Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Week In Review

Geez - time is flying by! I know everybody else is as busy as me this time of year.

I helped Gail, and her husband John, at their greenhouses. They've been in business over twenty years...what a hard way to make a living! John is a farmer at heart and gets up before the sun every day to water plants. Gail does most of the ordering of merchandise and all the personnel stuff. This is in addition to running her specialty shop in town, The Garden Market.

As you can imagine this time of year, it is crazy busy! And pollen is on everything! In between waiting on customers Tuesday, I dusted as much pollen as I could, which gave me a migraine. Wednesday I was down with it and slept all day except for going to another interview (more on that later). By the time I got out, I felt like I had a fever plus a very upset tummy so spent the rest of the day sleeping again. Thursday and Friday I worked for Gail and John even though I still felt bad.

Saturday morning I took my Princess to the vet for her annual visit and to have a senior panel run on her in preparation of having her teeth cleaned (finally got my tax refund). After taking her home, I headed to Gail's to clean house for her. No wonder I can eat a bag of donuts in two days and still only 20 pounds overweight. I'm working my tail off...well not really...but it sure feels like it!

Today and tomorrow I'm staying home. I worked outside all day and got a lot done, but there is still a ton of weeds left to pull out front, and I haven't even started on the back yard yet but will try to get it all done tomorrow.

So...the big job fell through. Evidently, there were some politics going on and they selected an internal candidate. I was disappointed, as this job was a perfect match for my skills. Plus, the hiring manager kept reporting to the recruiter that I was perfect and she was leaning toward me. Talk about BS.

So Wednesday, I had an interview for another good job, but the pay and hours are far from ideal. The good news is that because it's a minimum 6 month contract, the temp agency will actually give me health insurance! Again, the feedback was - "Phyllis is great, a good match, blah blah blah, but we are concerned about her Excel skills". Now I told them that I used to be highly proficient with Excel and am still pretty good, but I've never created a Pivot Table or Chart. They were concerned about that. HELLO - it's not like I couldn't learn it! So Friday morning, I got up and did some research on line (you can find anything on line for free) and created my very first Pivot Table and Chart. I sent it to the recruiter telling her it wasn't anything fancy - just basic - but that is should show that I'm more than capable of maneuvering my way around Excel. I was proud of myself for getting it all together in one hour before heading to the greenhouses.

So far, no word back so I guess I'll hear something early this week. In the mean time, Gail and John need my help and I'm happy to be able to accomodate them.

I didn't make time to take any pics of my progress in the yard today, so will leave you with a picture of the little robe I made for Ginny. It turned out pretty cute, I think, and Erin (mommy) loved it :) I will take pics of my yard and share with you tomorrow.



Have a good day/week!