I just read through my last post and realized that I have things to update. First, Nicole decided to make February 14th her last day at work, so when I got the job offer call on Tuesday the 11th, I was told my start date would be February 19th, so I had about a week to get everything done. I had to do another background check and drug test, and the drug test was so stressful! I had an appointment at 11:20, and in spite of the fact that I drank a ton of water before I went, I just did not have to go. So I sat there for an hour waiting to feel like I had to go, and when I finally did, I was accused by the medical assistant at the clinic of cheating. She said my urine looked like water and was not warm enough to have come from my body. I was so upset. Of course I knew it was a legitimate test, but she said she had to send it to an outside lab. Obviously everything turned out fine, but I am contemplating telling someone in HR what happened, because she was very rude and unprofessional, and this happened at a clinic that was opened for CSU employees. I do not think CSU would be happy to know that people are being treated that way.
Anyway, I started on the 19th and I only had to spend the morning in orientation. After lunch, I went up and spent the rest of the afternoon getting reacquainted with my computer, phone, and the processes. On Thursday I processed five papers, and on Friday I was back on the phone and back up to speed completely. Now it feels like I never left; they even put me back in the cubicle I was in when I first started. I am very happy to be back. I went through orientation with the new math specialist. That position had been vacant since before I left in August. I guess it is tough to find math people. His name is Larry and he is from South Africa. He is here on a student visa and needed a job because he had graduated and was at risk of being sent back home. He's very quiet. I hardly even know he's there.
The director of the Success Center, Wendy, has been out since before I started because she has had some health issues, and she came in early last week to tell us that one of her doctors had potentially found something else, but after consulting with another doctor, her fears were put at ease somewhat. Wendy has had some really tough times lately, so I pray that she can start mending now. She also told us that she is fighting hard to get us a 12th writing specialist. Student requests continue to increase and we are very busy on the first two or three days of the week. She told me when I applied that she was trying to get a part-time position, which would actually suffice for right now, but I am not sure if the new person would be part- or full-time. I think that if she can justify hiring a full-timer, she definitely will. When my job was posted on the CSU website, I figured HR would take it down when I started, but it still up because Wendy is trying to get a pool of applicants to choose from. I know that Crystal, the Writing Center supervisor, is very concerned about finding someone who will mesh well with the rest of the team. When I very first started, there were a couple of very contentious people working there, and now they are both gone, so things have been much more pleasant. Of course there are still issues. I know of at least two people who really want to find new jobs, but there aren't a lot of opportunities in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach unless one wants to get into hospitality. One of the gals wants to find a job in Washington state where her daughter is, but so far I do not think she has had much luck finding anything. The other is looking for a remote copy editor position, but she only has a bachelor's degree and online jobs are very competitive.
Case in point, Billie has been applying for remote jobs since before I left because she want to be home with her little girl and have another baby, but until recently she had been kind of particular about the jobs she was applying for. She found out about a month ago that both her in-laws need surgery, and they are the ones who watch her daughter during the day, so she told leadership that she has to find another job and leave. Last Thursday she found out that she got a remote position with WGU and Friday the 20th will be her last day. It is only part-time, but it does offer some benefits. She is hoping to supplement that job with another remote teaching position. I am very happy for her, but I am sad for me because she is my best friend at work and I will miss her a lot. So we may have two new people coming into the department again.
I need to go get ready for work now. I hope you all have a fantastic week. BTW, I am not enjoying waking up when it's still dark. :(
Monday, March 9, 2020
Saturday, February 8, 2020
I'm Going Back to Work!
So, Wednesday when I went to meet Billie, she asked me what I was doing today (Saturday), and I said I didn't think I had anything planned, and she said, "Good, because we have to help Nicole pack." Nicole got a job in Iowa and she starts two weeks from Monday! So today she and I spent several hours at her apartment helping her pack things up, and I will probably go help her again next weekend. Then yesterday, April came over after work to feed her snake (which I am temporarily housing for her) and she told me that Nicole's job was already posted on the CSU website, so I texted Wendy and asked her if I needed to apply or if my old application would suffice, and she told me to go ahead and apply, so I did that yesterday. I texted her and told her I had it submitted, and she seemed very excited. Then this morning, she texted me and said, "Oh. And you are hired!!!!! Hahah" Then she said, "I may need to interview you first to determine if you are still as awesome as we know you are. Lol." We bantered back and forth a bit and then I asked her when I could start and she said, "As soon as the position is available and next start date. I’m thinking first week of March!!!! I will talk with HR Monday." So, it looks like I will not need to interview for it and that my start date will be March 4th. I wish I could start sooner, but I am super excited. I have at least two dreams every week that I am back at work, and now my dreams are coming true. April is happy, too. I will get to see her every day again--at least for awhile. She applied for an instructional design job and if she gets it, she will be working from home. She wants it really badly, so I pray that she gets it.
Susan reminded me that I didn't update about my cruise, and to be honest, it wasn't all that great. We were all ready to set sail when we were informed that Mobile Bay was closed due to fog and they were not sure when we would be able to leave. I woke up the next morning and we were still in port, and at about 8:30 they announced that we would set sail about 11:00 and that those who elected to stay on board would receive a 50% refund and 50% off a future cruise. Those who elected to not sail would receive a 100% refund. We decided to go ahead and sail, but the weather wasn't great and we did not get to go to Cozumel because we lost an entire day, so we basically sailed around in the Gulf for two and a half days. The weather was really nice the last day and we had a nice time being together, but I was ready for it to be over and get back home to normal life. I didn't eat as well as I wanted to during the cruise, but I also didn't eat terribly. It has taken me awhile to want to get back on track with my healthy eating, but I finally did at the beginning of this week. Dan and I also started walking every night again, which helps me want to eat healthy. Nicole took me and Billie out for lunch today at a place called Island Wing Company and Billie and I both got the vegan tacos. They were really good, but I doubt they were particularly healthy. I got some exercise today, though, so I don't feel too bad about it. I ate better than I would have eaten a week ago.
I need to go get ready for my walk now, so I will end this for now. I will update again soon.
Susan reminded me that I didn't update about my cruise, and to be honest, it wasn't all that great. We were all ready to set sail when we were informed that Mobile Bay was closed due to fog and they were not sure when we would be able to leave. I woke up the next morning and we were still in port, and at about 8:30 they announced that we would set sail about 11:00 and that those who elected to stay on board would receive a 50% refund and 50% off a future cruise. Those who elected to not sail would receive a 100% refund. We decided to go ahead and sail, but the weather wasn't great and we did not get to go to Cozumel because we lost an entire day, so we basically sailed around in the Gulf for two and a half days. The weather was really nice the last day and we had a nice time being together, but I was ready for it to be over and get back home to normal life. I didn't eat as well as I wanted to during the cruise, but I also didn't eat terribly. It has taken me awhile to want to get back on track with my healthy eating, but I finally did at the beginning of this week. Dan and I also started walking every night again, which helps me want to eat healthy. Nicole took me and Billie out for lunch today at a place called Island Wing Company and Billie and I both got the vegan tacos. They were really good, but I doubt they were particularly healthy. I got some exercise today, though, so I don't feel too bad about it. I ate better than I would have eaten a week ago.
I need to go get ready for my walk now, so I will end this for now. I will update again soon.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Very Long Overdue Update
I am sorry that it has been so long since I last updated. I just really have not had a lot to write about. After I stopped working and got past my oral exam, life seemed to get boring, if not a little depressing. I knew very quickly that I wanted to return to work if Wendy would have me, and now it looks like it may happen relatively soon. Two people (perhaps three) that I know of are looking for other employment. One gal's husband had open-heart surgery in his home town in Iowa, and his doctor wants him to stay close, so he has requested to work remote from the Des Moines area. She is looking for employment in Iowa and once she finds a job, she will move. I am praying that it is soon for both of our sake. The other person who is looking for another job is Billie. That one makes me sad, but she has a little girl and wants to have another baby, so I understand her wanting to find a job that she can do from home. It's not easy to find online employment, but she is determined; so much so that she told Wendy and Crystal (the supervisor of the writing center) that she has to find another job. I also know that one other lady wants to move to Washington state to be closer to her daughter, so last I heard, she is looking for a job there. She has not been happy at CSU for some time, so it is not surprising that she wants to leave. Another lady also wants to leave, but her prospects are limited, so I don't anticipate that she will be leaving anytime soon. So I have several opportunities to go back; it's just a matter of one of the gals finding the job she is looking for.
I finished my last class at the end of December and am now officially in the dissertation phase of my degree. I am not at all excited about school anymore and am just so ready to be finished. I am hoping that I can finish up by the end of summer, but it will depend on how long my committee drags the process out. I am required to take three dissertation classes and my first one ends at the end of March and my second one ends around July 4th. I am not sure when the third one ends, but I am guessing around the end of September. Regardless, time will get behind me and it will all be over soon.
I was very happy to see 2019 come to an end. It started off rough and ended a bit rough as well. In January I said goodbye to my beloved Jasper, in February we had Hailey, our eighteen year old westie, put down, in April I had to say goodbye to my other beloved bird, Avery, and then right after Thanksgiving, we said goodbye to our almost twelve year old silky terrier, Maddie. I am now down to my two sun conures, my blue crown conure, and Emma, the shih tzu/maltese mix. If anything happens to any of them, I will not be replacing them. I thought getting birds would heal my heart and help me get over Jasper and Avery, but it didn't. These birds are nothing at all like them. Of course I knew that they wouldn't be, but I think my broken heart wanted one of them to be close at least. They are quirky and entertaining (and quite messy), but they will never replace Jasper and Avery.
Other than that, things are pretty much status quo. Dan and I decided to get back to eating strictly vegan, so I went grocery shopping yesterday and bought a whole bunch of fruits and veggies. Last night I made ratatouille and tonight I think I'm going to make vegetable fajitas. I am kind of glad to be cooking again, because while we were not being strict, we ate a lot of black bean burritos, and Dan usually made them for us. I sat around a lot and played my Pokemon Sword video game. April bought it for me for Christmas and I got hooked. I've finally gotten to the point where I am tired of it, so now I can go back to watching recipe videos and planning meals.
Well, I need to finish reading my chapter on Anna in my Twelve Extraordinary Women book before I go have lunch with Billie. We started doing this Bible study together a couple of months ago, and I have really enjoyed spending time with her talking about spiritual things. Unfortunately, it is pouring and doesn't look like it is going to let up any time soon, but hopefully it won't be coming down as heavily in an hour. I will try to get here more often to update, but I may not be back until I know I've gotten my job back. Here's to hoping that it will be sooner rather than later. My job gave me a real sense of purpose and I really miss that.
I finished my last class at the end of December and am now officially in the dissertation phase of my degree. I am not at all excited about school anymore and am just so ready to be finished. I am hoping that I can finish up by the end of summer, but it will depend on how long my committee drags the process out. I am required to take three dissertation classes and my first one ends at the end of March and my second one ends around July 4th. I am not sure when the third one ends, but I am guessing around the end of September. Regardless, time will get behind me and it will all be over soon.
I was very happy to see 2019 come to an end. It started off rough and ended a bit rough as well. In January I said goodbye to my beloved Jasper, in February we had Hailey, our eighteen year old westie, put down, in April I had to say goodbye to my other beloved bird, Avery, and then right after Thanksgiving, we said goodbye to our almost twelve year old silky terrier, Maddie. I am now down to my two sun conures, my blue crown conure, and Emma, the shih tzu/maltese mix. If anything happens to any of them, I will not be replacing them. I thought getting birds would heal my heart and help me get over Jasper and Avery, but it didn't. These birds are nothing at all like them. Of course I knew that they wouldn't be, but I think my broken heart wanted one of them to be close at least. They are quirky and entertaining (and quite messy), but they will never replace Jasper and Avery.
Other than that, things are pretty much status quo. Dan and I decided to get back to eating strictly vegan, so I went grocery shopping yesterday and bought a whole bunch of fruits and veggies. Last night I made ratatouille and tonight I think I'm going to make vegetable fajitas. I am kind of glad to be cooking again, because while we were not being strict, we ate a lot of black bean burritos, and Dan usually made them for us. I sat around a lot and played my Pokemon Sword video game. April bought it for me for Christmas and I got hooked. I've finally gotten to the point where I am tired of it, so now I can go back to watching recipe videos and planning meals.
Well, I need to finish reading my chapter on Anna in my Twelve Extraordinary Women book before I go have lunch with Billie. We started doing this Bible study together a couple of months ago, and I have really enjoyed spending time with her talking about spiritual things. Unfortunately, it is pouring and doesn't look like it is going to let up any time soon, but hopefully it won't be coming down as heavily in an hour. I will try to get here more often to update, but I may not be back until I know I've gotten my job back. Here's to hoping that it will be sooner rather than later. My job gave me a real sense of purpose and I really miss that.
Monday, November 4, 2019
Our New Orleans Trip
April and I had a nice trip. We left a little later than we wanted to on Friday morning but still made it to New Orleans with plenty of time to get to our piercing appointments. When we arrived at the shop we were asked to choose our jewelry and the piercer came out and looked at my ear. She told me I have a shallow daith top and she needed to assess it a bit more thoroughly to determine if it was piercable. After measuring and looking, she determined that she would feel comfortable doing it, but she used a larger gauge ring and it is larger in diameter as well. She told me there is a chance that it could migrate and that it will take an entire year to heal, so I will just baby it as much as I can, avoid sleeping on it, and hope for the best. She looked at my tragus and found that it was still open from the last time I had it pierced, so she just used a taper to open it and inserted jewelry into it. To be honest, it hurt worse than the daith piercing, and it is still sore at the three day mark, but once it stops hurting, I won't have to deal with the healing process, so that will be nice. It also saved me $30 not having to get it repierced. After it heals up really good, I will get a smaller hoop put in.
I didn't get a picture of April's trio piercing. I'll have to have her send me one. It turned out really cute, but of course it was pretty sore. After we finished with our piercings, we checked into our hotel and then we went to eat sushi. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a grocery store to get some pop for April and we picked up a couple of bottles of liqueur to make 'buttery nipples.'The ghost tour provided buy one get one free hurricanes, but they were expensive and we found it was cheaper to buy our own alcohol. We each had a drink before we headed to the tour. The tour was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. We weren't out ghost hunting, but rather the tour guide walked us around the French Quarter and pointed out old houses where weird things are purported to happen. There is a lot of history in New Orleans, so I paid more attention to that rather than the ghost stories. We got back to the hotel after 10:00 p.m. and I was beat. We had walked over 18,000 steps, which wouldn't have been bad if I was used to walking, but I have been lazy for the past several months. Many of the sidewalks are tilted because they have settled. New Orleans is built on silt and sits below sea level, so it is essentially sinking. Things have to be built back up regularly. Walking at an angle made one of my knees hurt, and I compensated with my other foot, so I was sore on both sides of my body and very tired.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and walked back to the French Quarter. We ate lunch at Cafe Beignet because you can't go to NO and not eat beignets. We also ate a veggie sandwich that was surprisingly good. The line was long, so it took us a good hour and a half to get our food and eat. After that, we walked around a little, but there was nothing either of us was interested in looking at and we were still worn out from the day before, so we decided to just head home. We got home around 4:30 and I hung out with April and Ben for awhile before heading home. I ended up going to bed around 10:00, so with the time change, I got a good night sleep and felt much better yesterday. I made a trip to the grocery store to get some healthy food because I decided it's time to get back on the WFPB way of eating. I need to lose about 10 pounds (maybe 15 to feel really good) and the only way I can maintain my weight loss is to eat mostly plant food. After I purge the highly palatable foods from my diet for a week or so, I really enjoy eating that way. It's just so much easier to eat junk food like bean burritos and tortilla chips. I have been eating vegetarian all along, but I have been a junk food vegetarian, which is why I have gained some weight. Thankfully I haven't gained much, but I can't wear my jeans right now, and that is my goal.
Well, I am off to cook some rice and sweet potatoes. I hope you all have a wonderful week!
I didn't get a picture of April's trio piercing. I'll have to have her send me one. It turned out really cute, but of course it was pretty sore. After we finished with our piercings, we checked into our hotel and then we went to eat sushi. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a grocery store to get some pop for April and we picked up a couple of bottles of liqueur to make 'buttery nipples.'The ghost tour provided buy one get one free hurricanes, but they were expensive and we found it was cheaper to buy our own alcohol. We each had a drink before we headed to the tour. The tour was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. We weren't out ghost hunting, but rather the tour guide walked us around the French Quarter and pointed out old houses where weird things are purported to happen. There is a lot of history in New Orleans, so I paid more attention to that rather than the ghost stories. We got back to the hotel after 10:00 p.m. and I was beat. We had walked over 18,000 steps, which wouldn't have been bad if I was used to walking, but I have been lazy for the past several months. Many of the sidewalks are tilted because they have settled. New Orleans is built on silt and sits below sea level, so it is essentially sinking. Things have to be built back up regularly. Walking at an angle made one of my knees hurt, and I compensated with my other foot, so I was sore on both sides of my body and very tired.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and walked back to the French Quarter. We ate lunch at Cafe Beignet because you can't go to NO and not eat beignets. We also ate a veggie sandwich that was surprisingly good. The line was long, so it took us a good hour and a half to get our food and eat. After that, we walked around a little, but there was nothing either of us was interested in looking at and we were still worn out from the day before, so we decided to just head home. We got home around 4:30 and I hung out with April and Ben for awhile before heading home. I ended up going to bed around 10:00, so with the time change, I got a good night sleep and felt much better yesterday. I made a trip to the grocery store to get some healthy food because I decided it's time to get back on the WFPB way of eating. I need to lose about 10 pounds (maybe 15 to feel really good) and the only way I can maintain my weight loss is to eat mostly plant food. After I purge the highly palatable foods from my diet for a week or so, I really enjoy eating that way. It's just so much easier to eat junk food like bean burritos and tortilla chips. I have been eating vegetarian all along, but I have been a junk food vegetarian, which is why I have gained some weight. Thankfully I haven't gained much, but I can't wear my jeans right now, and that is my goal.
Well, I am off to cook some rice and sweet potatoes. I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)