The Brilliance of My Agency

While I was on vacation, I got phone calls from three separate people at My Agency. One was the placement that I had to decline. The other two were, well, not how I would have done things if I were in charge.

First, the call from the Re-licensing Worker. I've been licensed for what, a month? Why does the re-licensing worker need to come to my home already? I realize that my home is no longer my own, but this just seems like overkill.

Second, though, was the call from my original Licensing Worker. She wanted to know if I'd gotten my license. She had better have meant just the piece of paper, because she really ought to know that my license had been approved. But if she were that concerned about the mail (a VERY legitimate concern, in my experience), shouldn't she have called sooner? Regardless, that isn't my real issue with the phone call. My real issue is that she is required to do a quick satisfaction survey with the people she licenses. Great in concept. However, when she asks what the biggest barriers were, and my answers are "communication" and "lost paperwork", both of which were her fault, well, it becomes a little uncomfortable. Perhaps someone else could have conducted the survey?

Oh well. I'm home from vacation and completely overwhelmed by the mess I left for myself to return to. As soon as it's a little cleaned up (which had better be by Monday!) I will email the placement office to remind them that I have a vacancy.

Oops

Just a quick confession that I discovered that in addition to SocialWrkr24/7, Snarky Mom also nominated me for that award I posted on a bit ago. I guess that means I shouldn't have nominated her back. Oh well, I'm not changing anything.

Someone loves me

While I was on vacation, I got an award. Thanks, SocialWrkr24/7! This is my first award ever. On my blog, that is.

SocialWrkr24/7 used getting the award to focus on the fabulousness of other bloggers. Now I feel guilty about thinking only of myself :-) But seriously, I admire SocialWrkr24/7's balanced, thoughtful, committed approach to kiddos.

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award

2. Copy and paste the award on your own blog

3. Link the person who nominated you.

4. Name seven things about yourself that folks may not know

5. Nominate seven Kreativ bloggers

6. Post links to the seven bloggers you nominate

7. Leave comments on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them!

As you can see, I didn't follow these directions to the letter since the award comes before thanking SocialWrkr24/7 because I'm not good enough at Blogger to put the image in the correct place. (I tried 3 times.) Nevertheless I've done the first 3 things, so here is 4--seven things about me:

1. I do not like pineapple AT ALL. I think that pineapple in a bowl full of strawberries and cantaloupe is a waste of good strawberries. However, give me a drink with pineapple juice and vodka or rum and YUM.

2. I haven't been on a date in something like four and a half years. When I DO meet a guy I like, I fast-forward in my head to the proposal, the wedding, the kids. Yeah, I need to work on that! For example, I met a guy this Shabbat who I would be happy to talk to more. He is coming to my part of the world in 2 weeks to visit his kids, and we're going to get together then. I've known him for less than 48 hours but am already wondering whether it would be reasonable to be a step-mother to 4 children. Stop it, Foster Ima!

3. I take happy pills (Celexa) and it has made the hugest difference in my life. I really, really, really recommend to anyone who thinks that medication might help them but who is embarassed/ashamed/nervous to ask their doctor: do it. Please.

4. I've recently made a commitment to myself to try VERY HARD not to purchase any mass-produced products that are the final product. That doesn't make sense, so let me explain:

• chocolate chips: mass-produced but not the final product because they are used as an ingredient in cookies
• jeans: mass-produced final product
• yarn: mass-produced but used in knitting
• knitting needles: mass-produced but used as a tool in knitting
• Cheese-Its: delicious but mass-produced final product

The exception might have to be soda, though in an ideal world I would use this commitment to also wean myself off it. Ha. This isn't intended to last forever (I don't plan to either start making my own clothes or buying in small boutiques where the clothes--and shoes, yikes!--are handmade), but is intended to raise my consciousness about what I am consuming and also to be a moratorium on acquiring things for a while.

5. My pajamas have a hole in them.

6. I love Scrabble. (Okay, a few of you knew that already.)

7. When I was 6, I thought that being Jewish meant not believing in G-d. Oops, guess I was a little wrong there!

Okay, now for the nominations!

1. Trying to think of someone who has also mentioned fruit, or drinking... Since I can't, let's just go with Amanda, because I want her to know that I read her blog.

2. Just Me, because she is also single. (And great in other ways as well.)

3. Therapy Doc is a frum therapist who inspired me to get off my duff and go to a therapist. Thanks!

4. Erin at unclutterer.com. Erin won't respond to the award, because her blog is very professional, but I read it regularly and it is part of the motivation behind trying to be more conscious about what I bring into my home. Also, I have many mutual friends with Erin, so I thought it would be nice to give her some love. Erin and her husband recently adopted a baby.

5. Snarky Mom who is HI-larious and who also I think will get a kick out of the fact that I just announced to the whole world that my pajamas have a hole in them. (By the way, the hole is not somewhere innocuous like the bottom of the pants leg.)

6. Yondalla, because we play Lexulous. (Also Thorn, but I know that she has already been given this award.)

7. Linda B, to represent all the Christian people I mis-informed about Judaism when I was in elementary school. I hope that they have all learned that I was wrong.

Sorry for any re-nominations; I haven't been able to face most of the week's worth of posts in my google reader so don't know who has been nominated already.

Congratulations!

My first call!

Stories of my vacation to follow (because I know that you're dying to hear where I've been for the last week) but the relevant anecdote is more important:

I got my first placement call!

I happened to be in South Beach (Florida) at the time, and the call was for a 2 year old despite my license being for kids age 3-7, so I had to say no. But it was exciting to get the call and know that they actually will be using me.

I also was glad to have an early experience saying no to a placement. I know that I will feel guilty every time I have to do so, but I think that being able to say no for the first call I ever got will make me more comfortable when I need to for other reasons (since I have gotten over the hurdle of just wanting to say yes every time). (I realize that I'm not expressing myself very well here. I went to bed at 1 am last night and my nephew woke me up at 7:30.)

Call CPS!

Totally copying Mama Drama-Times Two on this one!

Related to my road trip plans, I took my car this morning to get an oil change. Responsible, right? Well, yes, but it had also been over a year (perhaps as long as two years) since my last oil change.

The service center just called me. Apparently, I "definitely need my tires replaced" before the winter (which I translate to: before I drive 1000 miles). They are dry rotted and the tread is worn. Why is this?

Because the tires have not been replaced (to my memory) since I got the car in July 1998. Yes folks, my tires are over 11 years old. And I have done very little to keep them and the rest of my car in good shape.

So you'd better call Car Protective Services to report some serious neglect.

Road trip!

You know that I'm all about anonymity, and many of you are as well. And I know that there are only about 6 of you (I'm being optimistic) who read this, and I don't think that any of you fall into my target audience of frum folk. But I'm going to try my luck anyway.

I am driving to Miami next week. It is a longer drive than I am comfortable doing in one day (if necessary, I would do it, but then my sister might lecture me--and she would know because the outcome would be spending Sunday night with her in the Boca area). In the interest of my unemployed wallet, I am looking for a friendly home to stay in next Sunday night, probably in the northern Florida area (I-95 corridor), but a little further north would work too. I'm also looking for a Shabbat invitation for the 23-24th, in the Miami-Boca Raton corridor. Thanks folks!

AHIOHGIOHSDIOCHIOH!!!!!

That, my friends, is the feeling in my brain and chest right now. Just a minor anxiety attack. Trying to take deep breaths, but since that's not working, I thought I'd blog about my stress.

In no particular order (because if I tried to put these in any logical order, that would stress me out more):

I NEED!!! a shower. You might think that with my current state of "fun"employment, I might be able to do laundry before it reaches crisis proportions. How does this relate to showering? Okay, here it is. We start with this weekend's Jewish holidays, meaning that from 6ish on Friday to 7ish today, no shower. Yuck. Then add in that Friday when I was getting dressed for Shabbat and the holiday, I noticed that I had only three... of a certain type of garment that one generally does not re-wear when dirty. One Friday night, one Saturday, one today, and in order to get dressed after a shower, I need clean laundry. Three more minutes in the dryer.

I interviewed for a job a few weeks ago that really excited me. I liked the people I interviewed with and left the interview wanting the job even more than before. When I checked my email about an hour ago, I discovered that the job has been re-posted. The listing says that people who applied before need to re-apply. (As opposed to listings that say something along the lines of "if you applied already, we have your application on file and don't worry about it.") So does this mean that none of the candidates (they interviewed a BUNCH) were good enough? Or that there was an HR problem and they have to start the process over again?

A friend of mine from law school got married today. I wasn't invited to the wedding which makes me a little sad, though I wouldn't have been able to go anyway and it's not like he and I have been super close since we graduated. But with Facebook, I saw that a lot of my friends were there, and they were posting fun status updates, and I missed all of them and am feeling jealous and "homesick."

In my Google reader there were 31 posts in my "foster/adoption" folder. Just from the last two days. Sorry guys, I skimmed most of them because I was too overwhelmed.

And there are another 450 posts in the rest of my folders.

I'm planning a vacation and even that is stressing me out.

And if I were in my apartment rather than the laundry room, I would be overwhelmed by the disaster area that is my apartment.

Finally, while I was napping this afternoon (after two nights of sleeping like poo) my landline telephone rang. It wasn't my mom because she is out of the country visiting my dad, so I wonder if it was the agency calling about a placement. I would say no because of the vacation, but...

Anyway, dryer is done, so it's time for a shower.