April 11, 2009

What am I doing now?



Still unemployed after all these months

Yes, I am still unemployed. Were it not for that pesky business about money, I think I could get into this. Okay I admit it: I like money. So what have I been doing to further the cause or use up my time?

1. Joined Face book after several diligent friends kept pestering me. I am talking to people who don’t communicate in other ways. Also, welcome my Face bookers to my blog as I highlighted it on my homepage.

2. Visited my old hometown briefly and went to see my grandparents. Okay, they are dead, but I did put flowers on their graves. Is it tacky to duct tape an arrangement to the top of a marker? One couldn’t see the duct tape, and it kept the purple silk tulips secure from the wind. Tomorrow would be the 78th anniversary of my grandparent’s wedding. They were married at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was 31 – she was 23. God rest their souls. I miss them everyday.

3. My parents – who are very much living – also have placed their marker next to my grandparents. My father, for five years, has been trying to get me to visit the marker. I kept telling him, “I’ll see it in due time,” knowing that eventual day will come. Difficult not to see their marker as it is approximately six inches from my grandparents. What I did not expect was seeing the backside which says “Beloved Parents of” and there was my name and my brother’s name. Very creepy. I do like the location – very pastoral and rural and reflective of their lives. This cemetery also houses remains to the 1840s of people in my grandmother’s lineage. Her family homesteaded in 1839.

4. Also visited another Lutheran cemetery half a mile away from the one mentioned above. I put red silk roses on the graves of a few people that I knew growing up. While I believe that “to dust we shall return” and that there are no souls present, the cemetery reminded me of a community in “Our Town.” Within a few yards, lay the remains of people I loved when I was a child. My parent’s spunky red-haired friend, the pastor who married Husband and I, my brother’s 4-H mentor, my grandmother’s best friend from childhood and nursing school. Parents of my dear friend who served as my maid of honor. I put red silk roses on all their monuments.

5. Visited mother-in-law in nursing home and parents in independent apartment to celebrate mother’s birthday. My mother has dementia but is physically healthy and probably the happiest, carefree person I know.

6. Upon returning home, I cleaned the laundry room from top to bottom and discovered we won’t have to buy Windex for the rest of our lives. Found the Y2K kit I made – a hatchet, oil lamps and extra wicks, waterproof matches, mosquito candles, and duct tape. (Yes, I know, it makes no sense, but having these things assembled somehow made me feel better.)

7. Turned the piles of papers in my office into files and totally cleaned my office. Now I am going through parent’s old slides from 1955 to 1964 with a new slide scanner. The photo at the beginning of this post is some of my handiwork, and features brother and me at grandparent's farmhouse in 1960.

8. Yes, I am also looking for a job. I meet with my job coach once a week and take classes online once or twice a week. I try to do something every day to advance the cause – networking with people who may have a contact for me. I have taken several assessments to discover my real self (tests say I should be in sales – DUH!) My resume is finished and printed and I have official stationery, business cards, and envelopes courtesy of the outplacement firm. Used stationary and envelopes yesterday to write the President of the United States a letter about his off-the-cuff comment on Jay Leno re Special Olympics. Suspect I’ll turn up on the wacky watch list (also for assembling my Y2K kit, see number #5.)

9. So Happy Easter everyone. Tomorrow after 40 days of no real Coke or candy let the sugar fly. Pink peeps, here I go. And Husband will make a glaze for the ham with real Coke. Quoth the raven.