Well quite a lot to update since my last post, for all you avid readers out there :), following my every move, :) the most of important of which is my new job status, which is to say, no job status.
On April 28 15 of us were laid off, following a cut of five people around a month earlier and before that about 20 or so pre-press people from the third floor around Christmas time. It was a blow. It was foolish of me to believe management when they assured us there would be no more lay offs after the five went but when I got the summons to meet in the Kelly Building, I knew what it meant.
The Kelly Building massacre, led to FFT. Now instead of living the "WWTD" life of the newsroom, we are living the FFT life, albeit with a very low income from the unemployment office. Hey, I don't mean to look $268 a week in the face, but still . . .
The timing, what can I say about the timing? Every year when I've been kicked around by the management, it's always been in May or April, my birthday month, my mother's and daughter's months, too. Gee, thanks for the birthday present, uncle T.
But one piece of the timing is my dad's need for help so I've been available to help him get his house in order and undergo and recover from a procedure to monitor his pacemaker to hopefully give him more energy.
So far I've cleaned and painted what used to be my old bedroom and then cleaned out what used to be Pat's bedroom. That's the room where he tried to climb out of the window in his sleep after we had gone to see, oh shit, how can i forget the name, the movie where what's her name was possessed and priests attempted unsuccessful, yes The Exorcist!
That room was the worst; a bird has built a nest in the window between the screen and a pane of glass where it was rolled out because it's one of those windows that roll out, in those 50s style ranchers. The walls are filthy. I cleaned one of them and it still needs more work. I also vaccuumed the room but the carpet needs to be yanked out and replaced, which I can do later. Right now though we are getting the one room set up as a bedroom if and when he needs someone to stay with him. The other room will be a place to store stuff in a far more organized fashion then he had it so we can clear out the living room. The living room is daunting, just looking at it intimidates me. The middle room took two days of hauling out stuff to the garbage can and to my car for recycling, then cleaning what was left, washing one wall and the window, cleaning the floor, moving everything out to do that and then moving everything back in in neatly stacked piles. I'm going to have a yard sale next week and take a bunch of the stuff he doesn't want and put that in the yard sale. I'll call it an estate sale.
Then the goal is to set up the living room in a way he would want it so he can have his television and computer both in a way that is accessible and comfortable. That will take some time but we can get it done and if we do, then when i return to work, I'll worry less about him.
It's June and I need to get serious about job hunting. This will be the third time in my life that I've had a "sabbatical" and if it's not a stressful event, sabbitcals can be very fulfilling and beneficial. It's a time to do other things, learn some new skills, dabble in things you love doing that you might not have enough time for when you are working full time.
I've got my house in order and now I've been working on my yard and enjoying it. It's very satisfiying to do a project in the yard and then watch it grow.
It's also satisfying to accomplish things for my dad.
He keeps wanting me to hire bob and I don't want to but I guess it would be helpful for me. today, I don't have a lot of work to do. I've reached a stopping point. I just need to clean that window and try to close it or at least cover it to protect against loss of energy/ cooling or heating.
I really have more, interesting stuff to say but I have to stop now and leave the house. I will try to pick this up later this evening.