Job Posted and Fish Babies

The local postion that we have been waiting for has been posted on Monday! It has to be posted for 5 days so we will probably hear more information on interviews and times either Friday or early next week. I'll keep everyone posted with more information as it comes. Thanks to everyone for their prayers and thoughts. Now let's pray that the interview will go well and he will get the job.

Ok. I don't know how I manage to do it but I can't seem to not breed fish! Many of you know my past exploits with fish management and know that I can breed guppies like you wouldn't believe. I also managed to get neon tetras pregnant despite reports that they are very difficult to breed. Don't ask me how. I have no idea. Anyway, we bought a small 5-gallon tank a little over a week ago and bought four mollies. I know, I know! They are live-bearing fish and very similar to guppies in their ability to propogate. However, the lady at Wal-Mart swore up and down that they only ever sell males. Even though alarms were going off in the back of my head I took her word for it and brought home the mollies. We had two orange, one black, and one silver. The black promptly died within two days. We didn't mind so much. Mollies are pretty cheap. At the end of last week I also bought a cherry barb and a gold barb (egg layers) to add to our collection. Well, this morning my husband comes to me and informs me that we have babies! Sure enough, I checked out the tank and there was a baby fish looking at me from among the pebbles. He said that he has seen 3 but I only have seen one so far and not again since this morning. We have marbles in the bottom of our tank rather than the typical gravel so there are plenty of places for baby fish to hide. I have no idea how many we actually have hidden down there. He was a pretty big little bugger too so he was probably born shortly after arriving in our tank. So despite my best efforts we are the proud owners of a breeding tank of fish. If this keeps up we'll need a larger tank with a cichlid or two to feed those babies to. Especially if the mollies are anything like guppies our little five gallon tank will be overflowing with fish in 6 months or less.

Anyone want some fish?

Frustrating Computer Virus

Well, Friday I managed to download a malware virus thing onto the computer that caused all kinds of havoc on the computer. It interfered with my internet access and continued to have pop-ups indicating that my computer was unprotected. I usually don't fall for these scams but I wasn't paying very close attention. This particular one looked almost exactly like our normal pop-up for the computer. I hit fix and before I know it......virus. What a mess! Thankfully, I have a wonderful mother who works with computers for a living. She helped me find a program to download that helped to eliminate the program. But during all of this we managed to screw up our internet connection and our wireless router is no longer working. So we managed to get our computers cleaned up but only one of us can be on the internet at a time. Very frustrating for a couple who had free access on our own computers when we wanted. We are getting used to the idea of "taking turns." Which is a big thing I'm trying to teach the kids right now. How very ironic. My birthday is in a couple of weeks so hopefully Mom will come up and fix it so we have our own computers again.

Saturday I wasn't feeling very well. The rest of the family was fine so I must have eaten something that didn't agree with me. I had nausea and loose bowels all day. But it must have made it through my system because this morning I woke up feeling back to my old self. I really appreciated Dwayne's help yesterday hitting the chores I didn't get to during the week. Today we went grocery shopping and then spent the rest of the day chilling in the house as a family. Overall, not a bad weekend but it goes way too fast. Back to work for Dwayne tomorrow. But at least he still has a job at this point. The good news is Friday afternoon the equivalent position that will be based out of Denver was posted. Maybe Monday the local one will be? We'll see........

More Updates and Visits

Tuesday, I got to see my Aunt Sheri, cousin Talia and all her boys. This was a perfect remedy and distraction after losing Bubba the day before. I hadn't met her youngest Kolbein yet and boy is he a cutey! The visit was as long as I would have liked but I'm so grateful she took the time to come up and see me. I got to show off my new place and she got to see my kids. We spent a lot of time talking about homeschooling and our kids. All the boys got along really well except towards the end when you could tell everyone was starting to get tired. I'm glad to see she is doing well in her new life in Idaho.

Yesterday I got to have my yearly physical and Pap. Yippee! (not) I was also still feeling a bit depressed since the loss of kitty so Dwayne took the afternoon and kids and let me run around on my own. I'm so grateful. It was exactly what I needed. Of course, I spent the majority of time shopping for and thinking about my family. I ended up getting some preschool workbooks for Sam and Evie while I was at Target waiting for my prescription. I then went over to Barnes and Noble. I avoid that store because I always spend way too much money there. Sure enough I came out with $75.00 worth of books. But I got a couple of good reference books on canning and quilting. I hope to learn and do a little canning this summer. I just recently picked up quiliting and still have lots of questions. The book I got has lots of pictures and very detailed instructions. I think it will be very helpful. My last stop for the evening was Petco to pick up a couple more fish. We got a small tank this last weekend which I'm glad I did. I think it was God's timing knowing that I was going to lose Bubba in the next couple of days. Now I have much easier pets to take care of. So after an evening of spending way too much money that I didn't really have to spend, I'm feeling much better today.

On another note, we have a small update regarding Dwayne. He received a phone call from one of his contacts that he sent his resume to kind of feeling him out. This rep told Dwayne that he is pretty confident that the Western Region manager will probably be giving him a call soon. We don't know what this means yet or what the position is, etc. But it sure is nice to have a little "nibble" from all our fishing. As for the local position? Still not posted yet............

In Memory of Bubba

I had to take Bubba to the vet today. He has been acting very funny lately and pretty much refused to come out from under the bed. When he started missing the litterbox yesterday I knew something was really wrong. Considering that he is 16 years old, I figured that his kidneys may have been going. It turns out that his liver was failing. When we got to see him under the brighter lights at the vet office you could see he was extremely jaundiced. The vet said he was also extremely dehydrated and his urine looked really bad. They hadn't even done any tests yet but you could tell it was bad. If we had decided to treat him for it, it would require an extensive hospital stay and medications. And even then his prognosis would not be good. Giving the circumstances and prognosis I decided that it was time to let him go. He lived a good long life but I will miss him terribly. I've had him since I was 16 and he has been with me through most of my major life changes. Thank you to Dwayne for putting up with him despite his slight allergic reaction and changing kitty litter for me all those years. I love you!

Another great visit

Well, yesterday we were blessed with more visits from family. Terry and Dianne, Dwayne's parents, came up to visit us. They, of course, came bearing many gifts for the kids and a few for Dwayne and I too. Needless to say, the kids were very excited. Both Sam and Evie were on very good behavior and enjoyed showing off all their new skills to Grandma and Grandpa. Dianne made the cutest dress for Evie that I just love and I look forward to putting her in it and taking a picture. I'll post the picture on the blog once I get her in it. Grandma Grant (Dianne's mom) sent up a ton of quilting stuff for me and I'm so looking forward to learning more about quilting so I can use it properly. I am set on patterns and templates probably for the rest of my life! They also came bearing a couple boxes of food which is such a huge blessing for us. We are living extremely tight financially and these boxes of food will be used and we are so extremely grateful. Thank you to everyone who gave us some of these foodstuffs. Dwayne had put it all away before I could get a chance to look at what we received and when I opened the pantry I just about cried. Like I said, we will definately use it and are so extremely grateful.

More updates.

Well, that potential job is still not posted. Rodney pulled Dwayne aside and told him that he was frustrated as well that it still isn't up. They are waiting on the upper management to give the final ok and sign off on it. So it is still a waiting game at this point. Semi-good news though. Apparently, Dwayne's boss didn't know he was supposed to fill out a final day form for Dwayne and because they feel he is still needed at this point, Dwayne is being asked to work "indefinately." So he is technically going to be laid-off but we no longer have a final day. I have absolutely no idea how that will affect the severance issues but hopefully, this job will roll right into then next one (if he gets it) and we won't need to worry about the severance anyway.

In other news, nothing very exciting is happening right now. All of us are sick with some sort of congestion/cold thing that is making us feel miserable and grumpy but not so sick that we can't do anything. I wish if we were sick we would just get sick and be done with it. I hate this inbetween stuff. It just makes me grumpy and not a very pleasent person to be around. Especially since the kids seem to be aggravating each other expecially well today and my patience is at zero. Oh and starting the day fishing beads out of the air vents because Sam thought it was a perfect place to put them probably didn't help either. Here's hoping I feel better tomorrow.

Major Frustration

Well, as of today the potential job that is supposed to be available has still not been posted in the company. I'm starting to think that it is just a load of talk and it really isn't going to be available anytime soon. It is very certain that they won't get what they need to get done before Dwayne's March 25th deadline. Oh! And get this. Dwayne went and checked with HR yesterday and apparently his boss has not turned in the paperwork needed to make Dwayne's last day official. So "officially" he is being layed off but because the "official" paperwork isn't turned in yet they could extend Dwayne's final day out another 2 weeks or forever as far as I know. This is sooo frustrating. I'm not sure how this would affect the severence package he was promised if he stuck it out until March 25th which isn't technically his last day yet. See how confusing this is? It feels like this is just a way for the company to stick it to us and if Dwayne should find something better and decided to leave around the 25th for whatever reason they could say oh well you don't get what we said because "technically" the 25th wasn't your last day.

I'm just praying that everything falls out the way it is supposed to. Dwayne doesn't really have anything better at the moment so if he had to work another 2 weeks that isn't bad. What is getting me frustrated is the uncertainty. Is the 25th his last day? And if it isn't then how long does he need to stick around? Does the severance package count even though the letter we received said the 25th? Is there really going to be a new position available within the company? Will it really be located here in Olympia? Uggh, I get sick just thinking about it.

In other news, Sam went pee in the potty standing up for the first time the other night! This is a huge deal for me. I've been helping clean up his messes because he won't hold himself down when sitting. This will be so much easier if he starts to go regularly like this. Still no luck yet on getting him to do it again since then but I have a feeling it is just around the corner! Whoo Hoo! (Just in time to start the whole potty thing again with the next one.....Sigh.)

Just because it is a darn cute picture.

Kind of looks like Momma, doesn't she?

A Great Visit

Dave and Charlene and their two boys came up to see us this weekend. They even stayed the night so we got to have them for 2 days. Saturday they came up just in time to hook up the laptop and catch the 2 exp event on MapleStory. We had 3 computers running so all of us were able to get on for a bit and most of us even leveled up our characters! We then went to Saturday night service at the church. They also blessed us by taking us out to dinner so we enjoyed a great meal at Izzy's. I'm really proud of Evie and Sam. They were well-behaved and didn't throw any fits even though it was past their usual bedtime. When we got home and my kids went to bed, we sprawled out on the floor and swapped our MapleStory trading cards. Yes, even Dwayne and I are into those now. Mostly for the codes that give us cool items to use in the game.

This morning, Evie and Sam allowed us to sleep until almost 8! That is amazing, trust me. When we woke up and looked outside we discovered that we had snow yet again. I'm getting very tired of the cold weather. Luckily, it all melted and turned to rain by the time Dave and Charlene had to leave. After a very informal breakfast, we sat and watched a movie called The Librarian. And then they had to leave. It was a great visit and we look forward to seeing them all again soon.

Update on Dwayne's Job

As many of you may or may not know, Dwayne was told about 2 weeks ago that due to the current economy the company needed to down-size and "restructure." Due to this, his last day would be March 25th. Since that time, Dwayne has been spending several hours sending out his resume and filling out applications. So far we have had no hits. Every single one that has responded has said that they are also in a hiring freeze or down-sizing as well but "we'll keep your resume on file." Grrrr. Since then, we've had some slightly good news. Rodney who is currently Dwayne's supervisor will be having a new position and will have 2 assistants under him. He recently got some more information about the qualifications needed for these assistants and Dwayne will be given the opportunity to interview for one of them. On one hand we are extremely happy that he will have this chance but also frustrated because he has put so much of his heart and soul into this company and they can't just give him one of the positions.

So to follow procedure, Dwayne has to wait for the job to officially post which was supposed to happen around Tuesday but as of today is still not listed. Once the job is posted, Dwayne can put his name "in the hat." The job must be posted for at least 5 days before they can interview. Then, of course, the company needs time to interview, make a final decision, and then offer the positions. Even if they move on this quickly, I'm not sure they are going to make Dwayne's March 25th deadline. Which in a way, will be good for us because we will then get the full benefits of the package they offered him for sticking it out until the 25th. (Like we had a choice.) But the company will save money if they can offer him this position before his last day and it will give me a huge peace of mind too to know that benefits, seniority, etc. will not be interrupted. Oh well, I'm just praying that Dwayne will get this job one way or another and I know God has us in his hands but it still doesn't keep me from worrying.

On another note, the kids are doing great and seem so unbelievably smart. (Maybe it's just a mother's biased opinion.) Evie is talking up a storm and is a much earlier talker than Sam ever was. She is trying to count already and pretends to sing the alphabet song with Sam and I. I've been preschooling with Sam on simple things and Evie definately wants to participate. I usually set her in her high chair with a color book and some crayons and let her scribble away. Thank goodness that for the most part she no longer eats the crayons. Sam pretty much has the alphabet memorized now and so we are working on the sounds. He can identify all the letter sounds through letter N with very few reminders. We are also working on using child scissors. He finally is starting to make cuts without huge amounts of frustration. Sam seems to be slower in his fine motor skill development compared to other areas of his learning. I've read over and over again, that working with scissors should help with that tremendously.

I purchased the Sonlight Curriculum for P3/4 for use with both kids this year. I'm very excited about this company and will probably use them for many years to come. They had us start with reading Goodnight Moon. This is a very popular story so I have been able to find all kinds of coloring pages and activities on the internet to incorporate this story into our schooling. Next week we get to tackle If You Gave A Mouse A Cookie which is also a very popular book. I shouldn't have any trouble finding some activities for this one as well.

This Blogging Thing...........

Ok, so I'm gonna try this blogging thing. Noelle and Tanner inspired me to try. I love reading about their new life in Texas and seeing what is happening with them even though we are all so far away. I would love for my family and friends to know what is happening in our life and this also seems to be a great way to help me remember what has been happening too. I seem to be living too much lately in a blur and really want to Live! I want to remember the small things and enjoy each hour for what they are not trying to just get through the day and do the same thing the next day. I really believe we have to find our happiness and that will only happen with determination and God's help. So here is a start to this blogging thing and remembering and enjoying the small things!