Ninety Degrees in The Fall???

It's been fall for over a week and our temps are still in the mid to high 80's. It's weird. We went to our first fall festival yesterday and most of the people were wearing shorts and sandals! Today it's supposed to be close to 90 again! I can't imagine what the Steelers are thinking
today taking the field in 90 degree weather against the Seahawks.

Anyway here's some pictures:

I Be Bad Guy Mama

I guess gone are the days where I can pick out Dylan's Halloween costumes.Gone are cuddly puppy dogs, fuzzy bears, cute froggies.Seems my little boy is growing past cute and cuddly and on to scary and mean!I had thought that I would have the kids dress up as a Kitty (Marissa) and Puppy (Dylan) for Halloween this year.I even saw a cute puppy dog costume at Target for Dylan and was just trying to find a cute Kitty Cat for Marissa. She said she either wanted to be a Kitty or a Witch.So Monday Dylan and I were shopping and I said to him "let's go look at costumes"off we went to the Halloween section of Super Center Walmart ...and he was oohing and ahhing over all the outside decorations and pumpkins and such.I started looking through the toddler costumes and saw a cute, cute, cute "Itsy Bitsy Spider", he said "no", a fuzzy bear, he said "no", a frog, again "no". He said "bad guy" ...what? "bad guy, Mama" then "I be bad guy". I looked to where he pointed and it was the skeleton. He wanted to be a Skeleton.No matter how I tried to convince him otherwise, he was insistent. "I be bad guy"So this year for Halloween, Dylan will be a Skeleton and Marissa will be a Witch

Long Long Time

it's been a freakin' long time since I've been here...let's see what we've missed...

I did start working at the manufacturing plant as a contract recruiter back in June. I like the work, I've been working 1 to 2 days from home and the rest at the office.

We went on vacation in July. We went to NY then the Pocono's and had a really good time. We finally saw Frank & Yo's new place, it's really nice. Then we went to Michelle's bridal shower. Stayed over at Aunt Marion's where Dylan had an allergic reaction to almond cookies and we had him in the emergency room. We went back to Ellie's and then went to the Pocono's where we spent one day at a water park, a day at the pool at Big Bass Lake, a day shopping and then a day at a kids play place. Went back to NY for one day because John was doing a dinner at the American Legion.

Liz came back to PA with John, so we spent a long weekend with her. It was nice, Marissa really enjoys her visits.

We went to The Wiggles with the kids.

Then August was preparing for back to school. Marissa started kindergarten on August 27. She seems to really like it. Dylan has orientation for preschool on 9/5 and then starts 9/11. 9/12 he starts speech through Dart. He's talking soooo much now and even his articulation is picking up.

Yesterday was his birthday and we went to The Zoo and then back home he opened presents from Grandma & Peepaw. He especially loved the baseball glove! His Baseball Birthday Party is on Saturday. I'm still waiting for responses, but I think we'll have a decent turnout.

Today he started peeing on the potty! I'm so excited for this new phase for him! It's just a start and I know the road can be rough ahead in this phase, but it's a start...I owe it all to the M&M's LOL.

BBL with links to pictures and other ramblings.

Job Hunting & Interviewing

The interviews on Monday when pretty well. The first was for an IT Staffing agency in Downtown Pittsburgh. I met with the other recruiter and was very impressed. The compensation plan is phenomenal. Nice base and really good commission. Low expectation of placing a minimum of 2 a month and average commission on a new start is around $2000. So the chance is there to make over $80k a year. I then met with the Sales Manager. Who actually works out of a different office, but until this office is up and running (just hired a new sales manager is looking for another) is commuting to the PGH office about 3 times a month. We had a good interview, but I felt he was high pressure/high expectations. He was hard to read. Sometimes I felt my responses were dead on, sometimes I couldn't tell. The position would be a lot of work, especially to begin with just building up my portfolio. The expectations that the sales manager has is different than what the recruiter and recruiting manager has talked about.

The second interview on Monday went really well and I think I have a greater chance getting this position. It's a contract position going 3 to 5 months with a great chance for it to extend. It's for a manufacturing company hiring only their assemblers. Low pay, very regulated restrictions, high turnover. It's more flexible with time and hours. Ability to schedule yourself, lower pressure, high expectations, can do some work from home. The person who had the job before is recruiting for this position and he said he would come in some days at 10 and work to 4 and then go home to work a few hours on his own schedule. This is what I like about it. It's professional but without being so strict. It's flexible, but you can still schedule yourself to work 40 hours. It's hourly and the pay rate would be about $25 an hour. The HR Manager is trying to push this for a permanent position but corporate has been waffling about it. James, the former recruiter, was hired to work 3 months and actually worked 9. I think it would be a great transition for me because I'm just getting back into the work environment. I don't really know how it's going to work.

So I have a call back to another company who I sent my resume to and left me a voice mail yesterday to call back today.

Still Job Hunting

job search is still going on...I'm really looking for something to do at home, that makes more money than what I get now....and my inlaws said they'd watch the kids, so I can find something outside the home too, so I've been looking at both.

my a-hole "boss" pissed me off today...I've been emailing them and leaving them messages about this one client and job opportunity for 2 weeks, and he leaves me a message about his frustration on the lack of communication on everyone's part including mine...he said he asked me for feedback on my candidate and so I called him and left him another message asking when he communicated with me because the last time I spoke to him was weeks ago and he never asked me for anything about my candidate and I told him I was looking for other employment due to the lack of anything substantial coming out of his company directed my way. I told him I was tired of wasting my time, effort and money, just spinning my wheels while he wasn't producing anything on his end.

The Graduate

Here's our little pre-school graduate!!! Last night was graduation. They sang songs and then they each donned their cap and received their diploma. I can't believe she's be in kindergarten in the fall!

More pics:

AND Dylan's reaction to the whole thing:
More pictures here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=1558p3sp.bjxuyhc9&Uy=-tpy8as&Ux=1

Money, That's All I Want

A whole lotta Money! That's What I Want! That's All I Want!

We seem to have gotten ourselves into a hole again...money is tight, unexpected bills have come in...do we dip into our meager savings to pay some or do we make payment arrangements? Eat bread and water for a month? Well it's not really that dire, but DAMN! I'd love to get ahead and stay ahead for once.

The bills:
an unexpected tax bill of over $3000 for last year. Seems when we refinanced and started escrowing, the mortgage company only escrowed going forward and not taxes due. So we recently got that bill.

a mortgage payment that never arrived at the mortgage company even though we have it in our checkbook that it was made and mailed (no payment stub) it was never received and oops...I used some of the funds. so we have a double mortgage payment.

medical bills from my father from his recent stay at the hospital (twice) and rehab and nursing home...seems he has a $500 deductible, so we have to cover THAT, plus R&C charges that the insurance company has paid, but the facilities are charging over and bills for phones and TV!

so I really need to get that job because that will solve so much of our monetary problems...plus if I'm working all day, I won't have time to shop :D

some short term solutions: selling clothes and baby items on line (garage sale & ebay), Larry selling more computer stuff on ebay and craigslist, we also have almost $200 coming to us for a multi-meter he just sold on ebay, I have $175 coming from Lia Sophia as reimbursement from my manager on a bridal show that I'm signed-up for...