Whew!

Today I have:

1. Gotten kids off to various places for the day.
2. Done a load of dishes and one of laundry.
3. Applied for a metric ton of jobs, arranged for two job interviews and canceled another (because it conflicted with one much closer to home).
4. Took an assessment test for a tech support position.
5. Done homework due today, started a conversation with my learning team at school, and answered Daily Questions.
6. Supervised Abby's homework.
7. Begun dismantling the bunk bed.
8. Retrieved Lizzy's new-used DS (bought with the money sent her by her paternal grandparents) and set her up on it, playing Pinkie Pie's Party. She's a mite confused because it appears to be set before Friendship is Magic and therefore not all the ponies are ones she knows.
9. On that note, sent an email to Hasbro on her behalf, asking if there will ever be Seahorsesponies.
10. Got my nails done and got three new tops courtesy of my mom (because she loves me and because my birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks).

I also have been fretting since early this week (but chose not to post about it yesterday) because I keep getting call backs on sales jobs. Now, I am not a particularly good salesman, I know it, and I am content in that. But when sales jobs are mislabeled as customer service jobs, I go in for an interview and end up wasting everyone's time. Retail and customer service (online or otherwise) of the sort where a customer comes to me saying, "Hey, I have x problem," and I can provide them with y solution? That's the sort of sales at which I excel.

Anything more aggressive is notsomuch my thing. I didn't sell a single bloody policy when I worked as an independent agent for The Duck, and I lasted a whole day in collections as we all know. I'm just not that assertive a person on most topics. I want a job in customer service, admin, or writing/editing. And those employers who cross-post their listings just to catch anyone who might possibly have once talked to a customer are doing me - and themselves - a disservice. It seems wasteful to me to say you want customer service skills when the job is really for sales (or collections). Then you end up interviewing a bunch of people who don't match your needs, and there is frustration all around.

Memory

The plan today was to write a long and rambling post about the frustrations involved in job hunting, while simultaneously trying not to sound like a desperately needy whiner.

And then I remembered the date.

You see, job hunting is kind of timeless; one remembers the day of the week but not necessarily the date. So to me - until I listened to the radio on my way back from taking Lizberry to my mom's - today is Wednesday, the first early release day in our kids' school district, and Abby's first girl scout meeting of the year. That is is also the anniversary of a horrific attack on American soil hadn't really occurred to me.

And that's when I decided that I will leave the plea to prospective employers post until tomorrow, because this is more important. So I intend to spend the day looking for a job, doing my homework, and domestically being all mom-and-apple-pie (well, mom-and-salad-bar), and then taking my eldest to make friendship bracelets at Girl Scouts. Nice, all-American activities that are more suited to the day than whining about unemployment is.

Hello, Kitty!

And Pony.

And Humaniform Pony. Yeah, she was pretty much a testament to marketing aimed at young kids this weekend. At one point she was wearing a Scooby-Doo T-shirt and Minnie Mouse socks, with a Hello Kitty bow in her hair. For the party itself at least we stuck to Kitty attire, though many of the gifts were other licenses.

We've done Lizzy's birthday at the park before - that's the advantage of a summer birthday - but this time it was at a much better park for our purposes, because there are a lot of trees and therefore shade.

We played pin-the-bow-on-the-kitty, and ate Hello Kitty themed cupcakes made by the Happy Little Cake Company (aka my friend Carrie, aka Lizzy's BFF Natalie's mom). We had kids ranging from two-and-a-half (Natalie's little sister) to ten-and-a-half (Abby). Speaking of whom, she and her friend did face painting for all the kids who wanted to have it done. We played on the playground.

Lizzy got to have most of her favorite friends, including a couple from preschool, and of course she made out like a bandit. When she went to bed last night, she was replete with cupcakes and a new DVD, toys and a new water bottle from the Hello Kitty lunch kit her aunt and uncle and cousin got her. And more than a little tired and excited and spoon-droppy.

And that was before we discovered that their bed is broken. Slats have broken before; this is no big deal. But when a side support for Abby's top bunk mattress goes kablooey, it's not safe. So they both slept on the floor. We're moving in a couple months, so for now we will remove the top bunk and the three girls will just have to share the lower bunk and the trundle for a few weeks until we can move and get them new furniture. It should have lasted longer than that.

The point being that at the moment we can't find a couple of the gifts, presumably because all the birthday stuff and all the bedding is on the floor in the girls' room. Sigh. We'll get it done. But it adds another layer of stuff, both literally and figuratively, to Life.

Today I Learned...

...Lizzy's favorite punctuation mark is the "explanation mark because it's kinda like crazy." I am unsurprised by this, both the favorite mark and the mispronunciation of it; this is the child who - even with her huge vocabulary - she still says "restauronk" and "conculator".

...The people who want to hire me are the same people at whose job I suck large. Trust me; I've tried selling insurance and I'm really really bad at it. Customer service or claims, I'm your gal, but sales of same? Notsomuch. So much notsomuch.

...Tad of LeapFrog fame (in the cartoon) looks remarkably like the Honey Smacks Frog (at least from a few years ago; the current Dig 'Em looks rather older than Tad Pole and Lily Pad). This one was pointed out by +Laston Kirkland.

...I only get enough sleep on weekends, even when not working, because I stay up too late reading and watching old favorites on TV. I'm not yet as far as re-reading this series though, so although stressed from joblessness and so forth, I'm pretty much okay. And the Hubs kept Lizzy out of my hair so I could sleep in, for which he is commended.

...WebMD now covers non-humans (at least cats and dogs). And there is another site - PetMD - with even more complete information. Using their symptom checker regarding Tiger, I'd say she's just old, hot, and cranky. Moving more stiffly than usual, hair loss (summertime shedding) and therefore hairballs in spite of her special food, sleeping a lot even for her. She is over fifteen, and while most cats in my life have lived a lot longer, Tiger has always been a little delicate.

...Summertime colds are teh suck.

...After reading the first two Oz books to Lizzy (Abby and I read them together when Lizzy was a baby) we can now make the "Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my," chant out of anything. My personal favorite of late is "Broccoli and Bacon and Cheese," used for Potato Bar Dinner Day.

...Some of the best jobs on the boards can be found on the weekends. Now if they'd just call me back we'd be in great shape!

And There's The Difference

Between our girls.

They're bright little things, and Lizzy's a good reader for her age, where Abby is good with math (she must've gotten it from her dad). Lizzy's pretty good with math too, but I think that has more to do with 'playing school' with her big sisters; she's already been drilled in her times tables up to threes for instance.

They're list makers, too. Abby prefers grids, and finds a lot of satisfaction in simple spreadsheets or bulleted list, where Lizzy wants to write it down in words. Again, literacy versus mathematics.

But Lizzy grew up with more tech than Abby or Leanna did, and big sisters to boot, and she is in some ways much more self-sufficient. Leanna is the nature girl, Abby is the socially adept girl, and Lizzy is the practical girl. So when she sets out to make a list of TV she wants to watch this weekend, and she asks an adult to help her spell, and the adult says, "sound it out," she goes one better.

She asks for the TV remote so she can use the Netflix and Amazon Prime queues to learn how to spell the names of the shows. She did the same last spring when she wanted to make a poster like the big girl scouts, and needed to spell Samoas; she dug out the box.

As for the other two, Leanna gets more nature loving by the day; whenever she's here and the girls play a game together they're migrating wolves, or birds building a nest, or flower fairies or something. Abby is so adept with the younger kids - and Google knows that with Lizzy she's had practice - that she has been put in charge of walking morning kindergartners from the bus to the gym where they all meet.

There are our girls, nutshelled.

Now We Are Six

Hello Kitty!

Lizzy and Mrs. M

 Yeah, yeah, not my favorite either, but you kind of have to use it.

Six years ago today, I had Lizzy (surgically, because Abby's birth was both difficult and emergency surgery, and why go through that again when the same outcome is likely?). There was a spike in the local birth rate then (Lizzy was not the only child born nine months after that loooooong power outage in December of 2006) and our kindergarten population shows it. But Mrs. M, her kindergarten teacher, used Lizzy's birthday (as good teachers do) as a object lesson. "This is how we do the birthday routine here in our Dazzling Dolphin afternoon kindergarten class," she says, and leads twenty lisping five- and six-year-olds in a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday (shut up, they aren't performing it for anyone). She also gave Lil' Liz a birthday sticker, a couple of cards (one from her and one from the principal), a couple of pencils ditto, and a handmade birthday crown in pink and blue.

It just doesn't get better than that when you're six.

And a sleeping bag!

Twilight Sparkle and
Rainbow Dash?

And then Grandma took us out for the Girls Only Birthday Dinner (at Red Robin, natch; it's Lizzy's favorite) with Auntie and little four-year-old cousin, where Lizzy got some of the things her little heart desired (and a free sundae and a song with lots of clapping), and we came home to Daddy's gift (she'll get gifts from me at her party on Sunday). Daddy got her a set of four enormous floor puzzles, with a Jake and the Neverland Pirates theme.

Again, it just doesn't get better than that.

Mmmmmmm

And yet it does, because Herself is having a party (nothing fancy, cupcakes and pin-the-bow-on-the-Hello-Kitty and park play and face painting) on Sunday afternoon. A couple of kids from the neighborhood, a couple from her preschool (she doesn't really know her classmates yet), her bestie Natalie and her baby sister, some family. Should be fun.

Here's hoping the weather improves after the rumored thunderstorms and flooding tomorrow and Friday.