No Relief In Sight!

Today was the ninth straight day with temperatures in excess of 110 degrees.

Today was the seventeenth straight day of temperatures over 100 degrees.

It's supposed to continue this way through the 4th of July.

I hate Phoenix!

The Beach Test

What the Beach Test Says About You

You like people, but you're careful about who you get close to. Friendship is important to you... so important that you aren't just friends with anyone. You have cold feet when it comes to love. You have a lot of uncertainty until you convince yourself to dive right in. You are a passionate person. You are free wheeling, fun loving, and ruled by your emotions. Your sense of humor is very physical. Your facial expressions or spot on imitations of people are hilarious.

The Beach Test

In my case, so true!

Hope you're having a great weekend :-)

Something Happening In Haiti

Breaking News: Something Happening In Haiti
I love this country. It is one of my favorite places on Earth and touched my heart so deeply when I visited. Somehow, here in the U.S., the only time we hear about Haiti is when something awful happens. It seems like Haiti's unofficial name is now "Haitithepoorestcountryinthewesternhemisphere". This video spoofs that tendency to assume the worst about this beautiful, but admittedly troubled place.

Hope you get a good chuckle out of this one :-)

Is This The One?

This afternoon I received an email from the educational software company with whom I interviewed twice over the past few weeks. I was offered the position. I should be jumping for joy, but instead I'm just more conflicted.

Late last week I spoke with my former boss, the principal of the school in California where I taught for the last 6 years we lived there. There is an opening there for next school year, and she said she'd love to have me back on board.

I know, I have been trying to find the escape hatch from the teaching rut for years, and here it is now right in front of me. Still, the opportunity to go "back home" (Phoenix is most definitely NOT my home), be closer to my family (as dysfunctional as they may be), and be back in a work enviornment that is friendly and familiar really appeals to me at the moment...not to mention going back to a world where teachers make a livable salary!

This is a dilemma, admittedly a better dilemma than I was in one week ago, but a dilemma nonetheless. I'm going to have to sleep on this one, and pray hard on it as well. I hope things are clearer in the morning!

Little Miss Negativity

Ok, I'm about to go into gripe mode...check out now if you're not in the mood for it (there, I gave fair warning).

Here it is, Father's Day afternoon. We had a nice morning, taking my husband out for a surprise matinee and then to lunch. I should be relishing the fact that, despite the heat, we had a pretty nice day.

Instead, I'm sitting here as my husband watches the US Open on TV, getting more and more angry and frustrated. Tiger Woods just made an amazing shot that kept him in the running for the championship. The crowd went wild. The commentators had a zillion insightful comments. My husband got all excited. I got pissed.

Why in the world do professional athletes make the kind of money they do? What in the world is soooooo important about putting a little ball in a hole (or a basket, or a goal, or an endzone...)? Here I am, struggling to find a job that will just pay the basic expenses for a family of five, and some guy with great coordination and some God-given talent makes tens of millions of dollars a year?

I am wallowing in self-pity, I know. I hate that I even went there in my mind. It's been a rough two years, and things are not turning out the way I'd hoped for my family and myself. I need to focus on constructive, positive thinking.

Grrrrrrrrr.............

Dare I Hope?

Today I had a second interview with an education software company for the position of trainer. Two weeks ago I met with the training director, and that interview lasted over an hour and covered a lot of ground. I felt pretty good about it, then had to sit and wait. I was relieved to get a call late last week asking me to meet with the regional manager for another interview. I am one of four candidates in the running for this position.

Today's interview went well, in my opinion. I felt prepared for all of the questions I was asked. I think my 10+ years in the field of education and my confidence working with technology make me very well qualified for this particular job. I also think it could be a good springboard to future work in the field of corporate training.

I am keeping my fingers crossed. I was told to expect an answer by early next week. It would be so nice to have some idea of the next step in front of me. The past few months have been uncomfortable for me. Painful, stressful, miserable, and uncomfortable. This is what held me back for so many years and prevented me from leaving teaching sooner, this fear of going through exactly what I've been going through. I'm praying hard that, in the end, it will have been worth it on so many levels: financial, familial, personal, emotional, spiritual, etc.

Speaking of spiritual...it's interesting how things sometimes have to hit me upside the head to get me back on track. I was on the phone with my godfather last week, grousing about the fact that I was so stressed and worried about my job and financial situation. He asked me, simply, if I'd been neglecting "stuff" spiritually.

I sat there stunned on the phone, with no logical way to justify the fact that I had, in fact, put all "that stuff" aside as I spent a bunch of time and energy trying to "deal with things". My sweet godfather reminded me to take a little time to just sit down and be still, and put my prayers out there. He was absolutely confident that things would work out. That's one thing I love about him; he has this total faith that is calm and unshakable.

Guess what? I finally made time to do precisely what he'd suggested last week. As soon as I did so, I mean literally that same day, things started moving again.

Go figure :-)

So Far...

...I have applied for the following jobs:

• Switchboard operator at a local hospital
• Patient transport tech
• Health unit secretary
• Patient registration
• Training manager in HR at a lab services office
• Associate buyer at the same lab services company
• Educational software trainer
• Researcher/writer/editor with a finance forensics firm
• data entry

So far I have not been hired for any of these positions. I have been turned down flat for most of the health care industry jobs listed above, and am waiting to hear back on the lab services positions.

You're probably wondering about the attempted leap from education to health care. For the past 17 months I have been quietly taking classes to meet the prerequisites for admission to a local nursing program. I figured that was a field where I could have a flexible, family-friendly schedule but with greater earning potential than teaching. I hoped to get an entry level job in the field while attending school, especially because most of the hospitals around here offer tuition reimbursement. My plans seem to be thwarted at every turn though, and I have to wonder if someone upstairs is trying to tell me that nursing is not the way to go after all.

It has been weeks of applying, interviewing, and waiting. I am getting more and more discouraged as the days go by. I had hoped to take my children for a short trip to visit my mom out of state this summer, but we can't make any plans while my work situation and our finances remain up in the air. I have also been jonesing for a visit back to California. I haven't been "home" since January of 2007. I really miss my friends and family there and wanted to go back for a quick visit. For now, it looks like we're stuck in Hell, I mean Phoenix, for the summer. Same temperature and atmosphere, different locale...

(sigh)