Taking the Scenic Route

A few hours after the previous post, Zach found out he was going to be unemployed again.

Although it isn’t good news, and the actual work he did was good and he enjoyed learning new systems and improving his skills, the work culture was terrible and we won’t miss the stress that caused.  Working with a bunch of (married) guys who talk endlessly about how much they are irritated by their families, who they want to sleep with given the opportunity, sports, slamming current and past employees, passing around old (often offensive) YouTube videos and internet “jokes” (and thinking they are new, PLUS, nobody else is allowed access to do this and they pride themselves on shutting down anybody who tries), and a workaholic manager who’s sole personality trait seemed to be “angry little man” (even with it wasn’t something to be angry about) it really isn’t much of a loss.  And really, why would IT guys complain about coworkers who aren’t computer savvy.  Isn’t that why they have jobs?  “Not a Good Fit” (official reason) is the understatement of the year.  There was no way he was going to “join in” in such negative conversations.  (and no, I am not mentioning the company’s name, so please don’t ask)

Plus, we get to spend more time together, which is always nice.  Our house will get cleaner, and we will be able to do more things, like using our membership to Exploration Place, etc.

He has been interviewing through much of his time there, and although nothing has come up yet, we are hopeful.  It is heartening to see a 10-fold improvement in the number of jobs out there compared to this last summer.  We expect to get unemployment, and we have the craptastic health insurance through the end of January (plus a medical flex spending account), so we will be doing lots of dr. appointments next week for the adults.  (Zane has insurance on his own, and we should be able to get it for Zora without a problem…before this job, it was just held up because I hadn’t sent in the birth certificate yet).

So, I am a little stressed, but have faith that it will work out for the better in the end.  It is just going to be a rough patch right now.

Zach’s coworkers can’t understand why he doesn’t want to go out to lunch with them to oogle the waitresses & talk about sports.  I know why.

Both kids stayed and enjoyed the entire movie for the first time.  Yay!  It was even fun for the adults, which is a bonus.  I am a happy mom tonight.

$.99 a pound chicken

some olive oil

freshly ground black pepper

a little rosemary on some of them (none for Zane’s pieces)

Yum.

Tuesday morning Zane jumped out of bed to start working on robots again, and was none too happy when I told him we had to go to ST first.  As soon as we got back from ST, he was at the computer, reading the directions and working on the robot again.  Other than a break to play some wii adventure challenge games with Zora, he worked on them pretty much all day, until finally in the evening his brain was just done.   It wasn’t that late, but it was clear he was wiped out.

Zane drags Zach over to help him figure out a tough spot.

We got some storage for the billion tiny pieces of the lego mindstorm robot and let Zane have a go at it.  We showed it to Zane, but since Zach wasn’t feeling good and I was busy with something at the time, we figured he would look at the book for a bit and lose interest in about 5 minutes until we sat down and helped him build it.  Nope.  He took the book and kept plugging at it, bringing us pieces every once in a while that were really hard to get together, and by evening had the robot put together.  He had Daddy look at it to help figure out how to run the program on it, but he did most of the work.  He finished the base moving robot.

After purposely running her RC car into wall (and the giggling like crazy), we told her that she might hurt the car if she kept doing that, and to try and avoid the walls.

I guess she thought she hurt the car.

Look what Zach found.  A while ago we actually did a side by side taste test of the HFCS Pepsi and the regular, old-fashioned sugar Pepsi, and the old fashioned one with sugar won by a mile with both of us (and our friend Robert who was also curious if there was actually a difference).  Then it seemed to disappear from the shelves.  Zach found some today and I am sitting here looking at it, wishing I could drink it too.  It is cool to see the old label though.

The new year dawns, and it is a gray day.  A good day, but very gray outside.

Our snow family hasn’t melted, and they still have their hats.  lol.