Facie’s Ramblings

J will be 12 in just over a week. We decided now was a good time to get her a cell phone. The vast majority of kids in her class have a phone; some have had one for years. J never needed one until this past school year, when she joined the drama club, which sometimes resulted in play practices being cancelled, added, or ending early or late. During those occasions, she had to borrow someone else's phone, which was not so convenient, to text the hubby, who, like many of us, hates to answer his phone for a number he does not recognize. What solidified the decision was last month, when J spent a week at a Carnegie Museum day camp. I signed her up as a self-sign out, which meant, as the name suggests, that she could sign herself out each day, rather than wait for me. I had no intention of her actually doing that, but I figured if I ever ran late getting there (I was a 5-minute drive or a 9-minute walk), then I could just meet her at the entrance. Unfortunately, her very first day the...

This post doesn't have anything to do with my being kind, which I mostly am. But I was pretty sure I had already used the post title I really wanted, "Make a decision already." Yep, just checked now, and I wrote a post with that very name three years ago, ironically about the topic this post is going to be about! But I digress. The real story? Ladies and gentleman: Facie bought a smart phone! This is monumental for me! Can you tell?! I am using a lot of exclamation points! The details: My over-three-year-old phone had been dying a slow death for quite some time. It couldn't hold a charge for an entire day. To make matters worse, my car phone charger died, but it seemed silly to replace that, knowing I was going to replace the phone soon. Or so I told myself for the past six or eight months. But despite my stopping into the Verizon store a few times in the past five months, I just couldn't pull the trigger. Last week, when my phone decided to shut its...

Well, I guess I am not going to give up the blog just yet. How about if we just say I will write when I feel like it, which will probably be between two and four times a month? Stop by on occasion if you are so inclined. :-) Today's post is brought to you by my personality, which can best be described as indecisive. I would almost go so far as calling myself commitment-phobic, but I have been married for 14 years and have lived in the same house for 11 years. And I have lived in western PA my entire life. But I guess that really just proves my point about my being indecisive; I can't seem to decide anything else. It is easier to just leave things as status quo (try not to read into those examples too much). My indecisiveness is why it took me over a year (maybe two) to buy an HD TV. It is the reason I have been looking into smart phones since last fall and still have not made the plunge (though because I get a discount with my employer, this waiting turned out to be a good ...

In an hour or so, I will be heading to J's school to make copies of a survey I put together with the help of a small committee. At a tuition meeting two months ago, about 10 or so of us said we wanted the school to see better days. We wanted more for our money. Most of all, we didn't want to just complain; we wanted to help make things better. So about a month ago, I brought up the idea of a survey for the parents to fill out, and I presented a rough draft to the group at a follow-up meeting for the 10 or so parents at the tuition meeting who wanted to make things better. I received some input from some group members, and I am happy to say that most of the group was very complimentary and thanked me for my work on the survey (I put in hours and hours, believe it or not). The idealist in me likes to think good things can come from us. But am I just kidding myself? Some people hate surveys. They loathe the time spent filling them out. They are afraid their comments will have ne...

Every couple of months, I go through this panic. I worry that we will run out of money and will be forced to start living off our savings. I have said that it is coming, but unfortunately, it is now pretty close. I guess the good news is that Brian seems to be on board with our giving no one Christmas presents this year. :-) I met a friend for lunch yesterday and I told her one of the hardest aspects about the job search and even networking in general is the people who have offered to help but never really did. I neither asked for nor expected anyone to find a job for me. Rather, I thought that the nice former client, former coworker, friend, friend of a friend, etc., might reply to an email I sent. The email might have been a simple question, such as do you know anyone at _______ or can you tell me if your company is hiring or looking for freelance help. Perhaps slightly more work for said non-responder would be an email address for an HR person or a request to use their name (not t...

I am not the best when it comes to making decisions, sometimes even simple ones. But in my defense, I am also pretty easy-going, so for most things, I could really go either way. I have been a Verizon customer for years. Probably since before Al Gore invented the internet. At some point during our long-term relationship, Verizon rewarded customers with a "new-every-two" deal. I swear years ago it was better, that you pretty much could get any phone you wanted once your two years were up and you signed on for two more. But phones today are so much more glitzy and complicated that there is no way they would do that now. So you get 50 bucks towards something. Fortunately, for what I want, that and whatever special they have pretty much hooks me up. I was up for a new phone this past October. Since my phone had been working fine, I waited until just before Christmas to see what my options were. But after looking at the array of choices and pretty much becoming overwhelmed, I ...

I admire people who know exactly what they want to do. Maybe it is a long-term plan, but they know that someday they will get there. Or perhaps they have known since they were kids that this is what they were going to do, and they ended up doing it (this pretty much describes my brothers). But me? I am still searching my soul, just as I have been doing, whether consciously or not, for years. The substitute teaching thing is going okay. Most days I think this is what I want to do. I still want to make a difference, leave someone's (several someones, really) life better than it was before I came along. But I have some moments when the kids are so incredibly disrespectful that I think there is no way I can do this full time. At the very least, I am glad that I don't get called more than three days a week, because sometimes even two days feels like five. Seriously. And on days like yesterday, when I have nary a lesson plan to follow and I am forced to make it up as I am going a...

As some of you know, I had an interview on Friday. I met with the husband of one of my (now former) work clients to talk about an office manager position. We had already spoken for over an hour Monday. We hit it off rather well; he is just a guy you feel comfortable with. I had not been on an interview since Good Friday in 1996, which happened to be the second/last interview I had for the job I just left. But I was very at ease during this conversation. I told him how during my first interview for my last job, the person who interviewed me told one of my references that she was worried I was too introverted for the job. I still laugh about that. He laughed too; he could see already the kind of person I was. When I was done talking with this gentlemen (he needed to make some phone calls), I spent some time with his wife, who helps out in the office on Fridays. She said she does not think this is the right job for me. She thinks I am over-qualified and that I would be bored by some of th...