Thoughts of an unemployed dead beat

I have not been called to work for 2 weeks now and my unemployment has run out. I was hoping to get more hours from my part time job, but I've only averaged 9 hrs a week for the 4 weeks I did worked.

I heard they passed an extension for the 99'ers. Apparently not. I have mixed feelings about that any way. If they are getting these extensions by raising the deficit, I think it's wrong, even if it does benefit me. They should get it by cut backs, and we all know they could trim some fat. Personally, I would prefer a JOB. I need medical. I was turned down for individual insurance...not that I could pay for it if I could get it. I need to feel like I can pay my share. If it wasn't for Rich I would be living in my car. Now that I can't even pay for gas It would pretty cold. Some times I wonder how he is going to be when I don't have the unemployment any more and can't contribute. I'm about to find out. It's not like we are married and he has to deal with it.

I apply for work everyday. My resume states that I worked at the same place since 1976. That is a dead give away that I'm over 50. I can't help but think, it's a strike against me. It appears to most people that I'm actually older than 52. Taking into consideration that most people start working at real jobs a few years older than my age when I started at 17. My resume reads like I'm more like 55 or older. Plus, I've been out of the job market for 2 years. Then you have the people who are out of work and have degrees and I only have a certification. Who wants me when they can get someone with a degree and experience. I just applied for three jobs this morning. It's the 1st thing I do every morning. I can't just stop trying.

Still. no word from Accountemps. I wonder if they get paid by how many people the recruit. I know they have allot of people with degrees and accounting experience. I just don't think they should tell me they will start placing me in entry level positions and then never call or return my emails.

Now that I'm depressed...ENOUGH OF THAT!

I'm stalling to call my son's ex so that I can pick up my grand daughter. We are baking cookies at my oldest son's house. I make cookies every year with the kids. This will be the 1st year that Milaynah will be with us. She has finally reached the age that she will go with me without mom or dad. Her mom works 2ND shift and I don't want to be too early for her. This will cheer me up.

Last night, I made three different kinds of cookies, brownies, cheesecake-lemon bars and fudge. I sent two trays to work with Rich. One for a co-worker...Tom and his family, who have become close Friends...THEY RIDE...and one tray for the guys to enjoy with morning coffee. Rich had to drop off the tray for Tom and his family at their house because Tom was not at work this morning. His wife emailed me and thanked me for being a good friend, saying she has been sick and not able to bake for Christmas. It makes me feel good that it will help make things a little easier on her. I have 2 trays left, one for my son's house on Christmas Eve and one for our house on Christmas day.

I made the cookie dough for today last night. I've found in the past that the kids get bored easy. Young kids have such a short attention span. This way they get to do the fun parts...forming the cookie balls, cutting out the shapes, and decorating. We save these cookies for the family...it doesn't matter how much you tell them...no licking your fingers...someone will lick and put them freshly licked fingers back into the dough. This happens allot when we get to the frosting. Rich got to witness the whole thing one year when I did it here at our house, it was so funny when my grand daughter tried to give him a cookie. He really didn't want it because he had just seen her lick her fingers before handing it to him. I gave him a look and he knew he better suck it up and like it, whether he did or not. This is what being grampa is all about. You lie. The cookies were good...even with the licked fingers.

The spirit of giving

I am so excited; I won a Dell notebook in the holiday drawing at the school bookstore. I have wanted to get Rich one for two years now. Since I share my laptop with Rich and he only uses email and internet, I have decided it is a perfect gift for him. I am installing printer drivers, virus protection, and setting up all his internet favorites, email contacts, etc. right now. It's so perfect for him. Yes, it’s a smaller keyboard...he uses the search and peck method any way...plus we have a USB keyboard he can use if he really hates the smaller keyboard. I love giving!

Because money is tight this year, I decided not to buy for my kids and concentrate on the grandkids. Well laid plans of mice and men…and some women. That’s easy to do for my oldest son and his wife, since they have everything they need. My youngest son is not so fortunate. He has not been able to find work in the field he is certified in, so he's taking parts off cars at a junkyard. It’s work, not the kind he would like to do and not much pay, but I am proud that he is at least working and willing to do what it takes. Point is he works outside and in case you’re not familiar with Northern IL weather, it’s freaking cold here! Being a mom, I can’t stand the thought of him working in the cold without the right outer wear. I bought him insulated Carhartt bib overalls. Of course I can’t buy for one and not the other so I am officially over budget on Christmas. That’s ok, it feels good.

So my wish for all of you…may giving bring you the same happiness it brings me.

Shopping with an 8 year old

I picked up Julia for our shopping spree. They got a new dog. It's a black Pug named Puggy Sue. How clever! Their other dog...born 2 days before Julia...a big American Bull Dog named China, with jaws and a bark that is totally intimidating, is a little jealous. When I came in, the pug was jumping on my leg and China decided to jump too. I am 5' 8", when she jumps on me, she is up to my shoulders. Fortunately, she listens good and as soon as I told her to sit she was sitting. She is not suppose to jump on people and this was a first. Every time the pug came near me she got in between us and sat in front of me till I pet her. She seems to like me but she always barks when I leave with one of the kids and I wonder if she doesn't like me taking them out of the house. She is very protective of the kids and my daughter-in-law...especially Julia.

On the way to the mall, we were chair dancing in the car with the radio turned up loud, just having a good time. I gave her $50 to spend on anything she wanted. I had to remind her at the first store that we would be coming right back past it on the way back so if she saw something she liked we could get it later, after we looked at a couple other stores.

We stopped for ice cream and I stopped at the newsstand and got some instant lottery tickets and won $15. Julia had an extra $15 dollars to shop with.

The next store we went to, her bill was just under $59. I reminded her that she wanted a TV pillow from the first store we went into and she only had $6 left. After the cashier realized Julia was paying for it herself, he reached under the counter and pulled out a coupon for 20% off. He said, "let's see if this helps". We were able to go back to the first store and get her the Minnie Mouse TV pillow she wanted.

I always take them to dinner after shopping...her choice this year...McDonald's.

Todays headline!

5 hurt in chain-reaction crash near Hampshire

Five transported in crash: About 15 cars were involved in a crash Sunday that began at about 10:45 a.m. at Route 72 west of French Road and continued for several hours as additional cars hit cars already involved. According to a Kane County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, there were no serous injuries and the exact number of vehicles involved was not immediately available due to the whiteout conditions. Route 72 was closed until about 3:15 p.m. while officers and paramedics sorted out the accidents. According to a Hampshire firefighter, five people were transported to area hospitals and 17 people refused medical attention. “It sounds like cars kept hitting each other or going off the roadway” before Hampshire police and Kane County sheriff’s deputies could close the road, Lt. Pat Gengler of the Kane County Sheriff’s office said. “The whole thing was a big mess.

That's our headline for today. Hampshire is about 5 minutes from us. It's a small town...not as small as ours...but small enough. We set out to do some Christmas shopping and where we had to turn right, you could not see anything to the west. We were glad to be heading east. Rich said "if the mall was that way, we would be turning around and going home." We decided to keep going since it looked better in the direction we were headed, with the plan of turning around if it got too bad. We got to the mall and home without a problem

When I checked today's news, I couldn't believe people would drive into a white out when there is a chance to turn around. It looked like a wall of white just 20 feet to the left of the intersection, you literally could not see anything.

We finished up our shopping for the grand kids and when we got home, I just had to play with the doll we got for Milaynah. She loves dolls and animals...this doll came with a dog on a leash, when you push a button on the leash handle, the doll asks the dog if he wants to go for a walk and the dog wags his tail, his ears start to flop, he pants and barks. There are about 6 different interactions between them. We got Julia...who is a real girlie girl...a wii dance game. She wants to be a cheerleader someday and loves any type of dancing. I bought them each an outfit last week but I wanted them to have something fun from us too, this should do it. My two oldest grand kids...teenagers, ugh...will be getting Visa gift cards this year. I got Rich a banjo case and strap for his new banjo and a CD. I am going to make a big cookie, Christmas breads, and candy tray for my sons and daughter-in-law.

Tomorrow is Julia's 8th B-day and I will be taking her shopping and out for dinner. I started doing that for each of them when Angelic started wanting sleepovers for her B-day party. This way they get thier social time and I get one-on-one time. The kids love thier special time with Grandma. Works for me! I really look forward to thier B-days.

School update

I have completed all my classes this semester as of today. I have all A's and I graduate for my Vocational Certification in Accounting and Office Technologies on the 17Th...WITH HONORS!!!

I have my next semester all lined up. I am only taking 6 credit hours this coming semester because I want to be able to work full time if the opportunity is there. I have a Saturday class for 1 credit, and a Tuesday night class for 3 credits and 2 independent study classes at 1 credit each. The 3 credit is tax accounting, then I have a Quickbooks ll, a tax software class and an advanced Excel for 1 credit each. They are all classes I will need for an Associates Degree.

I am starting to think that I should start taking some classes in medical terminology and Phlebotomy. That way I could widen my job scope. Any suggestions?

Belated Thanksgiving

Today was our day to roast a turkey at home since we were out of town for Thanksgiving. I am sooooo stuffed! My youngest son was here with his daughter and a few of our friends. Along with the usual dressing, and sides, I made a pear pie, key lime cheesecake, and our friends brought the pumpkin pie. It was fun to see my granddaughter again. She's four and finally past her shy stage. She answered the door when our friends got here and invited them in. I'm glad she is finally become friendly, but this could be a problem. She has gone from painfully shy to over trusting.


My friend is still in the hospital and still, is only able to have ice chips. I think it is the white blood cell counts that they are watching. Hers was at 19 on Friday when we went to visit her. It is at 14 today so she is finally going in the right direction. By the time she gets home she will be completely healed from the Gallbladder surgery. When I had mine out, it was out-patient and I was walking to the post office on the second day. I didn't have gallstones, mine just pooped out and was barely working. I am thankful that mine was so easy. They expect she will be able to go home Tuesday or Wednesday. She is so depressed being there for so long. She's worried about her job and her kids and just basically getting cabin fever. I'm sure once she gets home, she will do much better.

Job update

I am working part time at the local printing co...a block and a half away. The wages are better than the part time jobs that I have applied for that would be a 1/2 hour drive, so I am thankful for that, but I feel like I am right back where I stared. I started out in the bindery at the last company I worked for and after raising my kids and going back to school I was promoted to the position of estimator. I ended up running that department and revising the whole system, which had not been updated in...who knows how many years. Now I'm back in the bindery and have not heard one thing from Accountemps. I was somewhat down when I was reassured by a friend that she never got a call when she signed up for Accountemps. She is now an office manager and controller for a company that she was placed with through Kelly Girls. Next step...sign with Kelly Girls.

Talking about the friend above...she has been in the hospital since Thanksgiving. We took them to a feather party at the Eagles Club with us and they won four 23-24 lb turkeys, 8 lbs of bacon, and three 22-23 lb hams. They came to our house for breakfast the next morning bringing with them bacon. She was in horrible pain that night and refused to go to the hospital. Then on Thanksgiving, it happened all over again. This time she went to the hospital being dragged by her husband, kicking and screaming. They found that she had been passing gallstones and needed to have her gallbladder removed. She waited too long and developed pancreatitis, a fever, and high blood pressure. They put her on antibiotics and blood pressure med's and a liquid diet. The fever and white cell where down enough on Wednesday to do the surgery. She is still there, her white cell count went up again and the fever is back. It doesn't help that she found out through the grape vine, that her 18 year old...straight A student...son was driving a car with no brakes. He was leaking break fluid and didn't have the money to buy any so he just drove it any way. His argument was that he needed to get to school. She told him her car was just sitting in the driveway...take it!!! At 18, shouldn't he know better? And what about the people who decided to tell her about it, rather than to deal with it for her. Her husband who is the kid's step father was at the hospital and didn't know about it, but what about his father...he couldn't call him and say...dad, what do I do? It just angers me that people can be so STUPID! I mean...drive a car with out brakes...tell some one who is in her shape about it...who does that???? If he would have said something to me, I would have just asked her husband or Rich to look at it so Sue didn't have to be dealing with it. She should be concentrating on getting better and not dealing with adult children who can't make a sensible decision on their own.

We went to MO. for our Thanksgiving. We visited a friend of mine that I have known since I started in the bindery at the age of 17. It was a good visit and good food. I am making a turkey dinner this weekend so that we can be with our kids and a couple of friends.

I just got a call that I am needed to run an inserter. I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go!!!

I hope every one had a great Thanksgiving.