First Interview

After almost two weeks of calling and emailing engineering groups, Zach finally got to meet someone face-to-face with the prospect of a job. Virtually everyone here in town said, “Sorry, we aren’t hiring,” when Zach or I contacted them. The group that he met with today has let some people go, but it was mostly inexperienced people who were holding the company up. I have known the owners of this company for a long time—I worked with some of them when I first started following projects all the way through to completion, before they started this firm. I guess that is one of the advantages in a bad market of being in the same industry as your spouse—you both can network when one of you is looking for a job. I think that one of the reasons why they talked to Zach is because they know me. Anyway, it sounds like it went well—Zach was able to answer all of their questions, and he expressed his flexibility in salary and manner of work (permanent vs. contract work). Hopefully we’ll hear something soon. Unless we hear something in the next day or so, tomorrow is Isabelle’s last day of daycare. That is kind of bittersweet. I know that she’ll benefit from the direct attention with her daddy, but she has also grown so much, and I know that part of that is from interacting with other children in her class. I know Zach is a little overwhelmed from thinking about caring for her all day long, everyday. We’ll see how well that goes. In the meantime, I’ll just keep on trying to work hard and keep my job.

Good News/Bad News

The good news is that I took my schematic design test this morning. I had practiced quite a bit, and was able to check both items before time was up. I even finished the building design portion early, even with checking it.

The bad news is that Zach got laid off this morning. He found out before I went into the test, but he didn’t tell me until afterward. He gets some severance, but it isn’t much. Hopefully he’ll find something else, but with architecture slow right now, I’m really scared with me being the only breadwinner for our family.

Please pray for us. I can’t write any more because I’m still crying.

Little Drummer Girl

Isabelle loves to drum on things. I know she’s at that age where it’s expected that a child will bang on things, but she really loves the music and loves discovering how different things make different sounds. Recently she’s discovered that her body makes noise if it is drummed on. This weekend, she had a jumper on and started drumming her legs and having a great old time. Then last night, for some reason we took her clothes off and didn’t put her pajamas on right away. First she started drumming on her legs, but then she discovered her belly made a great drum. And then, she started dancing to the beat of the drumming on her thighs and belly. Of course, she was encourage by Zach and I, who were rolling on the floor laughing. We were also using our bodies as drums. So we had a little naked drummer girl dancing around our house—quite possibly the best way to end a Monday that I have seen in a long time!

The Alphabet Song

Isabelle loves music. There will be some random snippet of music on TV or on a video game, and she will stop playing and start swaying to the music. There have been a couple of times when she protested when a DJ has come on and interrupted the music. She stops fussing when we change the station over to one that has music on it. But just recently, I have noticed that she requests a song by name. It’s the alphabet song. She’ll be sitting with me and we’ll be cuddling or playing, and she’ll look up at me and sway back and forth and say, “Ah-bay?” We realized what she wanted when I had already sung the song and it was obviously that she was asking for more of the same. As soon as I start singing it, she smiles and starts swaying along. She also will dance and loves it when we dance, too. It’s actually a pretty sure-fire way to make her stop pitching a fit. I’ll start singing a silly tune and dancing around. Within seconds, she’s swaying and smiling, if not up on her feet dancing around soon. She’s obviously inherited her daddy’s sense of rhythm and joy in music, and she loves to play with my keyboard. Thank goodness it’s got an off button. It’s one she can’t reach—yet.