Life Isn't All Bad
Dec. 19th, 2022 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jo_anne_stormLet's see... I mentioned months ago that I had a bonus brother, right? The 23 and Me confirmed what we already knew. He freaked out a bit over the whole family heart health medical history thing. But has been cleared by the doctors. He has been enjoying what family history Sis and I can tell him. I know John has been chatting with him as well. Janice? *shrug*
John told him that his mom, Pam, kept Janice from ever visiting because she was afraid that Dad would just keep her. Which... I know Dad wanted her with him, but he would not have just kidnapped her. Law and all that.
Anyway, Bonus Brother is planning on visiting after the holidays. That will be fun.
DH finally got a new job! Once he made the decision to leave, he REALLY wanted to leave. He's now working for HCA, which is a... Basically a medical everything company. They run hospitals and such. He still hasn't been able to look at the benefits page, which hopefully gets fixed today, so that he can sign up for insurance.
Yes, there is a pay bump. Which will be nice... Once he GETS paid. He started the first of the month. Pay goes out the end of the month. So, this month has some added stress. It's fine. I had to pull money from the HELOC, which sucks. But, it is fine.
Eldest also got a new job. Making $22 an hour. Living wage, yay! He's working at the Cracker Barrel Restoration Warehouse. So, basically, all the stuff that is on Cracker Barrel's walls? They have a warehouse where they store everything, clean in, restore it if necessary. His boss is the guy who goes to antique stores and buys it all. Before Covid they had a staff of 20 or so people. Right now they have maybe 7. And they are about to start revamping the decor in all the stores. Apparently people don't like eating with farm implements hanging over their heads...
So, $22/hr, and in January they are going to start traveling again to revamp stores. They send 2 people with a truck load of decor to do 2 stores a week. The boss says that those trips average 62 hours. So, overtime. And each store is a $250 bonus. So, before taxes, Eldest should make $1200 extra for those weeks. Nice!
As it is, base pay is more than what my sister makes at the factory that she has been at for 20 years.
But, a lot of his job is also doing things like making frames for posters, shadow boxes, etc. And they have a store mock up where they lay out where everything will go in a new store. He loves it after a whole week. All he did this week is frame things. He and the other new hire had the task of framing 70 posters in 2 days. It was supposed to be a big push project. They did 141 in 3 days. His trainer and his boss are very pleased.
Of course, his fingers are cut to hell. One of the pieces of glass broke wrong when he was cutting it and sliced the tops of his fingers. But he is getting better at it.
Youngest is still at the local community college and plans to transfer to MTSU when the year is done. The head of the department at the community college keeps inviting all the students to things like live mixing sessions, or the Musician's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. As you can imagine, he is having a blast.
(As an aside, I really expected Eldest to love the college experience and Youngest to be Meh about it. They still surprise me.)
He's still doing Overwatch tournaments with his Org. (Look, I got the terms right!) And went to Atlanta for the Overwatch 2 launch with his team. He had a LAN party! I was amused.
Of course, it was also kinda a shit show because his ancient car started having issues and the Firestone in Atlanta refused to work on it because they decided it was too old. He limped home, did the work he knew how to do (spark plugs and ignition coils) and the mechanic we use did the rest.
And now his hood is held down by ratchet straps because he was distracted driving and rear ended someone. (Luckily no damage to the other car and the other driver was chill about it. First wreck, so he was shaky for a bit, but it's fine.) He's waiting for BiL's family to get the replace pieces in so that it can be fixed.
#3 is busier than ever and has picked up karate as well. He was supposed to belt test this past weekend, but a sore throat meant he had to keep his icky germs to himself. (He felt a bit better on Saturday, when he was supposed to test, but was still very much glassy eyed.)
He moved from gymnastics to tumbling, because he wants to do flips and things. Which, it is earlier in the day, which is nice, and the coach is much less distractable, so he has been making more progress in improvement even after just a few classes. Overall, we are both pleased with it.
His speech therapist thinks he will not need to see her for much longer. So, maybe after this school year, there will be one less thing to run to.
I have home schooling friends who are constantly running from one activity to the next, with multiple kids and competing schedules. They exhaust me.
MiL has decided to retire from micromanaging the church. She really dislikes our current priest. She considering getting back to gardening and maybe taking some of the money she has in investments and traveling. She was pondering how many stamps she could get into SiL's passport. Which, honestly, sounds like a nightmare to me...
Not that travelling would be a nightmare. But, SiL is currently pregnant with twins. International travel with twin babies sounds like a nightmare to me.
SiL is having a girl and a boy. She had the whole gender reveal party. The baby shower will be early January. I still have to look at her registry and decide what we are getting her. SiL is rightfully freaking out about finances. Twins are somehow 3xs more expensive than singles. And, yet, I pretty much know that she is already registered for $400 baby quilts... SiL has expensive tastes.
I am currently working on crocheting a toddler blanket for a cousin. Kid is like 5 months old now... One of my friends mentioned that i needed to hurry up because I have 2 to make for SiL. And I just said "No." I know my SiL well enough to know that she would not appreciate crocheted baby blankets. Like, she loves the big, super chunky throw I made for her. But she would much rather have those $400, Instagram ready baby quilts. That's just who she is.
I am going to cross stitch birth announcements for her. But those will be small, less than 5x7, and she will be able to store them away, so I will not see them on FB Marketplace in a year.
So... yeah. There's all the updatey stuff.
John told him that his mom, Pam, kept Janice from ever visiting because she was afraid that Dad would just keep her. Which... I know Dad wanted her with him, but he would not have just kidnapped her. Law and all that.
Anyway, Bonus Brother is planning on visiting after the holidays. That will be fun.
DH finally got a new job! Once he made the decision to leave, he REALLY wanted to leave. He's now working for HCA, which is a... Basically a medical everything company. They run hospitals and such. He still hasn't been able to look at the benefits page, which hopefully gets fixed today, so that he can sign up for insurance.
Yes, there is a pay bump. Which will be nice... Once he GETS paid. He started the first of the month. Pay goes out the end of the month. So, this month has some added stress. It's fine. I had to pull money from the HELOC, which sucks. But, it is fine.
Eldest also got a new job. Making $22 an hour. Living wage, yay! He's working at the Cracker Barrel Restoration Warehouse. So, basically, all the stuff that is on Cracker Barrel's walls? They have a warehouse where they store everything, clean in, restore it if necessary. His boss is the guy who goes to antique stores and buys it all. Before Covid they had a staff of 20 or so people. Right now they have maybe 7. And they are about to start revamping the decor in all the stores. Apparently people don't like eating with farm implements hanging over their heads...
So, $22/hr, and in January they are going to start traveling again to revamp stores. They send 2 people with a truck load of decor to do 2 stores a week. The boss says that those trips average 62 hours. So, overtime. And each store is a $250 bonus. So, before taxes, Eldest should make $1200 extra for those weeks. Nice!
As it is, base pay is more than what my sister makes at the factory that she has been at for 20 years.
But, a lot of his job is also doing things like making frames for posters, shadow boxes, etc. And they have a store mock up where they lay out where everything will go in a new store. He loves it after a whole week. All he did this week is frame things. He and the other new hire had the task of framing 70 posters in 2 days. It was supposed to be a big push project. They did 141 in 3 days. His trainer and his boss are very pleased.
Of course, his fingers are cut to hell. One of the pieces of glass broke wrong when he was cutting it and sliced the tops of his fingers. But he is getting better at it.
Youngest is still at the local community college and plans to transfer to MTSU when the year is done. The head of the department at the community college keeps inviting all the students to things like live mixing sessions, or the Musician's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. As you can imagine, he is having a blast.
(As an aside, I really expected Eldest to love the college experience and Youngest to be Meh about it. They still surprise me.)
He's still doing Overwatch tournaments with his Org. (Look, I got the terms right!) And went to Atlanta for the Overwatch 2 launch with his team. He had a LAN party! I was amused.
Of course, it was also kinda a shit show because his ancient car started having issues and the Firestone in Atlanta refused to work on it because they decided it was too old. He limped home, did the work he knew how to do (spark plugs and ignition coils) and the mechanic we use did the rest.
And now his hood is held down by ratchet straps because he was distracted driving and rear ended someone. (Luckily no damage to the other car and the other driver was chill about it. First wreck, so he was shaky for a bit, but it's fine.) He's waiting for BiL's family to get the replace pieces in so that it can be fixed.
#3 is busier than ever and has picked up karate as well. He was supposed to belt test this past weekend, but a sore throat meant he had to keep his icky germs to himself. (He felt a bit better on Saturday, when he was supposed to test, but was still very much glassy eyed.)
He moved from gymnastics to tumbling, because he wants to do flips and things. Which, it is earlier in the day, which is nice, and the coach is much less distractable, so he has been making more progress in improvement even after just a few classes. Overall, we are both pleased with it.
His speech therapist thinks he will not need to see her for much longer. So, maybe after this school year, there will be one less thing to run to.
I have home schooling friends who are constantly running from one activity to the next, with multiple kids and competing schedules. They exhaust me.
MiL has decided to retire from micromanaging the church. She really dislikes our current priest. She considering getting back to gardening and maybe taking some of the money she has in investments and traveling. She was pondering how many stamps she could get into SiL's passport. Which, honestly, sounds like a nightmare to me...
Not that travelling would be a nightmare. But, SiL is currently pregnant with twins. International travel with twin babies sounds like a nightmare to me.
SiL is having a girl and a boy. She had the whole gender reveal party. The baby shower will be early January. I still have to look at her registry and decide what we are getting her. SiL is rightfully freaking out about finances. Twins are somehow 3xs more expensive than singles. And, yet, I pretty much know that she is already registered for $400 baby quilts... SiL has expensive tastes.
I am currently working on crocheting a toddler blanket for a cousin. Kid is like 5 months old now... One of my friends mentioned that i needed to hurry up because I have 2 to make for SiL. And I just said "No." I know my SiL well enough to know that she would not appreciate crocheted baby blankets. Like, she loves the big, super chunky throw I made for her. But she would much rather have those $400, Instagram ready baby quilts. That's just who she is.
I am going to cross stitch birth announcements for her. But those will be small, less than 5x7, and she will be able to store them away, so I will not see them on FB Marketplace in a year.
So... yeah. There's all the updatey stuff.
