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!!!