Cootiehog

Oh Narnia, Oh Narnia

Feb 5th, 2010 | Books | 4 Comments

A few weeks ago the kids had a book fair at their school. We were allowed to order online, of which I totally took advantage. Cootieboy’s books arrived a couple days ago. I admit that I ordered something for myself: the complete Chronicles of Narnia. It’s a miracle that I’ve gotten to the age of 40 without reading those books, much less owning them. CB’s book fair was offering the complete boxed set of paperbacks for only $20. I couldn’t resist!

When the books arrived on Tuesday (CB ordered a Spongebob joke book (I know *hanging head in shame*) and a book about a car race inside a volcano), he expressed an interest in reading “the lion Narnia books,” as he called them. I made him read the car race book on Tuesday night since it was a Level 1 book that he could read aloud to me on his own. Then last night he asked again about the Narnia books. So I plucked “The Magician’s Nephew” from the shelf and began reading Chapter 1 (yes, we’re going to read them in *that* order). I warned him up front that the book was NOT a picture book, and so he’d have to listen to me read and picture the story in his own head. He’s only 5 1/2, so I wasn’t sure how interested he’d still be in the book by the time I got to page 2 since there were no pictures.

But I shouldn’t have doubted him. I read all of Chapter 1 and he really enjoyed it, asking questions at the end about where Polly went and whether Uncle Andrew was a good man or a bad man. So he completely paid attention and said he wanted to hear Chapter 2 tonight. I’m ticked pink that we get to read the stories together since the story is brand new to me, too (well, not “LWW” and “Prince Caspian” since I’ve seen those movies).

And while we read that one at night, during the day I will be listening to “The Help.” I’m only two chapters in and I already LOVE this book.

Oh By The By…

Feb 4th, 2010 | All About CootieMom | 4 Comments

So my review went really well. But I knew it would. I’m happy to report that I did not have to do a self-assessment, but I have been warned that I’ll need to do one in November when my one year anniversary arrives.

I just thought I would let you know that this post is being dictated through Dragon Naturally Speaking, which I bought a couple months ago to use with my freelance transcription business. Supposedly there is a way to connect Dragon with my transcription software so that I can actually convert speech to text from my audio files. However I have yet to figure out how to make that work. But I have to say Dragon is actually pretty cool — it understands my speaking voice very accurately and it’s very rare that I need to make corrections when I speak.

Back to my review talk. Basically my boss said she had nothing negative to say. She said that in normal reviews she always tries to have at least one topic or subject that can help a staffer improve their quality of work, but in my case she has yet to be disappointed by anything I’ve done. She likes my quality of work, my vast knowledge of IT/computer stuff, the speed with which I finish my work, my willingness to take on any new tasks she assigns, and my rapport with the other staff.she said that she regularly tells her boss how glad she is to have me on board.

I did mention my concerns over my pay, and that the salary I’m earning is near the ceiling for this particular position at this company. I pretty much told her that I’m very much underpaid. She understood my concern and explained that I would always be eligible to earn additioanl raises even after I hit the salary ceiling.she said if I get to a point where I’m not satisfied with that, that she could always try to have my position title change in order to go into another pay bracket with a new ceiling level. Basically what this means, is that I can get raises, I can earn more money down the line, but that I’ll never get a lump sum raise to the levelthat I feel I’m more. For example, I am being paid 30% less than I earned at my last job. I was hoping that I could ask for and receive a 15% raise after having shown how good I am. That’s not going to happen, certainly not at one time. If I stay there seven years, I will have learned that 15% back. Man, seven years. That’s a long time to get back to a level that still is less than what I earned last year.

Economic downturns suck.

The company does offer bonuses although they do cap them at a certain dollar amount. All I can do is try to earn those bonuses (of which I’ve already earned one) to help make up the difference.

I still love this job. I still love the people that I’m working with. I still love the commute. And I enjoy what I do every day. So I’ll put up with the low pay and see what happens. I’ll continue to do freelance work at home in an attempt to make up some of the difference, and we’ll continue to pay off our consumer debt in order to make our money stretch further.

So there you have it – my job update, mostly dictated into a microphone, with only a few words having to be corrected manually as I go. Not bad!

On Friday It’s OVAH!

Feb 3rd, 2010 | All About CootieMom | 1 Comment

My 90-day probation ends on Friday. I’m very happy about that (huzzah to having paid time off)! I don’t know where the 90-days have gone because part of me feels like I’ve been there for ever. It was such an easy fit when I arrived, and has continued to be so as each day passes.

Today is the day that I tell her that the ONLY thing I don’t like is my pay structure, and see what I can find out about the future. That’s the ONLY negative to this job. I like everything else about it. What I do, the people I work with, my commute, the way the place works, etc. The only “ouch” moment comes on payday every two weeks when I see a paycheck that is literally hundreds of dollars less than I was earning at my old job.

I normally hate reviews. At the investment bank in NYC they were done sporadically and my boss wasn’t very good at them (although he always said nice things). At the job in NJ we did quarterly reviews, which I HATED doing because I had to fill out this self-assessment form that they had and my boss was big into GOALS. I’m sorry – I’m not a sales gal. I’m a secretary. Secretaries don’t have goals. “I want to get up to 120 wpm on the keyboard by the end of the 3rd quarter.” Uh. No. So I just found it strange to do reviews there.

I’m hoping this review today is the last one until my anniversary date in November. And I REALLY hope I don’t have to do a self-assessment. But other than that, I’m looking forward to it! *lol*

Books and More Books

Jan 29th, 2010 | Books | No Comments

I think it’s a new record – my sidebar is showing that I managed to read four books in January. That’s slightly misleading. The first book I was 90% done with on January 1 – but it counts as being read in 2010 since I finished it in 2010. The third book was a book that I read halfway through in late 2009 and then set aside for some reason. It was my “go to” book at work in case I forgot my MP3 player, and a couple weeks ago that happened – I was able to finish it up in 3 quick lunch breaks at work.

I’m gearing up for my trip in a few weeks, and wanted to be sure that I had plenty on my MP3 player to last me during all the driving/flying that I’ll be doing. Fortunately, my sister JenSpeaksand I are sharing an Audible account in 2010, so I was able to download a few things she had downloaded that I’ve been meaning to read.

Titles I just loaded on my MP3 player for this month and the trip:

I’m going to start with Pride & Prejudice because I believe I can get that done long before I leave on the trip. Same goes for Cranford. That’ll leave the long ones for the trip to Vegas/Utah at the end of the month. Seeing as I’ll have 3.5 hours each way on a plane, a 4 hour drive each way from Vegas to the timeshare, and then 2 hours roundtrip to get to the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary each day – I’ll have plenty of time in the car to listen to the books.

So I guess what I’m saying is that my stats for February are going to be pretty darn awesome, too. *lol*

Yes, I’m a nerd. I love books. Even those I don’t “read” (Denis claims audiobooks aren’t really reading, despite the fact that I’m able to repeat back plot, subplot, character descriptions and various information about the so-called “book” once I’m done listening to it).

Ten Days of Silence…or Not

Jan 27th, 2010 | All About CootieMom | 2 Comments

Wow…ten days since my last post. I go the first ten days in January writing almost every day, and the end of January avoiding the blog entirely.

Sometimes I think it’s time to shut ‘er down. Shut down all blogging. My site, the kids’ sites (as rarely as they get updated), the separate site I started last year. Just no more blogging, period. After all, I spend most of my time on Facebook nowadays anyway.

But then I think, “No, you’ve got YEARS invested here – lots of good memories! Keep going!” and I come back and post more mundane gibberish (oh to be witty like Fluid Pudding or chock-full of awesome information like Being Frugal).

News over the past few days:

1) I took a header at work today. CRASH LANDING. It happened so fast I didn’t think to “tuck and roll” so as not to injure myself, and landed solidly on my right knee. Some may recall I injured my left knee at the 5K I ran in October 2009, so now I’ve got a matching set. Nothing else was injured (well, there was my pride, of course, at having three of my seven bosses come running around the corner only to catch an eyeful of their admin on the ground, hindquarters up). Since I work in the healthcare industry now, their natural instincts kicked in and I was coddled and babied all the while protesting that it was actually my dignity that needed a cold pack.

2) Tonight we’re taking the kids to the Ringling Brothers Circus here in Charlotte. We got great seats, it’s opening night, and I think I’m more excited than the kids are (they’ll be more excited once we get there – I’m sure they are remembering the underwhelming circus we went to last year and presuming it’ll be more of the same even though I keep promising MORE! BETTER!).

3) My 90-day probationary period ends NEXT WEEK at my new job. Hard to believe. This morning I updated my resume to add the position at the top (you know, just in case they opt not to keep me after all despite the accolades I’ve received since arriving here).

4) My trip to Utah is in ONE MONTH! I can barely contain my excitement – I think about the trip all the time. I won’t lie when I say I’m looking forward to going to a place where I don’t have to socialize with people if I don’t want to. To be truly ALONE (provided a friend I’ve invited opts not to go – she’s still debating). And if my friend DOES decide to go, I think there will still be plenty of opportunities to enjoy QUIET and SOLITUDE (after all, I’ll be volunteering with animals – and they don’t talk that much for the most part). The animals I want to see the most? The Michael Vick dogs that are still there. It was their episode in 2009 that inspired me to take this trip in the first place. Some of those dogs are still there (and will be for the rest of their lives) and I’m hoping I’ll be able to see them.

That’s it in a nutshell. More later, I’m sure.

I Did So Well There For A While

Jan 17th, 2010 | All About CootieMom, Books, Movies | 2 Comments

Hey there, folks! Sorry it’s been so long since my last post! And I did so well in the first couple weeks – posting almost every day! But frankly, there wasn’t much to talk about this week, and I already bore you enough with the content I write about here. Why add to your misery? *lol*

So let’s see, when I left you last, I had started work on some container gardening for my flower bulbs. I managed to finish them all – I have seven in total filled with bulbs. I put them in the shed so they could enjoy the freezing temperatures without being directly exposed, and then the deep freeze ended and we had temps in the 50s the last couple of days. *sigh* I brought them back outside yesterday and covered them in some rubber mulch and left them out to enjoy the fresh air and rain that we had last night.

At the same time I did the container gardening project I also worked with CootieGirl and started some regular flower seeds in a seed-starter kit at Lowe’s. There are 72 pods in total, and after less than a week we have over 40 showing stems already!! I did not think we’d have that level of success, but sure enough – I may have to get a couple containers for those in a few weeks!

Movies I’ve seen lately include “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” which is a golf movie starring Shia LaBeouf that was pretty good. I also saw “The Return,” which is a Russian movie with subtitles about two boys whose father returns without explanation after a 12 year absence. That was also a good movie, although it did not have a typical Hollywood ending (which makes sense, since it’s a Russian movie). There was also “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” with Jen Garner and Matthew McConaghey. Those are some might fine-lookin’ people right there. Cute movie.

In TV news I’m very sad I don’t have HBO because The Ricky Gervais Show starts this weekend. What is that? Well, you may recall I’m a HUGE fan of his podcasts that he did a few years ago. Turns out, they have turned those podcasts into ANIMATION. You may recall I once posted some animation from the podcast a couple years ago. Here it is again:

See how awesome that is? They have now turned their ENTIRE PODCAST SERIES into animation. I’m seriously debating getting HBO just so I can see it. Because I don’t know if I want to wait for it to come out on Netflix.

In book news, I’m still making my way through “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.” I’m up to Disc 11 (of 14). The layout of the book improved by about Disc 3 – it was less reading of a list and more details, as I hoped it would be. Some of the things those poor people suffered through – WOW. The sheer violence of the torture of ancient Christians is astounding. Not just hangings, not just burning at the stake, not just guillotines, not just prison. But out-and-out torture. Many a time during the course of this book I’ve thought, “There’s no way I could go through that. EVER.” Makes me pray even more fervently that if the Rapture happens in my life time, let it happen BEFORE the Tribulation, not AFTER. Because I assume all those same tortures that I’m hearing about will come right back once the Tribulation starts. What’s even scarier? As much as I think this can’t happen in a civilized society – I bet there are parts of the world where this is still happening today. We just don’t hear about it on the news. A horrifying thought.

That’s about it, really. Work continues to go well. I got a scanner on Friday so that I don’t have to keep pestering my co-admin to scan stuff for me. That’ll cut down on my wait time (I’ve taken on a huge project that requires a LOT of scanning). My 90-day probation period ends in about four weeks. And my Utah trip is another 2-3 weeks after that! WOW! I can’t believe the time is finally almost here!

Kind of Productive Weekend…

Jan 11th, 2010 | All About CootieMom | 2 Comments

So you know how I had that whole list of things I was going to do on Saturday? Yeah. Not so much.

I did get laundry done. I did get some vacuuming done (main floor only). I made it to the grocery store yesterday and picked up a few things. The kids didn’t go out on their bikes because it’s just too cold and the boy has a minor sore throat.

But the bulbs. Oh, the bulbs. I picked out the spot where I wanted to plant my 150 bulbs, and upon digging in found only clay and rocks. A lot of rocks. And not itty bitty rocks, but some the size of my fingers, or my fist. Shovel-stoppers. There was no way I would be able to dig 150 holes and bury the bulbs.

So after some brief Internet research I decided to go for a container garden. I had $75 in gift cards at my disposal, so I headed to Lowe’s and stocked up on potting soil and containers of various sizes. Came home and got to work. Out of 8 containers in all, I got three done. I got three others halfway done and ran out of potting soil. Tonight I’ll head back to Lowe’s for 2 more bags of potting soil and a bag of mulch and I’ll be able to finish up the rest and store them all in our shed for the next 8-10 weeks.

I just hope this works and that the bulbs will flower. And if they do, you know I’ll take pictures. I have high hopes but low expectations. We’ll see what happens!