What happens when you mix a Kayla, 2 Stripeys and a video camera

http://youtu.be/zP8Gry2A5XE




If nothing else, skip to the last 15 seconds, for the "lesson of the video"...
"Never argue with your mom"

Life

just flies by. Hard to believe next week will be November. And of course living here, you don't get the clues like frost on the windshield, leaves falling, etc.. that you would have to tell you it's getting into fall.

But aside from the lack of a job, this has been a difficult week.

Larry was out of town, so he wasn't around to do the "manly" tasks of putting the dead rat out of the garage or dealing with the chickens that got sick. Those chickens.. sigh.. the grown ones, not the little ones- they never looked well. They came with 1/2 their feathers. We were told they were just coming out of a molt and their feathers would return.

However, they didn't. We dusted for mites and lice. And they continued to loose feathers. Until they looked sick as they lost more and more feathers. Really sickly. Like scrawny things ready for a cook pot. Cept I don't know that I could ever actually cook and eat them shy of the apocalypse. So the first one got sick and died and the others picked at the carcass until there was dead chicken spread everywhere. Then a few days later chicken #2 died and the remaining chicken similarly picked at the dead one. This time I was expecting it. Well.. not expecting it, but not as surprised. I had taken sick chicken #2 back to the store we bought her from and said "she's sick, she came sick and I don't know what to do with her" And was going to leave her there just so I didn't have to deal with the carcass. But they said I should de-worm them and they'd be ok. Well... no. I think she was too far beyond gone.

So. I have 1 semi-sick chicken left and the 2 chicks. We'd been keeping them separate and will continue to do so until hen 3 croaks, I think. However I think we'll be buying eggs for a while. The young ones won't start laying for another few months, I think. And we might just have to get a few more chicks. Or not. I'm almost ready to give up on my urban homestead life. No where in my vision of my self-sufficient life did I have to deal with sick and dying animals.

So.. Aside from swearing off eating chicken for the rest of the year, I've survived. I kept the kids from seeing the dead ones so they're blissfully ignorant. They realize 2 of them are gone/dead but don't really have a full idea of that that entailed. And since I've sworn off eating chicken, we've been eating red meat this week. Good thing we don't have a sick cow. I don't know what I'd do then...

Student of the Month.....

Kayla. We're very proud, of course. I video taped it with our newer video camera. Unfortunately, it appears to record in a format that my computer doesn't recognize. If I can't get this to convert in the next 30 minutes, you'll have to take my word for it that her teacher wrote some very nice things about Kayla showing good character, putting others first and respecting authority. I'm happy that while she might not put her siblings first and listen the first time at home, at least she's doing it right at school.


I did take a few still pictures my camera can upload:

Ah ha. Video is converted, however used a free program that put it's name in the middle of the screen. Oh well. You'll get the general idea...

More clarity today

So I'm sitting here thinking "gee, my last 2 attempts at going back to work failed miserably, maybe this isn't for me..."

But I realize job a (remember the refugee clinic one) was a nightmare and they hired me without my license and fired me for not having it quick enough. OK. not fired. Told to come back when I had my license, expect in those 2?3?4? weeks it took the staff I was working for was all fired also. So, I called my former boss and said I was ready and he said he was no longer there.

And job b was similar. I have my license, but I don't have the pesky number to prescribe in CA. And it has physician supervision requirements, and the whole point of the job was that the physician wasn't going to be there, thus.. no supervision. That and I really was awkward there. Really awkward. The more she gave me "style pointers" the more inadequate I felt until I just hit the point where you forget how to speak. Well, practically. I do have the ability to say what ever comes to mind mouth so something came out, but not smooth or polished or what she was looking for.. So "it just isn't working out"

Man, rejected twice. I think this calls for chocolate.

So I'm still mulling going back to work over and waiting for the neon sign from above to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing. So far I haven't gotten the neon sign, but I'd settle for an audible whisper.

And if I'm not going back to work, I need to re-take my board exam. How hard can that be...?? stay tuned.

Wow. That was quick.

In quite possibly the world's record for shortest employment... I no longer have a job.

Which is probably ok because I no longer feel like I'm going into cardiac arrest just thinking about walking into work. Ok. Not arrest, just Afib. I was about 4 hours from taking myself to the ER after 4 days of this. With the kids. Oh, yeah, and Larry's playing GIJoe, so he's not home.

So, I wrote a long and venty post and deleted it a few hours later. If you missed it, I am sorry, but you didn't really miss anything.

Instead I'm going to write my ISO and focus on the future:
ISO (In search of)A job with the following requirements
1. A supervising physician who has some degree of patience
2. A practice where people don't talk about you behind your back
3. Where they care about the people they see, not only the type of insurance they have
4. Where they have some grasp of reality. Just some. Keeping expectations realistic.
5. Where I'm not the 3rd or 4th NP they've have in the past year to leave under one situation or another.
6. Where they see kids. AND like them.
7. Where they tolerate delayed vaccination schedules for said kids
8. A dr who will willingly supervise the 540 hours CA is requiring so I can be a fully functioning NP.
9. A non-female dr supervising physician. OK. not to stereotype, but some women are bitches. And then there's the whole which-life-is-better debate- is it better to have stayed home with the kids while letting my career rot, or should I have continued to work as a professional. Since I fall in category a and let my career rot, category b is my diametric opposite and may not be accommodating and understanding about the shock of returning to work. And like many things, I can respect their choice, please respect mine.
10. Enough compensation to pay preschool and daycare and have enough left over to give us some financial margin in our life. Or save to retire. Although by definition you have to work to be able to retire from it, no?
11. Where I can set my schedule to fit the needs of my family (aka, leaving at 4) and working 3 days a week with the flexibility to work 4 days once JM is in full day kindergarten.
12. Within 20-30 minutes commute time.

OK. I think I can stop at 12.

Now if only I can find this mystery job...

After much anticipation

I have a job. whoo hoo. I think.

I've been interviewing preschools and checking out the after school program and I'm really hoping that traffic is never bad because to get from work to daycare to aftercare just *might* be a challenge.

Anyway.. I need things like external deadlines to keep me motivated. Nothing like a drop-dead-out-the door and running deadline to get to daycare before they charge $1/minute and threaten to call the police on you. "I'm sorry Mrs. Patient, I know you're crying and distraught and need to be seen and all your problems solved, but we're going to have much bigger problems if I don't get out the door at 5, can we continue this conversation, say, tomorrow am. I'll block out an hour for you."

Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

And now we return you to our regularly scheduled program of trying to get kids to do homework while fixing dinner and wondering how the house can look like a cyclone ran through it within 30 minutes of school ending. I think they must wear 2 or 3 pairs of shoes to school or something because as soon as they get home, there are 2 or 3 pair of shoes per kid all over the floor... or they have 4 or 6 feet.. that should have been something I noticed when they were born... maybe it's an after toddlerhood feature they develop?? It would explain a few things- like the fact that one of my kids actually does have 2 left feet....