Random thoughts on this Tuesday eve

Hey all! Have a good Tuesday? Mine was okay, I guess. Work is totally kicking my butt. We have way too much going on for just the two of us to handle right now. It's ridiculous. But good news, my boss is hoping to give a guy an offer this week (as long as his background check comes up clean) so while it will be another 3 months of training for said new guy before he'll be able to help lighten our load, I'll be happy that the position is filled at least.

I have successfully kept my Google Reader at "0" for two whole days now!! That's like, amazing! Now, the amount of work that was sacrificed to keep it like that? Well, we just won't mention that right now. I've been able to read all the posts, but I still haven't been able to comment as much as I'd like. Eh, I'll get there. Y'all understand, I know.

In "oh, by the way" news, Ward will be heading off to Brazil tomorrow night. And he just found out today. Love the way that works. But good news is he'll be back Saturday morning so it's a short trip. Also means he'll actually be home this weekend, which he wasn't originally. He was supposed to leave Friday night to go to the Auburn vs. LSU game with his boss, but now he won't be able to go to the game and he'll have to stay home with me. :o)

I went to my workout class this evening and I am REALLY happy that I did. I've been feeling kind of down and out a bit lately, and haven't really felt like working out, but as soon as we got going and I started groovin' with the music, I suddenly felt so much better! It's so true about exercise lifting your mood.

So, while I am starving since Ward's ribs he's BBQ-ing are taking for-ev-er, I'm in a great mood tonight! I think I'll go peruse cafepress.com some more and find me an awesome Team Edward shirt to wear to the New Moon premier. :o)

And it all came crashing down

My first day as June, and I have to write this post letting you know that you will most likely be seeing less of me for a while. Yes, less of me than I'm around already, which isn't too terribly much these days.

I'm sure you're wondering why.

Well, today I found out that one of the three people that does the work that I do got a promotion. Starting tomorrow. So that leaves just the two of us. Doing the workload that we were already struggling with with only three. And on top of this extra workload, I will also have to train the new hire that we will (eventually) get. According to my boss, best case is we'll be back up to 3 in maybe four months. Four months of pure hell before that. And most likely more.

In order to not completely lose my marbles, I will have to force myself to very rarely partaking in blogging and tweeting during work hours. I can get quite easily distract and waste tons of time catching up with you all, but no more. I cannot. I must not. At least not during the workday.

I will, however, try to get on once I get home from work every day. Honestly, after working in hell for 8 hours a day for the next four plus months, yeah, I will need a daily does of y'all to keep my sanity!

And just when I thought my job couldn't get any worse...

I'm going to miss you all terribly on Twitter all day! I might be able to check in around lunch time. I might have to. I've grown so used to chatting with y'all all day, I might start going through withdrawls! Wish me luck!

A few more steps

You know I'd been feeling pretty down about my lack of accomplishments lately. Well, I am feeling quite a bit better on that front. Yesterday I was able to get all the clothes washed, I cleaned the kitchen, I swept the floors, and I washed our towels. The only thing I didn't get to was changing my sheets, but hey, it's a start, right? And tonight I even mowed the lawn again!

The only reason I'm not feeling so great is because my husband had to go back to Brazil last night. So I'm home alone again this week. It's really starting to get lonely around here. But at least I have a cleaner house to be lonely in, I guess. I'm trying to keep busy though. Like tonight, with mowing the lawn. My workout class starts tomorrow. Wednesday a friend invited me over for dinner, but I would have gone to the library if she hadn't. Thursday is Bunco. I invited a couple friends over for a girls night in on Friday. And then I'll clean more on Saturday in anticipation of hubby coming home Sunday morning. So I'm trying to stay busy, but I'm still in a funk.

You know, I don't think I would feel so down when he's away if I were enjoying my job. It is seriously a struggle just to get through each day. At this point, I think I'm way beyond "burnt out". And I just don't know what to do. I started working on a couple new projects and I was excited about it...doing something new and different...but then I got a new plan to work on. I am just so tired of estimating. Which pretty much sucks since I'm a Senior Estimator. Don't get me wrong, I like working, I like my coworkers, I love the money. But I just can't stand the work I'm doing right now. And with this economy, it's highly unlikely that I'll be able to move to any new position in the near future. So I am stuck. And I don't know what to do about it. How do you struggle through the work day but still try to put on a happy face for your boss? It's becoming increasingly difficult and I just don't know how much longer I can keep up the charade before I just lose it. Hopefully until after Christmas so I can make sure all our holiday spending is covered. :o)

Sorry for the pretty uninteresting post. I tend to write pretty blandly when I write at night. Like I said the other day, I have so much more interesting things to write about when I'm at work, but don't get the chance to write them before I forget what I was going to say. So, I'll try to do better, but just try to bare with me while I work it all out.

I'm going to go let the dogs out to potty now and try to go to sleep. It's so much harder to sleep when I have to do it alone...

I knew there was something...

Well, I found out last night one of the main reasons that my husband is so reluctant to let me quit my job. He’s worried about the future of his company. But really, he doesn’t need to be. I know his company will be fine. His boss has told him that he’s fine, they’re fine, it’s all fine. But my husband is not so much the optimistic. For some odd reason he is convinced that his company will just run out of work to do and they’ll have to shut down. Umm…doubt it, but whatever. (He’s in the oil industry…really?) He did say, though, that if we won the lottery tonight (uh, for which he has yet to buy any tickets…) that I could quit my job tomorrow. And I quote, “I’d feel much better if we won the lottery.” Wow, really? Because that’s what happens to most people…they win the lottery. Good grief. He’s got his sights a little skewed here. He’s pessimistic about the future of his company and his job (which is not in jeopardy) yet totally optimistic about winning the lottery (which is so not likely to happen). Huh. Okay.

But at least that gave me the perfect opportunity to yet again mention the fact that now would be the prime time to be saving all the money we possibly can. Wouldn’t you agree?

And he just rolls his eyes.

Whatever.

For now, I will focus on getting my Etsy store up and running, scrutinizing every single penny we spend, and hopefully building up a nest egg large enough to convince him that we’ll be perfectly fine if (and when) I quit my day job.

Speaking of my Etsy store, while I have not opened it yet, I did finally decide on a store name. Two Lazy Daisies. Cute, huh? And no, there’s not two of me, nor do I have a partner. It’s named for my two dogs. Every time I see them just sleeping the day away, I always say they’re being a bunch of big lazy daisies. Now that I’ve finally nailed down a name, I have to start thinking about my “image”. Oh yeah, and start actually making things to sell! My goal is to open shop by November so try to keep pestering me to make sure I’m on track with that!

Thanks!

At a loss UPDATE

Okay, so you guys know that I've been a complete Indecisive Izzie lately. And I posted this for some advice. Thank you, Val, for your awesome comment! You bring up a totally good point. I do work for a good company (though some of their "rules" are really starting to grate on me) and I have some awesome co-workers. This post is mainly about the great people I work with.

With all the layoffs and such, we're down to just 3 estimators. The other two don't have quite as much going on as I do (partly because of the fact I've taken 8 days off in the past two months). Yesterday, I decided that I should go ahead and ask them if they could help me out with a few things to help me get caught up. I asked if someone would do a couple slabs for me. M responded that she had time and would do them. Then D came over a bit after that (since M had already gotten the slabs) and said if there was anything else I needed help with, he didn't have much going on and could help out. So I sent him a couple ECOs that I hadn't been able to get to yet. And because of that, I was able to finish my plan yesterday so I should be able to price it today (on time) and get my elevation done that I need to as well.

I am beyond grateful for these 2 people I work with. Selflessly offering to help me out when they're a little slow on work. I'm totally thinking of buying them lunch today because they're so awesome (and I won $20 at bunco last night!!).

I'm feeling much better about the situation. I really thought I would not be able to get all the things done I needed to do this week and on into next week. But with the help of my co-workers, I think it might actually happen. Maybe if I do actually get caught up on my work I will have that free time to work on bigger and better things. Maybe then I'll be more happy with my job. Maybe then I'll continue to show my boss that I'm a valuable team player. Maybe then (hopefully sooner than later) I can get promoted again (or promoted back up again). Wishful thinking for now, I know, because of this god-awful housing market, but hey, I'm looking on the bright side! I haven't done that in a while!

Goodness! 7:15am! I better ski-daddle before I'm late to a job I might like to keep afterall. :o)

At a loss

I could use some serious advice, y'all. I'm totally at a loss with my whole work situation. I'm sure, if you've been following my tweets, you know that I'm pretty unhappy with my job right now and have starting looking for something else. Well, being in the homebuilding industry, there's not a whole heck of a lot of opportunities out there right now, but I'm still looking. Even willing to take a pay cut to find something better. But that's beside the point. What I'm really at a loss with is what happened today at work. Here's the story:

I got back to work yesterday from vacation. I had a monitor so I was only in the office half the day and my boss was out the whole day so I didn't see him until today. Well, as usual, he calls me up about 10:30am and wants to see when we can meet to "go over some things". This is a weekly occurrence so I'm not too terribly concerned, but I am like completely overwhelmed with work at the moment so I'm really stressed about that and I know he's going to ask about it all. So I go in his office and he shuts the door. Uh oh. Now what?

He starts the conversation casually, per the usual...asks about vacation...how things are going. Then he starts in on what I've got going on. How do I feel about all this stuff. What can I do about it all. You know. Then he starts saying how he has been sensing that I'm getting frustrated and unhappy and overwhelmed and burnt out. Oh. Have I been that obvious? And he really wants to involve me in other things because I do great work and he values me as an employee and wants to see me grow...not fester. So I tell him that I would love to get involved in other things, but the responsibilities that make up my every day are really weighing me down and take up all my time and I don't have anything left to do anything else. And I don't know what to do about that. I can't not do my every day activities. I mean, I'm just at a loss. He wants me to do more, I want to do more, but I have too much other stuff in the way and no one else to pawn it off on.

Then I also start feeling a little guilty because he was completely right about me being frustrated, unhappy, overwhelmed and burnt out. I'm looking for a new job because of that yet here he is telling me he doesn't want me to go anywhere...he'd rather us work together to make a plan that will free up more of my time to do other things I'd rather be doing.

Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

The kicker? So they just did this crack-down on internet using while I was out and sent out the report to all the managers about how much time people are spending on the internet and where they're going. Well, apparently, my time on the internet was like double other people's time who have to be on the internet all day as part of their job...AND I have sites like blogs and such. And he didn't even get on to me about it! Just told me to "be more cognizant" about how much time I spend. Really?? Now I feel even more awful! Here I am wasting time being totally unhappy and all he can do is tell me how great I am and how much I mean to the company. Great.

So? What am I supposed to do with this??

And back again...

If you've been keeping up (or trying, at least!), I keep going back and forth about work. Go back to school? Change careers? Well, I've been thinking a lot about it the past few days. And after thinking, talking with friends, and mulling over all the awesome comments you guys have given, I think I have come to a decision. I'm pretty confident in this decision and think I'll stick with it.

So, what is it??

I am NOT going to go back to school OR change careers.

I had so much to contemplate, and after putting it all together this is what I came up with:

a) I have a pretty safe job right now and my bosses think I'm a great asset
b) It would be WAAAAAAAY too hard for me AND John to both be in school while also starting a family
c) I've been at my job for 3 years and have already been promoted twice. If I changed careers, I'd have to start all over, at the bottom, somewhere else.
d) I'm making good money at my current job, and starting over I might not be able to make the same

So, basically, I'm going to suck it, stick with my job and hope for the best. I even went in to work today to catch up on some projects! Over-achiever, right?? :o) No, not really...I felt bad for being so behind since I've been wasting so much time at work lately. I REALLY need to catch up.

It feels good to have a plan though. I mean, even being at work on a Saturday, I felt good. Like I made the right choice. I was where I was supposed to be.

Wish me luck!!

And indecisions...

Am I too old to still not know what I want to be when I grow up??

John and I had a long discussion last night about my career and how I’m miserable in my current job and want to do something different, but I don’t know what. (This was after he came home, saw me on the computer and asked what I was doing. “Looking for a new job,” I responded.) Remember my post about a vet tech? Or maybe I’ll become a home stager. Or maybe go back to school and become an accountant. Why stop at vet tech when I could just go on to become an actual vet? These are the kinds of things we discussed.

John thought I should become a veterinarian. Or a nurse. I could make good money doing those things. I also would need a lot more school. But I don’t think I can manage 6 more years of school and $125,000+ to become a vet. (I told John it’s all my mom’s fault that I’m not currently a vet already. That was my original career choice, but she persuaded me to follow architecture, which led to construction, and now a job I don’t like anymore…but that’s a story for another time.) And I don’t think I’d be a very good nurse. I do better with animals than humans. I’m weird, I know. Plus I pass out having my blood taken…think I could take someone else’s blood? Either way, I doubt I would be good at that. And that would be another 4 years of school for a BS in Nursing.

That’s why I first thought of vet tech. Not too much more schooling and it’s working with animals. I think I could be good at that and I would enjoy it. However, it would be paying for 2 more years of school to make roughly half the salary I make right now. John doesn’t think that’s the most economical choice.

Okay, what about accounting? I like numbers. I’m good at math. I could make good money. So that’s where I am right now. Considering going back to school for accounting. I could a) get a MS in Accounting which would require the 36 hours of graduate coursework, plus some pre-reqs that I don’t currently have since my BS in NOT in accounting or business or b) get a Certificate in Accounting which means roughly 30 hours of coursework to make me eligible for the CPA exam. Saying I pass that exam, I could be a CPA without having a MS and the CA program is geared towards working people with classes at night and on weekends. And it’s much cheaper as they charge you the undergraduate rates for the 30 hours instead of the graduate rates since I’m not actually pursuing a graduate degree. Nice. Oh, and this is just at our local UofH…I really don’t feel like searching around at a ton of schools to find something else.

That would be much more economical seeing as John also wants to go back for his MBA and his company will only reimburse roughly half of the cost of that.

So. What do you think? I am so full of questions lately! I’m completely indecisive about my life right now, can you tell? I just don’t have tons of real life experience yet. I don’t know how to go about changing careers…or starting a family…or making big decisions like that. But I feel it’s about time for me to learn. I’m ready.

Career choices

So I’m contemplating a career change. I haven’t talked to Husband about it yet…it kind of just dawned on me this morning on my way to work. Wanted to see if you guys had any thoughts on the subject. Wondered if it’s something I should seriously consider.

All my life I wanted to be a veterinarian. I LOVE animals. I wanted to be able to help animals. So I entered college intent on majoring in Biology. And from there I would maybe go on to vet school. Well, I think I started to doubt myself. Would I be able to do the whole vet thing? Could I handle surgery and all that medical stuff? Would I be able to get through all the maths and sciences (even though they’re my favorite subjects and I know I’m smart)? Do I want to be in school for that long? So with all these questions over my head, at freshman orientation, I changed majors to Architecture. Freshman year was mainly core classes anyway at Texas State (then Southwest Texas).

Sophomore year I transferred to Texas A&M and entered the Environment Design major. It took a year of that (and my first ‘C’ EVER!) to realize I did not have the creativity to be an architect (not even close). I transferred to the Construction Science major in the same College of Architecture. Construction…much more practical. I’d been around construction my whole life…it seemed to fit. I was good at it. I excelled at it. But knew I was too girly to work out in the field in the construction industry. So I leaned towards the residential aspect of construction and landed an office job as an estimator with a home builder after graduation. Again, something I was good at…I excel at. Within 2 years I had been promoted to Senior Estimator and then to Assistant Manager of Estimating. Then the housing downturn caught up in Houston and they got rid of the Assistant Manager position and I was dumped back down to Senior Estimator (at least I wasn’t laid off, right?). While I’m still really good at my job, I was happy when I got promoted to assistant manager because I’d been doing this work for over 2 years and I felt I needed more of a challenge. I’m good at it, but it’s not challenging anymore. I’ve been back doing my old unchallenging duties now for about 4+ months and it’s really starting to wear on me. I dread coming to work every day because it’s so boring. I can get through an entire day, even be productive in that day, and not have to think at all. Which makes my brain hurt because I don’t have to use it! It’s very frustrating. And things I used to take care of when I was asst. man., my boss now does and he doesn’t do them as well and asks for my help and then messes stuff up that I have to then go fix. I should just do it in the first place!

Anyway (sidetrack venting)…recently Husband and I have been talking about when to have kids and what we want to do when we have kids. We both would love for me to be able to stay home with kids, but Husband needs a big fat raise before that can happen…and we have a lot saving to do before then too! Not that I don’t want to work at all though. I think I would like to do something that would allow me more time at home. Something more flexible…more part time. Could I do that in the same industry? Is there anything else that I could maybe do by going back to school for an associate’s degree maybe? Then it hit me this morning. Like an epiphany. What if I became a vet technician?? I wouldn’t have to worry about the whole like surgery and big time medical stuff, but I could still work with animals. I could maybe even find a job closer to home…same city, maybe? Or work at the zoo…that would be awesome! I would definitely bring in A LOT less money, but I would still be working like I like and I would be doing something I enjoy rather than something I’m starting to dread on a daily basis. What do you think?? Am I just crazy because I’m hating my job? I could still work while going back to school, right? Night classes? Online classes? Should I seriously look into this?? I need some advice!!