April 15, 2011 – Write From Karen

Well I’m doing it. I’ve made an appointment to get my hair whacked off tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.

Hopefully, it’ll look something like this:

That’s my goal, at least.

I’ll post a picture of the new cut as soon as I can. (And that’s code for: if I can make it look right. If not, you’ll just have to use your imagination. ha!)

I’m looking forward to having it short again. I had it this short years ago and loved it. The only problem is, I’ll have to go to the salon more often for trims and well … yuk. But I want a STYLE. Something that looks professional and will be easy to take care of.

At any rate, I’m cutting it off … again.

Jazz’s marching band is getting new uniforms next year! YAY!!!!! I’m SO EXCITED to see what they look like. I hope they aren’t dorky looking. Their past uniforms looked pretty snazzy, if not a little space-suit-ish, but we’ll see. I really like his band director – he’s a man of taste and always comes up with really cool ideas for the performances, so it’ll be interesting to see what he comes up with this time.

The band only gets new uniforms like every ten years or so (they’re SOOO expensive), so it’s awesome that Jazz will be one of the first classes to wear the new uniforms.

They’re supposed to have a fitting next week some time, so Jazz wanted me to weigh him and chart his height.

Jazz now weighs 118 pounds and is 5’8 without shoes on. WOW! He’s only a few inches shorter than I am now. That’s so WEIRD when your baby is nearly as tall as you are.

Of course, I had to see what Dude’s weight and height were … he weighs 131 pounds and is 5’10 1/2 without shoes on.

I’m hoping the boys grow taller. Kevin said that was one of the things he liked about me, was my height. He figured if he married a tall person, then he would have tall children. Which is cool for boys, not so much for girls.

Trust me. ha!

Kevin was issued a subpoena today. He’s scheduled to testify against the woman who ran him over on his motorcycle last year. (She left the scene of the accident – which is a felony, in case you didn’t know that).

I will go with him to support him, of course.

It will be really weird for Kevin because this will be the first time that he will face the woman who nearly killed him.

It’s probably a good thing it has taken so long to bring this to court because if it had happened a few months after the accident, they would have had to restrain me from attacking this woman, I was so angry. I’m still angry, but it’s more of a simmering anger now and I just want this woman off the streets. She’s a menace to herself and to other drivers. (She’s been picked up for a DUI SINCE the accident, believe it or not). She needs to be punished and she needs to learn there are consequences for her actions because up until now, this woman has been free to drive around and resume her life as if nothing catastrophic happened.

Though I’m not holding my breath that this hearing will actually take place (it’s been granted a continuance now every few weeks for a year), I’m really hoping it happens – mainly because we just want it to be over. We’ve already moved past this accident and to be forced to relive it again will be uncomfortable and painful for Kevin, I’m sure.

At any rate, that’s where we stand on the issue. We’ll see what happens.

Kevin has been busy digging our backyard up. He’s putting in a patio. He borrowed his sister’s Roto-Tiller and that really helped move things along. I’ll take some pictures of it this weekend.

We went to Lowe’s last weekend and picked out the pavers. We’ll likely order those sometime this weekend, (if Kevin feels up to it, he’s got a gig tonight and tomorrow night, so he’ll probably be worn out from that).

He still needs to dig the rocks out next to the house, then we’ll order some gravel, put that down, smooth it out, then top it with sand, smooth that out before putting the pavers in. We’re hoping to have the patio done before Dude’s graduation reception next month. It would be really nice to have his party outside, weather permitting.

My job situation … geez, I’m so frustrated with this whole thing. For one thing, I’m in limbo. I just don’t know which direction to take on this job thing.

First of all, I never heard back from the place I had my three interviews with. Which was very disappointing because I really thought they liked me. It was between me and one other person – I guess the other person was a better fit. I have an application in for three more positions with the same company but so far, I haven’t received a call, though all three positions are still in the “open” status on their website. However, they’ve been listed for a while, so I’m thinking they are probably interviewing and I just wasn’t picked. Maybe I’m not meant to work for this company, I don’t know. I’m not giving up, but I am a little discouraged.

Kevin suggested that I apply for a temporary employment agency. They would call me whenever someone needed someone to work in their office and I would do … whatever they needed me for. The pros of doing this would be that I would be working for several different companies and would have a chance to “try” them out, so to speak. Kevin’s company used people from this temporary employment agency quite a few times and often times, they would like the person so much they would offer him/her a full-time position.

The cons would be that I would be working for several different companies. I would be walking into a brand new situation and working with brand new people all the time. I’m sure that would be disorienting. Also, I would have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Which is really not that big of a deal, now that I think about it, because I’m at the office every day anyway, I would just have to make sure I’m wearing more office-appropriate attire. (Slacks as opposed to the jeans I wear every day now).

So, I don’t know. It’s definitely something to think about. I’m pretty sure I’m going to try it, just to see what happens.

Another option is to try and get a job at Missouri State University. They require all of their clerical applicants to take a test in Word, Excel, basic filing abilities and bank reconciliations. I suppose your chances of getting called back for an interview depends on how well you tested. I’d like to try this, too. Although I’ll have to work a bit more within Excel and Word 2007 as I haven’t really used those programs all that much (I have those programs, but they’re older versions and there are quite a few new features in the ’07 versions). In addition, and don’t laugh, I haven’t reconciled a bank statement in, oh gosh, YEARS. I haven’t had to, Kevin has always taken care of that stuff (there are some perks to being married to an accountant), so I’ll definitely have to brush up on that skill before I take any sort of test.

And I could always fall back on the tried and true job option – retail and/or restaurant. I have a lot of experience in both and I know those industries are ALWAYS looking for people. But the question is: do I really want to work evenings, weekends and holidays? Answer: no. I’ve had my fill of doing that (21 years worth, thanks), and I’m ready for a 9:00 to 5:00 job. I have a lot of office experience and know my way around office-related programs, SURELY someone out there wants me. Surely. 😐

So I have options, it’s just a matter of time before I get off my lazy butt and take those options. I’m nervous. That last interview process was a bit of a blow to my pride, quite frankly, and now I’m a bit more nervous about putting myself out there again. However, I’ll get over that. I’ll work myself up to it, believe me.

In the meantime, I come to the office every day and keep Kevin company. I write and work on websites and will likely continue to do those things even after I get a job. I do have one mark against me, though. We plan on going on our family vacation in July, which I have to disclose at the onslaught of an interview because I don’t want to spring anything on them at the last minute, and companies probably aren’t going to like that they will hire me, only to have to let me off for one week of unpaid vacation.

I wonder if that was one of the biggest reasons I didn’t get that last job.

*sigh*

Oh well. I just have to be patient and put myself out there. Nothing is going to happen just talking about it.

So let me ask you …

My first reaction is OH HECK NO. How lame! How superficial! What a waste of money!

BUT … then you watch the video about this girl …

… and I don’t know.

Her ears WERE pretty misshapen. This wasn’t just an issue of whether they thought they were too big or simply ugly, this was a physical malformation. (The experts say that when you’re a kid, your ears are already 90% the size they’re going to be when you’re an adult, so they don’t grow much. This was the reason they could perform the surgery on this seven-year old girl. Obviously, they couldn’t do plastic surgery on noses, chins, etc. at seven years old. So maybe, not THIS young, but you get the idea).

I think I could agree with this decision. This wasn’t something she would grow out of and since they were so different, she WOULD likely get teased and possibly bullied because they were so different from “the norm.” (Whatever that is, I suppose).

Before you completely disagree with me, think about people who take their kids to the orthodontist. *raises hand* Isn’t that a variation of plastic surgery? Correcting crooked teeth? Or people that buy their kids contact lenses. It’s not surgery, but it’s another physical enhancement so they don’t have to wear glasses and stand out from their peers.

I guess it would depend on the situation. If the physical malformation was slight (and again, who decides that, really?), I’d say no. But if it was something as apparent as this poor girl’s ears, then I might have made the same decision.

Granted, kids need to learn to deal with difficult people no matter what they look like – there are mean people in the world who will pick on someone for any little thing because they’re insecure about their lives or something about themselves, but I guess, why make it harder when it’s something that CAN be fixed?

Boy, I don’t know. This is a toughie. I really think it’s a case-by-case situation.

What do you think?

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