March 2, 2011

The job search continues. I have good days and bad days. Good days result in a lot of leads and calls. Bad days mean no leads and jobs being cancelled and no callbacks, and sometimes outright rejection. I know it would be easier to find something if I were more flexible on pay or location, but I'm just not; I know I wouldn't be happy. So I know the next good thing will come along, but it will take some time. At least I'm lucky enough to have savings and a reasonable mortgage payment and lots of love and support. And having to get up and dressed and out of the house to take the kids to school gets me going at least.

A big change for me is that I will be stepping down as an officer of the Exiles. I've been an officer for 10 years, so this is a big deal. The politics, and some of the people in leadership, have made it so that it's not fun anymore, and in fact is quite toxic for me. So it's time to step back. I'm dealing with a big sense of loss over it, but I'm starting to feel positive. Val is also dealing with her own struggles in this regard, and we're trying to support each other in this.

During January and February we had some fun things:

On 1/27 Val called me to say she had rear-ended someone on the Embarcadero in SF. On 1/28, I rear-ended someone on 101!!! It was a particularly bad couple of days. We have different insurance companies (Farmer's and AAA, respectively) so we got to compare service, but it was funny that both of our cars ended up at the same shop, Chilton in Burlingame. Val's car appeared to have more damage, but that turned out not to be the case. After the initial front end damage replacement on mine we found out that the adaptive cruise control wasn't working, which was a $1200 part. Then it started raining and I found the windshield was leaking. That was fixed, but apparently water got into the electrical system, causing the radio and GPS to malfunction. As we speak my car is back in the shop for the second time. Yikes!

We had a water leak, which we found out about because the water company called to tell us our water usage had more than doubled. Yikes! Our water bill for December and January totalled over $800!!! The home warranty people came out and helped us determine that it was in the sprinklers, so we turned it off and stopped the leaking, but they don't fix that kind of thing. So Guadalupe, our wonderful gardener, came and found and fixed it. We can submit the bill and get a one-time partial credit against our water bill.

Haley is taking swimming lessons through the South San Francisco Parks & Rec, and is really enjoying it. We signed her up for the next level of classes, starting April 4.

Katelyn continues to enjoy Karate. She is a blue belt, and will hopefully test for her promotion to second degree soon. She's missed a few classess due to illness and homework overload, but is working to get back on track. Katelyn is also struggling with some attention issues; we think she might have ADD. She is working on her school organization, and doing a lot of research online on this condition. We may be doing a medication trial soon.

Both girls are continuing their religious school studies. Haley is progressing well in Hebrew. She still has 2 1/2 years until her Bat Mitzvah, and I'm sure will be well-prepared. Katelyn is in the youth class that is currently studying world affairs. I believe her current assignment involves Jews in the media, and requires that she watch an episode of South Park. Very strange, but wonderfully relevant to a 14-year-old.

I'm struggling with a few medical issues. In addition to my foot problem (tendon damage resulting in a hammer toe), I had a knee injury that required draining and a cortizone injection, and will see a neurologist today to deal with a headache I've had for over a month. I've tried chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, and even antipiotics because we thought it was a sinus infact, but nothing is working.

Adrien has been sick, so we haven't seen her for a few weeks. Some kind of nasty flu. She's on the mend, so we hope to see her soon.

I guess that's all for now. Will try to keep up with things... I have no excuse since I'm not working!!