Hmmm, ok, weird

I am laughing at myself... why? Because I just realized that job hunting/interviewing has become a challenge for me... I'm sort of *cough* enjoying it.

Well, not really... but at least the sting of rejection has worn off. The first couple of interviews were killers, "Hi, I'm me... please accept me?" Yeah, pathetic but true... I think that initially going into a job interview is like a popularity contest amongst your peers "Elect me to be President, I will solve all of your problems!"

*Ouch*

Especially when you get turned down over and over and over

(Warning) read on if you feel like it... but I'm rambling....

Ironically my resume was at first too "simplistic" and straightforward. It was glaringly obvious that I didn't have a clue about how to make a resume... kind of pointed out my lack of experience. Well, experience smerieance... I have an odd type of experience... (yeah I intended for that to come out all sing songy... uh, hu...).

This is how it is, I get a Bachelors degree in Accounting then go to work temporarily for a large company in their Accounts Receivable department. Their accounting records are an absolute mess, who knows why, so they put me to work sorting and filing everything. Papers were literally everywhere so it was no small task. I sit down, work my butt off and get it all sorted in proper alphabetical order sorted by state even... then they don't know what to do with me. They expected that it would take forever for me to get through all of those papers. So they put me to work doing the menial tasks that make their lives difficult like running reports and sending out statements. I get to know the system... I get along with everybody even the boss who is going through a rough time because she's getting a divorce. I'm patient and understanding with her... well she was really, really having a rough time, what else can I say.

Ah yes, other experience...

I start up a little LLC for my husband who is doing a small amount of side work. No bonding, no headaches... I started out tracking things on Quicken which has a simple Home and Business software package. Everything is on a cash basis so I don't have to worry about Accounts receivable or payable, there are no employees so I don't have to worry about payroll. All is well.

Then Jan. 2008 the economy tanks, can't get homeowners to spend on little concrete projects, and he is laid off. So for some enigmatic reason he decides that getting a big project would be a good thing. Problems... don't have the software to track what he's doing, he's not bonded, he has no capital, and he's terrible at keeping track of anything... so he gets a few big projects, takes out credit to finance things and doesn't give me much of a clue about the contracts (how much he's going to get from these jobs), or what he's doing with the small amount of money that's coming in from his uncle (from which he got the first big job). He has me create "payroll" ledgers every week because they needed it for the government job. But then pay's his "guys" some random amount and I haven't a clue...

Near the end of the year, Nov. I finally get Quickbooks, software that I am vaguely familiar with from my classes but not firmly schooled in... and there is a lot you should know about Quickbooks before using it seriously. I do my best, set things up, enter transactions, set up payroll (for the remaining time that was left of the year... ha! even then he randomly paid his "guys" and I had to figure out how to account for that using the payroll feature... I could have printed checks but that never happend)... then a lifetime later, when I can't think I can take the stress anymore he comes and say's that they blew it, they had already received everything they were going to get from the project and we were left holding a big bag of bills. It took me the next 6 months to enter transactions into Quickbooks... trying to sort out what went where, tax day came and went... then finally I got it as sorted as could be... but I was unsure of myself, the mess that was created had caused a real blow to my self confidence (and sanity) so I decided to take it to a real Accountant to make sure it was all done correctly. Actually that was a good thing, he told me that I had done a good job, drew up a tax return and we got a refund (based on the fluke of accounting that we were on a cash basis instead of an accrual basis... otherwise we would have had an enormous loss... thus no refund)...

Yeah so if you can't follow the preceding paragraph, basically what happened was that my ego/brain turned to mush and at the beginning of 2009 I am left scratching my head about what to put on a resume...

I sort of felt like I was lying if I told them that I had a lot of experience with Quickbooks, "Why?" because I had only just survived by hen pecking everything out... yes everything balanced but I still couldn't honestly say that I knew the program, or that I had been doing anything with my time for the past several years.

I tried and tried to make a resume but just couldn't do it... finally my friend Christine took pity on me and made a stellar resume (Which included the $50,000 dollars of unrecorded revenue that I found at the large company because the lady who I was filling in for had a habit of sticking checks in the drawer if they sent it to the A/R department instead of the lock box....)

Anyhow... the resume looks really good, but I don't feel comfortable with it because my brain had turned to mush, I had (seemingly) forgotten everything that I had learned in my accounting courses, and even claiming that I had found that unrecorded revenue seemed ostentatious because I am fairly sure my manager just took the credit for finding the revenue... well she took the checks to the head guy herself anyway... so I decided to take the claim that I had found $50,000 in unrecorded revenue off (even though it was true).

Plus my previous two bosses, my husband (and I am getting a divorce), and mid-life crises boss whom I haven't a clue of what she thinks of me because she was in her own world...

Yeah....

You all deserve an award if you've read this far... ;)

Well... after applying and interviewing (over and over) I've finally got this applying thing down... I'm tailoring my cover letter and resume, I've almost got interviewing down (borrowed a book from the library). So now it's like I'm doing one two punches... AH bring it on, I can take it....

So I had an interview today, eh, it went alright... the interviewer didn't know what she was doing. I should have taken over and just started talking about myself, but I have been used to psychological quiz questions from my last few interviews so I probably came across as stiff. Amazingly she was very impressed with my resume and thought I was overqualified. It is a nice starting out kind of job doing light accounting work and answering the phones... maybe she's right but I would sure like the job.

Ironically her reaction points out to me why I probably didn't get the last few jobs that I interviewed for... I'm "overqualified." How do you say "I desperately need a job," without sounding desperate?

Well, heck, maybe I should go back to my first resume... maybe I will get a chance then...

Grrrr....

Yeah, I've finally run out of stuff to write.... Ya'all have a good night! :)

SG

Generally Moving in the Right Direction

Hi out there! :)

Boy am I glad Christmas time is over!

Oh wait it's been a few weeks hasn't it?

Well, It's taken that long to recover from the hectic pace of the season. It took me weeks to get the tree down, another week to get the decorations put away... not to mention all of the kittens we had to find homes for, that was the crux of the problem... (well one of the problems anyway).

Things were on this treadmill for a while, I couldn't get x done because I hadn't got y done. I couldn't get y done because x needed to be done... it was all driving me banana's!!

Finally I took the bull by the horns (Yikes!!) and took pictures of the kittens to put in the classifieds on-line. Well, there were 6 of these critters, plus the mommy and one of her older kittens (now cat), then we had our tom cat showing up here and there, I felt like a crazy cat woman!! So the deal was, I didn't want to take pictures because our house was messy. I couldn't find the battery to my camera anyway because I had forgot it at my parents house. Our house was messy because I hadn't gotten around to taking down the Christmas stuff, the Christmas stuff was still up because I needed to be able to focus to find new spots for it all since the cats had destroyed some of the boxes (and so had my 3 year old). I couldn't get rid of the cats because of the aforementioned lost battery of the camera!! hehehe... see what I mean?

Well, finally I just grabbed my sons camera (which is partially broken as you can't see out of the tiny screen), and tried to round up the kittens (6 of them!! Yes I've mentioned it before, but really 6! It was terrible, they were everywhere, they sat in the food bowl and gobbled like maniacs!!) The kittens ran away before I could get pictures because I couldn't see them in the screen, so I recruited the kids to help me and the kittens still got away! Finally we got pictures taken, but it was late so I had to wait for the next day to put them in the classifieds.

Lucky for me, my oldest son took the initiative to get decent pictures of the kittens. He snapped pictures of them when they were tired, so when I went to put them in the classifieds we had a decent picture of each of them. Amazingly within 20 min. we had 3 or 4 people call, 2 text messages (it is baffling to me how people just text others without their permission, I had text messaging turned off on my phone so I'm not used to it... after I turned it on I noticed the phenomenon) and we had an e-mail about the kittens. Over the next 2 hours or so we had 4 of the kittens gone and 1 definite person who wanted one. So 5 were spoken for on the first night and then we were left with one black kitten (whom people wanted, but some people didn't come because they knew others were coming for the kittens and didn't want to take a chance on not getting one and wasting their time)....

So we had the black one for a few more days then I put her up by herself and someone came to get even her... and then I cleaned the house...

I put the Christmas stuff away, got out the vacuum, got out our mini carpet cleaner... and voila! Things are now much, much better... far more organized and I am breathing easier... ;)

Hope things are well with you all... um, yeah, hope you enjoyed my rant ;) :)

SG

Abide with Me

Wouldn't it be nice,

to be in a place that was safe from the world,

safe from judgment,

safe from the fray of trying to live.

To just sit and listen to the strains of heavenly chords

in a nice warm chair, wrapped up in love

and to finally be able to talk, freely, calmly

to someone who cared enough to just listen, again, without judgment

someone who loves you so much,

someone who believes in you

and knows that you can do something great

someone without an agenda of their own,

all they want is for you to heal

and become stronger

They would never ask you to compromise in any respect

they love you too much

and understand that what is best is what is right

They hold sacred life, and love

and you can just rest

That is how I felt when listening to "Abide with Me" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, that I was loved and cherished... I wanted to stay there in that chair, it is so hard to face the world, to be kind and loving without being compromised. To be taken seriously, and respected without having to resort to meanness. Firmness without anger, guidance without hatred, love without lust. Can I just curl up in that chair and stay?

Ramblings

To a certain degree we all struggle with the perception and reality of aloneness. It is a perception because often, though we feel alone, we are surrounded by people. It is a reality because unfortunately we live and breath and die with the constant companion of self and there is no other that can dwell there unless we open and let others in to whatever degree that is possible.

In fact that is the dilemma that we face when trying to open ourselves up to the influence of spirit. The inner voice is the strongest voice, and even then the inner voice can be silenced  by distractions, nonsense and idiocy. The challenge is to embrace the enlightening influence of the spirit, incorporating it into our awareness and balancing that with the immediacy of the corporal world in which we live.

I think my inner voice has been silenced in many way's at times by certain desires to fit in to the general mold, not surprisingly this general tendency leads me to silence as in the world of generality I really have no voice as I am generally and naturally separate and distinct from others, though I have the same underlying desires of being understood and loved for who I am.

Ironically I find not only silence but a retreating into a shell of defense when I allow myself to be categorized as a certain stereotypical person, which I suppose is unavoidable in some respects.

The irony really is that I betray myself in order to fit into the mold and then find that I am uncomfortable there.

So this blog then has been an effort to blend in, as unnecessary as that may be, and instead of writing lengthy discourses on my thoughts (as I tended to do in the beginning) I have limited it to a few pithy antidotes about my life and whatever amusing or enlightening bit of media that I came across... so much dis-ingenuity that I have often thought about closing this blog from the sheer burden of having to come up with more of the same to post.

Thus, I vow to ramble away if the need strikes me, for then truly this blog will be a reflection of myself.

SG

New Lunchboxes

This is a link for a lunchbox called The Goodbyn Lunchbox... 

I've been looking for a good lunchbox for the kids for a while now, this one looks perfect for compartmentalizing each different aspect of the kids lunch and making it more appealing. School lunches really are terrible! They are loaded with fat and sugar and even the "fruit" options that they give the kids are covered in syrup (sugar water or HFCS, who knows)

I am going to have to send R to daycare so I might as well send her with a healthy lunch this will be perfect!