Numb

When will all this be over? Each day is something worse than the day before, can it possibly get any worse? So many questions and no one has any answers........

Hopeless in Fresno?

What does lost paperwork, not returning phone calls and no information equal? S-T-R-E-S-S! Well here goes as to where our move stands. As of yesterday my relocation paperwork was lost. After spending 3 days trying to get a hold of this lady and her not returning my phone calls I very rudely said a lot of four letter words at the woman who lost my paperwork and hung up on her yesterday. She shoved me off to her bosses because she had run out of excuses as to who had my paperwork last.

Today I finally get called into the HR office to get my reporting orders for Saturday. My HR boss said to just keep bugging her and they should come up with it. This paperwork is for my relocation money, without it the movers don't come and Leroy & the kids have to stay here with the house =( Well on my way home today I get a phone call. The number came up "unknown" and I debated on whether or not to answer it. Well, I answered it and it was Lynn, the finance secretary I've been leaving messages with when I try to call Carol. This woman has been nothing but sweet to me, if she could, I know she would have given me answers. Lynn is the bright spot in my day today......she called to tell me she found my paperwork and sent it to the relocation management firm!!!!!!! Cartus (the moving company) is getting my papers and should be calling me soon. Hopefully we will be able to move sometime next week.

And now for another stress factor. When I got my orders my HR boss gave me my new post office's number and said to call the postmaster to find out if she needed me to come in next week or just wait for my training. I thought 'great maybe my new boss will be great!' After talking to my new boss I was hopeless. =( There are 2 of us going to the Fillmore and the postmaster said she has enough hours for maybe 1 1/2 clerks, not 2. Oh great, just one more thing to worry about....hours. Hopefully since I'm willing to travel to the smaller towns I can get more hours.

Things can't possibly get anymore stressful right now. We will be glad when this move is over and we can get back into a routine because it's beginning to stress out the kids which is not a good thing. Luckily we have a strong marriage and can get through anything as long as we do it as a family!


P.S. THANK YOU LYNN (Although you'll never read this....THANK YOU)

Derrick's Nose Job

Well finally, as if we didn't already have some excitement in our lives......Derrick added to it today! During our yard sale today, he comes outside and says "I have a drawy yellow thing in my nose Mom". My first reaction was WHAT?! And after closer inspection he was right, there was a yellow thingy in his nose, stuck.

He'd done this before on his 2nd birthday. Luckily after 8 hrs in the emergency room at Children's Hospital he sniffed and it was gone. This time it was lodged right in the passageway. After about 15 minutes of holding him down, trying to get it out and tears on both our parts Leroy said just take him to the Urgent Care down the street.

Panicking like I always do, we drove the couple miles, signed him in, waited, waited and waited some more. Got called back and then waited some more! The nurse got a chuckle out of it so at least we could make someone smile today =).

The doctor came in and I really think he was 185 and seriously didn't need to be a doctor dealing with kids because he was the grumpiest guy alive. He looked in the nose and saw the object and went to go get the magical "thing up the nose tool". When he came back he said, "well if he doesn't move or cry this will be easy". Oh really, what 4 year old isn't going to cry when you try to hold him down against his will and get something out?! Luckily Derrick did start to cry and the thing came out on it's own with the mucus (sorry I know it's gross). I still have no clue what it was. It's about the same size as a pea.

A couple minutes later we were home and Derrick was back to normal. Now as a slight punishment, no computer games which is about to kill him! We could have had a nice calm day today, but who wants that when you can have drama and suspense =)

Gurgle, gurgle

Just when we start to get our heads above water, there it goes, something else that emerses us underwater again. Leroy says, "You're a Clark now, that's just what happens". It makes me smile for a quick second =)

We got our apartment, sent the deposit and then the landlord says our rent is an extra $155 for utilities. This is crazy! We just want everything done, settled and finished. In our 7 years together this has got to be the most emotionally draining time. Only a week longer here and we'll hopefully start to settle in. At this point, things can only go up from here.

Fillmore, CA pop. 14,100 + 4

We have discovered that there is still a Mayberry USA! This past Monday we drove to Fillmore to check out the town and hopefully find a place to rent. We succeeded!

When we got there we drove down the main street where everything is. The thing that surprised me, in a good way, is that the stores still have window displays! I haven't seen window displays since Firebaugh and those weren't the best. There's still a small town hardware store and drugstore and all the little things associated with "small town America". There were even people sitting in front of a coffee shop drinking coffee.....not Starbucks.

Leroy & I both grew up in small towns (Exeter & Firebaugh) and from the looks of things, we are going to be raising Derrick & Danae in a small town as well =) The great thing is that Fillmore is right of off the 126 so on the highway there is a Rite Aid, Vons and all the fast food places. So we get the small town charm with the big city amenities. Everyone was really nice that we ran into so it put me at ease a little.

After looking in the paper, stopping by a real estate place and calling around, we had an appointment at 2:30 with an apartment complex 1 1/2 blocks from work. We were hoping we would like it because it would mean saving $200 in gas a month due to me being able to walk to work. After meeting the manager, a sweet and very nice little old lady named Betty, we got to see the apartment and loved it! It's only a two bedroom, but the kids are little and sharing a room isn't such a big deal right now. We turned in our application and she told us she'd give it to the owner because he was coming over in a few minutes. Just our luck, the owner showed up right as we were leaving so we got to personally meet him and go over the application. When we left we got a good vibe and hoped we were right. It was still early so we decided to hit the road and see what towns were close, 20 minutes later we were at the beach! We walked out onto the Venture Pier to Mill's End and saw some dolphins. Anyone who pays attention to legends knows that dolphins are supposed to be good luck. And for our sake, we hoped it was right.

The owner said to fax some salary info to him Tuesday and he'd give us a call that night to let us know if we got the place. A little after 8 last night we got the call.......WE GOT IT! Our stress level isn't nearly as high as it was. We now have a new home, the only thing now is waiting on work to fax all my info to the movers so we can have them come, box it up and move us to Fillmore. We've spent the day going through the shed trying to downsize. It's worked, but going from a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment is hard. Luckily someone invented storage places and that's where we will house some stuff.

This is definitely an adventure but one that is exciting and a good thing. Not many companies will pay for your move, but as much as I get frustrated with the postal service this is really a great thing they do for people that are getting relocated to a new office.

Only 9 more days left!

A VeryTiring Day

Today was the beginning of some very tiring days ahead during the next month. Today was our annual summer yard sale. Since we moved here 2 years ago we have a yard sale during the summer to get rid of the clutter, toys and furniture we don't need anymore and make a few dollars in the meantime.

We started at 4:45 in the am and finally drug everything back in around 3:30 in the pm. Although we didn't sell everything we wanted we did end up selling a lot of it and are going to set it up again tomorrow before we donate what doesn't sell. We now look in the backyard where we had so many kid toys and the swingset and it's now all gone. The realization of moving is here and it's scary and exciting all at once.

The kids were amazing! They didn't whine when their old toys were sold, and they listened and didn't get upset when we asked them to stay inside. I couldn't have asked for two better kids than the ones we have! These are pics of Derrick doing what he does best....."being silly Mom"!

After we all cooled off the kids and I played with the Lincoln Logs that I've been promising to play with for weeks. We made some pretty awesome creations if I do say so myself =)

A New Adventure

We got the news today, 24 hours late but we got it! We got our second choice, Fillmore, CA. 188 miles away from here. As of today we have until the 29th here and on the 30th I'm supposed to report to my new duty at the Fillmore post office. My supervisor said the postmaster is happy to have us since he/she is having to do my job instead of relaxing in the back office =)

On Monday we are going down to check out housing and all that fun stuff so hopefully we won't have to stay in a hotel for any length of time. Just looking online it's a pretty place not too far from Simi Valley, Lancaster and Palmdale. It's located just before the big hub of Los Angeles which is a great thing.

We are looking at this as a great adventure and the kids are excited! Our stress levels are lowered by about a million percent now that we know where we are going which is always a good thing. Plus there are the perks of getting discount tickets to places like Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm and Magic Mountain since we will be living within the zip code for LA area events.

Although a little sad to leave we know this will be a great thing in the long run and can't wait for the adventure to begin!

48 hours

48 hours until we find out if, when and where we go. There are so many different things than can happen on Wednesday. There were 21 jobs up for bidding, I'm number 41 on a list of 50 so there's quite a few in front of me that get to pick first. Our hope is that they don't want to move and we will get at least one of our top 3 or 4 cities. There's always the off chance that everyone will pick a job, none will be left for me this round and then we'll have to wait another possible 3 weeks to choose again. We are so anxious to begin this new "adventure" as we're calling it.

We are doing what we have to do to get by. Where else, during a recession, am I going to find a job that pays me what the postal service pays me? I grew up quick after 18 and learned a lot in a short time, you just don't shove off a good paying job because you don't want to move, or at least in my world I don't.

This past weekend was the monthly collectible show at the mall and through the 7 years we've been together and I've been going to these shows with Leroy, we've met a lot of people and friends. The collective answer from everyone when they found out we were moving was, "Why?" The answer, "Um duh the government is paying for it". I really don't think there are a lot of people that would just want to uproot their lives and move 300 miles from where they are used to everything and start over "just because".

At least with this move I get to expand our Christmas card list! Leroy is what is known as a Door Warmer in the Hot Wheels world. Meaning he's at the doors of Walmart & Target every morning looking for the newest Hot Wheels. Through the last year and a half, the morning employees have gotten to know him and watch the kids grow up. The other morning when he let the Target girls know we had to move, he told me they were so sad and were going to give me their email addresses so I can update them on how the kids grow and stuff like that. I told him I need their addresses so I can send my handmade Christmas cards =) It's strange how random people can genuinely care about your kids, it warms my heart.

Now lets just cross our fingers and hope for a good job!

The little things

So I'm sitting here on the couch watching Speeders and checking our Myspace account to see if a high school buddy Miss Linda messaged me back. I had asked her since she's a teacher, if she knew if Derrick had to know anything before kindergarden. She answered back, giving me a website and said the nicest thing that made me cry. She said, "I'm sure his Kind. teacher next year will be happy to see how far ahead of the class he is, because of his loving parents. We always love parents that work hard with their kids at home." The key word....loving parents. Someone said he had loving parents! Its the little things that people can say that make a big impact in a day. So Miss Linda.....THANK YOU! That message means the world to me =) Just thought I'd share

Time for change

Well, we finally got it. The much anticipated job offer list. We got it yesterday, and all in all it wasn't too bad. Out of 21 open positions we were able to narrow it down to 10 that we are willing to relocate to. Last night we did some online research on cost of living and all that to make our decisions. Our top 7 are in the LA/Santa Barbara area and the bottom 3 are in the SF/Sacramento area.

I turn in the list next Tuesday and Wednesday I will know for sure if I got the jobs I wanted and where we will be going to. We will be gone from here by August 30th and not a moment too soon.
The great thing about this move is the only thing to worry about is where are we gonna live? The USPS is paying for the complete move, which include guys coming in an packing everything....we don't have to lift a finger! Everyone is compensated for the move, me, Leroy AND both kids. They pay for a hotel and food if we can't find a place to move into right away and also for 60 days of storage. Our government has it's downfalls but so far in this I don't have a complaint.

There's a lot of people at work that absolutely refuse to move. This is where my growing up fast plays a great part. We are in a recession and where else am I going to find a job with as many benefits as I have and get paid my same incredible wage with regular raises??? No where, that's where. I remember my grandma saying never give up a government job, well grandma, I'm not giving it up. I'm here for the long haul and it's gonna get me outta this place and start a fresh life.

The entire time Leroy & I have been together I've just wanted to start over somewhere new and now we get our chance. We are getting a great opportunity here and aren't going to just shove it off.

The next few days are just going to drag by but once Wednesday gets here time will fly. We just gotta hold on tight and enjoy the ride!

Budding Artists

We've had some artistic breakthroughs this week! For Danae's birthday, we got both kids Magna Doodle-esque things. Derrick has never ever been one to just sit and color or sit and draw. The only artsy thing he would do were mazes in a coloring book. Danae on the other hand has been an artist from the time she could hold a crayon. She's always drawing on something, whether it's paper or her leg (i.e. giving herself leg tattoo's).







I seriously didn't think Derrick could even draw, but low and behold he can! And not too bad either for a 4 1/2 year old boy who's not crazy about drawing. (Picture below by Derrick of Danae wearing her Mickey princess ears) Danae, in our opinion draws pretty darn good for a 3 year old too!









We've also had an invasion in our house....INVASION OF THE FLIES! It's been awful lately with the heat. Target had some Dora & Diego sets on clearance so Leroy picked 'em up for the kids. Derricks had an insect sucking tube to catch insects, but we, however have used it to catch flies. We now have pets...in the form of flies. Personally I love them. They are replaceable, free and cost nothing to feed. Derrick sleeps with them on his dresser and everything. We've also learned that when you throw the container, full of flies, across the floor, a fly might die. RIP Tintoo, you will truely be missed.