so I have decided to go back to volunteering at the Blanton. I have been wanting to do it for ages but as I was job searching I thought I should be doing that. However, I thought to myself yesterday, I am going nutty here with no kids to talk to and Gordon sleeping a good part of the evening before he goes on the PC until about 9.30 when he wants to watch TV. So I contacted Martha yesterday and I should be back next week, doing my old shift of Friday 10-1pm, so I am looking forward to that.
Kid wise, Alan and Emily are both back to college but Alan has only managed to get 9 hrs despite needing to do 12 (the max he can do at the moment). This will put him even further behind but at least he can't say he is overworked! I just wish he would contact his counsellor more and maybe they could have pushed for him to get into something.
Elisabeth is believe it or not, working in a call centre for $8.00 an hour! We have spend $72,000 approx over the last 4 yrs for her to get a good degree in Biology and apparently that is not enough to get a level entrance job in that field. She had an interview with the fish hatcheries in San Marcos the other week which had been described to her as being something a high school student could do. That sounded good but no, apparently they were actually looking for someone more experienced than a graduate fresh out of college. She had done well in the interview apparently so they suggested she could get more experience by volunteering there! Just a quick point, she had been working all last summer with no pay for the same place but with smaller fish ,so basically they are just get cheap labour.
Anyway, she is plowing along, as she really want to work in the environmental field. If she is still in San Marco during the summer she will take a new class that is being offered in environmental law and maybe that will help. However, it really pisses me off that more and more places are insisting on kids getting masters/phd's before they are even considered for a job other than your run of the mill jobs, like call centers or pharmaceutical reps!
The weather here is cold but no colder than it was in London when I visited but somehow it seems colder, weird eh. Anyway, basically it is dark, dank and too cold to willingly go outside. That is another reason for taking up the volunteering again, that unwillingness to actually go anywhere is rearing its ugly head again. If I could get groceries delivered I would as I really hate going to the grocery store but its more than that, I get anxious about going anywhere, putting it off until I absolutely have to. The weather is not helping!
Anyway off to get dressed now and do some chores around the house before I start my crafting/art(?).
Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day making a cardboard frame for my latest beaded figure . As it based on an icon from these parts, I decided to make a shrine but again one of my fears got in the way. We have plenty of scrap wood in the garage which I could use to make a frame, however, since my college days, its always sometime I avoided doing. I know how to do it, I made my own stretchers at college but it was with power tools, a big circular table saw and it scared the sh** out of me. All power tools scare me but saws in particular. So today I am going into the garage and sort out some wood.
Anyway back to the shoddy cardboard frame, I decided in my wisdom to cover it with tiny Mosaic glass tiles. I managed to do the top, one side and some of the raised front before deciding this wasn't going to work. Fortunately I had used a hot glue gun to attach them to the cardboard so they weren't too bad to prise off but its amazing how well they were stuck on with that stuff!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Well I am still sitting here
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
An update
I have just finished talking to my eldest daughter on the phone and the ugly issue of health insurance has reared its head. Because Elisabeth has now graduated she can no longer be claimed as a dependant on our health insurance. We were hoping she would get a job with health benefits but not so far.
Elisabeth has barely used it in the past but wouldn't you Adam and Eve it, now she is no longer a dependent, she has some health issues which given her health history, needs to be seen to asap. So it was onto the phone with the company benefits and getting the cobra option that is available and provides continuous coverage until she get her own insurance, It is expensive option but then X,000,000 in treatments is also expensive.
Hopefully its is just a cyst that is erupting and will clear itself up but now she knows she is covered by insurance, she can relax. Thank god we have good health insurance for now, I think we are becoming increasingly lucky in that aspect according to a lot of the data available.
Well the house is quite again as all the kids are back in school which of course means the money is flowing freeing from the bank account. So the pressure is back on me to get a job. I did have a interview lined up for AT&T for next Monday but then they announced some losses yesterday,so a freeze hire has been put in place. Given the state of the economy, I suspect this will become common issue over the next few months at least. At the moment I have one application which is looking promising with a state dept as I am being screened but as I wait for that I am scouring the Internet for other likely jobs.
On the art side, I have been very active (well for me anyway). This writers strike has been a boon for me, as there is very little left on TV I want to watch and what I do like to watch, I tivo so I can watch when I am in the mood for it. So much as I sympathise with the writers (totally on their side on this issue), long may the strike continue. If it keeps going , my TV addition might be conquered. Now I just have to work on my Internet addition:)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Amazed how quickly time has flown
realised that when I met someone in the Post office the other day and had to think really hard when I had returned to Pflugerville, already my trip to the UK is becoming a distant memory :(
As promised I will give you a brief account of my 12 days in the UK.
I arrived in the Gatwick on 30th Nov, very early in the morning, so the long delay in my connection to Glasgow wasn't necessary but having been delayed in previous trips, it was a worthwhile precaution.
From the time I arrived in Glasgow, my feet never hit the ground again until I left Gatwick on the 12th. I spent 4 days in Hurlford, where my father-in-law lives visiting family and friends. A lot of eating and drinking was done by all. On the first Monday I visited the Joan Eardley exhibition in Edinburgh. I have been a fan of her work since I first saw it in the 1990's, so I was so pleased I was able to get to see this major retrospective of her work. Whilst in Edinburgh, managed to get a new sim card for the cell phone a friend had given us. Where would we be without cell phones these days.
On Tuesday it was back down to Gatwick and then onto Chatham, Kent where I would be spending the rest of my time. I stayed at the St George Hotel which was amazing value for £38 a night with a full breakfast included. The hotel has been recently refurbished so the room was very modern and clean, just right for a one person, even had one of those wet room showers, which is so much better than climbing into a tub to use a shower.
After my visit with Eileen, I made my first foray into the centre of London to visit the commercial galleries in the West End. I lost count of all the galleries I visited and to think when I was younger, they scared me stiff. Even now its still a little off putting having to ring a door to be allowed in but once you get into your head they are just shops selling things, then they are just like any other stores you visit and browse in. I will be writing about my gallery visits on my other blog
Originally I was to meet up with my youngest sister, Sarah in the evening (she was only one in the family who knew I was there) but she decided that as she had the day off the next day, we would meet up for lunch in Rochester and have a bar lunch. That bar lunch lasted 4 hours and if she hadn't needed to get back to her car, I suspect we would have been there all evening. It was great to see her after 4 yrs and she looked so much happier than the last time I saw her. Then she was stuck in a job she hated but now she is with Asda's on the management ladder and happier than I have seen her in a long long time.
Friday was spend in central London again this time seeing an exhibition at the V&A and then the National Portrait gallery. It was great travelling around London again (I used the bus) and seeing all the hustle and bustle but I am glad I am not doing that every day like I use to. To think I lived in London for the lst 20 odd yrs of my life and now I am a tourist!
The weekend was spent with the Family and then all too soon it was Monday which I spent mostly in the Tate Modern (once I found it, not familar with that side of London at all) where I saw one of the most exhilarating exhibitions I have ever seen and no, it was not the infamous crack. It was great to end my tour of exhibits on such a high note.
Whilst I was in the Tate, one of my oldest friends contacted me and we arranged to meet near Victoria. I thought she must have been too busy to meet up but it turns out she had been in Vienna the week before and caught a cold. As she doesn't have a PC, she had forgotten to take a note of the cell phone number I had supplied when I emailed her last so she had to go to the internet cafe nearby. On Sunday she had been laid up in bed but thankfully Monday she was feeling a lot better. I am so glad we were able to meet up if only for a few short hours but it was as if the last few years had never existed and we chatting away like it just yesterday we had been at school together (actually its 30!)
Tuesday I checked out of the hotel and stayed at Sarah's for the night. Had a brief visit with my other sister, Julie who lives in the area and then at 5am, Wednesday morning it was off to Gatwick, my trip was over:(
I loved my trip back and wish it had been longer. Everyone was commenting on how cold and wet it was but to me, it was heaven after the heat of Texas. I love the feel of the UK, the crowds, the rain, the public transport and all the things people over there tend to take for granted. I know, its not all rosy, I certainly wouldn't want to live in the SE like my sisters but give me the UK any day over the USA.
