Tuesday, July 25, 2006

A party for moi?!

The maintenance staff (okay, better known as janitors) threw me a little going away party today. They had pizza, a cake, and a little gift for me. During the summers, we are the only ones there so we have gotten quite close. It was so sweet of them....also bittersweet. I just wanted to cry - the cake had an angel on it...very sweet! I'll really miss them - they feed me all summer! LOL

We are leaving for Arkansas on Friday after we get home from work. We're going to be staying with my parents for a week. Mom is retiring, so the water company is throwing her a big bash Saturday night that she doesn't know about. She knows that Andy, Bailey and I are coming down, but she doesn't know that both of my brothers, their spouses, and my sister and her husband are coming as well. We are going to suggest "Western Sizzlin" for supper Saturday evening and when we get there, everyone else will already be there waiting. I think there are supposed to be about 65 people there in total. I can't wait to see the look on her face - she will be shocked when she sees my siblings there. I hope we pull this off without letting anything slip and ruining the surprise!

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Hectic Week!


It's been a hectic week for me. Our annual Vacation Bible School was this week and I'm the director, so every day was spent at work and then every evening was spent at church. I have to say it was a great success. We had our "finale" last night, the VBS choirs performed, as did our church drama team. It really, really came off well. :-)

I've begun training my replacement at the school. I think she will do a great job and am enjoying working with her. She is quite overwhelmed right now but I'm sure she'll get the hang of it.

We'll be leaving next Friday evening to spend a week in Arkansas with my parents; then I'll come back and do my last week at the school before starting my new job. I'm nervous, but excited. I think I'm up for some new challenges.

Our new family member is fitting in great. She's just so darn cute!

Friday, July 07, 2006

A day of decision making!

I got the job! Well, I haven't actually accepted yet. Darci called and offered it to me and then told me to take the weekend to think about it. It's not quite the money I wanted, but still almost $1/hour more than I'm making now. And the benefits are excellent. I'll be calling her first thing Monday morning to accept. I probably should have gone ahead and accepted while we were on the phone, but once she said "think it over" I decided to run it by Andy first - just to make sure he thought I was making the right decision.

And then.....we bought a new car. Driving to Bedford is going to be about 50 miles a day round trip, so we had already decided to get a new vehicle. We found a 2005 Ford Focus, 2-door, 5-speed manual transmission, 17000 miles, leather seats, heated front seats, 6-CD player/changer, sunroof and a few other niceties. Plus it gets 32/34 miles per gallon. Their asking price was $14,000...by the time we left Andy had gotten them down to $11,400. At one point I even said, "Let's look around a little more" and we walked out. The guy literally ran out after us and said he thought he could make us a better deal. Amazing. It was my first experience of buying a car from a dealership - I was pretty amazed at all the wheeling/dealing that goes on. Andy even got them to pay a bulk of the sales tax!

So, I have had a pretty exciting day. Bailey's happy because she now officially has her own car....along with her own car payment. We are letting her have my Ford Escort Sport for what we owe on it - she has about a year of payments on it.

Anyway, that's my day in a nutshell.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Job Update....

which really isn't an update at all. I got a call on Friday - she is checking references on the candidates and will make a decision mid-week this week. I'm hoping to hear something at least by Thursday. But I do know that none of my references have been called yet. Blech.

In the meantime, the superintendent has decided that if I leave he will not be replacing me. He is going to "break up" my duties and assign them to other people. He already has it in his brain that the school only needs one secretary. So here's the catch.....if I decide to stay, I'm sure he'll let me keep my position - but I can almost guarantee that he'll dissolve the elementary secretary's job and offer her an aide position instead. She's a really good friend of mine and it would be really crappy for him to do that to her. But he'll do it in a heartbeat. Plus - he'll give me part of her duties...can we say "added stress" to an already stressful position? I really wish word hadn't gotten out about me interviewing at the hospital, but we can't go back and undo what's already been done.

Ashley and Guy are both on vacation this week - I haven't seen Colin since Saturday evening....I think I'm having withdrawals! LOL I'm used to seeing him almost every day....guess I'll have to call and see if I can have him for a few hours.

Not much else to report. It's the 4th of July - Andy's at work and Bailey's getting ready to go to work, so I'll have the house to myself for a couple of hours. I don't think we have any plans for tonight. Our church had a cook-out last night and watched some pretty awesome fireworks. So tonight we may just stay in.