Last Week, Good and Bad

I was reading through my friend ecogrrls blog and found that I suddenly felt like writing, ironically I'm coming to some of the same conclusions that she was coming to in one of her last posts.

So recently, like this week, I started a new job, got Roxie a new day care (then subsequently changed said day care for reasons I will elaborate on later), my oldest son marched in the Timpview Marching Band in the Summerfest Parade and then last of all... I was in a car accident and my car was totaled.

Quite a week right?

The day care issue, well I tried really hard to find Roxie a good day care (I mean really hard). I spent a day sorting through the state referrals for licensed day cares, another day visiting 4 day cares and the next day visiting 3. These daycare options have been widely varying in quality, with only 2 that were run fairly well (I ruled them out because one was too strict, the other I ruled out because the assistant couldn't figure out that her "ADD" son might have problems with the handfulls of gummy worms that he was eating). One daycare was in an affluent home with lots of toys and fun, there was a dedicated bathroom and teeth brushing was mentioned... but she opened a room where the center kids were supposed to sleep and there were older boys in there that she chased out. Plus she was disorganized and had too many children. I ended up going with a Chinese girl (twenty something) whose mother helped her out. They had converted their garage into a playground, and all seemed OK, but at the end of the week Roxie was crying about a little boy who was calling her "Poo Roxie." I didn't like that there seemed to be no structure at all and that they had given Roxie a bag full of Ritz crackers to eat...

Ideally I would find a place that was as thoughtful about food as I am, but seeing that there only one person that I know who is as thorough at investing what she eats I know it's a slim chance that I will find that ideal.

So yesterday I called the last person on my list (who I had found hard to get a hold of and didn't appreciate it) and visited her home. It turns out that she is a grandmother whose daughter & four year old grand-daughter is living with her. She does daycare so that her grand-daughter will be well cared for while her daughter works, and only accepts 5 kids. When Roxie met Miley it was as if they were long lost friends. Both are brown and about the same age and size. They both love pretending and dolls, Roxie is going to have a blast! :)

My oldest son decided that he wanted to be in the marching band this year. He had to switch back to the clarinet (from the oboe) which is the instrument that he started out on but he hadn't played it for a few years and had to get up to speed. He practiced his heart out and passed off the requirements to be in the band and marched for the first time yesterday.

I can't believe I have a son entering high school! That's just bizarre, I just don't feel that old (in some ways) but then I do feel that old in other ways (I've been through a lot, I have a right to feel some what older and wiser)

As for the accident, well... ironically I was thinking that it would be nice to get a new car as I was driving around yesterday.

There was a festival going on, I didn't account for this when I turned onto State Street, so when traffic stopped I missed it and slammed into the car in front of me.

Unfortunate and a loss but I shall move on and not worry too much about it. It would have been more devastating if I hadn't just started a new job.

I'm working at Adobe for 6-9 months as an intern. This job is super easy and I'm getting paid well for it. It's not that I don't like a challenge, I do, but sometimes it's nice to not have to stress out about being able to do the job well. My manager has already mentioned giving me a recommendation when the position is finished, so all I have to worry about then is doing a good job! Basically what I'm doing is grouping the records of their customers together, they've got quite a few duplicates, the computer has sorted out quite a few... and now they need human eyes to look at them. There's a team of 6 and I like everyone on the team. 1 person was let go from the group who seemed to be frustrated by the requirements for the job and didn't have very good Excel skills. They made one of the team (an older lady who had been an administrative assistant before raising her family) the lead. She's the contact for people who need to communicate with the group. She does not have as many technical skills as some of us but she is very organized. Another of the group, a man who used to be in Real Estate, the one to go to for reports... she had me create a power point (which I over thought, making it too complicated and wasting time that I could have been researching companies with). Thus when they ran a report on Friday it showed that I had a far lower amount of companies/tasks completed. The good sign is that after being given a few tips by my manager I was able to clean up the power point, and when I focused on sorting out the companies I did quite a few of them.

Working with Adobe has been wonderful, they treat their employees really well and my schedule is flexible (in some ways) soooo... the next few months should be good for me.

The only thing I have to "deal" with is driving the Yukon to work (the car that Sam has been driving around). I want to be independent, I don't want to give my ex an excuse to ingratiate himself with me...

I will "deal" though, and hopefully get a nice new car soon. :)

Wish List

There are dreams and wishes that I often overlook from the turbulent rush of the day to day grind, so I thought it would be nice to create a "Wish List" because wishes are nice and a girl can always dream...


I would have to have a wide range of essential oils to scent my laundry with, I love lavender, rose, tea tree, cedar, jasmine, lemon, pine, sweet orange, tangerine, and vanilla. This is a website with bulk essential oils that I want to check out further. I think I will buy an ounce of each to see how well they work, then decide if I want a larger quantity.

Another wish a diffuser like "The Spa Diffuser" on this web site.

Something that would be fun to have is a nice ethnic drum, I know, I know, it's rather odd... but well I would like that and other percussion instruments. I don't have a lot of time to learn how to play the guitar (a life long wish/ambition) so why not relax and learn to play a drum? :) I'm going to have to look into this further, I want a really nice looking one that can double as a decoration.

That's my list for now... :)

Chore Chart Pictures

I have a good friend who wanted to see the chore charts that I had my darling Ajey design so here are the pictures.

What I did was an internet search for "Printable Race Track" to find one for the kids characters to go around on. Then I found some Mario Kart characters to print off (for the kids to choose from) for their marker. For each room I had Ajey create a chart with the specific chores down the side which I numbered, and the numbers across the top correspond to each chore. (I think that it could be made simpler, but I haven't spent the time to think about it, this way has been working so far). Then for each chore (listed down the side) there is a point value associated with it... I then had the points correspond to spaces on the track 25=5 spaces... but you could just as easily directly make each chore worth a certain amount of spaces. (Pick up the toys in the living room = 5 spaces; brush teeth = 1 space... etc...).

The other thing is that they have to make it a certain amount of times around the track to earn incentives. Plus I laminated everything at Stevenson Geneology (By Arby's in Provo and across from McDonalds)

Hope this helps! :)

Son of Abraham

I had a dream this morning, for some reason I was in the midst of efforts to prevent and or clean up from flooding. Then my mind narrowed into a victim of a flood, a young man who at first seemed to be grieving the loss of his ATV which had been parked in the garage but which had been swept away by the flooding. Then a Country Western song came into my head that I believe hasn't been written yet.

Here it is

He stands there watching as the floods sweep it all away
The thrills and rides, his hopes and dreams are gone
Let the water take it all away, it doesn't matter
all is gone

She lay right there
and his daddies eyes
Let it disappear
let it sweep away

His thoughts are churning as he stands on the bay street bridge
his father is man enough to take the blow
Should he give it all away, what does it matter?
hope is gone

She lay right there
and his daddies eyes
Let it disappear
let it sweep away

Son of Abraham, he gasps for breath
drowning now
being swept away

He stands there watching as the floods sweep it all away
His fathers arms grasp a hold of him to stay
Let the water take it all away, it doesn't matter
she's still right here

Son of Abraham, let it sweep away
take your first deep breath
she'll be right there

**All right this is as close as I can get to the song that was randomly playing in my head. Somehow it doesn't come out quite the same when trying to put it down onto the screen. 

Possibly Impossible

Real, what is real?
Is it the dream of desperation in the night?
Searching for the road that will lead to safety,
out of the darkness into the light,
confusion, swirling mists, anger released, anger betrayed
All is silent, no pending opportunity awaits
except to write, write like a mad woman
stay up all hours of the night
with the clock ticking the seconds
till the dawn when the reality of possibility becomes impossible
and my words become swallowed in absurdities
where I grasp at the branches of my family tree
and find that I have been wandering in volcanic ash, in lava
stepping ever so carefully down the path where no one will follow
the only way is forward, each glance behind costs me
so I shut off my emotions
and the death of the scrawny kitten rouses a pittance of the sympathy with which it deserves.
I need to sail
I need to write become so quick at my craft
that I can produce the torrent of logical illogical masses of words
to feed my family the bread of substance.
Or else search among the meager crumbs of employment
to lock myself in a cage, a cage and I need to do it and be good at it
I need to understand the mysteries of pomp and circumstance
or else idly wander in the streets with the lonely voice of the lost angel
a messenger of mercy from a God who exists, the glimmering hope of my last cry.


I wrote this I believe towards the end of 2009 before I was able to find a job. It kind of makes me nostalgic that I could write so passionately, though it is the sweat of desperation that drives me to write like this sometimes. I still feel somewhat the same way about employment... ;)

A Voice

Silence, my silence is an echo of the past. I've had a hard time vocalizing, so much is taken out of context when people don't know how to listen. Speaking cannot guarantee that you will be heard, there's such danger in speaking sometimes.

I am neither naive or deluded, I am not a victim always, I am an intelligent woman trying to get the best from the situations that life is presenting me.

It would be nice to live my life simply being me. It would be nice to share my thoughts, be outspoken, and not worry so much that people are going to be offended because what I say is coming from my heart. I want to bring happiness to others, I want to help others to shed the pain that they have built up in order for them to be happy again. I want to heal.

I've been thinking about myself in the context of a job. I can see things that are wrong and fix them, I can contribute comments about how things should be run. I tend to do too much though, take on too much responsibility, I kill myself from trying and then end up appearing in a bad light. How ironic is that? If only I could make a determination, I have X amount of responsibility, I will only do X amount of work and then past that it is up to other people to take up the slack.

I'm afraid of overextending myself and/or under-extending myself. I error on the side of overextending myself and don't know how to stop it.

So much of our misery is brought upon ourselves.

Roxie

"Oh man, what next...?" Said with all the disgruntlement that a four year old Roxie can have.

Re-Framing

I have had a good life, and have found ways to enjoy each stage. Even through times of grief.

As a little girl I remember the feel of climbing out of the crib, the feel of the carpet on my feet and the chill of the cold kitchen floor. I loved to climb, I loved my parents and exploring the basement, though I was a little frightened of it. I knew my grandmother was down there, it was always so interesting. When we moved away and Aunt Eva and her family moved to the house I loved the basement still. The messiness of it was freeing, we could do whatever we wanted, made up our own tales of what different things were, in fact hoping from one thing to another was like hoping on logs in a great river. We often imagined that we were princesses, my cousins and I, and I remember our club house under the stairs. Of course I wanted my own club house at my place and made one up there as well. I remember one fun club house we had in the shell of a camp trailer, the unfortunate thing was that little Lisa got her finger cut off in the window when it fell upon it... :( poor thing. We played the most outrageous games, Uncle Arley brought home a bicycle gunny one time, I don't know, what do you call those little wheeled conveyances that people pull like taxis through the streets of China and in poorer rural areas? Well this one was hooked up to a bike and we loved to pull each other around in it!

That's all I wrote... (reviewed 8/20/2018)

SG

My Job Skills Need Improving

So I've been in a reflective mood lately, thus I thought I would write... ;)

I'm in this situation where I have certain skills (theoretically) in accounting, but am being pulled in many different directions by my interests, well actually only a few main interests. I say that my skills in accounting are theoretical, because although I got good grades at school, I haven't used the main theories that I learned about accounting on an ongoing basis so I don't want to jump into an accounting job where they would want me to rely on those skills right away.

I've got a couple of different resources to help me more fully develop my skills, such as a generous scholarship to do MS Office certification from "Turning Point" up at UVU, and a resource to training videos on many subjects like communication, business writing, negotiation essentials, basic presentation skills, managerial skills, and accounting courses to review and I'm very grateful to have these resources but the fact is that it is going to take some time to get through all of these training cells and I need money.

So I also have the opportunity to do the "Work Success" program through the state, which is a resume writing, interviewing, job search program that will be very good at getting me into a job...

But I feel like I would like to have completed all of these training programs before moving on to a job, because I want to be better prepared... I actually did have access to some of these tools before the last job that I had and I kept wishing that I had gone through the training videos before the job, I really needed those skills.

But then again I wish that I didn't have to be a fully trained employee before joining a company, what happened to some of the on the job training that used to be available to new hires?

Then I am being pulled into the direction of my interests. Don't get me wrong, I'm a competent number cruncher, (though I do find that I need more practice to see trends that are wrong and to know what to look for to find missing data), I can however pull numbers together, see the big picture for a companies processes and create methods for completing those processes. All good skills... but not necessarily what I want to be doing with my life.

I have interests in a couple of different main areas, writing, nutrition and health. I've looked at different options for all of these, yet I can't figure out a good path to go down.

I've registered for a couple of classes at UVU, to do the prerequisites for a Masters Program at Utah State. We will see what happens.

SG

The Active Life

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