Working Again!

It didn't take me long....thank goodness, I got a new job! Went to an interview on Friday at a local Pharmaceutical company (within walking distance to my home) and walked out with the job!

Yes, it's a big cut in pay, and I am starting at the bottom and will need to work my way up, but I am excited and looking forward to the challenge. It's in a whole different line of work as I will be doing accounts receivables, and other various duties, but I have my foot in the door.  It is a fast growing company and lots of room for advancement and the potential to move up is there.  They really loved my resume and even said I was over-qualified for the position, but they see my potential and really need my experience and are looking forward to my addition to the company.

So one door closed and another opened.  Who knows where this will lead, but I am looking forward, not backward. So many new things in my life this year. My own place, a new job, now maybe a new man???

April Showers, Hurry Up with the Flowers!

That is what has been going on here in the Cincinnati area for some time now. Showers!! Dreary, cold dank days. If I didn't know any better I would think we were in London.

Not only is it dreary outside, things have been quite dreary since the start of April emotionally as well. On March 31st, my uncle died unexpectedly at 58 years old. He was for all intents and purposes, normal and healthy. He went running that afternoon, which is his normal morning activity and apparently got into his truck to come home, got down the road and had a massive heart attack in the car. He was found dead by the people in the car behind him when they went to investigate why he went off the road. Needless to say the family is completely devastated.

Things at work are good though, or at least from what I can tell. In this climate of dreary days economically we have plenty of work to keep us busy and maintaining our status quo. Tensions are not anxious as I have heard in some places of employment. SO that is a positive here in these dreary April days.

Even speaking athletically here in Cincinnati, it is dreary as it snowed on Cincinnati Reds Opening day festivities, and then the Reds lost.

So if the old adage is true, April showers bring May flowers, I certainly am looking forward to them blooming!...Do you think we could have them a little early???

Tuesday the New Monday

Tuesday, September 30, 2008. The last day of September until next year. And a Tuesday. My least favorite day of the week. I vote we just take Tuesdays off the calendar. September has been a rough month and today was no exception. DJ is gone 3,000 miles away from me, the economy is faltering, Wall St. is crashing, and I really don't know who I want to vote for as President yet, my check was for much less that I was counting on, things at work just seemed to explode and I get to come home to an empty house. Well not completely empty, the cats are here.

Another month of 2008 has come and gone, and so much has happened. Where do I begin? Or where will it end? Who knows, but I know one thing. Tuesday will come back again next week. I just hoe they get better as the year winds down.

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

Montana...Bozeman, Montana to be exact. What the hell is in Bozeman, Montana? Apparently a new restaurant. One that DJ will be helping open up and train the new employees.

Yes, DJ is leaving for beautiful Bozeman, Montana on the 16th and will be gone until the 3oth!

This is a great opportunity for him and it says a lot about what a great employee he is. He recently opened a store here locally and impressed the coordinator so much that he hand picked DJ to go out to Montana and help open the new franchise out there.

What will I be doing for the 14 days he is out in "Cowboy Country?" Well this isn't about me. It's about DJ, and I fully support him in his career and want to see him be successful. So what will I be doing while he is away in the mountains? Like I said. it's not about me but about DJ and the opportunity he has been afforded and the extra cash he will be bringing in.

No really, how do I feel about it? Honestly? Well, at first I was upset. This will be the first time in 8 years that we have been away from one another for more than one night. And I really hate being alone. But after I thought about it I realized this is an opportunity for him that is incredible and he really wants to do this. So I will learn to live with it, and make lots of long distance phone calls. And it's only for 14 days. It could be 14 weeks. So a new chapter has opened up in our relationship and to be honest, I am really excited for him, and for the both of us. But I'm still allowed to miss him...

Welcome to the Laundromat!

Laundry is the least favorite thing for me to do regarding household chores. I hate doing laundry, especially socks.

But today I did laundry, lots of laundry. That was until I heard this huge sound coming from the laundry closet. It sounded like the washer had reguratated it's entire contents and then was trying to tear it's way out of the laundry closet so that nothing else could be put inside it.

Actually it was the motor. Which burnt up. Now we have no washer, and Dan still has no car. What is it with us and motors this week?? So no I will hate laundry even more than I already do. It now off the the laundromat!!

No More Setbacks!

As most of my readers know I walked out of my job last July with no idea what I was going to do for income. fortunately I found a job in December and I am gainfully employed again, but after 6 months of only one income we had to move out of our place and move in with DJ's mother. Now this is not a bad thing mind you, however it's not my own place and I want to get out on our own again soon.

We had made the goal of April 1, and we were pretty much on track, until DJ got sick and was hospitalized. With no medical insurance this has set us back a little. So our date for moving out is now July 15. Probably closer to August 1, but July 15 is when we will start looking.

Well, as I was driving home Friday evening I heard this loud, annoying grinding sound under my car. Not being mechanically inclined I had no idea what was happening. All I knew was this was going to cost money we didn't have. As I pulled into the driveway, DJ's step-father, "Big D" heard it and came to investigate. Apparently my "caliber" was digging into my "wheel well" whatever those were. So my car was parked and time to figure out what the problem really was. DJ and his uncle performed the investigation and removed the tire and found that when the brakes were changed on my car back in the summer, apparently a bolt was not tightened enough and fell off. This caused the caliber to drop down and rub against the inside of the wheel, hence the grinding noises. Okay but how much is this going to cost? That was my main concern.

After looking in three different places DJ and his uncle were able to secure the lost bolt for $8 and replace it back onto the wheel. All was good. And for only $8!

But could you imagine if that entire caliber thing fell off? I don't even want to think about it.

Starting Over

In 1979 I was given the opportunity to start over, by being pulled from a situation that if left in would have altered my life in ways I can only imagine. Chances are I would not have lived to see this day. I was given a chance to start over.

Twenty-seven years later as I look back on those events and the many other events in my life since that time I wonder how many chances does one get in one lifetime to start over. How many times can we, or others around us change the course of ones life and give them another chance? I’ve had many.

Sometimes it is because a person comes into your life and suddenly things are different and what was important no longer seems that way. That has happened in my life as well. Each time you look at the opportunity with hope and dreams and then another event or person comes into your life and puts another perspective on who and what you are. Then more choices are demanded of you.

Or it could come one day when you are working in a dead end job, just trying to make ends meet and suddenly that job that you despised is taken from you or you walk away from it. Suddenly a job that you thought was taking you nowhere now makes you realize it was your life. Unfortunately you learnt that too late. But just in the nick of time something happens and puts you back on your path, and those lessons are soon forgotten. But then you find yourself in the same situation only under different circumstances and you once again forgot the lesson you learnt from before. The same mistakes are made and choices are placed before you and make the same ones that you made before. Over and over again the cycle continues until you finally learn from your mistake and when the opportunity arises again you make the adjustments and do not make the same choice you made before.

Twenty-seven years ago I had a choice to make and with the help of someone dear to me I was able to make a choice I was afraid to make on my own and it brought me to where I am today. And as I said before, probably saved my life. Eleven years ago, again I was at a crossroad and not willing to make a choice and someone stepped into my life and I chose a path. I chose that path then; thinking they would be there with me through it, but as I found out, that wasn’t the case. So for a few more years, do to that choice that was made, I had to learn another step into the lesson we call life.

Now again today I am living with choices that either I made or others made for me and again I am wondering if I made the right ones. I look back on those others times to see where I may have made the mistake, but honestly I didn’t see them then and now I wonder if I am still not able to distinguish which choices were right and which were wrong. Sometimes it is more difficult to see your own mistakes than those of others around you. Their mistakes are easy to spot. We can sit back and say that if we were in their position we would have done things so much differently. But would we have done anything different if in the same situation with the same choices and emotions involved in that decision? No, I venture to say probably not.

But I finally figured it out. Or in my feeble wisdom, I think I did. Others didn’t make those choices for me, regardless of how much I think they did. They may have influenced me, but ultimately I made those choices. And when I made those choices I made them for what was right for me at that given time. I thought I looked at how it was going to effect my future and my current life and I chose. Ultimately it was I that had to live with the consequences of those actions, not so much the others that were involved or were the influencing factor. But me, the one who made the choice.

We can sit back and look at our life and blame a lost job, a lost opportunity or another individual for our mistakes and even our accomplishments but that is not the case. It is us. It is our own spirit, personality, our drive or whatever we want to call it but ultimately it is ourselves.

So here I am, again at a point in my life where I am dealing with the consequences of my actions and choices, and whether they are good or bad I can only look at myself for the answers. I also can only change the situation by my own efforts. I cannot wait for a knight in shining armor to come and whisk me away, or to sit and wait for the opportunity to fall into my lap by some divine power. I have to make it happen. I have to take control. I have to look deep within myself at my past mistakes and accomplishments and find where that strength is to get me through another cross in the road.

Weighing my options has never been a strong suit for me. When I’ve made choices in my life before I take it head on, sometimes with no thought or even perception of how it is going to effect me or others around me in weeks, months, even years to come. I would say we all are guilty of that. In the heat of a moment, or in the passion of the battle we decide, not thinking about the possible outcomes.

So what were those lessons we learnt from those past choices we made; if thrown into another situation we are going to react the in the same manner because of who we are? I’m not sure, but I think those past lessons play into the scenario even without our conscience mind realizing it. It has been said for every action there is a reaction. But how do we make that reaction without…reacting?

To use the old cliché, life is too short to cry over spilt milk. So I suppose I will make the choice the same way I have before. With what I feel in my heart is right. Giving no thought of what my mind is telling me, and just hope it all works out in the end. Will I use any lessons I learnt before? You bet I will. Will I look back on the decision and say; I wish I would have done that instead? Yes, probably. But you know what? Regardless if it is the right choice, or the wrong one, only one thing is important. Am I a better person because of it? I think we all are. Just as long as we learn. It may not be something we even realized right now that we learnt, but somewhere down the road when the next opportunity arises, or it’s time for the next choice we will remember.

Over the next few weeks DJ and I will be starting over. Due to choices made we are proably going to have to leave our home and move in with his mother to get our finances back on the right track. Have I learnt lessons from this? I certainly hope so because I'm not sure I have too many "starting overs" let in me.

Looking Up

Things seem to be moving in a new direction around here the last two or three days. I received a response from my resume and had a phone interview last night and a person-to-person on Monday. It is with the local cable company so I would also receive free cable and Internet service in my benefit package. Hell that alone is worth it!

As I mentioned on Wednesday, I have published some of my work on Lulu.com for distribution. So far I've had several hits on my site three and have three book purchases! All that in less than 48 hours of posting my work. So lets hope this continues. I wasn't sure about self publishing, but Lulu.com has a very simple procedure and very cost effective. If you are interested is getting your work out there for others to see you may want to check them out.

Due to the response I have received from my book postings I have been working on some of the other work that I had put aside. I have been writing for over 15 or twenty years just as a way to release stress. Some of the works were just a page or two, but others were full compositions. Not edited of course, so I have been going through my database and notebooks working on editing and completing some of my writings. I added a third book just last night for purchase on Lulu.com

If you would like to read my work I have put a link on the right hand side of my blog. Just hit that link and it will take you to Lulu.com and put my books into your cart for purchase. Thanks in advance!

Other than that everything has been somewhat quiet around here. I'd say things are looking up.

Back to Reality

Well now that the reality of becoming a grandfather has sunk in, I'm back in the "rut" of things. After a three and a half days hiatus from work I was back at the mad house today. Nothing has changed. Not like I really thought it would, but one can wish, right? Overall the day was actually good. Atilla the Hun was not there for most of the day, so I had the office almost to myself the biggest part of the day. Most of my customers I enjoy, and I got to show off Rylan's picture and hear all the oohs and ahs. The weekend was great, I saw all of my kids on father's day, and shared a good portion of the afternoon with my three youngest. The boys were to stay a few days, but they opted to go stay with their sister for a few days and I will get them back later in the week.

DJ called in the afternoon and shared a little bad news, financial bad news, nothing I really want to go into here. But it is nothing that we can not weather, we always do. Just makes things a little tighter than what we already are. But what is money? Just something to make us stress out about. We don't really have much of it so why let it get me down? I am sure it will in a few weeks when things begin to come due and we can not pay the bills, but for now I will stick my head in the sand and avoid reality like I normally do.

See, I told you it was back to reality. Well my reality anyway.

And yes, I will have more pics later in the week of my grandson.

Lack of Money Not Lack of Fun

In my blog you read of places we go and some of the sites around town, well over at my new blog (yes, I need to get a life) I will be posting pictures of the places I talk about on here so pop on over and check out Around the "Nati!

There never seems to be enough time or money to do the things that we really want to do. With DJ being laid off and just starting out on his new business, not to mention the soaring gas prices, money is tight. So instead of going away for the weekend, we opted to hang around closer to home for the holiday.

After work today, Mama D is having her annual summer kick off party. Complete with burgers, dogs, metts, brauts and of course the beautiful in ground pool. For those of us that so indulge, alcohol will also be provided. With the weather forecast saying it is going to reach the high 80's I am sure both the pool and the beer will be the hot items this year.

Tomorrow we are traveling east of Cincinnati into Hillsboro to picnic with my cousin and his family. Again, burgers, dogs, metts.... will be the main course and of course potato salad. DJ will be fixing that up today to take to share. He was up last night baking banana bread, pound cake and brownies as well. He was so in his element last night. I love watching him cook. He enjoys it so much.

Then Monday we might just hop downtown Cincinnati for a few hours and take in nation's longest running culinary arts festival, the Taste of Cincinnati. Which of course means more food to ingest.

So even though we are not heading to a quiet secluded spot miles away from home like I wanted to do for the holiday weekend, we are still looking to enjoy the first weekend of summer.

Our wallet may not be bulging, but after this weekend our mid-section will be!