It has been forever ...

... my faithful little blog.

SO much has happened, since I posted last. The most important thing at this juncture is that I finally found a JOB - wahooo! I'm working for Verizon at the National Operations Center. It's pretty neat, to say that least. I will be directly working on the programming that controls the monitoring for the entire network's connectivity, be it data, voice, etc. I am pumped, to say the least. In addition to testing, I will have to write scripts to automate my testing. That is why they brought me in. I know what I'm doing, when it comes to breaking software, and they wanted someone also willing to learn programming and then to build a program to do it automatically... that's me! Hopefully, I'll be able to create my own template for blogger at some point haha. I just don't have the time right now, so I'll be lazy and use someone else's ;-)

I'll be updating more often, now. The past two weeks have been consumed by preparing for this job and then actually being there... Life is settling down a little bit now, so I'll have maybe five minutes of downtime...

At any rate, this whole experience has been life-changing. I work and enjoy just that at it's most visceral. I have a job. That in itself is beyond fortunate to me at this time in our world. I'm not sure I would have even known to be that grateful a year ago. It will probably shape the rest of my career for the better. I am grateful for it.

I am organizing pictures to take up to work, so I will post some from the past few years soon...

THIS is why I am not fond of cats..

I woke up this morning at about 1 a.m. to the most hideous barking I had ever heard Hardy produce. He started in the back of the house and moved to the side next to the bedrooms. I was just certain by the second round of barking that someone or something was going to come bursting in our back door... Soo, I went and woke John up and got the Glock. I NEVER touch the guns... I had to move one of John's rifles to tile the closet, and I hated it. BUT, when he's out of town, or I think someone or something is about to come in the house, it is my best friend.

Anyway, I think John was pretty surprised when I started taking the holster off of it.. he knows I absolutely know how to use them, but this was pretty unusual... I took off out the back door with him on my heels. Hardy made some horrible sound, there was a commotion and we backed off and headed inside. I went out the front door to John's dismay, I'm sure, and we found nothing. We went back to bed, and figured it was Hardy barking at nothing or a rabbit.

10 minutes later.....

More hideous barking. John came through with the gun this time. Still nothing. He decided to go to the side of the house, thinking that something was in the dog house. He came back in and said that Hardy was bleeding and that there was a cat trapped between the house and the air conditioner. Hardy hates cats. Apparently, they hate him.

He ended up with a ripped ear and a few minor cuts on his face. I ran to Walmart to get Betadine and gloves. After two tries, I finally got his ear secured and enough pressure to stop it from bleeding. He was losing a fair amount of blood.

Here are some pictures after his bath, and the first attempt at wrapping up his head...

That didnt go very well, so i tried again.... This one is still on right now, so hopefully it worked!

The first try, I attempted to secure a diaper around his ear and use sports tape to keep it all on. He got that off pretty quickly. He was losing blood fast, so I ended up wrapping his ear in sports tape and then wrapping it around his head. He gave me a hug and thanked me when it was all over, and he gave up trying to get it off :-(

Paused...

I haven't been able to post for the past couple of days, because we made a super-fast trip to C.S. for our Niece's birthday...

We are about to go to Home Depot to get some tile to do our bathrooms, yay! I'll update with pictures of the party later.

Cornerstone....

... I'm going to start building mine. While I am usually kind, I think the normal kindness that I demonstrate might not be enough. Day two IS more challenging, but I am up for it.

I am working on finishing my sixth week of unemployment. Being at home is work in itself. Looking for a job is a job. I have reduced the days that the girls go to school to just Tuesday and Thursday, so that I may have at least a couple of days for interviews. Everyone's story is the same. I was walking through Walmart this morning on a grocery run, and a lady in Electronics said that the only reason she was working there was the fact that she was the product of a layoff. There is a strange kinship among us. It seems we are taking over the majority... or at least we are gravitating together in some odd way. I seem to run into a couple people every place that I go with a similar story as mine. What's scary is that you never know when it will hit. I think I crammed more groceries in my basket than anyone has ever accomplished in the history of grocery cramming. While I have great recruiters working with me and I have an awesome resume' and work history, I am worried about tomorrow. Will John still have his job? What is sad about that is he is doing Loss Mitigation... They have more work than they know what to do with. It is the right economy for that industry.

It was also funny, because I saw two different fire departments there doing their grocery shopping.... I so wanted to ask them if they had watched Fireproof. I am certain they would have thought that I was a lunatic, and they wouldn't have been far off. And even with all of this happening around me, I am so comforted. I still KNOW that we will be fine.

It is FAITH.

GRACE.

Prayer...

It makes you wonder if there is a divine reason for ALL of this. I looked for Fireproof. It was sold out. A Christian movie was sold out. I was blown away. And inspired.

One of these days we will be sitting at dinner and all of our kids will be in college. We will be sipping on margaritas and reflecting... and we will realize what we did right and what we did wrong. Maybe we will end up weathering this without a scar... or maybe they will run deep. But at least for us, I will be sure that our girls are oblivious to the state our nation is in right now. I don't want them to learn this lesson by watching us struggle, but by remembering that we spent more time at home doing cool family stuff than anything else. They don't need to know that the at home part is because of a recession. And, to me, I think it's bordering on depression. I really do. We don't have bread lines, but we have job lines.

I'll be back in the workforce soon. I will miss the fingerpainting on the carpet and walls. I will miss sleeping in with my girls till 8... I will feel guilty about that. But we will be better. We will come out of this stronger. I have faith.

And the greatest of these...

... is love.

Be patient.

Be willing to listen and learn, because you might remember the reason you married him...if you have forgotten. I haven't, but I think some might in this horrible economy. It seems that the two are polar, but they do a strange dance. They are magnetic and repellant... it depends upon the day.

Listen to your husband, and don't reciprocate anything negative. You know, make a promise to yourself to compliment him once a day.

Watch his face.

His reaction will tell you how you have been making him feel. If he flippantly says, "Thanks..".. then he doesn't believe your sincerity. If he looks shocked, then he believes you but can't believe that you complimented something of his. If he reciprocates, you are blessed...

Pray about day two, because it will get harder.

If you haven't figured out what I am reading.... I DARE YOU to try.

Day One.

I dare you.

Pray about it.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

So, I have to buy more storage, since I have maxed out every possible photo storage app on the web ;-) I will post updates, blogs and pictures as soon as I find a suitable site or upgrade to more storage today.