WHY?

You would think that in the last week since I lost my job that I would have written every day.  Right?

I'll tell you what.  This is a crazy time in my life to be sure.  A week later and I can still barely wrap my head around it.  In no way have I even come close to getting into a routine.  I have barely been home!  How will the cleaning and laundry get done while I am out running errands?  Same way they got done before.  THEY DIDN'T.  I think I can come to terms with that.

Last year we started watching America's Got Talent.  This year there have been several groups utilizing poles.  As in...pole dancing.  And my 5, almost 6 year old, apparently has a love for pole dancers.  Every time we watch it, she always winds up in the other room but last week before she went off to play she said "Tell me when the pole dancer comes on!"  Um...should I be concerned?

So...suffice it to say, Olivia aspires to be a pole dancer and I have a LOT of adjusting to do in order to deal with "losing" my job.  I have been so stressed out over the last week, trying to adjust to the changes, that I have lost 5 lbs.  I'm thrilled with the weight loss, but then again, I could have lost 5 lbs in just the hair that was cut off last week!

Shocked

The last 48 hours have been...what's the word...oh that's right...

LIFE CHANGING.

Three major things happened to me in the last 48 hours.  I'll go in the order of life changing-ness. :-)

The first thing that happened was that the Sprint store on Olive Blvd. in Creve Couer, MO made my night Monday by giving me an upgrade 8 months early.  So, in the best interest of my night job, I upgraded to this:

There is a lot that I could say about this phone, but I know a lot of you are waiting to hear about my day job update so I will move on, after saying that I LOVE my new phone!  Props to that particular location for  finally FIXING my phone, then after listening to me complain about all my problems with it, upgrading it early!  Oh, that is the Motorola Photon 4G.  It's (as my 10 year old would say) EPIC!

Then, last night, I got a makeover.  At least, that's how it felt.  

Last week I took the kids to get their hair cut before school started.  I was looking for a Kiddie Cut Ups.  The GPS took me to where it was SUPPOSED to be.  Surprise, surprise...it wasn't there.  We'd already been to a way-too-crowded Fantastic Sams.  At this point, I just wanted to get their hair cut!  So I drove past this place called The Cutting Edge ("like" them on Facebook by clicking that link!), saw scissors and assumed that this place "would do".  

The Cutting Edge Studio far exceeded my expectations!  Sondra Koenig did an AWESOME job on the kids' hair.  I was so pleased with how ALL four haircuts turned out.  I got home that night and called to see when I could get in to get MY hair done.  The grays were well past peeking through again, and it was OVERDUE.

The time that Sondra and her crew (which mostly consisted of her family, and added a very down-to-earth feel to the entire place) spent perfecting my hair and the attention to detail were impressive, to say the least.  It was very clear, just after watching Sondra cut the kids' hair, that I could trust her completely with my hair.  Which I did.  I told her to do whatever she thought would look best on me.  Both for the cut and the color.  With all said and done, I have to say that was the BEST salon experience I have ever had.  And Jesse Koenig's mad hair washing skill was *almost* as relaxing as two Xanax.  If you don't know how relaxing that it, just trust me.  It was awesome!  I'd compare it to something else...but well, let's just keep this family-friendly, shall we?  What?  I was talking about a foot massage.  What were YOU thinking???

After hearing Jesse and Sondra converse about hair and color and clearly seeing their passion for what they do, I would feel 100% comfortable trusting Jesse completely with my hair as well.  Words can't do justice to the talent bursting at the seams from The Cutting Edge Studio!  If you are in the St. Louis/Florissant area, go see Sondra or Jesse!!  Here is a before and after, just to prove to you what an awesome job they did.

I tried to find one of the most recent pictures of me so the comparison would be "real time" - so this is from vacation at the beginning of the month.

Oddly enough, I happened to be wearing the same shirt last night!  And necklace! Check out the difference:

Now, are you ready for the most life-altering change?

I got fired yesterday.  

From my day job.

No, I got laid off.

Wait.  Let me back up.

Over a month or so ago, Kris and I discussed me quitting (for the sake of saving the company money) and trying to supplement my income with my night job.  I'd really have to step it up about 10 notches, but I was confident that I could, since my goal has been to quit working at ICS to begin with.  Then a coworker was put on bed rest, and Kris told me that I was needed and would likely be working until at least January.  So while I was disappointed that I'd still be working 28-40 hours (depending on how our business grew) through the end of the year, I mentally prepared myself to stay at ICS.

So I've been working at ICS.  And working my night job, which has been really slow this month.  I resigned myself to this and all was well.

Until about 10:30am yesterday.  Kris and I had to discuss a title.  I asked him if he had the time and he said yes.  Then he told me we were going to meet in the conference room, because there was something else he wanted to talk to me about.  I didn't think anything of it, because we go to the conference room all the time to discuss titles or other aspects of the company.

We sit down.  We talk about what needs to be done with the title, mentioned above.  And then he says "And the second thing is, do you think you can find a part-time job?"

My immediate response was "I HAVE a part-time job!"

He was in his very professional "work mode" and told me that he had decided that it was time for the company to let me go.  He didn't give many details.  I knew why.  With the state of our company, from a business standpoint, it was a smart move.  I asked him when this was taking place.  September?  No.  Apparently it was effective immediately.  IMMEDIATELY as in as soon as you finish all your work.  I would never have left them with unfinished titles or a buried desk anyway, because it's not who I am...but usually when you get laid off, you aren't asked to continue working, are you?

Kris went on to tell me how much money my part-time job would need to net.  It will essentially require me working 12-15 nights per month, which I would actually LOVE, or getting a job at a retail shop or fast food joint, which I would HATE.  

And because Kris was so stressed out in general and really busy at work yesterday, he had absolutely NO CLUE how this had impacted me.  I was physically sick!  You see, I don't handle change well.  I didn't have time to process this. Not to mention the fact that I had forgotten my Xanax in the morning!

Unlike our conversation over a month ago, this came completely from left field.  In Kris' mind, we just talked about this and he knew I would be happy if I could quit working at ICS.  In my mind, I heard "you're fired and you also now need to bring in $1500 a month to feed our family".  He was back and forth between work and family life, but kept this professional tone the whole time.  It was a very bizarre scenario to be in.

And I was gone all night having my ultimate sexy hair makeover so we didn't really have a chance to talk.  I asked him today if he had ANY idea how that conversation came across to me.  In retrospect, he could see how it came across and we spent the lunch hour talking through it and trying to plan for the next few months and how we would work things out financially, while I work on getting more consistent business for my night job.  So overall, I feel a LOT better now than I did yesterday.  Not sure how it will all come together, but I know it will!

Oh and when Kris and I were discussing things over lunch, this is what he said, when I was joking around about being "fired".  I asked him if I could quote him on my blog and he agreed.

"You didn't get fired.  You didn't get laid off.  We just reduced your hours to zero." - KB

So...I am "officially" a work-at-home mom! 

Two quick things.

#1. The kids are back in school and have adorable haircuts to prove it.  It's unreal to think that I now have a 5th grader, a 4th grader, a 3rd grader. and a kid in Kindergarten!

#2.  I HATE being up before 7am.  No one should have to do it.

Frustration

Technology is great, isn't it?

It can also be incredibly frustrating.

I keep taking my phone back to the Sprint store because it keeps having problems. And they keep doing a hard reset, even though I myself was doing a factory reset every week or so and still having problems. Saturday I took my phone back in. Because the phone decided to go crazy and just randomly change all my ring tones. So if I got a text message, it pulled some random song from my SD card, and played the entire song, until I picked up my phone and acknowledged the notification! And it changed my call ring tone to another random song. I reset them and then next day, they were changed again. This happened three times and I finally gave up and took the phone back in.

The guy up front that asked what I needed was a jerk. In my opinion. Anyone who treats me like I'm an idiot is a jerk in my book. I explained to him all the problems I was having. He went into one of my apps, then said "Show me how you get to the home screen." Now, take a look at this picture and tell me how YOU would get "home".

Would you NOT push the HOUSE?  To go home, push the house?  NO?  So I pushed that button and he immediately said "Well, that's your problem right there."  He proceeded to explain that if I didn't use the back button to exit every single program I used that it would slow my phone down because the programs were staying open.  I actually knew this.  But I had advanced task killer on there to shut down the programs quickly.  He told me they recommend people take that program off of their phones because it allows other programs to open.  OK...whatever.  In the last month and a half, whether I've had that program on my phone or not, it's still been messed up.  After two different factory resets that I did myself, I added NOTHING back to my phone.  And was still having issues with it.

Well, the jerk who also said "I'm just trying to educate you." (like I'm an idiot) sent me with a ticket to the lady who takes down the exact same info before handing my phone over to another person behind that service window.  I explain everything to her and she has my phone and is looking through it.  She asked "Has anyone ever shown you how to check your memory?"  I told her "no" and she told me that it was down to 24mb and they don't recommend you let it get below 70mb.  Do you think she showed me HOW to check my memory?  NO.  She did not.  Which is fine because I figured it out anyone.  And when you have at least 140 memory, why can you only use half of it?  What is the point of having that much?  I know that the phone has to have some memory just to run...but half of it???

Anyway...she went on to tell me that they would have to do another hard reset and would look at the phone, but basically if I add apps to my phone, or have any email on my phone, or link my contacts to Facebook and don't delete my call log and text messages regularly (which I already do) that I will continue to have problems.

I waited over an hour, then got my phone back.  Within 2 hours I got a "force close" message because of some error.  It's happened two other times since Saturday.  I have not linked my phone to Facebook.  I haven't installed any apps.  I delete my text messages and call log right away.  And I am still having problems. I know I have to just keep taking it back until they replace it but the whole process is frustrating.  I still can't upgrade to the Evo and I haven't won one yet...so I'm kind of stuck.  I just want them to replace my non-working phone with a working one.  That I can do the things I bought it for...oh like send text messages, make calls, check Facebook, add apps, etc...

Discontent

It gets harder and harder to be at work. I don't hate my job. I just don't want to be there. I love my coworkers. I'm good at what I do. But I so wish we had never put ourselves in a position where we were dependent upon my income to make the bills. But it is what it is and there is nothing to do except stick it out until I can quit. Because ultimately, I want to be doing something different with my life.

I got on here thinking I would blog about vacation and post some pictures. But I'm in a "mood" tonight. Based on the title, it's discontentment.

I'm not very patient. I don't like to be patient. I don't like patient people. :) Just kidding on that last one. Patience is a virtue. One I do not possess.

So sitting here waiting to be able to quit my job finds me very restless.

On a different note, I LOVE The Colbert Report. This show always makes me feel better. This clip made me laugh, since we have highways and interstates shutting down ALL the time!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Carmageddon
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Fearless

Olivia has earned the title of "fearless" this week.  A few years ago, while in Wisconsin Dells, while she had always loved the water, from birth, she decided to be terrified of it.  I think it's because Kris put her in a whirlpool bath with the jets on and it terrified her.  We could not get her to go into water for ANYTHING that week.  Not even to stick her feet in the shallow end.  She would just scream and cry.  And while she has enjoyed swimming at the YMCA, she can't wear floaties and so she really hasn't had any experience swimming, because she's either been held by us or had to stay in the shallowest parts.

This year, however, she was ALL IN.  I don't know what got into her, but she just decided that with or without floaties, she was going to swim NO MATTER WHAT.  Most of the time she had her floaties on.  But a few different times, without her floaties, she would just jump in.  Without warning any adults.  Without thinking "Hey I might drown if no one knows I just jumped in without floaties on!"

In fact, Kris had just been telling me about this type of thing and we were chatting, our backs turned to her and suddenly realized she wasn't standing on the side of the pool anymore.  We turned around and there she was, flailing in the water, no floaties. We got her and she was fine, but even then, she didn't appear scared.  She was determined to just be in the water at any chance.  And once she realized she was tall enough for the water slide, you better be sure that you are at the bottom to catch her, since she can't wear floaties, because she would just disappear and you'd see her at the top of the slide, ready to come down.  Her face just cracks me up.

I don't know if it is just because she is adorable.  Or if it is because she's our last and so we are really getting to enjoy and experience these milestones with her.  I don't know what it is.  But it was probably my favorite part of our time in Florida, watching her swim.  These following three videos will hopefully show you a little bit of the joy we got to experience with her on vacation.