Another Day 54: Life Goes On

 

Holidays and weekends don't count, so today marks 37 days unemployed. Considering I'm getting paid, am I really unemployed ? I guess so. It's going to continue to be a scary place until I have a job and unless the Accenture job comes through, I don't know when that's going to happen. For now, I consider this time off to be an extended vacation. I haven't been unemployed since 1985, so this has been a difficult adjustment.

Last night was rock and roll bingo, so I was able to get out of the house and forget about not having a job for a couple hours. I actually completely forgot about it until about 4 pm ! I had to scramble to do my hair, feed Minnie, put on some makeup and get dressed. I'm glad I took a shower Tuesday night ! It was just Kim, Joe and I as Rich and Barb went to Virginia for a few days to see Nicole and the grandkids. They're back today for the National's.

I haven't heard from Kurt, so I'm still going with "no news is good news". I do plan to email him on Monday, since it will be 3 weeks with no word. He had said he escalated the issue 3 levels so it might just be stuck in the corporate grind between the powers that be and the HR team. I didn't find any new jobs on LinkedIn that I felt would be a good fit, so I didn't apply to anything new today. I can't help but think that many of the jobs I've applied for just dismissed me because of my age. Younger people tend to believe all the "boomer" trash that is posted online. I don't think they realize they are missing out on reliable hard-working employees who aren't constantly looking for their next job. This is why I want the Accenture job so bad: Kurt is in my age group and recognizes the value of my experience. If he isn't able to hire me, I'm hoping maybe he can give me some help finding a similar role in another company.

My next Nutrisystem order was scheduled for next week but I still have a ton of food in the freezer, so I moved it out to 8-5. My overnight trip for baseball is coming up on 8-2 so I need to start getting ready for that. I'm a little worried about leaving Minnie from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, but I think she'll be fine. I will leave extra dry food for the strays - hopefully the raccoons don't eat it all the first night !

The summer Olympics start next week and I'm going to try and watch some of the coverage, since I don't have to worry about working. For now I've been watching YouTube video's from letsdig18. He's a personable guy and I enjoy the video's. Post10 is still a fav but he doesn't put out many video's these days. Sheepishly Me is another fav but she only posts 1 or 2 video's per week. Same goes for 10th Gen Dairy, another fav. I had to expand the channels I watch once I ran out of video's to watch .. lol ! 

The weather today is cool and breezy with occasional glimpses of sun .. perfect after the hot and humid stretch we just had. I did my usual vacuuming of the downstairs this morning after I spotted a teeny tiny flea on my foot. I may have brought it in from outside or it could have been lurking on Minnie, but it might also have hatched in the carpet, which is why I need to keep vacuuming every day. On my next Walmart trip I'm going to look for some flea powder for the carpet and perhaps a spray for outside the back door. I used both products years ago when I had all the dogs and cats and it did help. Back then I couldn't afford to buy the monthly flea treatment for all of the animals and I had quite a flea problem in the house at the time of the fire. The renovations company actually bombed the house before they started their clearing process. It was great to move back into a freshly remodeled house with no fleas ! I had a little bit of a flea problem in Rich's house but I treated all the cats to ensure I didn't bring them back home. I only have a problem now because I likely brought them in from outside.

Today I decided to break out the stair/upholstery attachment for my vacuum and tackled the stairs and the upstairs. It worked so good ! It brought the pile back in the heavily trafficked areas and the stairs look amazing ! I am ashamed to admit I have never vacuumed the stairs .. and the carpet was laid 6 years ago ! With this attachment that works so well, I will be sure to use it more frequently ! Since I had the Dyson upstairs, I went ahead and vacuumed my room, the bathroom floor and the upstairs hall. Next job is to clear the strings and other junk that gets caught up in the rollers of the Dyson. I also want to clean the upstairs bathroom. I have no particular sense of urgency on anything because I'm not working and these little jobs are a good way to keep me active each day. I try to get my ass off the couch a couple times a day to do something.

It took me nearly an hour to complete the vacuuming and I had lunch after I was done. I'm still trying to use dinner items, so I had a meatloaf sandwich.

After lunch, in the spirit of "getting things done", I decided to measure for the plexiglass on the front porch again. After doing that I wasn't happy with my imprecise measurements so I decided to just take 2 of the 3 windows out and remove the broken glass. Then I loaded them in the trunk and went to Lowes. $116 later I had 3 sheets of precisely cut plexiglass. The guy at Lowes was super nice and did a great job. I left about 2:30 and was home by about 3:45. I had the 3 windows in before 5:30 and they look amazing ! This is another gigantic eyesore removed from the house and there should be less of a draft out there in the winter, so win-win ! Hopefully the neighbors notice and appreciate my efforts. I'm sure Doug will notice as he made a comment about the broken window on the front. I'll be proud to tell him I did the repairs ! Today happens to be the day of the parade to kick off the annual Firemen's Field Days, so I'm doubly glad to have the porch looking much nicer. People will be streaming up and down my street to catch the parade on the main drag and you can bet many have noticed the broken windows and talked about it. The side windows have been broken a couple years and the front window was broken a few months ago during a storm. I do plan on renovating the porch if I get a decent paying job. For now it looks good and is weather tight, so that is enough. Next job is breaking up the large pieces of glass so I can package them up for the trash. I may do that tomorrow when I'm less tired, since it's a job you need to do carefully.

In yet another sad news item, Bob Newhart passed away. He was 94, so he lived a good long life, but he's yet another star from my younger days gone. Today's "stars" will never have the longevity of the stars of the 70's and 80's. People today move on the next big thing in a heartbeat and never look back. TV series don't last for years and years, which is why I won't invest time in them. You find a show you like and after 2 or 3 seasons it's gone .. so why bother ? Lou Dobbs also passed at the age of 78. He was a political commentor on CNN and Fox and although I know the name, I never watch political newsy stuff.