Catching up

There are changes coming and I can't say that I am sorry. I had a job interview on Monday, and on Tuesday I was offered the job. I accepted. I will be happy to be out of retail and especially DG. I won't miss the unreasonable demands and expectations, the winter season behind a cash register in Quartzsite and the crazy, ever changing, schedule. I will be working Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 at a real job. Weekends and holidays off. Unpaid holidays, but at least I will be off. It is a grant funded job, so it could end in July, or could last for years. But it is also a foot in the door for a real full time position. Doesn't pay as much as DG, but there will be 40 hours, so it should all even out. It does have health insurance.

The job is Clerk of Courts at La Paz County Courthouse right here in Quartzsite. A five minute commute. If I ever got a bicycle, I could even ride to work. It might be about two miles, maybe three. I will have to measure it one of these days.

I'm not saying this is my dream job or that I will even like it, but it has to be better than the one I am doing right now and certainly a lot less physically demanding. From the job description there looks to be plenty of variety to keep me from getting bored.

With the new job I will have to give up Monday morning coffee, but I will be available for Sunday morning breakfasts again. I miss doing that. It is my social time.

I put a call out to Mark about building a raised bed garden. I saw this one online and like it.

This particular one is a kit and is built with cedar and it runs about $900. We are planning on going with pine and the sides will be six feet so I can cover it when it gets cold. I plan on putting a soaker hose on a timer to make the watering much, much easier. I am hoping the larger soil area will help with growing some veggies and that they won't dry out so fast. If I miss one day of watering the pot garden, it is all over. It isn't going to be cheap, but I hope it will pay for itself within a couple of seasons. The bunnies will have a difficult time getting into this. I plan on putting it beside the shed where the clothes line is now. I will have to relocate the clothes line or do a different one on the patio. Lately I have been using the indoor line because most of the clothes that are getting washed are my work clothes and they are black. Keeping them out of the sun to extend their life. I do miss being able to have a garden a grow some of my own veggies. It is going to cost more than I wanted to spend, but I am going ahead with it. Hope it will be worth it.

Yesterday was the first day with no AC. The nights are cooler now so I can cool the house down and close it up in the morning. Not running the fans as much either. My electric bill for last month was almost half of what it was this time last year. The vinyl over the windows may not be all that great, but it has saved me a fortune in electricity this summer. I am hoping it will do the same in the winter.

I am going to have to rework my wardrobe. New job, new clothing requirements. I need pants. Going to go to Sal's on my day off tomorrow and see what I can come up with. I am also going to have to start walking again since I won't be getting my exercise at work any more. I will have to be very careful about what I eat or I will gain all the weight I lost at DG back. I would still like to loose more.

I have also decided this is the last season I am going to maintain the snowmobile websites. I am planning on sending out a notice after all the updates have been done for the season. I will still host the sites since it is minimal work for me, but I have dreaded working on the sites every fall for several years now. I have been doing it for free and get nothing in return. I struggle with the PHP that Jake set up and loose hours and hours of my time, and he has been gone seven years. Time to pass the baton to someone else. 

My last few shifts at work have been demanding and miserable. Business is starting to pick up and I am having to spend more and more time behind the register limiting whatever else I can get done. Sunday I opened, it was very, very busy. My cashier came in at 10. The only problem with that is that it was his very first day and I was too busy to even deal with it. I worked from 6:30 AM to 1:30 PM without a break, finally got Darrell on the register two hours after he got there, and basically had to babysit him. He did well considering I threw him to the wolves. Last night I had a cashier the whole shift, but we got the truck in. I lost almost two hours of productivity between that and Michelle showing up and wasting my time. (Michelle is the district manager.)

I found a few more grapefruit on my tree, but the first two that Charlene spotted are no where to be found. So the current count is 5. It's a good thing, I was getting ready to cut the tree down if it didn't produce anything this year.

As for the internet, it went out again last week. I didn't hesitate to call this time. Again, it was on their side. Has been running for about a week now. So far so good. I am able to stream without issue, and it is nice to be able to be online, watch a video and do whatever I want without worrying about how much I am spending. Still figuring out the TiVo, haven't spent a lot of time on it. For now it is working even if I have to manually program it. I will figure it out and fix it at some point.