Saturday, February 14, 2009

Not from the Lack of Trying!

Well, I finally did it! I GOT A JOB!! It's going to be awesome! Two and a half years without health insurance, I finally land a job that has awesome health benefits. So I'm thinking, what kind of job has awesome health benefits and is something that I would love to do?? Work in a hospital would be perfect. Okay, so I put in 20 job applications to work in the hospitals that are close to home. Well, none of them worked out. My resume wasn't the best...although, it looks awesome, if I do say so myself...But that's just the asthetics of it....not the meat and potatoes...the job history. See, in Tulsa, the only way to get a decent paying job is to go through a temp agency. Now, while that's not a bad thing, it doesn't look great on a resume. It looks like you were desperate to get a job...which I have to admit, I was! Anyway, I decided to expand my job search and see what was in the city. I'm not crazy about the drive and I'm not really comfortable in the city but well, I needed a job and if the pay was enough, I was okay with drive enough to take the job....Okay, so to make a long story short, I got a call center position for BJC!!! Oh, that's Barnes Jewish Hospital for those who don't know that! Anyway, it's a job that will not only give me the best health benefits that I have EVER had!!! It's also enough money so that Tony and I might be able to move out of my mom and George's rental house basement and get our own place!!!! I'm soo excited!!!! I think Life is starting to get a little better. I'm so tired of things not going our way. I have learned a lot from this experience though...not only does it pay to have patience...I am not the type of person that should be a homemaker. I am not homemaker material...I HATE it! I have also learned where i stand with my family. It's hard to explain what it's like to be the cause of some contention in the family especially when they really don't understand what is going on in our lives...but when you think about it, they really don't need to know what's going on in our everday lives. They just need to accept people for who they are and love them for who they are....not be so blasted judgmental. They know who I'm talking about and thats all that I'm going to say on that subject. All I really want them to know is that they can just leave me alone and leave my mother alone as well. Okay, I've said my piece and now it's time to move on.

So I'm thinking about doing a RAK...you know, a random act of kindness....See how many people are actually reading my blog!!! HEHE!!! So I have a ton of picture frames and right now I have a few days where I can actually make one. Now, I don't know how many of you have seen my picture frames, but they are pretty freakin cute! So, leave a comment on my blog and I will randomly pick someone and make them a picture frame. It's that simple! Just leave a comment and then we will chat a bit about what you want your frame to look like. I will then make it and send it to you or bring it to your house! I think I will give you until Feb. 28th. So that's what, two weeks! ENJOY!!!

Okay so I'm gonna run now. I promise that I will blog more when I have time!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

30 Applications and still nothing

So today I will fill out my 30th application for a job and still nothing has come of it. I did contact the county....that's the job that I really want, and they are just now looking at applications this week and next week. Oh, I hope I get that job! Not only is the pay perfect, but I get to get the heck out of Grandma's house. We love staying here and don't want to hurt Grandma's feelings, she already thinks that we aren't happy here because my mom told her that Tony and I are going to move out, but we are ready to be on our own again. I guess we kind of are here. I mean, we live in the basement and I rarely go upstairs. I have everything I pretty much need downstairs. I pretty much go upstairs for food and water. That's pretty much it.

You know, I don't really have much to say today....shocking isn't it! I think I'll just go on my merry little way today. Going to go and look for more jobs to apply for!! Wish me luck!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

A funny!

Okay, so I know that I already blogged today, but this is just too funny! I found it searching for beading blogs....Hope you enjoy it! Oh, I found it on http://prettykittydogmoonjewelry.blogspot.com/

Have a great night!

Tiffany


Well basically it's barely past Christmas and you haven't even gotten your act together in ANY way...the paper is probably still on the floor and, as in this photo I borrowed from myspace, you still have friends hanging out at your izzle'. HOWEVER! That does not mean you don't have to fulfill your duties etiquette-wise! One of which is writing proper thank you notes! You really ought to, don't you agree?


Here is a handy guide to help you out if you are, in any way, confused as to the proper way to thank your friends and relatives for those cool gifts they sent your way just last week or so.

First:

What a proper thank you note is NOT:

1) A phone call wherein you remark briefly upon the nice statuette/bank made of some strange paste, depicting Benjamin Franklin holding a kite which your cousin Alfred seemed to think was right down your alley. Making this a really short phone call is even worse when you say you have to go and you are really busy doing the laundry, "goodbye". Rudeness personified!

2) A piece of line paper raggedly torn from your kid's school notebook, which you then write upon using a crayon or a pencil stub thanking your great aunt Irma for the ribbon candy she sent which you actually gave her last year (recycling is "big" in your family-- sometimes too big!--oops). Adding stickers or stars to the paper and an A+! sign doesn't make it all better, either.

3) A store bought card with "Thank You" printed on the front in tacky script, wherein you have written : "Thank you for the gift" and signed your name. This is way too generic and a good example of what NOT to do , in the sense that it is suggested that you always name the present which you have received, and describe why you like it, even if it is a check. If it is a check, you can tell the person who gave it to you what you plan to buy with it. Or how you plan to save for something special with it, like for example college, or that cool car, the DeLorean from the movie "Back to the Future". We ALL want that car! Frankly some of us want it more than we want college!


The above are all good examples of incorrect ways to thank people who have actually made the effort to send you something.


Here, in a form slightly similar to a Mad Lib (by which I mean, I filled in the blanks, where the blanks would appear in each sentence of a Mad Lib, by darkening the nouns and adjectives which I chose arbitrarily for my example, so that all YOU have to do is remove them and substitute appropriately) is a perfect thank you note, with extra explanations as well, where necessary.

Dear Uncle Harry, substitute YOUR relative's name: get it? This isn't even my relative; I just made Uncle Harry up for the heck of it


I was so delighted to receive the fabulous green wastebasket from you for Christmas!
note what I have done here:

1) I have "celebrated and honored the gift by calling it "fabulous"


2) I have actually identified it specifically by naming its color, "green", so that Uncle Harry knows I actually admired it closely enough to notice the color


3) I have named what the item is, a "wastebasket". All too often people make the grievous error of not naming the gift which they have received. This is actually really naughty in the world of etiquette. I don't know why, but if you got a wastebasket from Uncle Harry, you must name it--speak the word or you have really blown it!

I know that I will use this great wastebasket a LOT, as I cannot help but make so many spelling errors while writing my novel about "Pirate Joe", the most scurrilous Pirate ever to ride the High Seas!

note what I have done here:

I have extolled the wastebasket's purpose. You are allowed to lie a bit (white lies are all right in situations like this, as you did not request this wastebasket--possibly you don't even like green, or you use spellcheck all the time, or you already have a paper shredder or a different wastebasket you are unnaturally attached to, and you have no intention of using this green wastebasket at all, ever). You MUST praise the intended purpose of the gift in your thank you note. I have added extra interest, for Uncle Harry's benefit, by making up a novel which he can then imagine I am writing, about "Pirate Joe".

Now that I have done this, I actually think may write this novel because I don't have anything else I am doing. So hey, why not? Don't steal my idea. I will be checking up on all of you periodically.

Now you insert what the family is doing. This is the "general part" of the letter and an excellent addition to a good thank you note. A person who has sent a gift may or may not want to have to read about your family, but it is polite to write a brief sentence or two about the recent goings on chez vous.

We have been enjoying really weird weather here. It's so gross! I was just beginning to think we were going to have to dig a tunnel through the snow to get to the grocery store when all of a sudden it rained a ton, and now it's just a big pile of muddy grass and pools of water! What's the deal with that?!!!

note: As you can see by the last paragraph, I have lost interest with this entry. Maybe you can do better. I think you get the idea, at least. Just blather on a bit.


Uncle Harry (repeating name is optional), You are just the BEST! I just LOVE this great green wastebasket!

Repeating the name of the item which you received is really important, right at the end of the letter.


I hope we get to see you very soon,

you always add something along these lines even if you don't mean it, even slightly


love,
or
Very Truly Yours,

or something along those lines to finish the thank you note, because that is imperative,

Jeannie


note: Use the name the person knows you by, not your new name you have been using for the last 15 years, such Meredith or Rafe or whatever you changed it to, because you thought it sounded classier not that that is wrong or anything. It is just confusing for the people who knew you before you changed it

And there you have it! Voila! A great thank you note, all hand cobbled and then smoothed over to perfection for you! Use it with my best wishes! I swear I did my best for you. Any questions? All will be carefully considered and great attempts will be made to explain.

Happy New Years!!

Wow!! I am so glad that the new year is here. This year will definitely be better than last year. I don't think it could get worse...although mom says that it can. I'm trying not to think about that.

We had a fun New Years Eve. Probably more fun than I've had in a long time. Grandma went to spend the night at Marty and Cindy's. We don't know how that went but judging Grandma's attitude....probably not that well. But alas, the Farhners had fun at least. We were all going to go to a church members house for the night but decided that we just wanted to stay home and veg. And that's just what we did. We went out and bought a bunch of junk food and snacks and drinks and shrimp...all kinds of goodies!!! We watched movies, ate pizza from Papa Murpheys, and just chilled. It was fun though. It was a no stress holiday!!! I like those!!!!!

Ah!!! Before I forget I got another great deal that I am just thrilled about!!! We were at Walgreens last night...George was trying to find his Wild Cherry Pepsi...his worst addiction....and I noticed that Redbox sells previewed movies for like $7. I decided to check out what they had....Tony and I are slowly rebuilding our movie collection...they had Hancock!!! Tony and I really wanted to see that...we love the action/superhero movies. Needless to say, I snatched that sucker up! It was awesome! A great movie.....not what we expected by any stretch but it was great! We liked it anyway.

So back to the New Years eve bash! Yeah...whatever. Tony and I were going to go to First Night in the City but he had to be at work at 7:30 in the morning....I'm not one for going out on new Years anyway but we wanted to go but ended up doing exactly what we wanted to...spending time with each other and our parents. Trying to figure out how this year is going to completely rock!! We have come up with some resolutions that I think will totally make this year better than last. But those resolutions are not going to be listed on this particular blog entry...maybe tomorrow!

So I'm going to go and read some more...tomorrow is going to be an early day...I have to go and meet with Workforce Development about my applications and stuff....shouldn't take to long and then we get our food stamps renewed....so that's a positive thing! Okay, well Good night for now!!!

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

7 stores to find 1 thing

Yesterday Tony had the day off so we decided that we wanted to go out and enjoy our time together. He spent the morning at the VA...wasn't he just so lucky! When he got home, we decided that we wanted to spend the evening out!

Before I go much further, I have to say that we are Harry Potter fanatics...okay, well, I guess I should say that I am. We are also game fanatics. We love to play games. We have a few in our collection but not nearly as many as we want.

Anyway, I'm rambling...we decided that we wanted the Scene It! Harry Potter game. We saw it at WalMart before Christmas on the clearance rack. We were all about it but didn't have any money at the time. So we got some money for christmas and decided that that was what we wanted. We went to Walmart, Target, Tuesday Mornings, Toys R Us, Borders, Slackers at the Mall, and then Slackers by Walmart in O'Fallon. By the time we made it to the last store, I was just about out of hope....when there it was in all it's glory....Scene It! Harry Potter...oh my goodness, I can't even begin to tell you how excited we were! It was like Christmas all over again!

Now some of you don't know the story of our stolen movies. We were living with this guy...who we thought was a good friend. Tony and I came home for a court date and got a phone call from our roommate that he was moving out because he couldn't afford rent anymore. So here we are with 75% of our stuff in his apartment and it's about to go bye bye. Well, to make a very long and dramatic story short, he stole all of our DVDs...which we had a huge collection of...I've been collecting movies for years. He also stole our playstation 2, all of our games for that, and our TV that was only a year and a half old. So now we are slowly building our collection back up. We had over 200 movies and we now have 13 or so. We have a long way to go and it's going to be a very slow process but we are getting there.

So when we were at Slackers....which is a place that sells new and used videos, games, and things like that....we found the first three Harry Potter movies in widescreen...which I like better than full screen...they were also the first editions. We were very excited. And on top of that, they were only $6 a piece...how sweet is that!!!

So needless to say we had a great night last night. It was a lot of fun. It was almost like a scavenger hunt. All that for just a game...but it was fun and we got to spend lots of time together....I'm all about that!

I admit it!

Okay, so have you ever looked at someone else's life and thought, wow...why can't mine be that great??? I don't know what it is about some of my family members but they just seem to have it all and it makes me jealous. I know that probably isn't the right way to be. I try not to think about it but sometimes it just slaps me in the face. I know that what appears to be on the outside isn't always how it is for real. Trust me do I ever understand that. It's like someone telling you that they have a check made out to you for a million dollars and then it turns out that that isn't true....Oh wait...I have had that happen...hhhmmm..maybe I do know something about this.

Looking back on this year...there has been some major crap happen in Tony and I's life. We started the year off rocky. Neither of us had decent jobs. I had to quit mine so that I could be home for Grandpa's funeral. I knew that it was important for me to be there. I was really close to him. I felt like he was the only constant man in my life...that is until I met Tony. I don't blame my mom for that. She's had it rough too but to lose the only man that has consistenly been there for me throughout everything...it was hard....crap...who am I kidding....it's still hard. Although it is a little easier with Tony around.

Let's see...what else happened this year...Oh yeah, we almost got evicted twice. I worked in fast food for the first time in my entire life....will NEVER do that again. I had my dream job working in a scrapbook store but then got laid off. I became homeless. The state of MO and OK took child support out of my husband's check at the same time. He literally brought home less than $200 every two weeks. Some of my family members have made life a little hellish. I was promised a whole lot of things by someone that I trusted dearly to have that thrown in my face. All of my DVD's, playstation 2 games, PS2 and my TV got stolen. Almost lost most of our stuff because our roommate bailed out on us. Yeah...this year has completely sucked. But, we did get to come home. That's something we wanted to do more than anything. Tony will be the first to tell you, the two years that we spent in Tulsa were harder than the 4 he spent in the Navy. Yeah....that's how tough it was.

I can't believe that this year is almost over. In a way I'm very glad for this new year to come...It couldn't be any worse than this year. We are now back in MO and loving every minute of it. I have some wonderful hobbies that I thoroughly enjoy. They are something that my mom and I love to do so we can spend time together working on craft projects. My mom and I have discovered the love of jewelry making...beading some would call it. A lot of fond memories are had while mom and I are working on different projects. It's been fun. I have discovered that even though things had been really hard in Tulsa, there is something to be said about coming home.

I'm glad to be back in Missouri. I am glad to be able to spend a lot of time with my Grandma...this is something that I will treasure. I have a great relationship with her...no matter what some of the family says. I love my Grandma dearly. She's got it rough...it's gotta be just horrible to not be able to remember something and not know that you can't remember it. I can't imagine what that's like. Just as I can't imagine what my life would be like if I didn't have this time to spend with her. Sure things can get a little rough...hello...does the term "alternate reality" mean anything to anyone??? But here's the thing...I know more about my grandma and have experienced more than any other family member...other than my mom and george. I can tell my kids...if i have any...what a fabulous lady their great grandma was.

So while some of my family members have a hard time with Tony and I being here....i don't really care what you think. I love my Grandmother. I would never do anything to hurt her.

Okay, off of that subject. It's like 3am and I really need to go to bed. It's going to be another long day. Thanks for letting me vent!! Sorry if my ramblings are annoying but hey, it is my blog!

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!!

Wow!! What a great Christmas it was this year!!! I had the most fun buying Tony his gifts. Mom's was fun and so was George's!! It's hard to believe that this year is almost over! With Christmas here it makes you think about things a little different. Tony and I went to lunch with my dad yesterday and we had a blast!!! It was a ton of fun. We went to Olive Garden and just spent time laughing and enjoying each other's company. I have to admit, I was a little nervous. I mean, I don't really know him well and that just makes me a little nervous. Luckily Tony had the day off and we went together. I have such a wonderful husband!!! Anyway, we gave my dad his present, a little stuffed dog that sings Jingle Bells and wags his tail and flops his ears...really funny and cute!! It was a great time!!!

We got mom some beads and some socks and some Bath and Body Works soaps...she likes those, and one big ugly bead. I wish we could have gotten her more but we just didn't have the money this year.

We got grandma some PJ's that are just soo soft and are going to be really cute on her!!!

We got George a really funny gift....we got a big box and put all kinds of different potatoes....He says that he could eat potatoes any day of the week....and be a happy camper so Tony and I took that to heart and got him a 10lb sack of potatoes...three really huge potatoes that we found at Dierbergs...three boxes of dehydrated potatoes...and a family size bag of Cheetos!! It was hilarious!!!

Tony got some clothes and a jacket. A whole bunch of stuff in his stocking from Santa...apparently he was a good boy!!! I gave him some US Navy fleece that we are going to make into a blanket for him...we've been looking for that for the last 2-3 years and finally found it here!! YAY!!! Oh yeah, and we can't forget the socks....he gets them every year...it's a tradition!

I got a ton of stuff this year. I got a beautiful live tree and new ornaments that I totally love. I got a beautiful new wreath that mom and I made. I got some new makeup and a supergirl keychain. I got some new beads from grandma!!! I totally love beads!!! Santa brought me all kinds of fun goodies. I got a new hoodie that is fabulous!!! It's got eeyore on it...he's my favorite! I know i got more but I can't remember what it was!!!

It was just a fun Christmas. Grandma went to Marty and Cindy's for the day so we are Grandma free but she loves going over there and the kids love to see her! It's just a fabulous day!

Hope you are having a great one as well!! We love you all!! Merry Christmas!!!!