My new Journey

Hello Guys!

I am finally blogging again.. I have been busy yet again. Doing what you ask? Well, let me tell ya, Since I have last blogged (or vlogged for that matter) I have been in the most incredible funk yet. Depression almost had me because of the negativity that was in my house. Thankfully after much toil and tears the middle child has once again moved out. and taken all her worldly possessions with her including and not regretfully her animals.

There is nothing like living with your adult children I can assure you. holy cow. Especially if one of the parents is not on the same page with you about  how to deal with said child. Well let's not dwell on that too long. Lets just say that it is better that she live in her own home due to the fact that our lifestyles do not on any level mesh. Nuff said.

Then there is this job I settled for. I flew out of the frying pan into the fryer on that one. I am still there in body but only because I get some modicum of paycheck but not truly enough to pay the bills and buy food. The boss continuously sends us home early and has me off on Mondays which is not entirely a bad thing since now I can at least look for something more substantial. Also, I can try to do what I was trying to do before which was get my freelance gig going.

I have over 2 months of vlogs to edit and post because in my depression  have been busy controlling the 1 thing I can control which is cleaning the house. My go to obsession when things are going particularly crappy.

So that about brings us up to the present. I have been trying to get the baby child ready for college. I have been letting her do most of it herself because she needs to learn to do things like this herself. but as always I am there for her if she needs it and at least she recognizes when she is floundering and will ask (reluctantly) for help.

Then there is the man child, my oldest. He is now a father. :D Which in turn officially makes me a grammy! I am eternally grateful and happy for he and his lovely wife for this. Even tho they live 20 hours away and I am too broke to go see the baby. I keep praying for a miracle of some sort to make the money flow to allow me the ability to make the trip. Also to allow me the career to provide me the time to make the trip.

Which brings us to the present. I am now finally in a good place to start the endeavor once again only thins time with the back up financial aspect of having a traditional job to lean on so I don't scuttle the boat. In addition to getting my freelance gig going I am also working on self improvement by way of the 21 day fix. it has been successful so far. (lost 6 pounds so far) easy peasy to follow tho the last couple days have been a partial bust. I am positive and have my family behind me on this.

it is my goal to have lost most of the 20 pounds I have gained over the last 5 years gone by Christmas. We shall see how it goes..

Love you guys!

my new "real job"

Hi guys!

It is crazy old me again! I have missed you all greatly. You wouldn't believe how busy and dramatically hectic things have been(unless you watch my Vlog on YouTube that is ).

Well let's see how short I can make this story. the last thing I told you about here was the end of my last job. Well I have another job now full(ish) time, wonderful lady that owns an interior design business. I do her book keeping. I have had to acquire a new skill, quick books, which took all of 3 days to master, tho I still ask the accountant before I do anything that might make a boo boo.

To go all the way back to the end of an era, My hubby consequently lost his job about a month before I lost mine. I lost mine on Valentines day. I had to tell him but I didn't want to ruin Vday dinner so I had decided to wait.  He took me to a wonderful sushi dinner and was going on about losing his job and how at least I still had mine and all that jazz so I finally said " I have something to tell you about that and I just want you to hear what I tell you and we won't mention it again tonight because I want to have a good date." he got real quiet. Without looking at him directly, because I had tears in my eyes, I said " They are closing my office and I really don't want to talk about it and it happens in a month."

After a short pause he laughs. I look at him like he is nuts for doing so and then I laugh too. he says to me " boy aren't we a pair. " so we've got an odd sense of humor, what can I say. He hugged me and said it would all be fine.

I looked and looked for work, went on unemployment, and many many resume`s later my friend mentioned to me that Miss Shirley was losing her bookkeeper and said i should send her my resume`. I did and of course as things usually go ALL the things happened at once. she wanted to see me on a Saturday but I was doing a yard sale with Janis and her boyfriend that weekend. So I reschedules and saw her Monday instead.

I had also been working with a temp agency to get something as well. That turned out to be an epic fail. I went on a working interview with an insurance agency that was a whole day of OH MY GOD boring. That was 8 hours of my life I can't get back. Not to mention that it was one of those environments that made you feel instantly unwelcome. eeep!

The next day I did a working interview with Miss Shirley and her current book keeper that was leaving and it was awesome! I felt instantly comfortable there. the software was so easy and Denise was such a sweetie. She suggested taht I come back the next day to meet with the accountant to see if we could work together.

So I came back the next day a little later and worked again and all went well so Miss Shirley said well tomorrow is the first day of the pay week so you might as well start tomorrow! WOOT! everything had been smooth sailing so far. only a few little glitches but all is well. we are all getting along and I couldn't be happier unless I could have my pay and schedule from the old job at this job.

I do wish I had more time for the thinks I love, my family, my business, my personal me time and my friend Janis. but all in all at least I am not worrying over money any more. and I do still try to fit those things in when I can. and with any luck I will be able to finagle that schedule again and my "hobbies" ie my business will take off and will be my supplemental income and I can cut back on the "real job".

The End of an Era

End of an Era

Well this is the first week of being unemployed. Let me tell you my story of the last 18 months that lead up to this point.

As most stories start out, well you see what had happened was, we lost our manager in my office. He apparently went out with back trouble (or so we were told) and consequently after a couple weeks he was let go for non-compliance of being out on medical reasons.

So an agent was forcibly promoted to manager even though he didn’t want it. He told me he would quit if they forced him to be manger. Well he was forced into it and after taking a lot of BS from the upper management for over a year, he did finally quit. I found his method of quitting rather humorous. He went on vacation to get married in Hawaii and never came back.

I knew this was going to happen. I even warned the upper management that they would lose this individual altogether if they forced him into management. Upper management told me, that he would be happy to take the position after the deal he would be offered and they promised all the bells and whistles and help he would possibly need.

Yeah right, that never happened. Management came down exactly twice. Once to congratulate him on accepting his new promotion, the second was to tell him that if he did not tighten up and make his staff succeed he would be fired. We lost quite a few good agents during the reign of this particular upper manager.

Just as I figured though I had hopes they would prove me wrong for a change but alas, upper management failed to prove me wrong yet again. Not only did we lose a wonderful member of our office but we lost the last two. Eventually our last Mohican left as well. She tried to stay. She wanted to be successful but upper management failed her by never coming to help or manage her.

I advised her to find another opportunity and jump off this failing ship. She reluctantly did eventually, not that I wanted her gone of course but, I wanted to see her happy again. She had lost her spark. She went from a bubbly young woman full of hope and wanting to help to being a teary-eyed mess who had lost her self-esteem, at least where work was concerned. 

Finally, after much coaxing and reassurance from me she did seek other options and left. She is much happier now. Back to herself, I’d wager. Some of us still keep in touch even if it is just a random text message or face book like.

By the end of that year, which was exactly Christmas time 2012, I got a phone call that my office would be cutting down hours temporarily and I would be working only 30 hours a week. Well of course, this upset me. I squawked over this for a week or so and kept being reassured that this was only temporary till the upper management got off his butt and hired a manager and agent for this office.

Well after three months of that not happening, I get another call. They took another 10 hours a week away from me and I had to work every other day so Monday Wednesday and Friday I had to make the trek across the bridge to sit in this little grey office all alone. For the next 18 months I did just that.

Once a week for the first while I asked if the upper management had anyone coming to interview and was always given an excuse. I finally changed the question to, when were they closing my office, and got the expected lie. This is only temporary. Though I have been looking for jobs all those 18 months, I haven’t had the good fortune to find one yet. I keep trying.

I am glad that all of those who I now miss are happy and I wish each and every one of them well. I, however, managed to stay till the very end. Like a Capitan who sinks with his ship. What did upper management do? He came to procure his purchase of a mini fridge and scavenge the sinking ship and leave, no good bye lunch nothing. Just a feeble apology. “I feel like I failed you.” He said trying to look sheepish.

I just looked at him deadpan and said “it is what it is.” and nothing else.

My boss came for the last day, though I had already done everything and taken all the donations to the donating place and the money to the bank. There was literally nothing left to do. She at least brought me a parting gift of an Ivanna Trump handbag in the prettiest ivory faux leather and a copy of Someone has to set a bad example by Anne Taintor, and she took me to Olive Garden, my favorite restaurant.  Well one of them anyway. We had a wonderful day of conversation. She is really a wonderful person. I will miss working for her. I hope she gets better treatment in the end than I did. 

A pep talk for YOU from @KelsNotChels