Eeeeekkkk! Another year older! My getting older doesn’t bother me. It’s my children getting older that makes me sad. I have a child in the fourth grade! And my baby girl is starting kindergarten!
Still no word on the position that requires me to move to Central Missouri. Three phone interviews, though. Hopefully I will hear something back soon!
While being unemployed and on a super strict budget, I have been wanting to figure out this whole extreme couponing thing, but I have yet to have the patience. I do, however, like to know roughly how much I am going to spend before I go to the grocery store (probably more for my hubby’s peace of mind than my own lol). I am NOT good at looking at a list and knowing roughly how much. So I found an app on my iPhone called Grocery IQ (also available for iPad and Android) that also has a fully functional website (www.groceryiq.com) that will sync with your devices (easier for me to do it on the computer and then just use my phone while at the store). It is powered by Coupons.com. You can enter the items along with all pertinent information (Brand, Quantity, Price, etc.).
I do MOST of my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, so I use their Grocery Beta website (http://grocery.walmart.com/usd-estore/index.jsp) to determine prices roughly. MOST of the items I have needed were on here. The rest of the items, I just guessed. The prices were VERY CLOSE to what I found in my local store, with most being exact.
I just went through the list on my phone while at the store and checked everything off as I grabbed it, checking and adjusting prices along the way. The app sorts everything by aisle (which you can adjust if you know your local store is arranged differently), so it makes navigating the store much easier. At the end, you have a VERY close estimate of what the total will be.
DID I MENTION YOU CAN SCAN BARCODES WITH THE APP? When you run out of something at home, you can just scan the barcode and then adjust the information as necessary. I scanned a box of Carnation Sugar-Free Instant Breakfast drink mix and only had to adjust the aisle and add the price. I also added a note that it was Sugar-Free because apparently both types scan the same. Alternately, if you are bopping along in the store and find an item that you missed on your list, you can scan it and enter the price, etc. and then toss it in your cart so that your total at the end will be closer to correct.
Another awesome feature is the History section, where you can find items that you have purchased before and add it to a new list. You can also have multiple lists for different stores. If you do not have a devise that supports the app, you can print your list and even email it to yourself. You can also sync your lists with other people’s accounts. Also, you can add coupons from Coupons.com if you use them to factor into your final totals. I LOVE IT!
So… I have been able to get some temporary part-time work and for that I am so grateful. Also, and more importantly (!!!!!), I have lost 17 lbs. since being unemployed!!!! I am starting to fit better into my business casual attire (just in time for job interviews)! I had my phone interview with CallBack#1 yesterday. Instead of a Group Supervisor in charge of a state (or half a state in some cases), they think I would be better suited for the Regional Manager position in charge of three states and the pay is roughly $10K more a year. The major downside is that I would have to relocate to central Missouri at the closest. I am so not feeling that! I am also pretty sure my house would NEVER sell with all the economic issues in this area right now.
I am still waiting to hear something from CallBack#2, so I told the first company I would have to have a few days to think about it and discuss it with James. The second company is also basically a Regional Manager position in charge of three states as well, but at least Tennessee is one of those states! There is a possibility I could stay in Tennessee with that one. I am just afraid the first company will need an answer before the second company can get back to me. SO MANY DECISIONS!!! lol
It has been forever since I posted. I can’t say that I have been busy – just down. Extremely down. Everything was looking so bad and telling myself that it could always be so much worse just wasn’t helping. I wasn’t sleeping right and barely eating. Yesterday, I actually had a bout of good luck, though! I was so excited! Nothing definite, just a couple call-backs – both for management positions though. One means relocation more than likely to the midwest and the other has a possibility of being a remote position. My fingers are so crossed!!!
With the first call-back, I have been applying for the same position for weeks. The company has several openings of the same position but in different areas. I have applied for every one of them (15 or 16 total, I think). I am hoping the call-back wasn’t to get me to stop applying! That would be a little funny, though. It isn’t much different from what I have been doing the last 9 years, but it is a management position. Well, maybe more supervisory than management. It is the one that is guaranteed relocation, though. Not sure about that, as I have no clue how I will sell my house after the report on the news the other day about the drop in home values after GoodYear left town. I am supposed to have a phone interview later this afternoon, though.
With the second call-back, on a whim at 5:00AM yesterday I decided to email my resume to the HR department of a company I knew about. A couple hours later I got a call back from the head of the company saying my resume could not have come at a better time as they had just decided to implement a new department, and he thinks I could be perfect to manage it. It will probably mean a good deal of travel, but I am certainly no stranger to that. Probably not much of a pay bump, but it will be more than worth it. I am just hoping I can get out there for an interview, and they can see that I am definitely the right person for the job!
I have been in touch with a few companies in Rochester, NY, and I am thinking I have a pretty good shot! I have been applying for jobs all over the country. I have been applying for research jobs of all types, not just title abstracting. I HATE the idea of moving, but if I HAVE to, at least Rochester is near my brother. My father is just a few hours from him so I will be geographically closer to him than I have been in 25 years. I thought it was kind of weird that Rochester has the most promising leads for me out of all the places I have applied, especially given their reputation for not hiring outsiders often. I hope to know something soon. *fingers crossed* WISH ME LUCK!!! 
It is likely a staph infection. Kinda figured it. It feels like someone cut my leg open, jammed a softball into my muscle and sewed it back up. I got a pain shot and an antibiotic shot and have to go back every morning for a few days to get more shots. She couldn’t drain it because she said it would take TONS of shots to numb such a massive area and she still didn’t think she could numb it all that well. I also have antibiotics to take by mouth as well. I am supposed to take it easy. Not hard to do right now…
I am wondering why Karma can’t be the b!@tch she is known to be when I need her to be! lol I am just cranky, I guess. Going on 48 hours of being practically bedridden has turned me a tiny bit bitter. Too much time to think, I guess… Oh well, I told James if I wasn’t getting better soon I would go to the ER. He asked if by soon I meant like 6:00. I told him I meant more like Thursday… – ish… He swears my leg will fall off if I don’t go right this minute, but I am pretty sure it is getting better. I have been able to get up and cook supper two nights in a row now (well, I helped cook tonight). That is more than I could have done Saturday night, that’s for sure. Besides, I am getting star treatment right where I’m at. Reice fixes me drinks, Cady “reads” fashion magazines to me, Champ builds the coolest LEGO inventions to show me all day long, James plays with my hair and the kittens keep me entertained. Like right now, they are tangled up asleep on the cable box. That is their new favorite place to nap since it is so warm. Fine by me because it is right beside me and every time they wake up they crawl over here to get some sugars. Dobby fell off earlier while he was sleeping. It was one of those cute as a button but oh so pitiful moments!
So…. Today I will not be winning any awards for mother/wife of the year, that’s for sure! I wanted to make this Father’s Day weekend pretty freaking awesome, but now that I am unemployed my plans were scrapped. Not that they were concrete, anyway. I hadn’t decided on camping for a couple days or going to Metropolis to check out all the Superman stuff and maybe visit some family. But that didn’t happen…. Not just because of money, but also because of an infection on the inside of my leg that goes all the way down to the muscle and makes it nearly impossible to walk and almost as difficult to sit. I got fever, chills, sweats, dizziness… The whole nine yards. So Father’s Day was spent at home with me laying on the couch most of the day crying like a baby! lol
Swelling finally went down enough that I was able to get up and cook supper. I cooked corn on the cob, which my little ones love, but halfway into dinner we realize Champ is having a HORRIBLE time trying to eat it! He doesn’t have his top two front teeth and one of his bottom front teeth is just now coming through, so he has to eat it with his side teeth. It was the cutest thing ever, but I felt so bad that I should have known better than to cook it! lol
I have been trying to think of all the things I can do now while looking for another job. I am hoping that I find a job so quickly that I do not have time to even begin my list, but… Here is my short list:
IF I don’t get a job soon, I will add to the list later I am sure. Any suggestions?
