First Week

This week I started my new job at Moog Inc.  It went so well that I am pinching myself to make sure it wasn't just a dream.  Everyone has been so friendly, welcoming and helpful in getting me settled in for the first week.  One of the reasons I chose this job was because of the culture they talk about on their website, well during my first week I was able to observe that it is in fact true!  What a nice change to be involved with a company who actually trust their employees and promote such a great work environment.  My boss is pretty nice too which has helped with my transistion back into the workforce go more smoothly!  I am really excited about this journey and glad that God opened this door for me! 

The job itself will be interesting and will allow me to focus in on just one specific set of tasks instead of all of the responsibilites I had before.  No more constant traveling and some of my customers will be the same which is nice!  I also won't have to have a leash (aka cellphone that is email capable!!) Wahoo!!

I haven't been the only one in transition this week, so have Matthew and the cats.  Matthew has been happy that he now gets to stay up late again and watch his shows each night as well as sleeping in on Saturdays!  The cats are no as happy with the transistion since they were quite use to having me around!  Poor Stripes is without his daily napping place in my lap as well as getting all of the attention he wants!  Let's not forget Cinnamon who was also quite use to sleep in with me each morning!!  However I would rather be working at a job then doing nothing at all!

A Tribute to Audie Schmaltz

My beautiful grandmother passed away on February 17, 2010 after a long illness of Alzheimer’s and a brief illness with lung cancer. It was my privilege to share her life sotry during he memorial service along with a slide show presentation. Following are the pages I made for the slideshow:
 

A New Beginning

Finally, after seven long months, I am on the road to employment once again. I find that the whole timing of the job has clearly been in God's hands. Interesting how those things work out and how lovingly God smacks us upside the head to remind us he is in control!

It has been a long month of trials as we learned in mid-February that my unemployment benefits were set to run out with no additional money coming through all of the Congress extensions. Needless to say I went into panic mode and had many nights of crying myself to sleep. The Saturday following the bad news about my benefits, I made a decision to look online for any new job postings. I wasn't expecting to find one as most companies don't post new jobs on Saturday and I normally don't look for jobs on Saturday. However I found 3 jobs and applied for all of them. Then we received the news about my Grandmother and all thoughts about a job went out the door.

We went to Colorado for the memorial service and begin the long process of going through my Grandmother's estate. The day after we got back from Colorado, one of the jobs I applied for on that fateful Saturday was interested in me and the rest they say is history. After a successful phone interview and a 4-hr on-site interview, I received a verbal offer for a job. The awesome thing is the job is still in aerospace and offers a better salary and benefits than what I had before with PPP. I am very excited about the new prospects and a new beginning.

God has been good to us during this time and I am reassured by his graciousness when we least expect it. We have been encouraged on a daily basis during this time by our family and friends, specifically those in our Life Group. It is good that God know just what we need when we need it!!

Falling Down Stairs

If I haven't mentioned it before, I will now. I hate stairs. I know this is a bit hilarious seeing as we live in a 3-story home and have stairs galore. But yesterday's incident clenched the deal for me for sure! As we were packing up the Fall Decorations and getting ready to decorate for Christmas, the stairs decided to reach out and bite me. Yes I said bite me! When it comes to stairs I don't have a lot of confidence when it comes to walking down the stairs anyway and I always try to do it without having to carry much with me. (Maybe this comes from the fact that I have fallen down stairs three times before and each time was due to me carrying something and missing a step!) However there are times when one is trying not to fall that maybe they overcompensate and feet just slide out from underneath you. This was apparently the case yesterday afternoon. I was carrying a very small box, the last of the Fall Decor and next thing you know I was all twisted up with feet and legs going every which direction and broken glass. My poor husband was on the third floor when this happened and came rushing down the stairs to check on me. After I got past the pain and nausea, I was able to limp over to my chair. My left foot is the one that took most of the punishment and it was the one that immediately began to swell. So I iced it on and off throughout the rest of the day and promptly downed 4 advil.

Today it is very sore and I am pretty certain that at the very least one of my little toes is broken (ironically the one I broke in Jr High). The rest of the foot is just badly bruised and I have some very sore muscles in both legs. I am praying when the time comes for Matthew and I to actually own our own home it will not have stairs of any kind! I nice ranch style will do just fine for me!

Happy Thanksgiving

It has taken a little bit of thinking this year to come up with some things that I am thankful for given recent events.  I decided that in addition to the normal list of family, friends, health etc that I would add on surrogate families.  See this year our Thanksgiving Day adventures were very different from the norm.  It is usually at this time of year we would have packed up the car filled to the brim with clothes, food and now cats and travel to one of our families homes.  We love to spend time with our families, whether it is my family in Colorado or his family up north.  However given our circumstances with my unemployment we felt it was best to not spend the money it would take travel to these destinations.  It was a very difficult decision and one that we did not enter into lightly.  It hasn't been the easiest decision and I am truly Thankful for how well my Mother handled the news.  

So towards the end of my weekly catch-up sessions, a couple of weeks ago, with a former co-worker, he inquired about our plans for Thanksgiving and I explained that we would not be traveling anywhere.  He was sad for us but thought we had probably made a wise decision.  The very next day there was an email invitation from him and his wife to join them for Thanksgiving.  I was very touched at the invite and we accepted on the condition we could contribute towards the meal.  

Before we left with our green bean casserole and apple pie in hand, I had the opportunity to talk with my mom before we left and she wanted me to make sure that I expressed her gratitude that Mike and Lenore had opened their home to Matthew and I and were taking such good care of her daughter!  The Reilly family has definitely over the last couple of years become a surrogate family for me.  When I worked with Mike at my last job it was very much like working with my Dad.  He was also good about dispensing good sound advice and wasn't afraid to tell it to me straight.  It is also nice because Matthew and I am about the same ages as their children and we have met them all except for one daughter.  

Our dinner was awesome, with plenty of food to go around several times.  There were many laughs mostly at their granddaughter's expense and lots of good wine!   How could you go wrong.  Granted it was exactly the same for Matthew and I but it sure comes in a good second when you can be with your own family!  So Thank You to our surrogate family "The Reillys"!!

No News is Good News?

I have waited this last week hoping to hear back from one or both of the companies I interviewed for and alas nothing. I even followed up via the telephone, on the one I really wanted and still no response. So I began to wonder about the saying "no news is good news" and came to the conclusion I guess that depends on whose perspective you are looking at. The no news on my end really isn't good news as I am sitting here waiting to know if I got the job or not. However, on the other hand the no news could mean that they have indeed selected another candidate and I have been saved from a job or company that was not the right fit for me. Either way it would be nice to know.

The no news for the companies could be that management has taken longer to review the final list of candidates for second round interviews or that management has actually placed the job position "on hold" temporarily. (Which is in fact the case at one of the companies and only learned about this afternoon)

Why Me?

So last week I struggled quite a bit with the question, "Why me?". I understand it is a fairly normal question to ask in my situation and I had been doing pretty good at the moving forward part. However as I still look back on it, the decision to let me go just doesn't make sense and it doesn't help to have people tell me that my boss isn't doing well or it wasn't his decision. Well then whose decision was it? Who is going to stand up and take the responsibility. Who ultimately is to blame? Aside from this I am really struggling with where is my friend. I thought we had a friendship outside of work and he hasn't even once asked how I was. So what does that mean. So I decided to have a talk with one of my former co-workers and a mutual friend. During our conversation I told him that I missed my friend but more than that I wanted to the truth about my lay off. I wasn't interest in hearing about how I wouldn't get the truth and that I needed to let it go. That was Tuesday!

So Saturday, during our Career in Transition seminar this was the topic of discussion. "Why do Bad things happen to me?" Ironic? I think so and also that God has a very funny sense of humor. I came away from the seminar more encouraged and was also able to hear the words that my co-worker was trying to tell me on Tuesday. It is normal to ask the question "Why" the bottom line is that you really won't get the answers you seek. Instead it just leads to more questions, which in turn will cause one to build self-doubt and further damage their self-esteem. Interesting, very interesting....

Will I ever have that friendship again? Maybe and maybe not. Right now I just need to move forward and go down the path that God has laid for me. Some days will be easy and some days will be hard. Some days I will good job leads or interviews and others days I won't. In the end I will eventually end up where God wants me and I just need to be patient during the process.

Interviews

This week begins the interview process. I received two different calls regarding positions I have applied for! Yeah! However can I just say that I have always hated the interview process. I feel as if I sound like the biggest idiot in the world and that I won't make a good impression. I haven't really had to do this in the past, because each job I was asked to apply for and I walked into the situation knowing that the job was already mine. Weird I know. Besides the dilemma of "What do I say to make the right impression?", I am also plagued with "What do I wear?" Most of the companies I have worked for in the past are fairly casual in their dress code and I don't want to come in to the interview overdoing it! In some ways I guess it was much like when I use to travel to see customers and give the good ol' sales pitch. I was always stressing over what to wear, what to say, etc. The difference was that at least going into most of those meetings I had the opportunity to establish a report with customer beforehand, because I had been talking with them via phone and email for a number of years prior to my first visit. However, I fear it is very different walking into an interview cold. So I have decided to wear my black slacks and a turquoise twinset, dressy enough without overdoing it! At least that is what I hope to achieve. Now to go and practice my answers to interview questions!!!

Thanks Hulu!

My husband and I have had a role reversal which is also a little strange for me. See I am the night owl now and he is the one going to bed early. It is really a strange situation because ever since I have known Matt he has always been the night owl. I can stay up late on the weekends but when it comes to the work week I had to be in bed no later than 10:30 p.m. or I wasn't worth much the next day, while Matthew could stay up until 12:30 or 1:00 every night.

Most of the time in the late evening I spend playing on Facebook or watching shows. Lately the shows I have been hooked on are the reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Thank you Hulu.com. The only reason I sought out these shows again was due to a conversation I was having with some college friends who had discovered NBC's summer show Merlin and realized that Anthony Stewart Head was playing Merlin's father in the show. This got them started talking about the crush they had on this actor when he played Giles on BtVS. Well I was hooked on the show when it first aired and in fact it was something that Matthew and I use to watch together when we were "just friends!" So I decided, heck I have time I will watch these shows again! A little corny I know but who doesn't love a little David Boreanaz now and then!

My all time favorite episode of BtVS is the musical episode that takes place in season 6. Thanks to Hulu I was able to watch the first 3 seasons of BtVS and season 1 of Angel. But it didn't satisfy my need to see my favorite episode. So I went on the big search to find free rerun showings of the rest of the seasons. Luckily TNT is replaying every episode of Angel from the beginning and it is on the DVR schedule. This just left finding the rest of BtVS, which proved a little more difficult. I eventually found a couple of sites online and I am happily plugging along! The replay quality isn't as good as Hulu's and I have some glitches but it is free and is something to do while my body and eyes decide they are tired enough to go to bed. So for tonight, I finally get to watch my favorite episode again! Hopefully I won't be too loud for Matthew, I do have the tendency to sign along to this one and I may have watch it over and over again before I move on with the rest of the season!

Daily Life

A few days ago I had the opportunity to meet with a dear friend and pastor. We spent our lunch time together discussing my current life challenge: unemployment. One of the things he is always good about is leaving me with some sound advice. Through our discussion he asked me how I was getting through each day. What was the thing I was doing to keep my attitude positive. I really didn't have a good answer for him. He had suggested that maybe I should journal my thoughts and feelings. It would be one way of letting the emotions out instead of internalizing them. He also wanted me to think outside of the box regarding my job hunting and discover what was it that God wanted me to do. Now that is a Good question; however it is one that I believe requires some more pondering.



This is what I firmly believe unemployment stinks! Bottomline I need a job just to keep me sane, on a schedule and my life in better balance. Now that I don't have a job most days I feel as if I am spiraling out of control. During the first week of unemployment I really didn't do anything other than rest, watch a lot of movies and think. Actually this was something that everyone had recommended to me. Don't do anything. Just take the time to relax and regroup. The second week I worked on organizing our paperwork and putting it away in file folders. I revised our budget and made plans to see a financial advisor from our church. I think I also began to consider putting together my resume. Week three I finished my resume, signed up for Monster, Careerbuilder and officially started the "job hunt". As each week progressed I tried to create a route to keep me in balance but actually threw that idea out the window after just a few days. Instead my day consists of watch television or shows online, spending a few hours looking for a job and then playing on Facebook. At some point in the day I will eat a lunch and I will think about what I am going to make for dinner. However there is only so much TV, reading, Facebooking, cooking and some cleaning one can do before they get completely bored. Lately, I find that I am becoming more of a night owl, which in turns means I sleep in later in the next morning. When I finally do get up I really don't want to do anything. Sad I know!

Getting out and about is good in that it is a change of scenary but I really don't go anywhere because the simple act of going somewhere means spends money. A resource that we must now conserve even more than before just to make sure we have a roof over our heads and food on the table.

Each week of job hunting is frankly depressing. Some days I find good leads and jobs that I know I am qualified for and other days not so much. The ones I apply for though are not very good about getting back to you. Most I never hear back from and that is probably the most discouraging thing about job hunting. Right now I wish life was giving me some lemons! At least I would know what to do with those!