as the world turns

my, how quickly life can throw changes at me. As of yesterday, I am looking for a new job. Yes, as much as I liked my new job, yesterday they made 21 job cuts; me being one of the new kids, I got the axe. C'est la vie. Not wanting to sit around and mope (& needing money to pay the bills, etc), I applied for about 15 jobs online as soon as I got home. I will say, at least while I was writing scripts for employment ads, I was reassured that the job market is still quite healthy. Just not a job for a company that makes most of it's money from Real Estate ads. That market isn't doing so well.

BUT there is work to be done, and work to be had, so I know the perfect job is out there for me. I'm not too stressed yet. And I've worked out a part-time gig that will afford me to keep Olivia in ECE full time; so that's a relief. I was all set to talk to the principal about moving her to a 1/2 day class. That would have been a bummer since she loves school so much & has made good friends.

Elsewhere, I've replaced the faucet set in the upstairs bathroom. It was easy. The problem I ran into, though, was that the cold water feed was aluminum & probably as old as the house (1958), so when I moved the tubing to put in the new set, it cracked a teeny bit. Then I took off the shut off valve for the cold water & the tube completely snapped in two. The aluminum tubing was attached to the shut off valve, so I had to replace that also. Unfortunately the valve & male connector were so corroded that the threads on the male connector were damaged when I took off the valve. Gah! I couldn't get the new valve on! AND THEN, I couldn't get the corroded male connector piece off the pipe that runs into the wall. It was very frustrating...especially since I had made 4 trips to Home Depot, & it was now 7pm on a Sunday evening. Needless to say, we went without water for the night -and the next day. Yes, very rustic indeed. Fortunate for us that Garrett's sister lives about a mile away & we were able to use her tub/shower. The hardest part was the girls didn't want to use the toilet without flushing it between each use -good luck with that with no water. They were all set to squat behind a bush in the back yard. Seriously. They weren't buying the old hippie proverb "If it's yellow, let it mellow...." LUCKILY, my brother was in town on Monday & was able get that piece off for me. Sadly he also finished connecting the water back onto the faucet set. Well, at least I had already done most of the work, so it wasn't a complete failure on my part. I mean, I could easily have reconnected the water, & I told him so. He said since he was already under there, he might as well just finish it. Hey, ya know, at least I was able to afford to do this minor repair while I still had my job, so that's one repair completed! And it does look lovely, if I do say so myself :)