This blog thing certainly has not been a priority. Now that my friend has started her own blog, having moved overseas, maybe I will get back into the swing of things myself.
So what can I update my tiny group of followers on? Hmmm
Well, it has certainly been a year of changes. I spent a few months just being a stay-at-home mom again, unpacking, getting used to the community and all, then figured it was probably time to get cracking and back into the workforce again, what with wishing for a paycheck and all. :)
Off I went to apply for a school bus driving job. I signed up with the local branch of the bus company I had worked for in Regina, and was, of course, accepted on and went through their training program again. I had expected to get a position in town, but when the orientation day came for all the drivers, I was not given one of these routes. I was, however, given a route for the French school board down the road a ways. It wasn't ideal. I drove half an hour to the bus yard, drove another 15 minutes in the bus to the start of the route, picked up 20 students. Drove about 15 more minutes with them, dropped half off at an elementary school, picked up a few more at that school, then drove another 10 minutes to drop everyone else off at the high school. Then a 40 minute drive with my empty bus back to the yard. Then I drove home, because the time gap was too big to stay in the city where my bus was. Then I repeated the process in reverse at the end of the day. And the students (some of them) were very rowdy, some very spoiled and undisciplined, and just basically made the drive very stressful and somewhat dangerous. Even adding the half hour for pre-check and post-check on the bus, I was driving 2 hours a day to get paid for about 3 hours of work that I wasn't even enjoying.
My husband was watching me kind of fade away, emotionally and energy-wise. I was tired, I was cranky, I was maybe a bit depressed, and WAY stressed out, and just basically not myself anymore. So he suggested maybe I should switch jobs. No way! Nuh-uh! Not gonna happen! What if...what if..what if...
I was worried that I would hate the next job too, or not find something, and was just basically clinging to the thought that I had to stick to what I had spent all this time training for.
Long story short, he convinced me, I looked, and on October 20, I started my new job as a driver for Enterprise Commercial Trucks (which recently rebranded as Enterprise Truck Rentals), and have not looked back since, except to laugh at my hesitation. I love my job now. I drive mostly pickup trucks (ranging from 1/2 tons to 1 1/2 tons), but also drive deck trucks, picker trucks, cube trucks, transit vans, cargo vans, 8-passenger vans, and occasionally SUVs, minivans, and the rare car. The people I work with are all great, have an uproarious sense of humour, and are just generally nuts, and it's awesome! :)
My partner at work and I get along great. He keeps me laughing all the time, and has even suggested a couple of harmless pranks (which is fine because I have been pranked by the BOSS already)...we were going to hang a pirate flag on the picker that was displayed in front of the office, but never could find one before they moved it, so when he suggested "safety shoelaces", I got right on it. He and I now sport very bright shoelaces on our shoes at work....one neon yellow, and one neon orange, to match our safety vests. Everyone (with the exception of one co-worker who is not known for her sense of humour anyway) thought they were absolutely hilarious! :) I completely forgot about them and made one woman in a Walmart parking lot do a double take, burst out laughing, and comment on how safety conscious I must be. :-D
A few weeks ago, my brother quit his job up north, and I helped him move south with my minivan. 2700+ km in 4 days. And he doesn't drive. I was a little uninspired to go back to work the day after that adventure. :)
The kids continue to grow and become their own very different people. Some days, it's a good thing, some days I wonder how I will ever survive until they are old enough to be on their own.
We discovered over the past year that our son is mildly autistic. They used to call it Aspergers, but now it is referred to as High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder. Whatever they want to call it, we are learning about it and what it means in regards to who my son is, why he does some of the things he does, and how to help him in different ways. Depending on the day, he can be "just like any other child", and others he can range from mildly annoying to others to a real pest or "weirdo" in the eyes of kids at school and in the general public. I put those in quotations because they are more how other people would maybe describe him, people who don't live with him every day and don't see how he ticks and don't see him as the whole person he is as opposed to the snapshot views you get of someone you know or see on a semi-regular or rare basis. He is an awesome little man, with a great sense of humour, a wonderfully soft heart (and a great hugger), and a whiz with anything Pokemon or Lego. (He completed a 2000+ piece Lego kit, Age 16+ Expert level, by himself, in about 2 weeks, working on it after school and weekends only) He is also an amazing chef. A recent (and extremely delicious) dish he made was scallops with dried cranberries, maple bacon, and homemade garlic aioli.
Our daughter has been going through a very tough year. She is in a state of figuring out who she is, including making some very serious and dangerous mistakes which she thankfully seems to have moved past. She is a beautiful young woman, and we are very proud of her in terms of her grades, her basic personality, and the fact that other than the mistakes, she seems to make mostly good decisions in life. She is going through that crashing-waves-of-hormonal-instability stage of life where she can either be a nice, pleasant person, or a brooding, grumpy-cat sullen teenager, and it can change in a two minute period of time, but hopefully she (and we) will make it through that in the next few years. :) She is an amazing artist, and also quite musical. She has a beautiful singing voice, can play piano, clarinet, and has 3 guitars (acoustic, electric, and bass).
We are preparing in the near future for an Alaskan cruise, for which we are very excited. We have heard nothing but good things about Alaska cruises and are looking forward to one of the few family vacations we probably have left, before they are grown and moved out. Should be fun.
And that probably covers most of the past year. I hope. And I will try to do a better job of keeping this blog updated.
No promises, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment