Well, unemployed.

Sort of.

I left my full-time position working at the rehab hospital in March. There were a lot of reasons I left, but after a year and a half the bottom line was that although I loved what I did at work, the company was unorganized and unprofessional. And sometimes, I felt, unethical.

The plan was to pick up more hours at my second job, where they pay me 30%+ more per hour. According to my math, I would need to work 25-27 hrs a week to bring home the same amount of money. They reason they pay me more is because it's a PRN or "as needed" position. This means no benefits and no guaranteed hours. While paid time off and money for continuing education was great, I didn't need health insurance through work so no benefits? No problem.

The kicker has been the no guaranteed hours. When I was working full time somewhere else, my second job was constantly contacting me and asking me to work because they were SO busy. Fast forward until I quit my full time job -- now they have a super low census and don't need me. Going on 4 weeks.

Ideally I didn't want to juggle multiple jobs, but I need to work! I am waiting to hear back on two other job opportunities that seem to offer good pay and flexible hours.

So here's a little smattering of what I have been up to:

1. The house is clean. Obviously something is up, because the folded laundry is put away, and the bed is made. I rediscovered my obsession with my cleaning list, and have been trying out some new cleaning supplies from The Honest Company (referral link). So far I am impressed. With strategy and coupon codes, they are reasonably priced and clean well without the heavy chemical smell creating an acid rain cloud in my bathroom. Also, no vinegar. Winning. 


2. I bought a bird feeder. This was at the beginning of my quitting days. Jon was all against this idea, stating "we're not old enough to start buying bird feeders" and arguing vehemently that this would cause birds to poop on his truck. I, however, am on a mission to bring our backyard up from its current level of lifelessness. It's somewhere around "surface of the moon" inching up towards "clay basketball court growing some weeds". I hung the bird feeder on our fence because sadly, we have no trees large enough to hold it up.

3. Watering straw bales. We're adding two straw bale gardens to the backyard this summer. I read about this in Fine Gardening. They have a twofold benefit of hopefully providing enough garden space to grow pumpkins AND satisfying my compulsion to create 2000 pounds of compost to spread on our clay basketball court lawn.


4. Painted the bathroom vanity. Hate. I am so disappointed with how this color turned out. I was going for something like this:

via

but ended up with something more like this:


Except without all the marble and fresh flowers. I haven't even taken a picture because I am that underwhelmed. To make this even more frustrating, we made the mistake of venturing into the counter top section and discovering how much some fool paid for our current counter top -- a brown speckled plastic/resin with integrated sinks. Quartz. Was cheaper. WHO BUILT THIS HOUSE.

5. A year's worth of mending. Enough that by the end, I threw some things away instead of attempting to mend them. At least I rediscovered five pairs of leggings that had been languishing in the mending basket/pile long enough to be forgotten.

6. Which turned into an "I want to sew again" obsession. Something fun! aka not the busted out seams on 5 pairs of leggings. If you have access to an appropriate size child, I found this free dress pattern today at The Cottage Mama. You have to sign up for her email newsletter, and the pattern gets emailed to you.

7. Thinking about these muffins. From The Law Student's Wife. (not me). Chocolate chunk coffee muffins? Yes.

So! Hoping PRAYING work picks up. $oon.

Any inspiration of the sewing/eating/cleaning variety that you'd like to share?

I realized that I have a lot of them.

1. Ketchup--it, the bottle, the sounds it makes, ew ew ew ew
2. When you give someone a bite of your ice cream and they leave some of it on the spoon
3. Milk in the bottom of a glass, a cereal bowl, or a milk jug
4. Raw meat. times 230954968.
      a. thawing in the sink
      b. getting marinated, especially in the fridge and especially in a tupperware that usually has brownies or something good in it that would make you stick your hand in it
      c. Also, the runny stuff in hot dog packages.
5. Bones in anything
6. Refrigerators that smell bad
7. Cream of anything soup
8. That thing at one end inside an eggshell
9. Wet saran wrap
10. Dirty sinks. ANYTHING in a sink.

My mom says "it's best to just get over it." Step one is listing them--there's probably more, but I figure that raw meat is enough to make up for anything I happened to forget.

Goldfish are just generally disgusting--I don't understand why you'd want one floating around your dorm room or your kitchen or your TABLE or eventually on your carpet.

But besides their inherent gross existence, I figured out another reason why I cannot love a goldfish--they're supposed to be completely disposable. I mean, someone will understand if you love your dog or your cat or your sister, but spending love on a fish just isn't worth it. It's not so much a pet as a decoration that you feed and clean up after. But if I wake up and find it floating on top of the water, first I freak out because I have the actual physical being of a dead fish on my hands, and second I get this sick feeling realizing that it died and I was in charge of it. How can I love something like that when everyone else says to just flush it down the toilet and spend another twenty-five cents for my next fish?

Holly's fish died this morning. I think it was my fault.

I cried in the shower. Which is ridiculous because I didn't even like that fish.

This morning at 4:50, I woke up from the middle of a dream about the flower shop when I heard something fly into my screen and the sound of wings rustling. Fearing my life but uncertain if the winged creature was outside or actually inside, I hid under my sheets and listened. More flapping noises, disturbingly close to my bed. At the realization that I was sharing my bedroom with a winged rodent, I pretty much freaked out and started screaming. It probably had rabies. I think the screaming woke up my sisters, but I just wanted someone to come upstairs and get rid of the thing, because there was no way I was coming out from under those blankets!! I'm too young to die of rabies. Or get my eyes poked out.


My mom came upstairs eventually. I heard her voice in the hallway, very unconcerned and flat sounding-- "what's going on." Or perhaps it was just too early in the morning for her to show any emotion. I was trying to explain about the bat, but I didn't want to come out, and I think by that time the bat had flown into Holly's room, so there was an intense unrest in the entire top floor of the house. Someone shut the bat into Holly's room, which she didn't seem to thrilled about. She was convinced it was going to destroy all her posessions.


Anyway, my dad got sent into the bat room, armed with a tennis racket and a bucket. (Don't worry, Geron, it wasn't your tennis racket.) We heard all sorts of swatting noises and a running commentary from my dad, and eventually it must have been victory because we heard him rejoicing in the swat. He came out of Holly's room with the bat laying on the tennis racket and wanted us to take a picture of him... my mom was like, "Gregg... why do you have the compost bucket on your head?" Then she realized the bat was on the tennis racket. "GREGG!!! GET THAT THING OUT OF HERE BEFORE IT REVIVES!!!!!!" There was an outbreak of hysteria at the thought of the bat reviving, but Dad wouldn't leave until we took a picture of him with the rodent and the compost bucket on his head... plus he said that the bat wasn't going to revive, because apparently it was a swift swat to that thing and there was pretty much no future in it's (ended) bat life.


It was kindof hard to fall asleep again after that.