...and so goes my vacation.
Today is my last free day of vacation. I can say that I have accomplished much during this vacation. I've rested (needed it!), hung out with the kids (needed that!!) and saw my father in law and his wife. I cleaned a bit, although not the way I'd envisioned. I'm not ready to have people in my house...but soon, hopefully.
Yesterday we went for a walk at one of the local parks. Tony took me out and told me to bring my camera. We went driving around. He wanted to get pictures of the trees that are extremely colorful at this time of year. Several maples, some live oaks, etc. We drove over by the skate park near downtown and found a neat walking trail that we explored. It was really quite nice to see. Plus, I got in some exercise yesterday!! I took several pictures while we were out.
These are a couple of my favorites.
Today's a pretty laid back day. Yesterday, while the kids and I were out at the tournament, Tony rented a carpet steamer and cleaned up the carpet. It now looks wonderful! He also cleared out that huge box of books that was in the living room, waiting to go to Half Price. They're gone. He and Amanda just took them up there and are going to the comic book store after that. Aidan and I stayed here. He didn't want to go out. We walked to the mailbox and back. That was the extent of our journey "out". He just wants to hang around the house today and I'm not going to discourage that.
Tomorrow is the start of another three days of filling in for my manager while he's out on vacation. He sent out an email to the guys, telling them to help me and be cooperative. Hooray. Whether or not they listen is up to them. I am anticipating a good three days. It doesn't have to be all bad just because he's not there.
I have CIT tomorrow as well as the regular class for the kids. We'll see how that works out. I haven't really given much thought to how the day will go. I'm going to go armed with a bottle of water for each of the kids and myself. I'm going to get my gear together tonight, plus I need to take V's sparring gear back to her. I still need to do something nice for her since she was so sweet and let Aidan borrow it.
Tuesday, my young man will make his first foray to the public swimming pool with his school. He'll enjoy that, I know. He always does.
I really ought to look into swimming lessons for both kids. I think it would be worth it. I think I'll poke around on the City of Allen website and see if they have any classes listed. I want them to be able to swim better than me, which is to say anything is better than me. I can swim but not the best. I want these two to be comfortable in the water.
If you think about it, please keep a good thought for me--I applied for a job with the school district and hope to hear from them. I haven't told my manager that I applied yet. I need to tell my director that I'm using him as a reference. I also have a reference letter from the president's secretary. That'll help, I hope. I want to get out of my current job because it's a very stressful job and there's no chance that I'll ever be promoted. I'm realistic enough to know that it's just NOT going to happen. I've been there for nearly 20 years. September 1st will be 19. I actually started as a temporary worker on June 1, 1989, but went permanent on September 1, 1989, so that's my anniversary date. I'm tired. I've had a long run with this company. I've gone through multiple layoffs, including one where I was actually laid off but "transitioned". That meant that I was supposed to be gone after they made good with the transition phase of the layoff. Then they extended it by three months, then another three. Finally they just said, "You're staying on, sign these papers." That was in 1994-95 (before my daughter was born). Not a whole lot has changed, other than the department has dwindled from having many people to having few. We are currently a department of 6. Our new guy isn't quite ready to get on the phone solo, but as of tomorrow, he's up. We just need all the help we can get. Needless to say, he's primarily there as the network guy, so he'll get the network calls and the rest of us will get everything else. We'll see how that goes. I'm not going to predict anything. He IS a person with a lot of networking/computer experience. It'll ease MY load and D's a bit, I know. I think if he takes the majority of the network calls (and Al too!), that'll make the other four of us breathe a huge sigh of relief and we'll be a lot more productive.
