In case you were wondering – my interview went well today. It was short (just about 45 minutes) with the two women in charge of hiring. They are interviewing multiple candidates, so I won’t know if I made it past the first round until late next week. I feel confident I did well, so if I don’t make it to the next round then it means they had some REALLY great candidates to pick from.

In any event, it was fun to drive into Charlotte again – I got to plug in my audiobook and listen for a full 25 minutes without interruption on the way there and again on the way home! That never happens!!

Today I intended to go grocery shopping and also hit up Lowe’s about our garage door (which the HOA is demanding we repair). Unfortunately, the kids went crazy this morning and literally dumped out every single toy they own on the upstairs landing. I should have taken a picture but I was so ticked off I couldn’t see straight.

I told the kids that they were not allowed to come downstairs until it was all cleaned up. I figured they’d get bored and would eventually clean so they could come watch TV or something. But no – today was the day my kids let their imagination run wild. They were up there for FOUR HOURS playing. With nary a fight in sight. So in a way it was blissful, but on the other hand, I wanted to go run errands today (but without MY having to clean up their mess). At some point I threatened them with every child’s nightmare: If you don’t clean this room I’m going to get trash bags and get rid of it all myself!

Finally, sometime around 2 p.m. I grabbed two big trash bags and headed upstairs. It still looked the exact same as it had at 10 a.m. They saw the bags and hesitantly asked what they were for. I said, “We’re going to go through every single toy you own and get rid of at least half. Maybe more.”

CootieBoy fussed a bit (he thought the “half” we were getting rid of was his “half”), but then they kind of got into it. I would hold up three Barbies. “CootieGirl – which one do you want?” She would point, and it would go in the toy box, the other two in a trash bag (before you think I’m throwing perfectly good toys away – these Barbies were practically bald since CG cut their hair, and their faces were also covered in pen since she “drew” makeup on them). “CB – which car do you want?” He’d pick his one of three. It went well, and as I said, while they protested a bit at first, by the end they were putting everything in the trash bag – even stuff I wanted to keep because I knew they’d regret it.

I’m pleased with the end result: CB’s toy chest is almost empty now, and of his six cubbies, two are practically empty and one now belongs to CG and her smaller toys. In CG’s room, her closet floor is visible for the first time in ages and her deep side table drawer now houses three things: her tea set and two dolls.

I know the “toy dump play” is not over – but at least now they’ll only be dumping half the stuff they dumped before. The other half is in the garbage, and there’s a small percentage of stuff I’ll be sending along to my sister’s kids.

No, I never made it to the grocery store (Denis headed out a minute ago) and I’ll have to go to Lowe’s tomorrow, but it was still a decent day.

Tomorrow is my interview – I’ve got to crisp, clean resumes printed out and ready to go. I’m still nervous and excited about it. I haven’t interviewed in three years – I’m out of practice!!

After many, many resumes sent out the door – I have an interview next week! YAY! The job sounds right up my alley – the description could have been lifted directly from my own resume.

I’ve arranged for a haircut tomorrow since I’ve just kind of let my style go since getting laid off. And wow – I’ll have to dig out my makeup and actually get all dolled up (the most I do nowadays is some moisturizer in the morning and basic foundation and eyeliner in Sundays for church (it helps that I’ve gotten a tan this summer so I have natural color in my face)).

I’m nervous, and excited, and looking forward to seeing what’s in store.

Last night I could not sleep. I was wired and awake. I ended up watching a movie until way past midnight, and even then I wasn’t tired. So I hopped on the computer for a bit. Next thing I know it’s 3:00 a.m. and I haven’t even yawned one time.

But I forced myself to go to bed anyway. And once in bed I laid there staring at the clock for over an hour, my mind racing.

Why was I such a mess?

Because after six months of faithfully sending out my resume several times each and every week in the hopes of landing another job, I FINALLY got a call. One single call. A call that filled me with hope and fear.

I didn’t actually speak to the person that called because the call came in while I was at the pool with the kids. So when we got home I called and left a responsive voicemail of my own, asking the HR rep to call me back this morning.

I’ve used our brand new (and awesome) budgeting spreadsheet to calculate a few numbers. Since becoming an freelance-at-home-mom we’ve cut out a lot of things from our monthly expenses. Most of things wouldn’t come back should I re-enter the workforce. We’d still take our trash to the dump rather than pay for trash pickup, for instance. I’ve gotten used to only have 30 channels on our DirecTV so we’d probably leave that the same. We’ve also gotten used to not having TV in the office so I doubt we’d add that back. As such, my salary requirements are slightly different than they were six months ago.

However, since getting laid off and taking the kids out of daycare entirely, I have also said that I will NOT go back to work if the salary I get ONLY covers daycare. Because if that’s all it covers, then there’s no sense in me going back to work. The key is to get a job that offers a salary that allows me to put money back into the coffers for other expenses and bills besides just daycare. If I were to get a job making the exact same salary as I made six months ago, we’d be in great shape consider all the expenses we cut when I got laid off.

But right now I’m nervous about other things – the interview itself, the job location (this company has several locations in the Charlotte area and my hope is that it’s located near my house as opposed to up in the University area), going back to 9-5 after being my own boss for six months and building a decent home freelancing business (albeit not consistently scheduled, and not enough to really contribute significantly to our household expenses, but enough to help stretch out my unemployment benefits that much longer, which is nice), putting the kids back into daycare after having them enjoy the at-home life for a while, and a whole slew of other things that have nothing to do with potential salary and expenses.

The callback from the HR rep will be this morning while the kids are at VBS. I’m hoping to find out as much information as I can (including salary range) so that I can determine if it’s even worth it to interview. I know I can do the job – the job description could have been pulled directly from my resume.

I’ll admit this call from the new place makes me a bit sad, too. I really enjoyed working for The Firm, and Mr. BIL. And even though I knew it wouldn’t happen, I kind of hoped that at some point The Firm would call me back and say, “We made a mistake – would you come back?” I enjoyed that job (and my rapport with Mr. BIL) that much. But I suppose that’s not going to happen, and it’s time to face up to that and move on.

With Ed McMahon’s death, that brings Round Three of our Celebrity Dead Pool to an end. We are now accepting changes to your picks (for those already playing), and welcome new players! The only rule is that the person you pick cannot have been in the news in the past 2-3 weeks due to an illness of any kind. Other than that, it’s fair game!

Correct guess of the next to go gets a $10 giftcard from Target.

Entries are being accepted through Friday, July 3. You may put your request in the comments on this post, or you can email me at cootiehog [at] gmail [dot] com.

UPDATE ON JULY 3 @ 5 p.m. ET: The entry period has come to an end. Good luck to those who continue to play our game!

I’ve been looking for a nice summer theme to use now that we’re officially in a new season, but couldn’t find anything I liked. But I saw this new theme and it seemed so smart, so bookish, so…me. It’s classy looking and more understated than the previous theme. It took virtually no tweaking to “make it my own” (to quote American Idol in the off season).

You like?

She has had a couple loose teeth for a while now, but they are stubbornly remaining intact in her mouth. However, today while eating an apple with some peanut butter, one of her front teeth came out.

As you can see she’s very excited. She’s also excited because she got a spiffy new haircut today since she doesn’t like having her long hair brushed. Upon arriving home from VBS this afternoon she asked if we could go get it cut. I didn’t even hesitate to get her out the door and to a kid’s salon!!