Life gets cluttered

As you may have noticed I have been quite absent for the last few weeks.  I recently returned to work outside of home.  It has been over a year since I was working outside of home and I have spent that year recovering from burnout.  Time to look at my life and evaluate many aspects of it. 

I was at the point where I really wanted to get back to working.  I was getting restless and lonely at home all the time.  I figured that was an indication that I was ready for the next stage.  So I updated my resume and started searching out jobs and making applications. 

I knew I wasn't ready to return to full time work and I also wanted to change the direction and focus of my work.  In the short term I needed a simple job where I could go to work, do my job and go home.  I no longer wanted the level of responsibility that I had previousy, nor the accompanying stress levels.

clock-on... clock-off. 

I didn't know and I still don't know what I really want to do.  But I figured that starting and adjusting as I went along would be a fair plan.   So far, so good.


I took the first job that I was offered.  It wasn't actually the job I had applied for however... I had applied for a part-time job in an in-bound call centre in a sales support role.  I sat tests and passed so progressed to interview.  In the interview I was informed that the client had decided that they wanted the role to be full-time and was asked if that was ok??? Now what was I to say?  If I said "No", then I wouldn't get the job.  So I said "Yes".

It gets worse.


When in training, it turned out that it wasn't inbound at all.  It was in fact out-bound and I would be making calls to people who had made inquiries on the company web site looking for quotes.  I would be following up on the quotes and trying to see if I could 'assist' the person to decide to buy the product...which turned out to be solar panels.

My part-time, in-bound, sales support job had turned into full-time, outbound sales.  Only one step up from the hated telemarketing in my opinion. 

It has a low hourly base wage rate with a commision structure.  I found out this week, three weeks in, that the commision structure is actually quite lousy.  Yes they managed to keep that from us despite daily requests to be told the structure.  sigh.  Morale is pretty low, no surprise there.  It should also come as no surprise that most of the staff are looking for other roles.  What is also quite sad is that several employees left good jobs to take up this one.

40 hour working week plus a 45 minute lunch break and over an hour travelling each way - I am gone almost 12 hours a day.  I have been coming home from work so tired that all I can manage is to eat my dinner and go to bed.   

Hey what happened to dee-cluttering my life?  It got well and truly cluttered up leaving no time to live let alone anything else. 

The good news.

I got the other job too. :)  Now I will take a two week break between roles, catch my breath, catch up on neglected stuff at home (including blogging) and then start the part-time role I wanted: still in the city, not sales, in the claims department of a leading insurance company.  clock-on... clock-off.  Providing the cash I need, the stimulation and interaction as well as time to continue to evaluate what I really would like to do when I grow up.

Dee-cluttering my Blog

I have been getting a lot of spam lately - at least daily.  In order to prevent this I have now added a word verification feature to this blog.  I don't really like the word verification feature, but sadly have had to sucumb to using it.

Thanks for bearing with me on this.

Where are the tissues?

It's winter here.  That means it's cold and flu season.  Cold and flu season means tissues are in frequent use.
We started the winter with a tissue box in each room.  It didn't stay that way for long as people get colds and cart the box under their arm, guarding it should anyone decide to take it away.  That brings on the other winter sport - hunt for the tissue box.
 
Hunt for the  tissue box goes something like this...
the person in neeed of a tissue, let's call this person The Hunter, starts it off by asking, "who has the tissue box?"  this is either not answered or receives a chorus of "not me"s.  Sometimes it may get a, "I saw it on the bench in the dining area."  It involes a variety of questioning approaches, who had it last?  where was it left?  Have we used them all up?  Did we buy enough boxes of tissues in our last shopping excursion?...  The hunt continues until the hunter finds his or her 'prey' and is able to stop hunting or until the hunter, getting ever more desperate at not finding the quary, takes invassive action and raids bedrooms or just resorts to gettting a new box out of the bathroom cupboard.

 No big deal.  it's just one of those things of everyday family life in winter.

Moving the couch is one of those activities where one never quite knows what one will find beyond the odd dust bunny and missing pen.  It's been a few weeks since I last moved the couches when sweeping so I decided that today was the day.  I got two surprises for my efforts as well as reclaiming about six missing pens.

Three boxes of tissues... and the legs off an embroidery box, an old newspaper - thankfully not too many dust bunnies and no dead tissues.

I have found where all the tissue boxes keep hiding.  ...And I thought it was just that my beloved were all doing their level best to keep the tissue company in business and my sanity on edge.  It seems the tissue boxes really do just keep vanishing.  Now we know where they go - down behind the couch.

How do they get there?  I could spin some interesting yarn (pun fully intended) about the mysterious tissue box eating couch, but the reality is much simpler and not anywhere near as intersting... It seems they fall off the bench behind the couch and land down where they can happily hide from human hunters.

It never rains...

And then it pours.  That saying is a familiar one from my childhood.

"Thump and shake the plum sauce bottle, none'll come and then a lot'll." This little poem is one that was often said at the dinner table too, not that we had plum sauce, our tastes didn't tend to go beyond tomato or bbq sauce.

The sentiment of both is certainly an apt one.  nothing and then abundance.

I have been  looking for work for the last six weeks.  I have had a few interviews but they haven't gone anywhere.  This week I had two interiews on monday plus a third that I turned down and a third interview for one of the Monday interviews today.  on Monday i was offered a position to commence tomorrow (Thursday).  Today I was told that one the police checks are done I will be offered the other position too. 

None'll come and then a lot'll.

The role I prefer is the one that I have 'almost' been offered.  It doesn't commence until the 8th August.  That means there is four weeks between one job commencing and the other one commencing.  I don't feel like I can  pass up the first one which starts tomorrow ass I am not certain that I have the other role, but i feel a bit funny about starting one job when i may only be there a few weeks. 

Oh well.  At this stage all I can be sure about is that I have a job that comences tomorrow and at some stage I may have to make a choice between that job and another.  I'll see what the contract offers when I get there in the morning. 

Maybe I can ease up on the ol' thump 'n' shake for a bit.

The old girl isn't what she used to be

She had 21 good years and it was a long run, but alas she is no more.
Our old Volvo 240GL has died and gone to the great car shop in the sky - well the wreckers at Nundah but the other sounds better.

Old faithful has been one of those tough cars that just keep on keeping on.  Hubby has always referred to it as our "luxury European motorcar" and mostly managed to say it with a straight face.  The teens have referred to it as "that horrible old thing".

We were seriously thinking of selling it a few months ago, now we are glad we didn't.  The person who we were thinking of selling it to was the 20 year old son of a friend.  It was running well then.  I would have felt awful if we had sold it and then just a few months later it died. Suddenly.  No warning, just dead.

Our young adult borrowed it yesterday as her car is off the road at the moment and it was sounding "a bit funny".  This morning she went to get in it and it started but wouldn't go.  :(

A call to RACQ brought the roadside mechanic who confirmed that it has one dead cylinder.  It died while she was driving it home and that is that.  Our mechaninc told us that it would cost around $2000 to replace the engine - the whole car isn't worth that much. The wreckers will give us $100.   


 Well that is one way to declutter. Now we will try the one car thing and just as I am about to return to work... I start on Thursday.

Blanket Bliss

"Mum, will you get me one of those mink blankets please?"  It was an innocent enough question from teen three.   It started a series of events which included clenched teeth, a carpet needle and red double polar fleece.

Teen three stays with friends through the week in order to attend school.  When she is at our friends place she has a minky blanket on her bed and it is so soft and snuggly.  She loves it.  She wants one for use at home too, hence the request.  The tricky part is that our budget is a little too stretched at the moment to allow the purchase of one of these blankets.

As always, necessity is the mother of invention.

Over eleven years ago, prior to our family moving interstate I purchased on end of season clearance three metres of 150cm wide red double fleece polar fleece with the intention of making three dressing gowns for my small daughters in the colder climate to which we were moving.  That fleece went interstate with us, twice, and stayed in its garbage bag.  Never did make those dressing gowns. 

In my decluttering I have wondered what to do with the fleece.  I needed to find a suitable purpose for it.  Along came teen three and her request. 

Hmm.  What if we used the double fleece and made you a blanket?  It would be warm and soft like the Mink blankets." yep that was my sales pitch to our teen.  Teen three wasn''t so sure... until she saw that it was RED and soooooo lovely to touch and cuddle. : ) sold!

Oh happy day.  A wanted item for my girl and one less thing stored and not used.

No worries, I'll just measure it and cut it to size and blanket stitch around it.  Hmm what if we double it over?  yeah that'll work.  The lovely thick fleece on the outside of both sides.  oooh drat.  It is too thick for the sewing machine.  No worries.  I'll just stitch it by hand. !!!  (what was I thinking???) Oh look I have some red "Bamboozle" Bamboo yarn in the exact shade of red, that will do nicely.

I think you can see where this is heading.

Next issue -  what needle to use?  Hmm the wool needle has a big enough eye.  Some short while later and very sore fingers from trying to pull the wool needle through two layers of double polar fleece with 18 ply bamboo yarn on the needle.  Back to the drawing board... Hmmm maybe this flanged carpet needle will do the trick.  Ahhhh that's better.  Now it goes through the fleece easily.  Well as easily as anything is going to go through two layers of very thick fabric with thick yarn.

After some time, I noticed not only were my fingers sore (understatement) but my front teeth were hurting and I could taste blood.  I was clenching my teeth so hard each time I was trying to pull the needle through the layers that after a while they were hurting.  This is going to take a while to actually finish.

Yes I am blanket stitching by hand around 7m of blanket.  Feel free to have me checked in somewhere where they can treat my insanity.


Oh but it is sooooo worth it.