Saturday Project #5

Welcome to Saturday Project #5. I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our Saturday Project Team:

Jon!!!

Jon's new schedule allows him weekends off, which means we now have twice the manpower to get projects done around the house. Today was very productive for us. We did lots of cleaning this morning including shampooing the carpets in the living room. We really do our living in that room, and the carpet proves it. Unfortunately Wylee has also begun taking his jealousy out on the carpet, which does not make us very happy. We are saving our pennies and waiting patiently for the day where we can get wood floors installed in part of the house. But until then, the carpet shampooer is my friend.

We then tried to make a dent in the cabinet staining process. The upper cabinets are done on one side, so we're working our way through the lower ones. I was on drawer duty and Jon did the actual cabinets. It went well but we were only able to get one coat on today. (The USC game and a very fussy teething Harper did a good job of pulling us away!) Hopefully one or 2 more coats tomorrow and we might be done!!!

I'll be posting a before and after soon.

Jon also got ours and the neighbor's lawn mowed, so I'm gonna call that a very productive day!

7 Things

I was tagged by Stephanie to list 7 things in the following categories. See you if you got tagged at the bottom.

7 things I want to do before I die
1) Take Jon to Europe
2) Go to Hawaii
3) Read the Bible in a year
4) Learn Spanish
5) Have another baby (full term, please)
6) Find a job I love again
7) Win the lottery (which would require playing it first. Minor detail.)

7 things I can do
1) Make great mac n cheese
2) Keep a secret
3) Speak fluent American Sign Language
4) Cry at commercials
5) Remember birthdays, anniversaries & random events
6) Drive well
7) Highlight my own hair

7 things I cannot do
1) Make a decision
2) Run
3) Sing, but I do it anyway
4) Cook
5) Not get completely freaked out by the sight of sunken ships
6) Make a fluffy chocolate chip cookie
7) Fall asleep without adjusting positions at least 10 times

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex (changing this one to 'my spouse')
1) His faith
2) His humor
3) His balance (in relation to me - he balances me well)
4) His reassurance
5) His love for his daughter
6) His dorkiness
7) His good looks

7 things I say most often
1) "Seriously?"
2) "Shut your mouth!" (as in, "you're kidding!!!!")
3) "really, really" or "Really?"
4) "I love you"
5) "What?"
6) "Who's a pretty girl?" (to Harper)
7) "Mamamamamamamamamamamama" (trying to influence Harper's first word)

7 celebrity crushes (in no particular order)
1) Philip Seymore Hoffman
2) Dave Matthews
3) Jason Statham (yummy Englishman)
4) Harry Connick, Jr
5) Hugh Grant
6) The Edge (U2)
7) Alicia Keys (My only woman crush)

7 people who I think should do this
1) Freida
2) Alicia
3) Natalee
4) Tara
5) Grace
6) Debbie
7) Alyssa

Cow or Giraffe? You Make the Call

While in Decatur last week, my mom and I each got new purses. She had been seeing these animal print bags everywhere and really wanted one. Her excitement was infectious, so when we walked into a store that had the exact bags she had been wanting, we both got one. (well actually she got two) ;)

I'm incredibly indecisive, but mom eventually helped me choose one. I really liked the giraffe print ones, but couldn't decide on a style and color. I was really excited about the one I chose because I had tried to downsize my purse to an itty-bitty one a few weeks ago, but with a baby, you need a big purse to shove a diaper and/or bottle into so you don't have to lug around the whole diaper bag all the time. I decided on a tote-style black giraffe print with red accents.

My excitement was immediately deflated when I brought it home and showed Jon. He said "wow, a COW purse!!"

hmph. Of course, I didn't want a cow purse, I wanted a giraffe purse. I'm not a cow person. I don't like cow things, especially not cow print things. Giraffe - cute, trendy! Cow - not cute, not trendy.

This isn't my exact purse, but I'm too lazy to take a picture, so I found one similar to it online. I just have to say that I would've chosen this purse in brown, but they didn't have it. I'm just sayin'.

You make the call: giraffe or cow?

Whadda Week

Sparing all the gruesome details, here's a wrap-up of our week:

Saturday
I woke up sick. Fever and aches. Yuck. I had a pretty good idea it was allergies, but I knew the true test would be to see if Harper and Jon would wind up sick as well. They didn't.

Rest of the weekend I just did the best I could. Saturday night my fever finally broke around 2am which meant I got some sleep without those weird dreams that are caused by fevers. Those things are weird, man.

Monday morning
Wasn't sure I was going to make it into work on Monday, but following the old "24 hours without a fever" rule, I sucked it up and got Harper and myself out the door.

Then my phone rang.

To sum it up in a nutshell, everyone received notification on Monday morning that HSBC was closing the doors on its Auto Finance business. This would be our last "open" week of operations and everyone was being handed their walking papers (with a tidy severance). EVERYONE. Including me. Including every single one of my coworkers. Including my BOSSES. And THEIR bosses. And so on, and so on...

Of course I called Jon the second I hung up and after initial shock, we both felt like we had a peace about it. All of us have known that it could potentially go down this road eventually. With the mortgage mess, to the economy, gas prices, and now the car industry - things have been tough for us. But we had done such a good job of doing everything "they" asked us to do to pair down, hit goals, change procedures... that we thought maybe we were going to dodge the bullet and the company would keep us (Auto Finance) around a little while. I figured I'd get a severance and just do my best to find another job as quickly as I could, then benefit from the double (triple) income for a while, and plan what we'd do with the bonus.

Monday Afternoon
I'm not losing my job. Everyone else is, but I'm not. WHAT?? Here's the part where I spare most of the details, but in a nutshell, the company is moving me to another department in the same position. This department will eventually shut down as well, but there are no promises as to how long (or short) it will be open -- anywhere from 6 months to 2 years.

hmph. Mixed emotions. Glad I have security. SO thankful I have a job obviously, which is more than everyone else can say. Just trying to process it all.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Very, very surreal. I'm barely sleeping 4 hours a night and am not eating very much. People shredding everything. Projects come to a halt and trashed. Nothing is the same. None of my usual tasks matter anymore. The calendars that I worked so hard to keep organized can be deleted. It's all gone. Shred bins over flowing. Desks cleared off.

Wednesday we said goodbye to our first wave of people, our Funders. Lots of tears. Hugs. Trading of phone numbers. Not fun.

Wednesday the crew also started work on our foundation. ugh. Throw something else on the pile, why dontchya? Thankfully Jon was home to deal with all this and I just came home to huge holes in our ground that led to under our house. Fun.

Friday
Anger. Frustration. Nothing was fair about Friday. All my coworkers were leaving. I was staying. They didn't have a job. I did -- albeit one that I wasn't thrilled about having since I don't know how long I'll be there for anyway. And one that I wasn't even asked if I wanted. I may sound ungrateful here, but Friday I was so angry that I wasn't given the option of going. There's more to the story, but URRGGHH!! I didn't want to stay! Me staying meant someone else was going, and that's not fair.

Lots more tears. Speeches. Hugs. Laughs. "See ya later"s. "It's a small industry, we'll cross paths again", and people telling me to "take care of that sweet baby" which just made me break down more.

I realized something Friday amongst all the tears and frustration and goodbyes. These people were my friends. I don't know many people here and still feel like a new Texan. I remember coming into this place a 16 months ago and immediately being welcomed. Thinking how nice everyone was and realizing "ahhh, so this is Southern Hospitality". It took a while to get to know some, and longer to know others, but these were my friends. I know about their lives, they know about mine. I've met some of their families. And most I will never see again. It's hard to explain how you actually look forward to going to work in some ways, to see people, to talk to people, to share with people. I don't really have that here, outside of my family. Work was a family to me -- everyone felt that way.

I have no doubt that most everyone will move on to bigger and better things. Some will struggle. Some will change careers completely, being scarred by this experience, having no hope for the industry. I look forward to hearing from people, learning what they're up to in a few months' time. I wish everyone the best.

In the meantime, I'll be training for my new job, learning the ins and outs, then being left to figure the rest out for myself. I've decided I'm not going to try to get to know many of my new coworkers, because, gosh darnit, I can't go through this all again. (Only half-joking there). But I'm going to do my best to move forward, pick myself up and see what's ahead in my future. I have no idea what it will bring, but I trust in the Lord and know that He will lead me.

Oh, and our foundation is even again.
And I'm still sick.