The More Things Change... Yadda Yadda Yadda

Back in the saddle again. No posts for weeks now. I think I need to post more often just to keep my head clear, y’know? Lotsa stuff going on I’d like to discuss so maybe I’ll start talking about it here instead of in my head (big time circular arguments there).

Anyway, I’m unemployed again. Again?! Yes, again. The contract at Abbott got shut down early so me and the other contractors were cut loose the middle of June (just as well since I was pumping about $100 a week into my gas tank for the commute – gah!). So, I updated my résumé – even got MLM to vet it for me – and commenced e-mailing them out through listings on Dice, CareerBuilder, etc. The activity hasn’t been too bad – I get submitted by recruiters several times a week and I’ve had a few interviews that seemed to go well, but no offers yet. :( You may have noticed the economy is quite sucky right now – thanks a helluva lot Dubya! – so it’s an employers market. They’re taking their sweet time and sometimes doing two and three interviews before they make a decision – basically seeing how many hoops we can jump through!

To top it off I had a snafu with my unemployment checks from the state – seems the week I worked at Northwestern generated an odd ex-teacher’s query form that had to be filled out and reviewed. Then, since the unemployment office is so overwhelmed with claims right now – thanks a helluva lot Dubya! – they couldn’t schedule a review of my case until the end of July. This means no unemployment checks for over six weeks. At least it’ll be retro’d so I will get everything coming to me eventually. In the meantime we’ve gotten monetary assistance from my family, MLM’s family, and the Church of course. Thank God for all of you for that. We’ll be okay in the long run.

Comcast cut us off last month - seems they expect regular payments - so we had no cable, broadband, or telephone for about three weeks. Luckily, we had our cell phones for communication, and some unknown neighbor of ours has an unsecured wireless network that we could glom off of (when it was working, which was about 60% of the time), so we managed to struggle through that. But the antidepressents just don't cut it sometimes.

But enough about that. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Disappointments for MLM lately. Her shoulder surgery has been rescheduled THREE times during the month of July; each time by the surgeon because he was unexpectedly called out of town or some such. Mary Lynn has been discouraged and depressed about it big time, needless to say, since she really needs this done. Her shoulders are much worse now and need help desperately. Scheduled now for August 25th, so pray for her if you will. We’re also having to come up with some big bucks for some of MLM’s medications as she is in the Medicare prescription “gap” where we have to pay all of the cost. Luckily, she shopped around and signed up with Aetna to administer her Medicare and they do pay for all generics with just a $12 co-pay. Trouble is, she has some meds that have no generic and they cost up to $500 for a 30 day supply. Thanks again to Mary Lynn’s parents and the Church for help with this. We have been looking at getting these from Canada and I think we’ll start doing that this week – can save up to 90% that way. Go figure.

One thing we’ve been doing a lot of with this time on our hands is watching a lot of anime. I’ve assembled a pretty good collection from sales and free downloads off the net as well as getting them from our local libraries which have a surprisingly good selection. We discovered an awesome series call Last Exile which may end up being our favorite anime ever. So, I think I’ll discuss that and some of these other anime in the days to come. They’re more fun to talk about than how I don’t have a job yet. ;-)

Later.