The Army Goes Facebook

So, how's this for weird? My daughter's platoon has a Facebook page! It was created and is being run by the wife of one of the drill sergeants. On Sundays we get a schedule of what they'll be doing the coming up week. Also, family members of the soldiers can leave messages and she will (she says) pass them along.

The family members are starting to talk to each other, which I think is cool. By the time we go to graduation at the beginning of May, I'll already know all these people.

In case you're interested, the Facebook page is here: Bravo Battery Bushmasters

They also post pictures. Lots of pictures. Hundreds of pictures. As usual, my daughter is quite adept at hiding from the camera. I have been able to find a few of her though. I snagged two of them where I could actually see her face:


That's my baby in the middle there, standing in formation on day 1 of basic training.

This was on Friday. They called this the Treadwell Tower, and it's a mass of ladders, rope bridges, and a 40 foot rappelling wall. Out of the 300 pictures or so that they posted on Friday, this is the only one I could find of her. Looked to me like she had climbed up the ladder behind her, and was kneeling on a platform ready to take on a rope bridge. Kylie said it looked like a big playground. :)

I also got to talk to her briefly yesterday. She said that they were allowed to use their phones for five minutes. Because of the earthquake in Japan, there were lots of soldiers worried about friends/family members stationed or living in Japan, so they let them have some phone time.

She told me that things were going well, and that it's really not bad. The thing that is the hardest for her (she says) is "immature people who can't keep their mouths' shut, so the whole platoon winds up paying for it." I guess she doesn't like it much when one person gets out of line, and everyone has to run or do pushups or whatever. I wouldn't like that much either.

She said (after week 1) that the training itself isn't bad at all. Some of it is even kind of fun (See: rope bridge, playground). This coming Tuesday is not going to be fun, but at least they are getting it out of the way at the beginning. The gas chamber. Where they get to go in to a chamber with gas masks on, then they get to take them off and see what it feels like to be gassed. I've seen other pictures and video on YouTube...they all come out crying and gasping and puking. I hope on that day, I don't see any pictures of her. This is the only thing she has been dreading. But like I said, at least they're getting it out of the way early.

I think the hardest part of this whole thing for me is trying to separate the pride I have for my daughter with my feelings about the military. I am not a big fan of the military, war, guns, killing, bombs, or anything war-related. I don't care for movies about war. I don't like violence at all. And my daughter has joined the army. Don't get me wrong, I am so, so proud of her. How many 18 year-old girls are completely and totally on their own? Getting training, and earning money while doing it. With no husband or children, and hardly anything she needs to spend money on, she's going to have a nice fat balance in her checking account by the time she's done with AIT (Advanced Individual Training).

Her AIT will be at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, which is directly after basic. If you're in the medical field, that's where you go for AIT. Her job is 68W, or a medic. She wants to eventually become a nurse. Anyway, back to the part where I am so very proud of her. She didn't want to take money from us, nor go into debt to pay for college. You know what she wants to buy when she gets out of AIT? A laptop. Not a car, not a big screen TV, not a mall full of clothes. She wants a nice laptop. I told her, "Baby, you'll have plenty of money and you'll definitely have earned it, so you go buy yourself the nicest, shiniest laptop you can find." :)

I love that kid. The military, not so much. But I sure do love her. Have I mentioned that I'm really, really proud of her?

The Purple Hand

So, this Army thing. My fears are realized and my daughter has already been injured. But perhaps a little backstory.

When you go to basic training, you don't actually start basic training right when you get there. The first week is called reception, where you are not in the actual barracks, but in some sort of holding place. In Danni's case, a hall with about 50 girls and bunk beds and lockers.

So you spend reception week getting your uniforms, seeing the doctor and dentist, getting immunizations (you know, whether you had them as a kid or not, I guess you get to have them all again) and getting paperwork in order. I'm not sure how this takes a week, but whatever.

When you're in basic training, every night, 7 or so people (or however long they sleep) have to do an hour of "guard duty." What they are protecting, I don't know. But what I'm saying is on certain nights, you have to wake up in the middle of the night and stand guard for an hour, then go back to bed.

In reception, I suppose they are preparing you for this when they do the same thing, except instead of guard duty, you're just watching the reception desk. In the middle of the night. To make sure it doesn't escape, or something.

Danni arrived at Fort Sill on Wednesday the 16th. On Thursday night, sometime in the middle of the night, she had her turn at holding down the fort. Oh, I slay me. Get it, fort? Sill?

She also managed to get herself a top bunk, not by choice. Apparently, there are no ladders or anything, you just jump down and climb up.

Now, the week before she left, she didn't get much sleep. She was nervous and scared and jittery. So I'm blaming exhaustion on the fact that my daughter, getting up to watch the reception desk in the middle of the night, fell out of her top bunk. Onto a concrete floor. She landed on her butt, and her left hand.

Well, her butt is fine, but her left hand ended up like this:

In case you're wondering how I got the picture, they're allowed to keep their cell phones while they're in reception week.

They took xrays, and fortunately, nothing is broken. She just has some deep bone bruises on her hand and wrist. However, this injury did prevent her from leaving for actual basic with her unit on Wed. the 23rd. Because you can't do pushups with your arm in a thing.

So on Wednesday, all the girls except Danni and one other girl who has some sort of infection, left. And a new crop of girls came in. When the first group left? My girl grabbed a bottom bunk.

She is pissed, because reception is boring, and she has to stay another week. As far as I know, she will actually start basic this Wednesday, March 2nd. You know what they do in reception? They sleep, eat, clean and work out. Woooo.

On the bright side, she said the food is surprisingly good. On the night I talked to her, she said she had some amazing spinach lasagna. So there's that.

My Daughter Wears Combat Boots

These are my kids on February 14th at the Downtown Sheraton in Denver. See the one in the middle? On February 14th, she was still a civilian.

That night, we had to leave her at the Sheraton. Kylie wasn't going with us to the swearing in the next day, so she had to say her goodbye here. You know what's hard? Saying goodbye to your eight year-old sister. You know what's even harder? Crying in the car all the way home because your eight year-old daughter is crying that she's going to miss her big sister so much.

This is my daughter on February 15th, when she ceased to be a civilian and became a soldier. More crying, because my baby is vowing to protect and defend our country, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Well, not because of that, but because she's leaving. And because I am so dang proud of her.

My 18 year-old and 16 year-old babies. I don't care, they're still babies. And look, they even look like they love each other in this picture. Ok, I know they love each other, but they do have a hard time living together. Something about taking each other's clothes and makeup.

Proud and sad. Sad and proud. You know what the worst time of the day is? When I'm driving to work. 25 minutes by myself, to do nothing but think about how much I miss her, what I'm going to say in my next letter, and hoping to God she doesn't get hurt, or worse. One day, I will stop crying in the car on the way to work every day. She's only been gone a week. It will stop, right?

Her job is 68W, Healthcare Specialist. She's going to be a nurse, eventually. I'm really, really glad she's going to be helping people, not killing them. Yes, I'll say it....I'm terrified she's going to have to go to the Middle East. Even though I've been told that in her job, not a lot of women go there because of the issues of Middle Eastern countries and their disdain for women. I've been told she would have a choice, and I know she would choose not to go there. It still scares me.

Honestly? I've been told this and that, but I have a hard time trusting the Army. I'm afraid they're going to suck out her soul. What if I go to her graduation from basic training at the end of April, and they've replaced my daughter with a Danni-looking robot? I just don't want her to change. More responsible would be good. But I don't want her to change.

Oh, Doctor? Can I get a four-year supply of Xanax, please?

Having a Job Is Time Consuming

The fact that having a job is time-consuming might be obvious to most people, but I forgot just exactly how little free time you have when working 40 hours a week, plus another 10 hours (30 min. each way, 5 days) commuting.

I'm still here, and I read everyone's posts when I get a chance, and have done zero commenting. I have so much to catch up on.

I think I wrote the last post about my job before I actually started. I was under the impression that I would be working at a help desk in a hospital. That's not exactly the case. I work for...well, I'd rather not have anyone search the name of the company and have my blog come up, but it's three words. First word is a major religion with the pope as its leader. Second word is the opposite of sickness, or a type of insurance we'd all like to have. Third word, initiatives. Well, I don't actually work for them yet, since it's a contract to hire position. I work for the contractor right now, but I really like the job and I think they like me pretty well, so I'm hoping that sooner rather than later, I will be hired on and then my family will have...you know, that type of insurance we'd all like to have.

So I work not in a hospital, but in a very, very nice office with a room full of (mostly) very cool people, and we support about 70 hospitals from that room. Calls range from nurses who lock themselves out of every medical computer application known to man (those are the easy ones), to help with an Excel spreadsheet, to "I can't find my personal files in Outlook", to "I need a shared drive mapped to my computer." There are also calls about phones and printers and scanners and such where we just send a ticket to their local IT people. Then there are the calls about which I am completely clueless, and have to ask for help. But that's ok, everyone in the room is always asking questions of co-workers. And I find that as time goes by, I'm having to ask fewer questions, which is good.

In a nutshell, I really like the job, like the office, like the people. Being away from the house 50 hours a week is the only hard part. I work from 11am to 7:30pm right now. The nice part is that I am able to get up with the kids in the morning and get them off to school, then still have a little time to get a few things done around the house. The bad part is not getting home until 8pm. Luckily, I have Shannon to watch Kylie, and she's doing a pretty good job.

Speaking of Shannon...

How is it that this little rugrat turned 16 this past week? My middle child is 16. Sad that she's growing up? Yes. But with the passing of time also comes the passing of the adolescent angst, thank God. She and her boyfriend Jacob just passed the 10 month mark, and they seem pretty happy. He's a nice kid, if not so much in the ambition department, and he's sweet to her, so it's all good at this point.

Speaking of kids, Danni is home! She leaves for basic training a month from today. It's so nice to have her back. Three months of living on her own has really changed her for the better, I think. The "I'm 18 and you can't tell me what to do" attitude is gone, and I feel like I have my daughter back. She is excited to start basic, because she wants to get her life going. She is going to be going in as an E3, and is on an RN track, with her army job title being Health Care Specialist. For now, she is enjoying sleeping in and spending time with her sisters.

I promise, very soon, to visit all of you and see what you are up to. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year!

What? Me, Worry?

HAPPY DANCE!!!

So, remember about eight days ago when I was moaning about how I couldn't find a job?

Well, guess what?

Today, I GOT A JOB!!!!

It happened so fast, it was unbelievable.

Last Thursday, I sent my resume to a recruiter for a job that my husband found online. It was considered an IT job, so I never would have been looking for that. But it was for a help desk position, at a hospital. My previous job? Medical software support.

I emailed my resume, and the recruiter called me not 20 minutes later. She suggested a few minor changes to my resume to fit the position. I made the changes and emailed it back to her.

Friday, I heard nothing. Because nothing gets done on Fridays.

Monday, I called her. She hadn't heard anything from the client yet.

Wednesday, was poking around online, and found that the same job had been reposted. I panicked, and called the recruiter again. I asked if this means they don't want to interview me. She said it probably meant nothing, because it could be an auto-poster, and she still hadn't heard from them.

Thursday afternoon, she called and said that they loved my medical background, and that she had to forward me a few questions that they wanted me to answer. And oh by the way, they needed someone to start Monday.

I answered the techie-type questions as best I could and sent them back to the recruiter, thinking, "I am not qualified for this job at all." I told my husband, I probably was not going to get the job, because I didn't know half the stuff they asked. I Googled some of it, and made the rest of it up.

This morning, the recruiter calls me and says that they want me and are offering me the position! Yay! I accepted, then went down to the recruiter's office to fill out the crap ton of paperwork.

This is a contract-to-hire position, so I'll be an employee of the recruiter for 3-6 months, then after that, the hospital WILL (I'm so not saying if) hire me on. And let me just say, this is the highest-paying job I have ever had. I am so happy and grateful right now. I will never, ever again take having a job for granted. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me.

Now we just need to find hubby a job, and we're good to go. :)

Beyond Frustrated

I can't find a job, people.

I've applied. Oh, I've applied.

I worked for a medical software company for five years, before they decided to close the office. I have extensive computer experience. I have excellent written and verbal communication skills. I have customer service experience. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology. I am one hell of an employee. I am smart, responsible, punctual, and work well with others.

What the hell, Internet?

I had one interview with an accounting firm who does city management for small cities that are too small to have their own city management. It was for a job in the utilities billing department.

I got an interview on that one. It went well. Then I got a second interview. I thought that also went well.

When the staffing agency that sent me on that interview informed me that I did not get the job, she said all the client would say is that, "It just wasn't the right fit." Not that I wasn't qualified, or they didn't think I could do that job, just 'it wasn't the right fit."

What the &*^% does that mean? I'm too fat? They didn't like the amount of gray in my hair? (Which honestly, isn't that much) Didn't like my shirt? ( I love my interview outfit shirt.) I was wearing black pants, black flats and a lovely red/silver/black top. What? What is it? Do these people know how much they'd love me if they'd give me a chance? I am amazing to work with. Former co-workers LOVE me.

I had another interview with the county administrator's office for an admin position. I was interviewed by a panel of three people. Then I was given computer testing. I thought the interview part went great. I did outstanding on the computer testing. The lady who gave me the computer testing (who was part of the panel of three) said she loved my personality and she hoped I got the job.

But I didn't.

My ego is bruised, Internet. This is the first time in my life I have ever had face-to-face interviews, and not gotten the job. Seriously, this has never happened to me before.

I need a job. My UI benefits aren't going to last forever. In fact, not a whole lot longer.

I've hit a wall. I want to go back to bed. I'm sick of this. Wait...maybe I won the Powerball last night...let me just check real quick....

Nope, didn't win. Neither did anyone else, but that doesn't really help me.

Seriously, it's getting hard to do anything. Like, doing a load of laundry is a monumental effort. Speaking of which... I need to go move clothes. Have I also mentioned I need a job?

Any advice, anyone? Anyone in the Denver area need a great employee? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Wordless Wednesday