My blogging that is.  Not much to yammer on about in quite some time.  And you know it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged regularly when I had to struggle to remember my blog password.  How sad is that! 

So here’s what’s doing in my land.  Obi-Wan finishes school tomorrow so I’m flying up this evening to see him graduate tomorrow and then we are off to my sister’s house to spend Thanksgiving with her family and my parents.  Very excited to see the baby nieces.  And everyone else too for that matter.  It’s not all about the munchkins but they are darn cute.

I’m grateful that Obi-Wan will be returning home full-time again after not living in this house since March.  It’s been a long haul but it could have been much worse.  We were lucky that he was able to fly home about every 4-6 weeks so it certainly was more tolerable than an actual deployment.  The suck was the amount of airfare debt we accrued, on top of my lack of employment, but it was worth it to see him.

The paws are as nutty as ever.  It’s interesting working from home now b/c most of my work schedule up until now has involved me being home at least 3 days a week and being on conference calls or doing online training and sometimes Yellow Dog likes to bark at the most inconvenient times.  I quickly learned where the mute button was on my phone so that no one else is on the receiving end of her crankiness.  Girl just likes to wolf and grab attention.  Of course, many times, I flat out bribed them both with treats to keep them quiet.

The job is going well so far.  Each week, I’ve spent a few days training with other people in the field and learning.  On the days I’m home, I’m glued to my laptop learning online.  In January, I’ll be let loose on my own probably to start going to customer appointments so that will be interesting/exciting/who knows.

Last week, I was up in DC for a few days training with people up there and had a blast.  I never spent much time in DC when I lived in MD but it’s a great town, if you can stand the rude/crazy/hectic people and lifestyle up there.  The suck of that trip was having to drive in and out of DC without getting lost and not getting nailed by some incoherent cab driver or plain old rude DC driver.  Those people are just freaking nuts!

Speaking of getting lost, the week before, I had to go up to DC for some training and did manage to get lost … AT NIGHT … no less.  I was driving up from VA and thought I understood my directions well, but apparently I can’t follow directions too well.  I jumped off on the wrong bridge exit, spent 10 minutes driving around in circles courtesy of being stuck in too many right hand turn lanes and ended up by the Watergate Hotel, which was nowhere near where I needed to be.  So, after having a mini-panic attack, I stumbled upon a gas station in that neck o’woods and called the hotel.  I will be eternally grateful and indebted to the hotel desk clerk who talked me down off the psycho ledge, and navigated me over the phone to the hotel.  The only issue was that despite his best attempts at getting this suburban girl across DC, stupid old me got confused not once, but twice going around Dupont Circle.  Yes, I’ve decided I loathe traffic circles and do not care to be in them ever again.  After the second time, he told me to pull over where I was (across from a restaurant in a well lit area at least) and he told me he would come get me in 10 minutes.  You see folks, I was a mere few minutes away from my destination but my directionally challenged self couldn’t manage another go round the circle by myself.  So I waited and he came, got into my car and drove me to the hotel.  Now that scenario could have gone wrong 1,000 ways from Sunday if he turned out to be a creep or violent criminal so I would say not to do that again, but he really saved me and I’m writing this hotel the most glowing of reviews on Trip Advisor because of that customer service.

So, note to self, must have GPS for future DC endeavors.

Well, that’s enough yammering for now.  Must get back to work on my work laptop and prepare to head out of here later this evening.  Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Big things are happening in the Salty household.  I got a new job and started today.  2009 has been a crazy roller coaster employment-wise and things were looking bleak after being laid off.  After spending 2 months at the part-time job I found back in August, which was at least in my field, I’m moving on once again.  Before I was laid off, I had applied for a job related to my field but different.  Using same skill sets but in a different way.  I was all excited about the possibility of the position and was almost through the interview process when the bottom fell out and the company decided to freeze the position indefinitely.  That was a dark day b/c I was notified at the end of the week that I was laid off so I was in a dark twisty place for a few days.  Poor Obi-Wan tried his hardest to cheer me up but I was pretty damn upset and not seeing a bright future doing anything related to my field anytime soon in this area.

With the part-time job I eventually found, I was pretty happy but financially frustrated.  The pay was pretty low and it has been hard being in a position of not being able to get ahead on debt, let alone being able to invest towards retirement, which we had been doing.  A few weeks ago, however, a bright spot appeared on the horizon.  Company X called quite unexpectedly one day and told me the position was unfrozen and asked if I was still interested.  I said “hells yes” (well not really but something more professional came out articulating said point).  So, after an in-person interview, I landed the job.  It was hard to break it to my part-time boss b/c I love her to pieces and have a lot of respect for her.  And I felt completely nuts leaving a job after only holding it for 2 months.  I usually at least stick it out for 3 or 4 years until the Navy dictates otherwise.  But she was very understanding about why I needed to take it, which aside from financial reasons, it was something I was pursuing long before part-time job came into being.

So, new job started today, lots to learn and new quality of life to embrace.  You see, the best part is it is a home-based position.  I will work from home but basically be traveling 4 days a week, mostly local, to the customers’ offices to train them on our research products.  They set me up with computer equipment and … hold onto your hats … a Crackberry.   Yes, I’m finally going to be joining the land of Crackberry users, for better or worse.  Need to be able to communicate with customers by ALL possible means wherever I am.  The cool part is the paws will like mommy being home a bit more and on the days I’m not traveling, I can be working in mah jammies!

In other news, Obi-Wan has about 4 weeks left at school in RI before finally coming home and living here again.  It’s been a long 7 months of him living in another state.  Not that it’s as bad as a deployment obviously.  Hell, we’ve been able to see each other just about once a month for the most part.  But I miss him living here and coming home to him every day.  It’s tired and I’m tired of being solo here.  Of course, then he joins his ship and we get back into that crazy lifestyle.

And lest anyone think things have been uber smooth here, why just this morning, another visit from Murphy started my day off just right.  Dropped the car off to get the annual Virginia inspection and very unexpectedly, they called to tell me something massive needed repairing that would cost me about $700.  Yeah, $700.  Like I have this money growing on trees somewhere with my part-time job and all.  New job income with much higher salary doesn’t kick in until next month.  So, thank God for mommies b/c mine came to the rescue and helped us out.  Would have been seriously screwed otherwise.

So that in a long nutshell is what’s doing around here!

After reading this blog post by a fellow blogger, it reminded me of our own scheduling issues of late.  Obi-Wan and I will be celebrating 10 fabulous years of marriage in December and unbeknownst to me, my betrothed was planning a lovely surprise for our anniversary.  Now, he won’t be here for the actual date b/c in true Navy fashion, the ship he is reporting to in early December of course has to get underway for some inexplicable reason.  In any case, he was planning a getaway for us involving a few days in Napa, CA upon his return.  Well those plans got blown to smithereens when he found out a few weeks ago that instead of being gone 10 days in December, they will be out almost the entire month now.  Thanks an f’ing lot Navy.  Not like I expect him to be around for everything significant or anything but 10 years isn’t anything to dismiss either.  And considering he’s been gone for the last 6 months getting educated under your wise tutelage on all things ship related for his next job,  the least you could do is leave him be for a few weeks so we could spend some quality time together before you suck his soul out to sea again for 3 years.  Jeez almighty!  And so, we unplan our plans and look for another time to maybe hopefully potentially be able to celebrate surviving this roller coaster lifestyle issued by the U.S. government.

All I can say is I’m ready for the first frost to hit at this point.  I feel like this summer has been the summer of endless yard work, thus exhausting the crap out of me.  B/c of the whole being laid off nonsense that happened in May, instead of having healthy young teenagers mowing and edging my lawn all summer, it’s been yours truly here doing the dirty work to avoid the expense.  And I gotta tell ya, I’m over it.  It’s been blistering hot most of the summer here so mowing has been beastly and I feel like it’s become my nemesis.  While I would normally welcome a good soaking rain to help nourish my yard, I was secretly hoping for droughts this summer so it would just die and I wouldn’t have to cut it.  Sad to say, but it’s true.

Today, I was on a rampage to just get some yard work done.  Only a tiny bit of mowing some sections of the yard that I didn’t get to b/c of an inconvenient storm that happened the other night.  Then I had to get some dirt from the “garden that once was” (long story but it died) to fill in some holes left in the front lawn but a rock delivery machine the other day (another long story involving new landscaping in front flower bed).  After throwing some dirt on said holes and tossing some grass seed, I decided to clean the hot tub out and get it ready for use again.  We haven’t used it since winter and I normally don’t mess with it when he’s gone but my muscles are 10 shades of an aching mess right now from all the said yard work and working out and hot twisty pretzel yoga.  Well I learned a new appreciation for Obi-Wan’s labor around the yard and all man chores outside today b/c cleaning that hot tub kicked my butt.  Of course it didn’t help that I had done an hour of cardio at the gym before embarking on this chore.  In any case, after removing every drop of water, scrubbing the bejesus out of it and then filling it back up, I’m plum tuckered.  I think I’ve decided that yard work and outside man chores are just not “my thing.”  I don’t know how Obi-Wan has the energy to take care of all things outside b/c it kicks my butt.  Of course, this is on top of the inside lady chores that I have to handle on a weekly basis.  Mother of pearl, I’m done in.  I’m not one to rush the summer along but I’m ready to not have to do outside man chores anymore.  My body is done!

I’m standing outside last night by the pool waiting for the paws to do their last call potty before bed and I hear something splash into the pool to the left of me.  It’s dark so I can’t see anything except a shape of something swimming really fast.  I ran into the house and grabbed a flashlight and went back out to the pool, and there was a healthy-sized frog swimming in mah pool.  This isn’t the first frog I’ve seen in the pool but usually when I see them, they are dead and floating in the skimmer basket.  Not a pretty sight I must say and just one more thing to creep me out.  I left Mr./Mrs. Froggy alone and went in for the night.  I was hoping that if it jumped in, it would surely jump back out at some point.

Well this morning, I let the paws out for their first potty break of the day and immediately I hear a splash in the pool.  The damn frog went back in.  Who does this frog thing it is?  I mean really!  So I went and got the pool net hoping to scoop it out and at least get it into the grass to go off and join its other frog friends.  But oh no … froggy’s got mad swim skills and was too quick for the net.  This frog must have been the equivalent of Michael Phelps in the frog world.  I threw my hands up and wished it luck swimming around and hoped that it would find its way out again before I got home.

Here’s a picture of the little devil hanging around the bottom of the deep end.

Luckily, it escaped the pool of its own free will by the time I got home from work today.  I wasn’t really looking forward to going to battle with the frog.

Well … Murphy  made an appearance around the old Salty house last week.  Nothing catastrophic but something that definitely needs to be fixed in the near future.  Apparently while the air conditioning repair guy was at the house last week doing routine maintenance on the system, he noticed that the condensate line that runs from the house to the outside of the house was clogged.  This prohibits condensation from draining from the A/C and if it backs up, you find yourself with a potentially overloaded tray of water where your system is.  Mine is in the attic so if the tray overflowed, I could have had a serious water issue in my attic.  Nevertheless, the trusty repairman saved the day and unclogged the line … that is after he realized that the line as it comes out of the house actually comes out below ground.  Big no no.  Not sure what happened in the house history that it came out below ground but in any case, it can’t drain if it’s underground b/c it hits the lovely Virginia clay that is the soil composition around here.  So, a temporary fix was put in the place in the form of a hole in the ground on the side of the house to allow it to drain, but the pipes need to be relocated above ground to allow proper drainage.  And of course, in true Navy fashion, Obi-Wan is several states away in school while all this excitement is happening.

I’m really thinking that the military should just include as standard issue a general contractor’s license to all spouses so that when this crap happens, we can just fix it ourselves and get it done.  It’s not like easy stuff breaks or malfunctions when he’s gone either.  It’s always something that is way over my head or way out of my physical realm of being able to fix.  I mean honestly, I think we should all have to get a mandatory GCL or something.  What do you think? 

Here’s the lovely hole and pipes in question.  The two little white pipes sticking out are the problem.

Okay not really but it sure seemed that way.  One of my close friends from high school visited me this weekend from out of state and she and I share a love of hip hop music and dancing and all that.  In our 20’s, we could be found whooping it up old school style at clubs on the weekends.  So, when I found out there was an old school hip hop concert in Richmond this weekend, I called her up and said girl we gotta go.  Yesterday, we drove up to Richmond and proceeded to navigate the sea of people gathering for the concert.  Mind you, we were very much in the minority but we didn’t care.  We were there to have a good time and listen to some good music and racial lines be damned.  Neither one of us grew up with any sort of prejudicial attitudes about any people and where we went to school was pretty diverse.  We both have a variety of friends of all backgrounds.

As we parked our lawn chairs and proceeded to get comfy, I have to say we definitely got some looks from the crowd.  I fully expected there to be more white people in the crowd b/c it’s not like we are the only ones that listen to rap and hip hop … but perhaps we were some of the only ones that had the balls to show up.  Like I said, we didn’t care.  We’re all people just coming to watch a good concert.  One girl approached us as we were sitting there and delicately started asking us questions like what performers were our favorite and how we got interested in that kind of music, etc.  I think she was genuinely shocked that two white girls would show up to a concert where we were clearly in the minority.  We told her “hey, we like this music, we grew up listening to it and why not come.”

As one of the groups performing came on, we stood up and started dancing along with everyone else.  That really got some looks.  They probably thought “look at the crazy white girls trying to dance here.”  But I’ll say this … we got several compliments from some of the guys around telling us we were kickin’ it good.  I’m not saying we were breaking it down like So You Think You Can Dance or anything but rhythmically challenged we ain’t.  I didn’t see anyone there doing anything different from what we were doing so I felt like were representing pretty well. 

It was just funny to us because like I said, we didn’t think it was that big of a deal to go to the concert but I wonder if there are some old attitudes around in this area.  I definitely sensed some people probably thought we shouldn’t have been there but for the most part, it was all good and friendly.  We were talking to people around us and just having a fun time.

Maybe we were completely nuts to go to the concert buy hey, we had a blast and don’t regret it at all.

That would be me.  Last week, one of my interviews proved fruitful and I was offered a part-time job at a local law library.  I’m really excited for many reasons:  a) the fact that I have a job in my field; b) that it’s part-time and for now we can afford that; and c) the hours are afternoon hours so I don’t have to set an alarm.  Woohoo on the 3rd one there.  Of course the paws are my daily alarm and they pretty much wake me up between 6 and 6:30 most days.  But the fact that I don’t have to get my butt out of bed at o’dark 30 to hit the gym and run around like a nut working 40 hours a week for a while makes me a happy camper.  The gravy on the situation is that I don’t start until the first week of August so I have another month off and I’ll actually be able to enjoy this month b/c I won’t be stressing out about finding a job and killing myself to meet the unemployment rules of applying for a minimum of x amount of jobs per week.  That was more stressful than the fact that I was out of work.  Trying to find jobs in my field to apply for every week just to get unemployment benefits was a bear.  So that’s the skinny on that situation.

All these job interviews have got me a bit wound up now.  The one that has me the most spun up is a part-time position in a public library and one of the interview components is to plan and present a storytime.  That doesn’t sound like much to freak out about but when you factor in that a) I have no experience with this and b) I’m used to working with adults, not kids.  I’m headed off to the local public library closest to me this morning to observe a storytime and see what’s involved and hopefully talk to the presenter to get some tips.  My library background never included any of this b/c I’ve always worked in law firms or university libraries so this whole storytime thing is freaking me out.  I thought storytime was simply someone reading a story in the library.  Considering I haven’t been to storytime however since I was probably 5, things have changed.   Apparently there’s a whole programming component that takes a lot of time to prepare and be tailored to the audience and might include finger puppets, flannelboards and other things that I’ve never used or worked with.  Need to talk myself down off the freakout ledge now and get to prepping.

I know, quirky post title but still appropriate.  After the famine of the last 6-7 weeks on the job front, I got 3, yes 3, phone calls today to schedule interviews.  And for jobs in my field, which is way cooler.  I have about 10 applications out there right now and I hadn’t heard a peep yet so I was about to give up hope.  But after talking to a friend, she talked me down off the ledge and explained to me that some of the places I had applied to have longer processes for interviewing and reviewing applications so I’m off the ledge for now.  Anyhoo, between 4:00 and 5:30, I got these 3 phone calls and was about to jump out of my chair or pee myself, not sure which.  I couldn’t believe that I got 3 in one day.  After the 3rd, I fully expected a sweepstakes person to show up at my front door and tell me I had won something, although that’s really not plausible b/c I don’t participate in those things.  I was so wound up that I decided to do 40 laps in my pool to take off some of the nervous holy crap energy that had seeped into my system.  I have much prep work to do before these interviews now and need to get up to speed on some things but I’m excited that there are at least some prospects out there.