not great and the benefits are not great either, but it is a job.

I had to do a drug test to be able to start my job. How funny! I can pee if I cough, laugh or sneeze, but I was unable to fill the cup to the proper level when I had to turn in my sample. So funny because a couple of my friends work at the lab that I went to. My friend accused me of being "one of those" and sent me out to sit in the lobby again with my drink of water. I was not able to leave the building either. I was trapped until I could pee. Just plain silly. Once this was accomplished, I was thrilled!

My new job is a corporate job. The people are politely friendly. I have been issued a "cube". I am almost afraid to decorate it. Everything is gray upon gray upon gray. I think pink would break up the color scheme they have going on. Already been privy to the back stabbing and whispering . Joy. Hope I can survive. Is it really worth it?

I am working 7-3, which is not bad. The job is looking for lost or misappropriated money. I really don't have to work with people on the phone, so that is good. Once I get done training, I will be on my own and I am really looking forward to that. I already get bugged because even though my trainer has been doing it for 3 years, I can see how she is inefficiently using her key strokes. Don't worry, I am keeping my mouth shut.

We'll see how it goes! ;-)

New blogger?

Oh Lord! Once again, something has been "improved upon". I am all for change for good, but when I logged in, blogger would not let me see my website. It let me see blogs I follow, but not my own blog! I guess it is time to wrap up my Creative Writing class and get out of here before I am unable to read my blog any more. I eventually found "old view" and was able to find this. Still not quite sure how I am going to keep figuring it out. Better get blogging!

They just did this to me at my real estate job too. Once again, improved upon without input from "the People". I was able to navigate through that too. Can't believe how they thing some things are an "improvement".

I hope this means I will be a progressive old person! Trying Twitter, Facebook and etc. Learning how to navigate through them.

One of my favorite computer sayings is "when in doubt, bail out". Just close what you are working on if it get to be too much and reboot the computer.

Whatever works!

Spaghetti dinner

Tomorrow will be a true test for me. I have to cook spaghetti for over 100 people. As innocuous as that sounds, this is my first time co-hosting a fundraiser and I am scared to death! I am pretty sure I will not give anyone food poisoning, but it is a lot of responsibility to make and serve the food.

        It has been a lot of work preparing for this event. It is a fundraiser for Girl Scouts and I hope we do it justice.

        First, we had to get all the donations for the food. Unfortunately, some people do not feel obligated to do their part and accepting this and coming up with alternative methods is important.

Storing the food is an important factor in this. I seriously have a refrigerator full of lettuce! And this lettuce takes every opportunity to fall out at your feet. I have a freezer full of meatballs, a car trunk full of spaghetti and pasta and a bin in the garage full of rolls! Thank goodness I have committee chairs that are also harboring spaghetti, sauce, desserts and pats of butter!

We have promoted this dinner among the community, but so far have not received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback, so I am not planning on making an excessive amount of food. I have taken on the attitude that I will just have fun and serve lots of good food to those who come. Leftovers will go down the street to the fire station and leftover unopened goods will go to the food pantry.

Wish me luck!

Film review

I wrote this review for my film class and thought it was interesting enough to share.

I did not know the whole story of “The Help” going in, except for the fact that a white girl writes a book about African American maids based in the 1950’s pre-civil rights southern United States. It had looked humorous in previews.

                I thought this movie would tell a story about how the black maids worked for socialite white women, raising their families and taking care of their homes. I expected some kind of conflict, but there was much more to this movie. The movie did an excellent job of recreating the 50’s South. The men were portrayed as being “above” the women and disassociated with their home life. The wives were portrayed as social climbing barracudas and the maids were long suffering. The movie went much more in depth than I had anticipated. They showed why the women behaved the way they did. They also built the maid characters, by showing you their own home lives and made you feel for them.

                This movie was definitely a drama, not a comedy as I anticipated, although the comic relief dispersed throughout the movie was hysterical. Sissy Spacek played an unappreciated matriarch, who gave as good as she got. The problems the maids endured, such as not being allowed to use indoor restrooms, working long hours for little play and enduring repeated abuse from their employers, were well portrayed. You truly felt the maids were vindicated in spilling all the secrets of their employers.

Dog Nap

What I wouldn’t give to live the life of a dog! We have two very cute beagles in our house and these dogs live the life of luxury. Our dogs are now old dogs, so they don’t do too much, but living the life of a hound dog is pretty good around here.

Our dogs spend about 23 hours sleeping and they do it well. Either snuggled up on a blanket, in one of their beds or sometimes, scoring an awesome piece of sunshine. But just sleeping is not enough. A smart dog assumes a pose. Really smart dogs have lots of poses. One of my favorites to see is when the dog rolls on her back, legs up and ears flopped back. Many times my oldest will have a grin on her face to boot. Very cute. Snuggled into a ball is a good position too. And they have a bed they sleep in on the floor in the office. This particular bed has a crack in the corner and they stick their cute noses out of the corner.

Our dogs have gotten too old to be able to get up on the furniture, and we are not too sad about that, but every once in a while, they will insist on being lifted up onto the bed to sleep in style.

One thing that tops off the perfect dog nap, is a dog snore. Sometimes it can shake the dust off the ceiling fans! I love watching my dogs sleep.

School

Been very busy trying to finish up my school homework. Between 3 kids, a part time job, multiple volunteering at various organizations, I am way behind. I am trying to finish up my work load by May 12^th. My real goal was to try to finish up before April 30^th. We’ll see how it goes. It is hard to squeeze in writing these days. I have a lot on my mind, but by the time I can write it down, I have forgotten it!

I have enjoyed this creative writing class. Writing has always been a passion of mine since I was a little girl. My dad always wanted me to be a writer. I believe I have become a little too bland. I also have had all the creative juices sucked out of me by motherhood. If I can remember how to sting two sentences together , it is a miracle. The only thing that has held me back in these assignments is having to cut all my stories short and end them before I had a real chance to flush the story out.

I am also taking a film class. This has been interesting because I never have the patience to sit through a movie. This has forced me to watch some classics I have never seen either.

Going back to school when you are middle aged is hard. Taking classes that are not taught in a classroom is even harder. It has been an eye opening experience.

Interview

I finally got a call about a job and went in for an interview. But before I got to the interview, I was led on a prescreening process. Boy, it has been years since I interviewed for a job and I was not prepared. Thank goodness I scored a second interview.

I was amazed at all the high tech stuff we had to go through. First I was led to a computer station. I had to re enter all my information from my resume. Then it was time for the TEST. Yikes! A simple skills test. I guess I passed because it was on to the first interview. I was asked really hard questions, like what were my strengths? What are my weaknesses?? Geeze, I have no clue. I do not sit around and analyze myself! Then they asked me what I like most about my current job and what did I dislike? My goodness. 

Here’s where I really took a dive. I told them that organization was my skill and that the fact that I was tired was my weakness. Haha! I am tired, but really? That was the best I could come up with?

There was no way I was touching the loaded question of, what did I like and dislike about my current job. It was risky to say anything at the risk of sounding like a disgruntled employee. So I told them I love my job and there was nothing that I didn’t like about it. Whatever! We’ll see if I get hired.

Game On!

The crazy world of technology has opened the door to something really fun. Not only can you email, order dinner and find a job all in the same place, but you can keep up with your friends and their pictures and do online gaming with them. The fun part is, even the fun games come free! It is easy to hook up with a friend, because each game tells you which of your friends are playing. From challenging word games, to silly drawing games the only problem with all of this is that it can get addicting! You can play on your laptop, ipad or even your phone!

        I really enjoy playing Word with Friends. It is a challenging game of Scrabble and I normally keep many games with friends going at one time. Part of the challenge is that there is no arguing for someone to accept a word. It either is an accepted word, or not. Things can get pretty crazy and competition is fun. Many times you just have to keep rearranging your letters until you finally make a word!

        Another game I enjoy is Gardens of Time. I like that it keeps my mind challenged by completing intricate seek and finds. This is not a competitive game, but a teamwork game where you help your friends and they help you.

        A new game introduced to me by my daughters is Drawsome. This is a fun game of Pictionary you play againist one friend at a time. They draw something and you are given random letters to try to guess the picture. This can be hysterical!

Cookies for Easter!

I tried a new recipe yesterday. I decided to make a recipe from the Pintrest website. I have gathered so many great recipes and ideas from this site, I just had to try one. I was trying to decide what else to bring to my mother’s house for Easter dinner. Normally I bring deviled eggs and I had planned on doing this, but I always try to bring something else too. It has evolved to bringing some kind of dessert item. Many times I have had a frozen pie left over from Thanksgiving. But this year, I decided to try a Lofthouse Cookie recipe. They are delicious and fattening sugar cookies you can buy at the grocery store. In this recipe you simply bake them on a jelly roll pan instead of rolling out the dough and cutting them into shapes with a cookie cutter before you bake them. I was surprised the recipe called for cream cheese, but I foraged ahead with my baking. The dough was surprisingly easy to make and although sticky, was easily spread onto the greased jelly roll pan. Once cooked and cooled, I iced the whole sheet and then began to cut out my shapes. Big mistake! I should have cut first and iced last. I sure had a mess on my hands. But once completed and nicely sprinkled, I pulled out the best ones and put them on a cute Easter plate. The verdict? They tasted pretty good, although a little too “cream cheesy” tasting for my palate. My daughters assured me they were delicious, but I will cut down on the cream cheese next time anyway. All in all, they were pretty yummy.

Stories from everyday life

Stories are all around us. As I was driving to work the other day, my eyes and attention were diligently focused on the road ahead. Okay, okay, so occasionally the eye would stray and I would take in a flowering tree or the activities of someone in passing. One such thing that caught my eye was a woman getting into her car with a small child size rocking chair. Questions tumbled through my mind. Where was she going? Who was the chair for? Where did she get it from? It got me to thinking about how this chance observance could be put into a story.

Supposing I give the lady a name, say Mary. Other observances about Mary had showed me that she drove a nice enough car and she was neither old, nor young. She was old enough to perhaps be a new grandmother. Perhaps she was taking the rocking chair to her daughter’s house to celebrate the birth of her first grandchild. Mary was in the parking lot of a condominium complex. Perhaps Mary was trying to make room in her condo to take on a roommate because hard times had come upon her and she needed financial help. Perhaps she was taking the rocking chair to the resale shop or consignment store to make some more money off of it? Either way, a story can be born.

It is amazing how so many everyday occurrences and observances can be built upon to make stories. What did you see today?

Paul

My favorite person from the Bible is Paul. For so many reasons, reading the wisdom of Paul is so inspiring to me!

1. Paul got to meet Jesus! He was so lucky! Although Jesus put scales over Paul’s eyes (when he was Saul), it transformed his life to one of the best Apostles!
2. Paul listened to what God had to tell him.
3. Paul truly cared about the people he ministered to and prayed for them and fussed over them as a father would.
4. Paul knew how to write a letter! He was so encouraging and shared so much wisdom.
5. Paul was very humble. He appreciated what he had and he worked for what he got. He did not expect the new churches to support him, but did what he had to do to earn his living and still have time to minister to others.
6. Even when Paul was humiliated, he was strong. He did not let beatings or imprisonments stop him from doing what he felt he needed to do, nor did he let evil people stop him from his mission of ministering.
7. Paul was tireless! He walked and walked through deserts and towns. He got on ships over rough seas and rode the waves to get to the people that needed him.
8. Paul made friends everywhere. For every person that persecuted Paul, God gave him someone to support him. This so helped Paul in mind, body and spirit.
9. By documenting everything in letters, Paul has left a written word that I can read and learn from. So much of what was written can still be applied to my modern day situations!

100th Celebrations!

I have been blessed to be a part in the celebration events of two great organizations. Not just any celebration, but 100 year celebrations!

The first one was the 100^th anniversary of the St. Louis Christmas Carols Association. I have been an area chairperson for over 7 years here and I was so excited to be a part of the party! They kicked off the festivities with a big party at a hotel downtown. There was an awesome dinner and lots of speeches  and caroling, of course! This organization was started 100 years ago by William Danforth and he actually was waiting for carolers to arrive when he passed away on Christmas eve so many years ago. This organization has carolers go out and collect money which is then given to various children’s charities throughout St. Louis. It has been fun to recruit carolers and to take my Girl Scouts caroling every year. It is a great way to build memories!

Speaking of Girl Scouts, that is the second organization that I have been celebrating 100 years with! It is actually the 100^th birthday of the Girl Scouts this year! I have been involved with the Scouting organization for 14 years. This has been so much fun to celebrate! There have been many parties and it is so neat to learn so much of the history of the Girl Scouts and share it with my girls. What a great way to build girls morale and teach them to be in service to others!

I am honored to be involved with these organizations and am enjoying every minute of the celebrations!