A post by any other name.........

I have to admit, since I have been off work, life has been very different.  Some days I really don't know what to do with myself.  The first week I organized my pantry, turning all labels to the front of the shelf.  I considered alphabetizing them but thought better of it.  I have worked my whole life and now every day is like the weekend but only for me, not anyone else.  There have been a few days that I was able to help out the kids by watching their kids but for the most part, it has been very unremarkable.

So I decided to remedy this boredom by getting pneumonia yet again.  This one really took me down.  I guess it was a good thing I wasn't working.  After a 3 week battle that I thought I was winning, I topped the whole thing off with strained muscles between my ribs from coughing.

We had birthdays for Hope, Joe, Angie, Tyler and Steve.  I finished up with my bowling league and went to my banquet.  We had Dimitri's baptism and a nice luncheon at Fawver's home afterwards.  It was so nice to see all the people who love the little guy. 

One of the most exciting things in my life right now is the fact that I have started golfing again.  I got some new clubs and joined a ladies league on Tuesday nights at Greenhaven.  Can't wait.  May 4 is my first day.  I got some wonderful tips and pointers from Todd King, my friend Lori's squeeze. 

This is me and the girls on our way up to the State Bowling Tournament in St. Cloud. 

This is from when Vanessa and I surprised Hope at school at lunch time.

Ths is from the day that we went and had lunch with April at school.

This is when me and the girls went to Hinckley for the night.  We had a blast. 

I am attaching a few random pictures.  Enjoy!  More later.

UNEMPLOYED

I don't want to jump right into the obvious (vis a vis the title of this post) so I will try to do a little catching up as to what we have been up to since the last post (um when was that again?). 

In January we went on a wonderful cruise to the western caribbean with stops in Key West and Grand Cayman.  In retrospect I am glad we went when we did but this will become a little more obvious as we get further into this post.  We had beautiful weather and Steve and I enjoyed ourselves tremendously as evidenced by the bathroom scale when we returned.  Yikes.  But at this point in our lives we both kind of said WHATEVER.  Now that the weather is getting nicer I think we will try to get out and start walking.  I am going to try and post the cruise pics today on Facebook.  Oh my goodness, who would have thought I would be Tweeting, posting on Facebook, blogging, IM'ing, e-mailing, texting, paging, etc. etc.  But I guess if you don't want to be left in the proverbial non-technical dust, you have to keep up with the times.

OK now for the big news, let's get right to the point.  A week ago today I was told at my job that my position had been eliminated.  I am really still unsure as to how this decision was reached.  I still go over it and over it in my mind as to what (if anything) I did wrong.  Was I wrong to pour my heart and soul into this company for the past almost 4 years?  I swear, I lived and breathed that place.  I brought work home, I came in early, stayed late, worked through lunch, never took a break.  But I will say this, I do not regret doing this.  If a person is going to work then I believe you should be caring, dedicated, loyal, trust-worthy and all those other adjectives that describe the ideal employee.  I'm not saying I was an ideal employee but I am saying that I deserved a little more respect than to be told on a Monday morning at 8:30 that I am "out" and to get out.  Seriously I was not allowed to go back to my desk to get my purse - they had someone bring it to the lobby.  I was made to give my passwords, hand over my key card and walk out the door.  All the while this was happening I was in a state of shock even while the endless paperwork was "explained" to me which I could not digest at all.   I thought it was very interesting how only my position was eliminated.  Apparently I was a very high paid employee (not) who needed to be booted out the door before they can bring in another very high paid employee to do a job that hasn't even been created yet.  Most confusing.

All I wanted was the truth.