Last summer, I searched for a job. For two months, I watched websites like a hawk, applied to everything I was even remotely qualified for, and tailored resumes and cover letters to match each specific job description.
I got nothing. A few smattered interviews, some better than others, but in the end ... nothing worked out.
Finally, just before I received my last paycheck from DPCS, I got a job making sandwiches at a deli.
It was better than nothing, and I took it the way a starving man might take a plate full of lima beans. Sorta like "AWESOME, I'M NOT GONNA DIE!" and "BLEACGHHH, DO I REALLY HAVE TO EAT THIS CRAP?!" all at the same time. It turned out to be a lot of fun ... great people, good pay, free food ... but when I was offered the library worker position at NMES, I accepted immediately.
And then got laid off.
This summer, I began searching for a job ... again. I started yesterday, to be precise. Amidst hunting for elusive ROE's that still have yet to be found and cleaning dog hair off carpets and out of crevices, I made time to send off no less than 15 applications. I didn't tailor much of anything, but whipped them out between emptying drawers and changing loads of laundry.
But today, two of them panned out. At least so far.
Because life can change at any minute, you know ... ;)
First, I'll be delivering papers for the Gleaner ... a long route in Marysville that will net me more in one month than writing does in six. I'll be getting some much-needed exercise and will still have evenings and weekends free to spend with Nate. If I stick with it, I will also earn some extra $$$ to take a few French courses at the university next fall. Of course, I am not much of a morning person ... do they make water backpacks that you can put coffee in???
Second, I'll be painting/cleaning classrooms at FHS with Spruce Grove Building Cleaners. It's full-time, days only, well above minimum wage, and should last right into August! More exercise for me, and weekends and evenings still free.
In the end, I'll actually be making more than I make during the school year, which is great since we are moving upstairs in less than a week.
Happy, happy, happy!
(In the best possible way.)
Of course, everything could be different tomorrow. But I will enjoy today's blessings with a smile. I will keep drawing, keep writing, keep trusting.
827 days to go.
Tuesday 25 June 2013
Thursday 20 June 2013
Day 168: Prayer & Bumps in the Road
I vividly remember my first experience with real, intercessory prayer.
When I was a child, my little sister lost a toy in the backyard. It was only a cheap Happy Meal toy, a plastic figurine of Bambi with movable legs. But our family was far from wealthy (in material possessions at least) and she loved that toy.
She prayed that she would find it. Every night, after the books had been read and our teeth brushed, she would kneel by our worn couch and pray for that toy. Fall and winter came and went. Then spring, and the lawn grew long enough for mowing. One day, my father came into the house, smelling of freshly cut grass, his forehead wet with sweat.
He was holding the toy.
Needless to say, my sister was overjoyed and welcomed a somewhat-worse-for-the-wear Bambi back into the playroom with open arms. But I was jealous.
"Why don't my prayers always get answered?" I asked. My dad said that maybe my sister had a special gift, the gift of faith. God listened to her because she was a child with a pure heart.
Faith comes more easily to some than to others, and being a firstborn, I wanted it too. But firstborns are also clever and wily and driven to succeed - qualities not always compatible with childlike faith.
The next thing I remember really wanting was to win the Awana Grand Prix. My father had made identical cars for me and my friend, Liane. They were Formula 1 racers, carved from blocks of wood. They had plastic wheels and little Lego men as the drivers. As I watched the cars in the first heat being lined up at the top of the track, I remembered Bambi, and I started to pray.
But halfway through, I changed my prayer.
I knew that God blessed unselfish people, so if I prayed for someone else to win, he might take my selflessness into account and let me win instead.
"Dear God, please help Liane to win," I prayed.
She did.
And I finished almost dead last.
And the moral of the story is...
Be careful what you pray for. Be careful what you say.
Because even if you don't mean it, God is always listening.
Which brings me to today's post.
About two weeks ago, I flippantly remarked to Nathan that I wasn't worried about money any more. "We don't always know where it's coming from, but we always seem to have enough. From now on, I'm just going to trust God with our finances."
Yikes!!! (Too bad my mouth doesn't have an undo button.)
When we got home that night, we got a letter in the mailbox. Our tenants were leaving at the end of the month. It rattled us. Big time. But we looked at our budget and looked at our bills and decided that we could make it on our own. And we moved on.
About a week ago, I got called into the office at school. My hours were being cut, and I needed to decide whether or not this job still worked for me. It rattled me. Big time. But I was being laid off for the summer anyway, and that would give me two lean months to search for another part-time position and/or build a small-but-steady income doing art and writing. And I moved on.
Today, I got called to the office to take a phone call. When the speaker began, "This is the phone call that everybody dreads..." I knew it wasn't going to be good.
And it wasn't.
I was being bumped (someone with more seniority took my position because theirs had been cut). In less time than it takes to brew a cup of coffee on a Keurig, everything changed. Since I am at the bottom of the totem pole, there is no one left for me to bump.
Just like that, I became unemployed.
Tomorrow is my last day at NMES. I will smile and pack my things and drive home for the last time, not knowing what September holds.
But who does? Not a single one of us can see even one second into our future. We make guesses and predictions and hang up our hats on hooks that don't even exist yet.
We know that at any moment, it could all come crashing down. And when it does, will we have regrets? We wouldn't be human if we didn't have at least a few.
But do I regret leaving a permanent, full-time teaching job at Devon Park?
No. I have the highest respect for the dedicated staff who pour their souls into children for just enough money to pay the bills. But I was exhausted from working 60-80 hour weeks and needed time to myself to re-kindle my passion for working with children and youth. And if I had stayed at DPCS, I would never have met or worked with the amazing people who helped me and encouraged me through many dark days this spring, when I had too many puppies and not enough sleep.
Do I regret my education?
Yes. If I had known there were no teaching jobs before I started university, I would have steered my career in a different direction. I regret believing the myth that if I made excellent marks I was guaranteed a good job with a stable income, and I wish I had chosen my degree more wisely. The world is a hard teacher, and maybe if I had struggled more in school, I would have been better prepared to cope with life's curve balls.
Do I know what I am going to do now?
Yes and no. I'm going to continue to apply for jobs. I'm going to write and draw and paint. I'm going to take another look at the ol' budget. I'm going to wait. And I'm going to pray.
Don't cry for me. I had my little pity party in the car already on my way to take Sam to the vet.
And I'll probably have a few more over the next few days.
Maybe it will be okay.
And maybe it won't.
But life will move on either way.
Because even if we think we're doing all right, a major life-change could be less than a second away.
None of us can really make it on our own.
When I was a child, my little sister lost a toy in the backyard. It was only a cheap Happy Meal toy, a plastic figurine of Bambi with movable legs. But our family was far from wealthy (in material possessions at least) and she loved that toy.
She prayed that she would find it. Every night, after the books had been read and our teeth brushed, she would kneel by our worn couch and pray for that toy. Fall and winter came and went. Then spring, and the lawn grew long enough for mowing. One day, my father came into the house, smelling of freshly cut grass, his forehead wet with sweat.
He was holding the toy.
Needless to say, my sister was overjoyed and welcomed a somewhat-worse-for-the-wear Bambi back into the playroom with open arms. But I was jealous.
"Why don't my prayers always get answered?" I asked. My dad said that maybe my sister had a special gift, the gift of faith. God listened to her because she was a child with a pure heart.
Faith comes more easily to some than to others, and being a firstborn, I wanted it too. But firstborns are also clever and wily and driven to succeed - qualities not always compatible with childlike faith.
The next thing I remember really wanting was to win the Awana Grand Prix. My father had made identical cars for me and my friend, Liane. They were Formula 1 racers, carved from blocks of wood. They had plastic wheels and little Lego men as the drivers. As I watched the cars in the first heat being lined up at the top of the track, I remembered Bambi, and I started to pray.
But halfway through, I changed my prayer.
I knew that God blessed unselfish people, so if I prayed for someone else to win, he might take my selflessness into account and let me win instead.
"Dear God, please help Liane to win," I prayed.
She did.
And I finished almost dead last.
And the moral of the story is...
Be careful what you pray for. Be careful what you say.
Because even if you don't mean it, God is always listening.
Which brings me to today's post.
About two weeks ago, I flippantly remarked to Nathan that I wasn't worried about money any more. "We don't always know where it's coming from, but we always seem to have enough. From now on, I'm just going to trust God with our finances."
Yikes!!! (Too bad my mouth doesn't have an undo button.)
When we got home that night, we got a letter in the mailbox. Our tenants were leaving at the end of the month. It rattled us. Big time. But we looked at our budget and looked at our bills and decided that we could make it on our own. And we moved on.
About a week ago, I got called into the office at school. My hours were being cut, and I needed to decide whether or not this job still worked for me. It rattled me. Big time. But I was being laid off for the summer anyway, and that would give me two lean months to search for another part-time position and/or build a small-but-steady income doing art and writing. And I moved on.
Today, I got called to the office to take a phone call. When the speaker began, "This is the phone call that everybody dreads..." I knew it wasn't going to be good.
And it wasn't.
I was being bumped (someone with more seniority took my position because theirs had been cut). In less time than it takes to brew a cup of coffee on a Keurig, everything changed. Since I am at the bottom of the totem pole, there is no one left for me to bump.
Just like that, I became unemployed.
Tomorrow is my last day at NMES. I will smile and pack my things and drive home for the last time, not knowing what September holds.
But who does? Not a single one of us can see even one second into our future. We make guesses and predictions and hang up our hats on hooks that don't even exist yet.
We know that at any moment, it could all come crashing down. And when it does, will we have regrets? We wouldn't be human if we didn't have at least a few.
But do I regret leaving a permanent, full-time teaching job at Devon Park?
No. I have the highest respect for the dedicated staff who pour their souls into children for just enough money to pay the bills. But I was exhausted from working 60-80 hour weeks and needed time to myself to re-kindle my passion for working with children and youth. And if I had stayed at DPCS, I would never have met or worked with the amazing people who helped me and encouraged me through many dark days this spring, when I had too many puppies and not enough sleep.
Do I regret my education?
Yes. If I had known there were no teaching jobs before I started university, I would have steered my career in a different direction. I regret believing the myth that if I made excellent marks I was guaranteed a good job with a stable income, and I wish I had chosen my degree more wisely. The world is a hard teacher, and maybe if I had struggled more in school, I would have been better prepared to cope with life's curve balls.
Do I know what I am going to do now?
Yes and no. I'm going to continue to apply for jobs. I'm going to write and draw and paint. I'm going to take another look at the ol' budget. I'm going to wait. And I'm going to pray.
Don't cry for me. I had my little pity party in the car already on my way to take Sam to the vet.
And I'll probably have a few more over the next few days.
Maybe it will be okay.
And maybe it won't.
But life will move on either way.
Because even if we think we're doing all right, a major life-change could be less than a second away.
None of us can really make it on our own.
Monday 10 June 2013
Day 158: Catching Pee Like a Boss
It's funny how you can convince yourself that you will be somehow less busy when a "life-event" finally ends.
Instead, you find that while you were preoccupied with your own personal problems, the world flowed on around and without you and now you have to swim to catch up.
The last puppy left us on Saturday evening. We enjoyed a brief high and then spent Sunday in shell-shocked silence, only venturing out for a morning coffee and, later, dinner at my parents' house.
Today we stepped back out into the stream. And it's like paddling a canoe up the Saint John River during flood season. We have cleaning and taxes to do; nine weeks of bills to pay; lawns to rake and mow; dogs to exercise, train, and fix; the list goes on and on.
And we're moving. In 3 weeks.
Not far, mind you. In fact, the GPS coordinates will remain identical - as will our street address. We're moving up. Our tenants gave us their month's notice at the beginning of June. I can't blame them - they weren't the ones who adopted two intact dogs and expected everything to be all hunky-dory. We debated posting the apartment on Kijiji and renting it again, but the profit margin is slim after the extra utilities are paid, and we so desperately miss the sun. In almost four years of marriage, we have never lived in a well-lit space, so we decided it was time to give it a try. If it doesn't work, we can always trundle our stuff back down to the basement where we'll live in a damp, sunless pit for another four years.
Just kidding. Sort of.
Of course, moving upstairs is not without its challenges. Library workers in ASD-W don't exactly get paid during summer vacation. So in addition to claiming EI for the first time ever, I'll be trying to build a career out of pencils and paintbrushes - neither of which I have actually held during the last two months.
My first project is due on June 19th - a 30x40 piece for the Isaac's Way Art Auction. Then I have a few long-overdue pieces that need to be finished for friends and family, as well as a few long-term projects, all of which need to be completed in and around as-of-yet-non-existent work that will actually bring in a small but steady income.
It's a gamble. But I'm taking it.
Of course, the furry side of life isn't over just because the pups have all left for their new families. Poor Sammers lost his manhood today. I have never actually seen a dog sob until this afternoon when Sam mourned the loss of that which will never be his again.
Moreover, just because the "factories" are gone doesn't mean the "swimmers" are too. He's primed and loaded for another month, so we got Kia's spay bumped up to next Monday. I am not sure whether she's in heat or whether she just had a UTI, so the vet recommended collecting a urine sample.
Which I did.
Quite skillfully I might add. As Kia squatted beside her favorite bush, I deftly held a zip-lock bag underneath. I got a good quarter-cup and didn't even get my fingers wet. The outside of the bag stayed as dry as the Sahara.
After all the chaos of the last few months, that one perfect bag of urine represented a personal triumph. Its apple-juice-yellow glinted in the sunlight and promised better things to come.
There are many things I cannot do:
- Travel backwards in time
- Play the violin
- Predict whether my summer gamble will pay off
- Leave a carton of ice-cream untouched in my freezer for more than a day
- Finish Treego's black course without sobbing like a little girl
But I can catch pee like a boss.
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