Little Elsie

Our precious youngest grandchild, Elsie Ryan Faulkner-6 months old.

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New Job and House Hunting

This will be quick because it is late and I am tired but it has been too long since I have posted anything. The new job is going well but I am overwhelmed by how much there is to learn. I am using the computer a ton and getting more and more used to looking things up on multiple windows. I even have two screens for my computer which is very helpful. I am starting to do things on my own but everything takes me SO long. I hope I get faster soon because my trainer will be leaving in just over a week and I will be on my own. (scary) The office is pretty darn busy with new listings and closings and all sorts of other stuff. There was some talk today that they might be getting me an assistant eventually. That would really take the pressure off because right now there doesn't seem to be time in an 8 hour day to get everything done. I am praying each day for wisdom, strength and calmness.

Now that we are both gainfully employed we have started house hunting. We have gone out with our agent twice and have seen a ton of houses. There is one that is our favorite but we are going to keep looking a while longer before making any offers. We are looking in the area right around here and also in SW Longmont. The SW area is more expensive since it is closer to Boulder so I'm not sure if we will find anything there. Our favorite house so far is quite big--two stories and a finished basement which includes 4 bedrooms, a den, a loft and 4 bathrooms!! Our second favorite is right down the street from us and is much smaller but also has 4 bedrooms and the master is on the main floor. It has a small un-finished basement and 3 bathrooms. Both houses have very small back yards and no views. We hope to look again this weekend. You never know....we might find something we like even better.

That's it for tonight....time for bed!

Charlie Loves the Snow

Miss Charlie had so much fun in the snow....pretending she was a tree in the planter.....
making snow angles.....

eating it......

running in it.....

and eating some more.....she could not get enough of the fluffy white stuff!

Lucky Friday the Thirteenth

I decided last weekend to start applying for jobs since I was so unhappy with the TurboTax job. I only had Saturday off and tons to do but I applied for two jobs. I got a call from one of them on Monday. I went for an interview Wednesday morning with the Vice President of the company, another interview on Thursday with the manager at the office where I would be working and another interview on Friday with the company owners. On Friday afternoon I was offered the position!! I immediately accepted and called my supervisor at Turbotax and resigned. I am VERY excited and a little nervous but I start Monday morning---yeah!!!

So...my title will be "transaction coordinator" and it is with a independent real estate firm called Wright Kingdom Real Estate. Their main office is in Boulder but they also have a smaller office here in Longmont where I will be working. It is only 15 minutes away and my hours will be M-F 8:30am to 5:30pm--perfect! I will be assisting the agents at the office to complete their listings on MLS, doing Comparative Cost Analysis's for them and entering all their other information electronically and keeping track of their paperwork and making sure they get everthing done on time. I will also assist the agents with making brochures for advertising. I will need to learn how to use "Publisher" which I am going to start studying this weekend. I am VERY excited about the job. It sounds interesting to me, I will get to work with people face to face and also do independent work. I am impressed with the company and the salary and benefits are great. Thank you, Lord!

Dennis and I went out to the "ice races" last night to celebrate. It was held in an indoor ice-hockey arena in Loveland. It was fun to see motorcycles and quads racing on ice. They had spikes in their tires and they went amazingly fast. They had a couple of armature divisions where the riders had limited or no spikes. Those guys had a hard time getting traction and there was a lot of spinning in circles. It was a very fun evening!

Tonight we are going over to Rena and Nathans to here all about their trip to Europe. Tomorrow we are going to take the boys swimming at the new gym we belong to. Next weekend we will start looking at houses. Things are starting to look up. I hope this blog entry is better for you, ED! Thanks to everyone for your love and support and prayers.

Checking In

So...I know, I know, where have I been on my blogging??? My friend Pat says I should blog so here you go,Pat. We had a wonderful Christmas with Candace, Charlie, Laney, Brenda, Craig, Katya, Reagan and little Elsie. It was so wonderful having them all with us for over 2 weeks. The downer was that I was sick with a terrible cold and Dennis and I had just started new jobs.

Dennis is delivering packages for a small company in Ft Collins. He delivers in Ft Collins, Loveland and some small outlaying towns. He delivers mostly to residents (lots of amazon.com stuff)and some businesses including nursing facilities (depends), animal hospitals (medications)and tire stores (tires). He drives his own van, is putting on tons of miles and getting very poor pay. He is also forced to take a half hour lunch break every day which he hates because he would normally just eat while driving. But since they take a half hour off his time each day whether he takes a lunch or not he has started taking the lunch break even though it makes his day longer. He skipped his lunch on Thursday but took an hour lunch on Friday and went grocery shopping for me at Wally World (Walmart)---nice! He works Monday through Friday and had the day after Christmas and the the day after New Years off (with no pay).

I am working for an employment agency doing customer support for Turbo Tax. I work at the huge IBM campus in north Boulder. It only takes me 20 minutes to get there but that is about the only good thing about the job. I was in training for 12 days including the day after Christmas and the day after New Years. (Big time bummer since the kids were here.) The training was very stressful and uncomfortable since there were 28 of us in a very small room. We were elbow to elbow and it got quite hot in the room. I had to take a test on the 11th day of training which I passed but there was so much to learn and I feel like I only absorbed about a third of what was presented. Also, they were having terrible problems with the computers, servers and other tools that we could have used for practice. I started on the phones on Monday and after 5 days don't feel very confident. On some of the calls I feel like it's the blind leading the blind. So far I've only had one customer who was super upset and I don't blame him because after 1 hour and 50 minutes I was not able to help him. What a horrible experience that was! (He had gotten a letter from the IRS saying that he had made a mistake on his 2009 taxes and he owed $2500.00 more. He was trying to figure out what went wrong. The tool that I needed to try and re-create his 2009 taxes was not working and so I could not help him.) I only got one day off and have to go back tomorrow for 5 more days and then get Friday and Saturday off. My hours are 10am to 6:30pm. The hours aren't too horrible but I am not used to working full time so it is taking it's toll. I am also not used to sitting all day and I think I'm getting fatter every day.

So, you can see from all the above why I have not written. Things are not so good right now. There is one thing I am very excited about and that is that we joined a local gym today. We are going to start working out on Monday and I can't wait. I'm hoping it will help with the stress. I also applied for 2 jobs today. I really don't see myself staying at this job unless things get better real soon.

Our thanks to all of you who sent us Christmas cards and Christmas care packages. We love you and miss you and wish you all a Happy New Year!!!