So.....Tired....!

It has been a crazy few days (of no blogging you may have noticed), but nothing like today!  Anyway, I was cursed with some awful gastroenteritis Friday night that left Saturday as "the lost day" and Sunday a day when even walking up the stairs made me winded.  I do not know what had destroyed my body, but I wish it begone from this world and not get any of my friends and loved ones.  It was pretty awful.

Monday and Tuesday were complete catch up days, and that includes the basic necessity of EATING.  It was so good to eat again, and on Tuesday I was the happy recipient of some delicious "job-grieving" chocolates from Liz at http://lizohsiekdesigns.blogspot.com !  I am told that there will be wine next month and cheesecake the next.  That girl knows how to cure what ails me!  This is all through AmazingStuff, in case anyone is looking for a resource for lifting others' spirits!

And then came today...Today was interview day.  You know, the rebound interview after the bad break-up...picking yourself up and putting yourself back out there with all those unknowns.  Nerve-wracking!  Spent the morning refreshing myself on company information,etc.

My hubby stayed home today to watch the two-year old so I asked him for some contact information about his former graduate advisor, who I also worked a bit for back when I was in grad school.  Anyway, my hubby had worked for his advisor AND his advisor's wife, who generously paid him to be her computer consultant and web site designer.  She also hosted an engagement party at her home for us and took professional pictures at our wedding pro bono since we couldn't afford to pay anyone.  She is responsible for my only taste of caviar one New Year's Eve, she taught me how to make candied orange peels (so good!), and she fed us the most delicious, freshest meals on a regular basis as she treated us like family while we lived in New Haven.  She treated us to a night of Robin Williams live comedy and then introduced him to us after the show!  Her cousin was his wife! (not anymore of course)  Then, as my hubby was finishing his grad work, advisor's wife suddenly filed for divorce from advisor.  What?  We were with them constantly and had no idea this was coming.  So once we moved to Virginia, keeping in touch with both of them was a tad awkward, although we tried.  And then, I think we last saw her when my oldest was under a year old, so in 2004.  That was almost 7 years ago.  Today when looking up the advisor's information, we thought we should check on her info as well to see if she still worked at Yale with him.  And to our shock, we found a beautifully written obituary honoring her life, which ended last spring.  Last spring!  We had no idea, and we had actually been in contact with her ex-husband this summer.  He never mentioned it.  (that's not surprising, just frustrating)  So here it is, an hour before my interview, and I'm being flooded with memories of this very good person who we just could not believe had passed away (way well before her time, really....She was a caring, wonderful doctor of hemophiliacs and had so much to offer!)   I'm putting on my eye make-up while welling up with tears...very counter-productive.  

Anyway, got through the interview.  Nothing dramatic happened.   Not sure where my confidence is and how it was conveyed, but I got through it fine.  Whether I get an offer or not, we'll see.  So, I arrive home after 4 to prepare for a visit from our brand new realtor (we nixed the last one...too lazy)  because even though I am unemployed, and even though me and the hubby decided it is too stressful a time to be looking at buying a house, we both wanted to jump on a new listing that seemed to draw us both in.   It is a small house compared to what we're renting now, but it is finished with lovely remodeling and it has the most beautiful screened in back deck...just beautiful!  And it is in our son's school district.  As soon as we were done looking at the house, we knew we wanted to make an offer.  So we part ways with the realtor, come home to feed the kids, and then learn that the seller's realtor is presenting an offer to the sellers tomorrow at 1.  So we need to get our offer in by noon tomorrow to compete with the other offer.  And so, it is now just about midnight and we have signed and initialed a billion things, got a new lender letter of pre-approval, and had to decide strategically what our offer should be and what our offer could NOT be....there are limits people!  Remember, no tengo trabajo!  Mucho pooro!  just kidding. 


So now, I have inside of me:
1-Will I get offered the job?
2-Will our offer on this beautiful little house get accepted? 
3-How can Dr. Diana Beardsley have left us?

Of the three things, I know I most want to honor Diana right now, so forget worrying about the other two.  I will remember how we brought a case of fresh Hawaiian pineapples on many planes back from our Maui honeymoon so that we could gift them to Diana, an appreciator of good food, along with a bottle of pineapple wine and champagne made on Maui.  And to our dismay, when we went to assemble the pineapples in a more festive form than a case, we found them already rotting!  And so we abashedly went to Stop and Shop, bought the best looking pineapples, and presented them as a gift with the wines.   Diana's comment while we ate the pineapple for dessert that evening?  That these were the best pineapple she had ever tasted.  God bless her.  We are sorry we lost touch, but you are still in our hearts forever.

No post yesterday...

I did not have any new news to report regarding the termination ordeal.  I had emailed the HR supervisor Wednesday afternoon and have not heard back from her, big shock.  Although, she certainly contacted Little Miss Escort-Me-Out because at 9:30 this morning, I received an overnight fedex from her which contained but one sheet of paper: My termination letter with the correct date on it.  I never told her directly that she had dated the termination Jan. 4 instead of Feb. 4, which means the difference between firing around 90 days or firing at 115 days.  But I did email that tidbit to her supervisor.  I couldn't help but grin a tiny bit because it means she was spoken to, which no matter what will show that she has screwed up a termination.  Even if nothing comes of it for her, it still made her have to do extra work for someone who doesn't even work there.  Considering her favorite statement to me on Wednesday was "You're not employed here so there's nothing I can do for you...", it is kinda satisfying.  She must have said that at least 10 times.  I knew she was getting frustrated when she actually started rehashing the reasons I was terminated (just to make me feel bad), although she has no idea why I was terminated.  She only knows the lies my supervisor told her.  

So anyway, with everything that happened with HR on Wednesday, I felt sucked back into a bad place in that I started ruminating about every move I made at work and how I acted and how people reacted to me, etc....It's hard not to do that when you are used to being appreciated.  It leaves you doubting your self-assessment skills and wondering how you could be so far off the page that everyone else was on.  BUT, the fact is I do not need to be analyzing all of that.  The fact that I was not aware of how I was being perceived is a weakness on their part, too, because it means they were not communicating their concerns with me.  Hey, I don't really mind getting paid 4 months to learn an entire set of skills that would normally cost money by taking classes.  Thanks stupid job!

Anyway, all of this nonsense drained every ounce of energy and optimism out of me yesterday...I would say that job and its HR are really Dementors in disguise, skilled at sucking the life out of everyone, including a lowly Muggle like me.  I could feel all the progress I've made over the past two weeks being pulled out of my mouth and through the phone.  The aftermath was that Thursday I felt pretty hopeless (despite all the blessings in my life).  I didn't work on any amigurumi and didn't feel like I could be happy about anything.  It didn't help that my day started with my 6-year old getting me up from bed to take him to school (pitiful) and that when I entered my 2-year old's room, he was peacefully sitting on his bed saying "Yucky" to the pile of puke he was sitting next to.  This mom job ain't easy, but at least I got hugs and kisses as payment. 

So today is a new day!  The Dementors gave me the idea of looking into Harry Potter amigurumi that's out there (not sure I'm interested, at least not now).  Meanwhile, I have to behead a turtle (see picture) and continue working on a fish of my own design  (yay, I have been creating my own!  And not writing down what I've done!  uh oh). 

His head seems top heavy to me.  The colors are inspired by the pet turtle on Blue's Clues, which I watch a lot of these days.  : )  But again, still can't find my digital camera so this is a phone pic and the colors are way off.  It is a bright green, not so foresty as it appears here. 

Arghhhhh!!!

It is not typical of me, but I feel very strongly that I need to go to part of the serenity prayer for strength right now:  

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.  

Or, in more typical Amy fashion, perhaps I should go straight to the wise words of Frank Costanza: 

Serenity Now!!!!

Oy!! Today I had to deal with HR from the place that fired me.  Believe me, they don't want to talk to me, but I initiated it because I question the legality of my termination.  So, in order to know if they broke any rules, I need to see the Employee Handbook.  Why do I not HAVE the employee handbook?  Because it was on the INTRAnet that you can only look at while you were on a work computer.  So then I was terminated, told to pack my things, and escorted from the building (the most BEWILDERING experience of my crazy life), so why on earth would I have the sense of mind to stop and say,"WAIT, let me look up the legality of this termination on the intranet before I am forever banned from reading it!"  It took a good week before all of this haze lifted and my hubby and I realized that I had worked for 115 days with no word of evaluation before that final day.  And the grounds for firing me was that I had not met expectations within the 90 day introductory period.  Naturally, we became curious about the evaluation policy and this "90 day" business.  So Friday I left a message with HR asking them to send me, by mail or electronically, a copy of the employee handbook.  Well, today is Wednesday and Little Miss Escort-Me-Out called to tell me that since I was no longer an employee, she could not provide me with the Employee Handbook.  Come on, roll your eyes with me.  Serenity Now!!!

And say a prayer for the poor HR people of the world.  I would not want their job for anything.

Being that she could not give me the information I needed, I asked for her supervisor.  She became hesitant.  She barely remembered her supervisor's name and can you believe it?  She just couldn't recall her supervisor's extension number at that time.  (and I got fired...thank GOD!) Honestly, if company policy was followed accordingly in my termination, then why is it such a freakin' ordeal to get me the information that would shut me up?  I'll tell you why...something isn't adding up.  

I'm not going to lie...I'm truly not a spiteful person.  However, if Little Miss Escort-Me-Out and my supervisor got less of a bonus for being involved in a minor wrongful termination situation, I would probably do a teeny tiny happy dance.  If nothing comes of this and they followed protocol, then they are still wasting my time (as they did for about 4 months) and I'm the fool.  So be it.

And since I am in such a crummy mood (yes, crummy), I leave you with Lamby.  Lamby just can't be looked at without feeling a little compassion.  I modified Lamby from http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=155762.0 and I absolutely love him.  So do my kids.  I do not think I will part with him.  I took a lot of time embroidering his eyes and nose and I just love him.  So former employer, screw you!  Lamby is a testament that I live on! 

Oh wait, he had no arms then.  Here:

Valentine's Day Parties

Well, I have brushed myself off, picked myself up, and gotten myself back into the social scene.  Not to brag, but I had THREE Valentine's Day parties to go to yesterday.  First was cupcakes and juice boxes with the first grade class, and we went straight from there to the daycare's bash....two parties there!  The two-year old gathering had cupcakes, cake, more cupcakes, juice boxes, mandarin oranges and cheese puffs.  Any guesses as to the most popular treat with this group of kids?  Mandarin oranges!  Then I went to the more sophisticated party in the next room with the older after-school kids where they had hot dogs, cookies, brownies and, you guessed it, juice boxes!  Phew!  I was wiped out from all the social activity!  Since I had made the brownies, and therefore had eaten some before we even made it to the parties, I only had cheese puffs and a juice box.  I have got to remember to buy cheese puffs next time I'm at the store! I had forgotten all about that food group!

After all this partying, I was too wiped out to enjoy a Netflix movie with my hubby, so another year goes by with an uneventful Valentine's Day for the grown-ups.  I did get Gerbera daisies and a beautiful card, so I'm good.  : )

As for amigurumi, I made a heart from a free pattern offered at http://owlishly.typepad.com/owlishly/2009/02/corazoncitos-free-amigurumi-heart-pattern-in-3-sizes.html.  I made the larger size, it came out very nice, and my first grader gave it to his teacher as a little gift.  And then I realized I never took a picture!  So last night I made the middle size and took a picture today, again on the phone camera.  It doesn't look as nice as the larger one, and you can see too much stuffing between the holes, but it was a new technique to learn in order to make it so I'm happy.

Amy's amigurumi project begins

It's been a full work week since I've been fired.  Now, I am not the type of person who most people (including me) would ever believe was capable of getting fired.  But it DID happen and it was one of the worst experiences of my life.  Not only was I not allowed to defend myself at the "termination meeting" against the vague reasons I was being let go, which left me feeling so angry, but now I was left with the understandable need to make sense of it all.  And that leaves you doubting your skills, your conscientiousness, and your ability to fit in with people.  None of these are good feelings, especially when self-esteem is already something I have to be conscious about boosting everyday.


After a couple of days of complete depression and anger, I wanted to do something for ME.  I had the time now.  I love to knit and crochet.  The last project I worked on was knitting a sweater for my son...and it came out beautiful and was very rewarding to complete, but now I needed something that would make me feel like I accomplished something with more instant gratification.  The only things I crocheted were baby blankets or afghans, although once I crocheted a little monkey for a baby gift.  But how I made the leap from that idea to Amy's Amigurumi is lost to me.  Because I had no idea what amigurumi was when the day began, and somehow I knew a lot about it by the end of the day.  


Ami (ah-mee) means crochet in Japanese.  With the strong need to feel like I had some purpose (besides being a mommy), I felt it was too coincidental that the word for crochet in Japanese was so close to my own name.  As I looked at more of the amigurumi creations that were on the web, I started to feel motivated.  Motivated!  That's not something I typically feel.  It's just not my personality I guess.


My first project was from Lion Brands free patterns and it was an octopus.  I took a picture with my phone camera (I still have to learn the art of taking a great picture) and sent it to my buddy Liz @ http://www.lizohsiekdesigns.com/


I wasn't feeling too confident about putting a cute face on it, so I set a pair of paper eyes I made in seconds on the octopus.

He looks sort of the way I feel...like "Are you going to mess with me?  Really?  Take that job and shove it."  He makes me happy.