Gotta run

I finished my Bible reading this morning but I have no time to post about it. I have a huge contract project due tomorrow at 5 and we're leaving for Bible study in a little over an hour. The more work I can get done tonight the better, as hubby has his first day off tomorrow! This is the first time he's been off with this job, which started last June. Great timing for me being swamped with work! ;)

Oh what a day!

I'm exhausted. What a day.

Early am - Breakfast, dishes, laundry, vacuuming.
Late am - Contract work.
Early pm - Shopped for new tires on the car.
Late pm - Grocery shopping.

Come, blessed Sabbath! I can't wait to attend church tomorrow.

Easy-peasy

Today was a pretty easy day for work and I'm glad. I've been feeling under the weather all day so I was quite happy when I completed three hours of contract work and was told that would be all until tomorrow.

So instead, I did some cleaning. I washed two loads of laundry and washed the dishes. If I'm feeling better tomorrow, I might tackle the kitchen floor. It's looking kind of grimy in front of the closet where our trash can is stored.

I also worked on my Nano outline for awhile, putting together some information for my first two chapters. It's been very interesting trying to imagine what it would have been like to live through the plagues. How hard would it have been to find drinking water by digging in the banks of the Nile? What would it have been like finding your house overrun with frogs and being able to do nothing about it? Most of the plagues affected both the Egyptians and the Hebrews so no one was immune.

I wonder how much the Hebrews remembered about God. They were in Egypt for a really long time with no prophets. The 10 commandments reminded them of God's precepts, like keeping the Sabbath. Does this mean they had forgotten to keep the Sabbath or were just keeping it incorrectly? Or maybe they knew about the Sabbath and wanted to observe but couldn't because they had to work every day. Do we know for sure? I'm not sure that we do, but it's been enlightening trying to imagine what life would have been like.

End of the week

No schedule today. Tons of contract hours, 7 hours worth. I'm exhausted.

Praise the Lord for the Sabbath!

Second schedule attempt

I attempted another scheduled day. It is going fairly well... Before my schedule started this morning, I wrote my three Morning Pages, exercised, took a shower, ate breakfast, and had Bible study with hubby.

10:30-11:00 - Housework
11:00-11:30 - Research
11:30-12:00 - Housework
12:00-1:00 - Lunch/Free Time
1:00-1:30 - Update prices/add items for sale on Half.com
1:30-2:00 - Read blogs/Check email
2:00-2:30 - Housework
2:30-? - Play Scrabble with hubby :)

The only thing left on my schedule is some character building for my novel. I was doing really well with the schedule but hubby is home and he was very agreeable to playing a game of Scrabble with me so I decided to toss out the last hour of my schedule. I've accomplished everything on my to-do list for today.

Tomorrow will be a return to unscheduled days. I should have contract work tomorrow morning and that's always a priority over everything else. My contract work is first come, first serve so I watch my email very closely and drop everything else when work is assigned. The faster I can finish the initial assignment, the more work I am assigned until everything has been completed for the day by all the contractors. I like having the ability to work more hours than the initial assignment but it makes planning hard as I'm at the beck and call of my emails!

Doubling recipes

I double a lot of recipes. In doing so, I find myself dealing with conversions from teaspoons to tablespoons, from tablespoons to cups... Even though I double recipes frequently, I always forget the conversions. Thankfully, I found this calculator today. This will make those conversions so much easier.

My contract work is still on hold and I have the day off tomorrow as well because of lack of work. Hubby will be working at client sites all day tomorrow and I am determined to maximize my productivity! I have much that I wish to accomplish - Bible study, vacuuming, a load of laundry, ironing, progress on my brother's Christmas present, and some research for the novel I'm going to attempt writing in November.

During the day, I will be listening to classical music. I have a new found love for some of the old composers, especially Sergei Rachmaninoff.

My favorite, Rachmaninoff playing his Piano Concerto No. 2:

31 Days to Clean - Day 17

My husband is on call today so I decided I would progress with the 31 Day Challenge. Today's task is to clean the laundry room.

I have a tiny laundry room that I access by stepping onto our patio. It contains a stackable 3/4 size washer and dryer, the hot water heater, and a tiny trashcan where I throw all of the lint from the dryer. It didn't take too long to wipe everything down but it really needed it! I can't believe how much dirt and grime had accumulated on my washer. Now I don't have to worry about letting my clothes touch the machine as I transfer them to the dryer. Ick.

My contract work is nonexistent today. I was hoping for a couple hours but that's ok. I've been catching up on all our laundry and reading a library book. Hubby and I also walked over to Walgreen's to pick up a Redbox movie. Even in September, it's not a good idea to take a half hour walk in the middle of the day! I felt faint when we returned to the apartment. I can't wait for cooler weather!

Work, work, and ... cookies

Today has been all about work. I had intentions of getting my ironing caught up but ended up with five hours of contract work instead. Praise the Lord! I'm hoping for another great paycheck this month.

I baked peanut butter cookies this afternoon, though I'm not sure I want to recommend the recipe. I didn't realize until I started mixing the ingredients just how fattening this particular recipe is! All that margarine, sugar, and peanut butter. I don't even want to know the fat and calorie content of a single cookie. I haven't tried the cookies yet; I'm waiting until hubby returns home from work before tasting them.

Speaking of cookies, this is the first recipe that I've managed to bake as many cookies as the recipe claims it yields. Usually, a recipe says it will bake 24 cookies but I'm lucky if I end up with 18. I guess I make each cookie too big, though it seems like they are normal sized. Oh well!

All work, no play

Today was all about work. I completed 4.5 hours of work on my contract assignment. I'm also feeling slightly under the weather so that was all I accomplished today.

I'm going to attempt to make progress on the 31 days to clean program tomorrow. I really want to finish cleaning our house but work comes first right now. Because my contract work is either feast or famine, I have to embrace the hours when they are available.

Praise the Lord for providing my contract work!

More work

Today was another day devoted to work. I set aside my housework, except for a bit of scrubbing on the tub, and worked for four hours. I'm finally going to get a decent paycheck!

My boss assigned me another two hours of work for tomorrow morning. For once there is actually more work than you can handle! It's a very nice change. :) I'm going to milk it for all it's worth so that we can send an extra credit card payment to the card with the lowest balance. It'll be nice to make an extra payment where none of the money goes for interest.

Work, bathrooms, and other distractions

Change of plans. My goal today was to clean both showers and toilets. I've scrubbed at the window above the shower in the main bathroom and cleaned the shower walls. I started scrubbing the tub but it's going to need a lot of work. I'm really sweaty now and my arms are tired. That's what I get for not giving it a really good cleaning in ages.

I think I'm done with the cleaning aspect of today's six most important things list. I have the opportunity to put in several hours of paid work today and I'm going to jump on that chance. My paid work is sporadic and today I have the chance to get a few hours in, whereas I normally only get a few hours each week or two. We need the money so I'm going to concentrate on that today.

Hubby and I are going on a date tonight! This plan assumes he gets off work on time as he's working in the office today instead of at home. We're going to the Phoenix Art Museum to see the Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement and Charting the Canyon exhibits. Wednesday evenings are free admission for the general public.

I received a nice surprise this morning! Hubby sent me a text message at noon, saying that he was done with work and heading home for the day. Yay! He asked if I could make lunch for him. No problem.

30 seconds later, he walks in the front door. hehe. Silly guy... so he's been home all afternoon, on call if he's needed for anything. So far, no calls.

My productivity went out the window as soon as he walked in the door. I didn't have any big plans this afternoon anyways, though I keep telling myself I need to clean off my desk. Someday. Eventually.

After 6 months

My husband is at work. At WORK!

God is good.

Changes - lots of them

What a crazy day. I'm kind of reeling from the suddenness of it all.

Hubby received a job offer! He starts work on Monday. This is with the contract employer that he's been working with for the last couple months. We're very excited about it.

We also signed a new cell phone contract, picked out new phones, and I changed my phone number. Hubby's employer will be paying a cell phone subsidy so we picked out a plan with a HUGE amount of minutes as it will be hubby's business and personal line. We've never had this many minutes before.

AND we signed up for a savings account with a new bank. A couple months ago, we opened a new checking account with this bank to handle hubby's unemployment. The state picked the bank for us. We've had a really good experience with them so we decided to switch all our finances to them. We added me to the checking account today and opened up a savings account for our soon to grow emergency fund.

Whew. After all this, we decided to skip grocery shopping and just came home. I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the sudden changes. Happy, but overwhelmed! I probably shouldn't have changed our banking and my cell phone number in the same day because now I have a ton of work to do to update phone numbers, banking information, bill pay, etc.

Wait for it... no, really.

I should have waited before I said anything about the job offer. Hubby and contract boss went back and forth on salary for awhile and discussed future possibilities but hubby didn't receive an official offer. Contract boss said he's going to do some figuring, some planning, etc. etc. before making hubby an official offer. So we're still waiting.

On a positive note, contract boss does have hubby lined up for some additional contract work. They have a meeting tomorrow with the client they worked with last week and they will be attempting to convince the client to hire them on permanently instead of it being a one time project. Also, the boss does have hubby in mind for a couple other projects.

We've been debating if the contract boss feels any need to hire hubby on permanently. The contract hourly rate is higher than the potential salary range, but the boss wouldn't have to provide full time hours if he kept hubby on for contracts. We're just waiting. And praying. And waiting some more, hoping a full time offer will come from somewhere. At least the contract hours plus my unemployment is enough to pay all the bills! That's an improvement from where we were a month ago.

MIA but with good reason

Forgive me for being MIA. I've been a bit distracted over here.

Hubby might, just might, be receiving a job offer tomorrow. We are really praying that the offer will come through. So far, all signs are positive and this is the most solid lead we've had yet. Oh, I so hope hubby will soon be working again!

Another interview

I went to another interview today. This one went way better than my last. I'll hear back on Monday or Tuesday.

Hubby flies out on Sunday to take care of his court stuff. He'll be back late Tuesday night. I'm nervous about being home by myself for three days but excited. I have some surprises planned for him. Unfortunately, I can't post about them as he reads my blog. ;)

I ran for 25 minutes yesterday without stopping! I was so excited when I finished. The running exhausted me but it was really satisfying to know I had successfully completed week 6 of my program. Three more weeks and I should be able to consistently run 30 minutes with no stopping! My first goal is to finish two miles in less than 30 minutes. I'm a turtle. I think I can walk faster than I can run.

We have Bible study tonight. I'm so excited. It's been several months since we've met for Bible study and I can't wait. Not sure yet what we'll be studying, but that's ok. It will be nice just to get together and read from the Bible.

Interview - blew it!

I had an interview today. I think I blew it. I'd be really surprised if I received a job offer. He's going to make a decision by late tomorrow morning.

It's been a long time since I've done a formal interview. I think it's been three years. In fact, I've only been to one formal interview. The rest of my jobs were informal interviews or I just sort of fell into them because of circumstances.

What do you tell a potential employer when they ask you to tell them about yourself? When that's the very first question in an interview, it's really hard to gauge what you should be telling them. I didn't prepare for that question and Ummmmm-ed my way through it today. Oops.

This evening, I received a phone call from a chiropractor's office that was interested in meeting me for an interview. Unfortunately, I couldn't meet their one available interview time tomorrow as my husband has work scheduled! Not sure if I should be disappointed or not. I'm thinking not because his work is more important than my interview!

Possibilities

Hubby had an interview today that lasted two and a half hours long. The recruiter loved him! This was a face to face with the recruiter who kept hubby on the phone last week for an hour and a half. Hubby is one of two candidates being submitted for this particular job. The recruiter says he likes hubby better than the other candidate and will be recommending him specifically to the client. We're looking forward to finding out if Jeff gets a job offer!

Also, hubby has been talking to a consultant about some contract work. Supposedly, if the contract work goes well, hubby will be getting a job offer from this company. We don't know yet if that will happen, but hubby has been assigned a 5 day contract starting next week. We're extremely excited about this as his paycheck will be quite a bit more than the unemployment check for that week. The state will keep their money if Jeff makes more at a contract job.

Nothing too exciting going on with my job search. The one job I really wanted was already filled. It was working as an office manager at a camp in a small town in northern Arizona. Hubby and I would be working together to run the front office and the computer systems. That would have been amazing because room and board was included, we would have been living in a cabin, and had access to all the outdoor activity we could possibly dream of! Oh, well. I guess God didn't want us to leave town just yet.

Update and SMART Sunday

My temp job seems to be over. I say "seems" because we finished the labeling project but I'm still waiting to hear if the company wants us to return for the original project. My partner and I worked 5 days, 26 hours total.

It was tiring! I'm just not used to the commute, the hours away from home, and the stress of working under someone else. I am very very thankful to God that He blessed me with the hours. It was just surprising that I'm so out of practice with working schedules. 6 months really does make a difference.

I'm excited to get back to blogging. Last week, I didn't really have the energy after work to form coherent thoughts. I love writing and this is one way I can express myself, regardless if anyone reads!

I am also making a change to my Sunday blogging. I was posting a summary of my exercise over the past week and then a weigh in report. I found myself wanting to write more about some of the workouts and my challenges. However, I didn't want to post every day on this blog as that wasn't my original intent in starting the blog. I also didn't want to post an entire book every Sunday.

My solution? I started a separate blog for my exercise/weigh-ins/and future raw food challenge. Adventist Runner will be my new training log and anything health related that doesn't fit in nicely with homemaking.

Instead, I plan on posting SMART Sundays. The Lazy Organizer originally created the SMART Saturday, but as that is the day I celebrate the Sabbath, I'll be posting on Sundays. I know I posted about The Lazy Organizer's blog before, but she really is a genius about organizing and homemaking. I love reading her posts.

My goals for this week:
-Make the bed every day. I really like how our bedroom looks when the bed is made up in the mornings.
-Go to bed each night with a shiny sink. This is really a Flylady concept. The idea is to have a clean sink at night, which means the dishes will be washed and put away, the counters will be wiped down, and the sink will be clean. The kitchen looks so much better when the sink is shiny.
-Spend 15 minutes in personal Bible study each morning. Hubby and I study together every night but I'm missing personal study. It's not enough that we study together. I also need to be fed spiritually as an individual. 15 minutes isn't that long, but I think it's a good place to start.

I'll post again next Sunday with an update of my goals and possibly some new goals for the following week.