Monday, May 01, 2006
Where in the world to begin
Well, I guess I can start with how crazy work has been. That would make the most sense since it's the main reason I haven't written in so long. LOL
Ok. The organization I work for is a Non-Profit that has several programs within it that all address various services for the disabled. There are 3 different sites, the main one being up north a bit and another one being further up north, then this one. We have 3 different programs in this site. The social workers I work with help families with MR and ASD. There is also an ASL interpreting service and a day habilitation program. The day hab also works with the MR community. A couple things have happened in the last few months here which have started to take a bit more of my time.
Let me preface this by saying that I am not being immodest when I say that the Executive Director and the Director of Programs love me to pieces. It's been told me by more than one person, including my boss. They apparently feel I'm very good at what I do. It's a very cool thing, when you think about it, actually. I guess it takes a while to find a place where you fit in, but when you do, it's worth all the cr** you had to go through before you got there. Well, in my opinion anyway. :D
So, onto the changes. The entire organization is going through a technology infrastructure upgrade. The Executive Director indicated at the beginning that she wanted me to be the contact person for this building. Which is cool. When the guy from the IT consultant company came down to do the audit and see what we have and what we need, the Director of Programs asked me to work with him and send a report to the CFO about the results of the consult. Now that morning, I had attended a Microsoft Connections event downtown that the Director of Programs had previously asked me to attend so I was just busting with really cool ideas anyway so the guy and I had a good meeting. After he left, I typed up my observations, notes, ideas, etc into a report and emailed it to the CFO. Then I sent it and a few other ideas from the Microsoft Connections meeting to the Director of Programs. Lo and Behold, the Director of Programs comes down a couple days later and says that the CFO was VERY impressed with my report. Cool. :D So anyway, the end result of all this is that they now want me to be the IT contact person for the whole building during and after the upgrade is done. Which basically means I'll be taking care of all the IT stuff and what I can't do I work with the consultants on. For all three programs. And when this is all done and goes into effect, which will be about a year, I will be "bumped" appropriately. Well, that doesn't mean what it means in the For Profit world, but it's still better than a stick in the eye. LOL
Then, a while after all this happened, my boss asks if she can talk to me about something. It seems that the Interpreting Services have been told they need to have someone manning the phones for them on a more regular basis. The receptionist they had is now a full-time interpreter so they have been relying almost exclusively on voice mail. The Executive Director called one day and got wicked annoyed at not being able to talk to a person over there, so she "suggested" to them that they see if they could get me to do some of that for them. It was supposed to be just me answering the phones while they were out, but now I'm taking requests, I have a TTY at my desk (which I haven't used one of these in about 10 years so this could be interesting) and I am learning sign language. In view of the fact that I'm going deaf those last two will actually kind of come in handy. I suppose the gods really do work in mysterious ways. ROFL They have been hinting that I might want to learn to interpret as well, but I drew the line there. I actually like what I do. I'm good at it. AND if I did that, 1.) the social workers would suffer and 2.) they'd be right back to voice mail again which would defeat the purpose. Realistically speaking...somebody has to do this work. Might as well be me. :D I don't think there will be any kind of pay raise coming out of this, but the interpreters have to pick up some of my salary so the social workers will get a break that way. Of course they lose having me always at their disposal so there is a give and take to it any way you look at it.
All in all, it's been really fun. And a BIG boost to my rather bruised ego after all we went through over the summer. And at my 3 month review I got a buck an hour raise which is almost unheard of in Non Profit circles. That was a nice little happenstance as well. :D On a purely petty note, I have a story to relate about the people who took our house. I actually feel a bit guilty about laughing heartily at this story, but John is quick to point out that this is just karma in action.
We had two mortgages on the house. One big one and the second little one. When we were in the frenzy to refinance so we could save the house, the company with the big mortgage was happy to accomodate us. We owed them about $70,000. HOWEVER the second company, to whom we owed about $20,000 wasn't. So they bought our big mortgage from the other company. Now through our refinancing and other help from friends and family, we were offering them $116,000. Considering the whole thing was $90,000 we thought it was more than fair to make up for all the late and missed payments. They didn't see it that way. They decided they could get more for it at auction, and refused the refinancing. Come to find out that when they put it up for auction a grand total of 2 people showed up. And the winning bid was...and I kid you not when I say this...$23,000. Yes, twenty three thousand.
In looking back on it, aside from the fact that it really felt yucky and that whole mental breakdown thing, it was actually a blessing that it happened. The house needed WAY more work than we would have ever been able to put into it. The furnace wouldn't have made it through another winter and there was no way we could get a new one, and the leech field was going to need to be moved soon... Well, you get the idea. I know these things happen for a reason. It's just hard to believe that when you're going through it. LOL
Our rented house is working out pretty well. We finally got a washer and dryer which has been a real bonus. Driving 20 minutes to the laundry mat su**ed. Our landlord is a nice enough guy and The Dude who Lives Over the Garage is cool. The weather has been warming up so the kids have been out in the yard playing. Since we're off the main road out here I don't worry so much about them being out there. And now that they're older the last couple weekends I've been letting them go outside by themselves some. On Saturday we all played frisbee with Aidan's new purple frisbee she bought with her easter money. And yesterday the two kids just went outside and played together. We peeked in on them and went out and checked from time to time but they had a great old time playing together. Aidan is really good for Ian when it comes to that.
His annual PET is on the 15th. I'm not getting really good vibes from the Special Ed coordinator and his first grade teacher about second grade so far. I don't know what we're going to do. I trust them both, they've done really well by Ian this year. John and I are talking about starting to look into moving next year to another school district. I suppose second grade will be the deciding factor. Both the kids have made friends here, especially at the day care, but at the same time, it's not worth it if Ian has to suffer unduly at school. The counselor here for the social workers told me the other day that she had been working with a mother of a kid in the junior high in this school district. The child has MR, CP, is confined to a wheelchair and has suicidal tendencies. Apparently the principal at the junior high thought it would be a good idea as part of this kids IEP to spend 2 hours a day in a room all by himself. Rest assured the mom won the subsequent lawsuit, but who wants to have to go through all that in the first place? Why do these people go into the educational system if they dislike children so much for crying up a tree????? I suppose that's a whole other topic for another day.
Ian has been in a Title I reading program all year but apparently she hasn't been performing her job to it's fullest extent. She has been supposed to be sending books home every day for Ian to read out loud to someone. Well, I got an email from his teacher last week saying that she was going to start sending them home since she found out the Title I teacher wasn't. LOL He is actually doing pretty well. His main problem is maintaining focus. About halfway through the book, his mind starts to wander and he starts talking about other things and I have to work to bring him back around to the reading again. I think he's starting to like it a bit, though, and he is starting to see the benefit to reading to himself rather than waiting until John or I have time to do it, which is mostly at bed time, unless they stay up and watch Spongebob. UGH! I HATE Spongebob. But, that's another story too. LOL
Aidan had her kindergarten screening a couple weeks ago. She had a great time and made a new friend about 10 minutes after we got there. LOL She's going to do great in school if she can get interested in the academics. Right now she just wants to go to art class and music class and the rest can fall off the face of the earth as far as she's concerned. The girl can already read. She's not too bad at math either when she thinks about it. **sigh** I guess I will just have to keep sitting on that Cornell application packet. I can be just as happy if she decides to go to Berkley or Julliard. I can. Really. I need to type that out and tape it up somewhere so I can repeat it at intervals.
Anyway. I am happy to report that I'm no longer Insulin Resistant. After working closely with my Nutritionist, may the gods bless her, my blood tests show that all my numbers have reduced by up to 27% across the board. Some more, some less. The only thing I need to work on is my HDL. It's much too low. So I need to eat more "good fat" like fish and nuts and things like that. And get more excersize. *scoff* Ok, I can do the "good fat" thing, but the excersize thing feels like a pipe dream at this point. The other good news is that as a result of this I have lost a boatload of weight. I haven't been weighed, but I have gone down about a pant size and a half. (I actually own four belts now.) My Nutritionist estimates about 20 lbs. When I went in for my last appointment, she said she was going to use my case as an example to the insurance companies of how cost effective it is for them to cover nutritionist services as a preventative measure in pre-diabetes cases. :D
Well, I think that about catches everything up. I will try to get on top of all this work stuff and write more often. Ian got his school picutres so I will try and get that up. And we are going to try and get down to the Aquarium in Boston this summer so I will try and get that up on the website as soon as I can after. If you have Yahoo 360° let me know and I'll invite you to be "friends". I have some pics of the kids up there, but I have it set that only "friends" can see em. :D
Peace out.
posted by Unknown
at 2:42 PM ::
~#~
(2) comments
2 Comments:
I'd give you a standing ovation for all that you've been through, and how well you've managed, but I don't want you to get a swelled head;) I'm glad that the Gods have finally smiled upon you and given you the life, respect, and bits of happiness that you so richly deserve. It's nice when you can enjoy going to work, and feel appreciated, isn't it? I'm glad the kids are doing well. Thriving under your tutelage. John was right, the house being undersold was Karma. I'm also glad that you are healthier. Exercise isn't all that bad, all you need to do is walk. And walk. Good for the kiddies, too. Take care, and nice to hear from you again!
*snort* Yeah wouldn't want that to happen. Whatever would I do with my hat collection. hee hee hee.
Thank you muchly, Squirrel. I'm kind of enjoying it while it lasts at this point. :D
StSquirrel, at
9:33 PM
