Cory's Blog

The peer pressure has sunk in . . . or maybe it's just having a little more down time . . . Cory has a blog. He asked me to wait until he had a couple posts before announcing to the world. He now does. All mathmaticians will think his joke is hilarious. It took me a moment to grasp it.
For those who may be in ignorance, the prominently featured airplane is a P-38 (which of course I recognize by now, ha ha).
The title of his blog?

Flying High on Life

So, job update (accurate as-of last night): six applications (different jobs) still pending at Boeing, the small helicopter company in Kent that sounded so positive hasn't re-contacted, the government aerospace jobs didn't reject his applications, but that might have been less insulting than what they did say.
It's trickier than one might think. Aerospace companies reject him because his engineering experience is more mechanical/production, while he's denied mechanical engineering jobs because his engineering degree is in aerospace. I'm starting to see why people take unpaid internships.
Meanwhile, I'm preparing for the possibility of selling the house this Spring. I spent hours with baking-soda water cleaning the walls, trim, and baseboard heater in the dining room. I have lots of little ideas that involve spending little or no money of things I can do to stage the house.

Rambling Victorian

We're obviously not in the market to build our own house, but I was poking around at house plans online anway. Cory has mentioned before, and I agree, that it's actually nicer living on one floor, but that two stories have more character than ramblers. . . until now.

This is a picture of a Victorian-inspired rambler. It's 1446 sq. feet, 3 bed, 2 bath, and it has character.

Merry Mayhem

After spending the afternoon shooing children away so we could muse about our job and financial future, we refocused to spend the evening with them. Lunch is always so late on Sundays that dinner is usually an afterthought. Cory got out the air popper and said "Let's have a popcorn party." The kids got really excited. "Let's put up crepe paper!" they cried. I wasn't about to do that, but Cory got a picnic tablecloth out, and laid it on the living room floor. It was an instant success. Then he got out our electric lantern, so we were "camping." The event was over in just a few minutes (Sterling immediately turned over the big bowls of popcorn), but we all had a great time. Then Cory made "milkshakes" with this and that. Those were really good, too. I should let him cook dinner more often. It's way more fun when I'm not thinking about it.

This and That: sorry to Mom W., we think of your crippled state often and cringe. Very glad you got a substitute for seminary. I wouldn't have let you go, anyway.
Elder West's happy birthday letter should be in the mail tomorrow, and get to Japan a week late.
Cory installed a dishwasher right before he got laid off. No, we wouldn't have bought it if we'd known in advance, but we didn't and it's too late to return it, so we just enjoy using it.
Cory filed our taxes yesterday, since that "income" is more sure than any particular job application. Right now it's a hirer's market, since there are more unemployed people to choose from; not a job-seeker's market, since there is so much built-in competition and so many hiring freezes. That said, of course he's been applying for several jobs a week.
I added Digital Photography to my college load for this semester. The extra credits made me eligible for enough financial aid to cover tuition, and the extra class will put me back on my graduation class. I just hope I can stay focused enough to learn in both, and be a good mother/learning coach.

Cobra Stings

Cobra would allow us to continue our current medical coverage (minus dental) for $1,048.33 a month. We're guessing unemployment (if we get it, some think they don't give it to students) might be $900 a month.
How optional is medical insurance?

Laid Off . . .

over the phone!
There was another batch of lay-offs at Cory's work yesterday. He missed a bus and showed up an hour late to work yesterday, after the usual daytime officegroup had gone. He didn't hear anything about lay-offs then, but he stumbled across something that had "lay off" under his name, putting him on his guard. Thinking quickly, he printed off a phone list, so he would have the correct name spelling of any co-workers he might use as references, and forwarded a useful e-mail to an email acount he'll have access to outside of work.
They called him on his cell-phone this morning while he was at school to officially inform him.

I'm actually pretty cheerful about this. Why? Well, let me list some ways:
he'll have more time to focus on his school work, allowing him to master important material and raise his GPA
he may have more time to rest and to spend with the family, which will make everyone happy
he might be able to catch my back a little more so I have time to do my school work (beginning Monday)
there's a job fair at school today, anyway
we'll get our income tax return soon, so as long as he gets a new job for right after he graduates, we shouldn't get into too much trouble, even if we use-up our savings and have to fall back on an emergency credit card
he'll have extra time and incentive to hunt for a really cool job (can we say rocket scientist?)

A Livable Life

"How do I know he loves me?"

Cory shopped around online to find an attractive basket to hang on the wall near our computer (where we pay bills) to hold the bills in waiting. He also found an attractive magnet grocery pad that I've hung on the fridge. He may be able to help with the shopping as long as I have an active, up-to-date list. I think he's getting really good at guessing what I will think will look good, while still being functional.

The hope is that streamlining my life will make it more . . . well, livable. I will not live through last fall again. No time to exercise, not enough time to sleep, too much time sick, not enough down time by myself or with my family. Something has to give. I refuse to let it be my art school (I'll send my kids brick-and-mortar first, I will!), yet we're both unwilling to give up the children's virtual schooling, so we talked it out for an hour and came up with a few ideas to try before shipping the kids to the brick-and-mortar school two blocks away (if it wasn't for all the neighborhood halfway houses, it would be really easy to let Kaith walk himself to school by himself).

The dishwasher comes next week!

Froggy Phonics; Art Activity

Every end of unit (fifth lesson) in Kindergarten Phonics has an optional review activity. Up until recently I had been skipping them with hardly a glance. Last week, though, the activity was too good to pass up. There were about 8-10 sheets of paper, each with a letter or digraph (two letters that make one sound, like sh, ch, th, wh, etc.). These were to be taped to the floor. Then there were about a dozen slips of paper, with one word per slip. Kaith and I took turns, each reading a word, then jumping on the papers to spell it out. I don't know when the last time was he was so excited about phonics! The next unit finished with a Bingo game, which he enjoyed as well, but is looking forward to another episode of "Froggy Phonics" later this week, which will challenge his skills acquired this week--ending words with the trigraph tch or the digraph ck. Maybe this time I'll do it before Sterling wakes up. He was so determined to rip those papers off the floor.

We also pulled another activity out of Art for the Very Young. I got out the Crayola washable fingerpaints and a few washable toys. The children were instructed to dip the ends of the toys in the paints, then make lines on their paper, which could be straight, wavy, zigzag, etc. Trevor enthusiastically went through a large quantity of paper as he experimented with the physical properties of his available tools. Miriam, however, stayed with it the longest. I think Kaith had long left the table when she placed the finishing touches on her first piece. I have great hopes that she will make a charming artistic companion for me, once she matures a little more. Ah, working side-by-side with various mediums, subtly inspiring each other . . .