Loooong Week

Can I just say that this has been a really crappy week?! It all started, sort of, a week ago from yesterday, on a Thursday. Rob had been called and actually had an interview for a Graphic Design job, the first for months! We were so excited. We should have known. For the third time, yes this has now happened to us THREE times, Rob got a call a half an hour before his interview from the company telling him that they actually realized that they can't afford to hire anyone right now so they are cancelling the interview. What! They didn't figure this out before posting the job and setting up interviews?! I don't understand how they don't know this before, and I REALLY don't understand how it's now happened to us THREE times!! The first two were for just random jobs from local stores, but this was the first for an actual graphic designer job. Needless to say we were discouraged. But, we tried to forget about it and go about out day. I worked that afternoon, and about 20 minutes after getting to work, the back of my neck by my hairline started itching. Then my hip started itching. When I had a moment alone, I finally looked at my hip to discover that it was covered in a hive bigger than my hand. Luckily I only worked for two hours, so as soon as I was done, I headed home. By the time I got home, the hive had spread and almost completely covered my torso. I took some benedryl and tried not to itch! After about an hour or so it did finally start going down, and I thought we were done. Wrong! At about 10 that night, my whole body started breaking out again. It covered my legs, arms, stomach, back, etc. I'd say I was at least 80% covered in angry red hives. I was going insane! So, we called my parents, my dad came up with the kids, and Rob and I headed to the ER. I was given an epinephren (sp?) shot, along with three other medicines, and after a little bit, my hives finally started going down again. They sent me home with some prescriptions, and I hoped we were over it. Wrong. I woke up the next day and still had hives, mostly on my legs and arms, but as the day went on, they moved around my whole body, including my face. I kept on my medicine, and tried to not go insane from the itching. We took the kids to Rob's mom's house that night because Saturday was Rob's birthday and we had planned on having the kids sleep at his mom's house so Rob and I could go camping and then fishing in the morning for his birthday. We dropped the kids off, and then went home because I was too miserable to go camping. We watched TV, and went to bed. Poor Rob! He was so good about it though and just wanted me to feel better! So, I woke up the next morning at 7:00 because my lips felt funny. Turns out my face was totally swollen as well as my hands! This scared me a bit again because I was afraid it was going to spread to my throat, so we made another morning trip to the ER where I got another shot of epinephren. It took away the swelling, and again we were able to leave after a couple of hours. We went and got the kids, and honestly, the rest of the weekend is kind of a blur to me. I was on a lot of meds to keep it under control, including benedryl, so I was pretty out of it. I went to a dermatologist on Monday, who finally prescribed me an epi pen to have on hand in case I ever have another reaction like this again. I think we've finally decided that what I had the reaction to was the anti-biotic Microbid, which I had been taking the previous week for a bladder infection. I guess it is kind of common to have delayed reactions to medications, especially anti-biotics. I was glad to have figured it out because it was kind of stressful not knowing what caused it because I didn't know how to avoid it. So, by Tuesday, the hives were pretty much gone, but all the meds, especially the steriods, took their toll and wiped me out! Tuesday night and Wednesday night I had insomnia and probably slept a total of 5 hours between the two. Yesterday I woke up to discover that I had another bladder infection, and spent part of the day going to the instacare again to get tested for it, and then start more meds for that! I feel like I've gone full circle! I had a bladder infection, which I took medicine for, had an allergic reaction to, started to recover from, only to end up starting over again with another bladder infection! Will it ever end!!! So, I finally slept a little better last night, but still don't feel well today, and I am just hoping it all starts settling down for good for a while! One blessing this week has been that this is our break at work for swimming lessons, so I haven't had to work at all through this. I do work tomorrow and hopefully I'll be doing better. Next week starts the summer hours, and I will be working closer to 30 hours a week, so at least this happened at a time when I wasn't having to work or take it off! And that concludes my really long week.

This is a picture of my leg on the second day, when it wasn't so bad!

Grandpa's Funeral

I downloaded my pictures, so I thought I would post some! I really loved my Grandpa's funeral, if that's a good way to put it! I loved honoring him, and I loved how he was honored. The service was very nice, full of memories and love, and then the procession to the cemetery was great! First of all, anyone who knew my grandpa knew that he loved cars. I guess he had once owned an old '30s truck (I don't remember the exact year), and my uncle happens to know someone who owns one, so my grandpa's casket was driven from the stake center on about 8600 S and 1000 E all the way to the Salt Lake cemetery, a drive of about 45 minutes. It would have actually taken longer, but another cool part was that the whole procession was escorted by a police honor guard, which including going through all the red lights and all! It was awesome! I'm sure my Grandpa was getting a huge kick out of the whole parade! The last really cool part was that at the cemetery, because he had served in the army, he was honored by a retired military guard which included a little ceremony with taps being played, and a rifle honor (I can't remember exactly what it's called!) where they shot their guns like 3 or 4 times. It was very moving, although we got a chuckle out of it as well! When they were shooting the guns, they were noisy and all the kids were surprised by it. Isaac looked up at me and asked, "Mom, are they shooting the bad guys?!" I'm sure Grandpa laughed at that one too! All in all, I was so very happy that my Grandpa was honored in the way he was, and like my cousin said, as people watched our procession going down the street and wondered who that person must have been, I am proud to say it was my Grandpa!

Grandpa-Richard Arnold Willits

This is a long overdue post, but I haven't been able to bring myself to write it until now. My grandpa, Richard Arnold Willits, passed away on March 10th. He is my mother's father, and pretty much the only grandpa I have known. He had diabetes, and has had health problems for a long time now. I forgot my camera, so I will have to post pictures next time. My grandpa and I have always had a close relationship, and I'm really going to miss him. My grandpa loved to tell stories, especially stories from his life, and I LOVED to hear them! My grandpa used to eat the grisle (I don't really know what it was, but it was crunchy!) from chicken bones, and I used to think he was actually eating the bones, especially since he would tease me and say he was! He loved the outdoors, and before he married my grandma, he worked as a forest ranger. He also loved to travel, and I don't even know how many countries he visited! He served as an army policeman during the Korean war, and I remember thinking he must have been really tough because he had a tattoo of a dagger on his forearm! But, really he was one of the nicest, politest, most classy men I have ever met! He and my grandma used to go dancing at a dance club with fancy clothes and everything! I used to picture his younger life full of all the romantic stuff of the old movies! But, he had his hard days too, and life was not always easy or even fair to him. But, I never heard him complain. He was one of the happiest people I knew, and loved a good laugh! I'm really going to miss listening to him talk and laugh ponder life! Because I had always had a good relationship with my grandpa, I was very happy when my kids also enjoyed being with him. They didn't get to see him as much as their grandparents, but whenever we did get the chance to visit, they were as comfortable with him as with me! Caydin also had a close relationship with my grandpa. Just a month before Caydin passed away, we had a big family reunion with my grandpa's family, including his sister and brother and all of their families. My grandpa's sister and brother had a little speech thing for my grandpa (he was the oldest and patriarch of the family), and during the middle of it, Caydin wondered up to him, and my grandpa welcomed him with open arms, and Caydin sat up there with him for almost 10 minutes for the rest of the speech, which was amazing because he never sat still for that long! I loved it when it happened, but it became more special after Caydin died a month later. Now they are together again, and I'm sure they are enjoying exchanging stories and laughing! As much as I am going to miss my grandpa, I sure wish I could have seen the reception on the other side when he got there because I'm sure it was wonderful! Besides Caydin, both his parents are there, other family, and also his younger brother, Charles, who was hit by a car and killed when he was 8 and my grandpa was 12. That's been a reunion a long time in the waiting! Thanks Grandpa for being the wonderful example you were, and for always making me feel special, accepted, and like the person I want to be!!

A Tiny New Job

Well, I got a tiny new job! I'm a front desk clerk for the Mt. Jordan swimming pool (brings back some memories for some of us, huh?!). The pool manager is in my ward and she called me up saying they needed a clerk for Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4-6 and on Saturdays from 12-5. So, I work there, for now! It pays better than I had thought it would, but no where near enough to pay the bills, so it isn't going to be a long term thing, but at least it is something! So, we still don't know what we are going to do, and our rough plan right now is to still move in with Rob's mom sometime in April. One day something will work out, we just don't know when! But, we are grateful for what we have for now!!

Pictures

I downloaded some more pictures, so I thought I would post some!

My dad turned 53 last week, so we had a birthday party for him this last Sunday. This is a picture of my sister and EmmaLee.

My dad was just lucky we spelled out his age with candles instead of actually putting 53 on!!

This is my nephew Caleb and my brother Thomas. Caleb and his family are moving to Idaho this weekend, and we are going to miss having them so close!!

Eden LOVES cameras and getting her picture taken, but she thinks she always has to pose in one way or the other, so they are always fun and different!

EmmaLee might only be 18 months, but she has a huge personality! When she isn't happy with what you are doing, she lets you know!

I told you Eden really doesn't take "normal" pictures!

A couple of weeks ago I found Isaac asleep in his room like this. It's harder to tell with this picture, but he is actually sitting on a toy box that I had stacked some extra pillows on. His bed is next to him.

You can see his bed in this picture just to the right of him.

This is Caleb's sister McKell. She has huge blue eyes (did you notice?) and always has them wide open!

Eden isn't the only one that tries to pose. This is Isaac's typical smile when I ask him to smile for me. One of these days I might have to make a post dedicated to it, and I could post a whole bunch of pictures with this same smile! He is such a ham and likes to make us laugh!

For a quick update, we still have no news. Last Saturday we mailed off 80 of Rob's resumes, and so far we have heard back from about 5 of them, one of which resulted in an interview today. When Rob got there, he found out it was for a completely web based job, so it's out, but at least something came out of all that work, and there are still a lot more out there! The rest of the ones we've heard from were the, "thanks for your interest in our company, but we aren't hiring right now", which we expected. At least they were kind enough to reply! So, we are still looking, and hoping! We have no idea where we are going to be in 2 weeks, let alone 2 months! We are considering moving in with his mom sooner than later just because we really are broke right now, and figure it might be easier to find a get by job up there where we wouldn't have to move if she ends up selling her house and having to start over again! One thing that helped make today a little less disappointing was actually not a very fun event! Last night a neighbor was at the house talking to me in the entry way where the stairs are. My kids kept coming up by us, then leaving, going back and forth. Well, Isaac went by the stairs and leaned against the gate, which then broke forward, sending Isaac tumbling down the whole flight of stairs! I felt so helpless watching him because I had actually been reaching for him trying to get him off the gate when it gave way, so I had just missed him! I ran down to him, and of course he was crying, but I couldn't see any obvious injuries, and luckily because I had seen him the whole way, I knew he really hadn't landed very awkwardly, so I wasn't too worried about any major injuries. Long story short, he is fine, and I realized that I would rather be looking for a job for the rest of our lives than have something serious happen to anyone in my family again! So, I think that experience helped me keep the disappointment of today more in perspective!

Update-Sort of!

This is another update, sort of. Really, there is nothing new to report, except a few new thoughts. We are still just looking everywhere we can for a job, and I've even applied for a job just to see if we can get by. We have one last week of unemployment, and then we're not sure what we are going to do! We have printed off a bunch of Rob's resumes and we are going to email them to all the companies we can think of that might have graphic designers. Hopefully something will work out! Another thought we had last night that we are going to start working on is the possibility of going back to school. Rob's wanted to go back to get his Bachelors, someday, and we started thinking, well, maybe now is someday. We can't seem to get a job, and with the economy the way it is, who knows how long before we do get one?! So, why not spend this "struggling" time actually struggling towards something? And, Rob's mom's new house is in Clearfield, which isn't far from Weber State, so we are considering trying to go there. Or, I have an aunt and uncle from Cache Valley who just left on a mission and whose house is sitting empty. They tried to get somebody to move in while they were gone, but it didn't work out, so we know they would let us stay there if we wanted to, and then Rob could finish at USU. The down side to that one is that their mission is only 18 months, and it would be down to just a year by the time school started, so half way through school we would have to figure out a different living situation. So, anyway, we are just starting to work on those thoughts, so who knows if that will end up being what we do. And, we still have to come up with some kind of a job to get us through until school starts, so there is still a lot of things we have to figure out and have work for us. But, at least it's somewhere else to go, besides just waiting around for a job! Thanks for reading the whole way through, if you did, and letting me put my thoughts out. One way or the other we will get through this time, huh?!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that my brother and his family are going to be moving to Idaho, just north of Rexburg sometime in March. He got a new job with a company up there, and they are excited about it! It is a corporate job, so he will have a Monday through Friday, 8-5 job, which will be a huge blessing for him! He's been working swing, including like 3 out of 4 Saturdays, and he's really excited to get a more consistant schedule! I'm so excited for him for that part, but I'm so sad that he will be moving away! But, it's not as far as it could be, and we are already planning on going to Yellowstone and visiting with them a lot for vacations!

Never Mind

I'm not even sure how to write this entry because I want to scream about it, but I'm trying to be positive, so sorry if it doesn't really flow. So, Rob worked all of last week for his new company. It was CRAZY! The company basically fired the guy that Rob replaced, like a month ago, but the guy basically ran the whole print shop and didn't tell anyone how he did it (thus he was able to steal from the company for a long time because nobody really knew what he did). So, when they finally caught on, they fired him, but nobody knew how to run the place, including the owner! Soooo, the owner keeps hiring other people (Rob was number 3) to basically step in and run the company. Rob's never worked at a print shop, so he didn't know how to do all the printing aspects. He was told he was being hired as the Graphic Designer, but reality is that the print shop doesn't really do designing, so really the owner hired the wrong person. And, sadly enough, the owner (Jon) really liked the first guy that stole from him (Jeremy), enough that he even named his own son after him! So, it's almost like being in the middle of a divorce because really Jon just wants Jeremy, and nobody is as good as Jeremy, but he won't hire Jeremy back because of what he did. So, everyone he hires falls short of his expectations. So, long story short, Jon called Rob Saturday evening and told him that he appreciates the work he did, but he wasn't the right guy for the company. It was bitter/sweet news because obviously we really were hoping for a long term job, but the truth is that Rob was not very happy there. From the first day, Rob knew it wasn't what he had been given the impression it would be, and we knew we were still going to be job hunting just as much as before, but we had maybe hoped the job would last long enough for us to leave it instead of being let go. The good news is that because the boss has been so weird about hiring people and then letting them go, he had arranged for the first two weeks to be "probationary", so he was paying Rob more like a private contractor than as an actual employee. Because of that, we were never technically "hired", so we should still qualify for the remainder of our unemployment. But, there is only like 3 weeks left of that, so we are hoping something comes our way soon! We feel like maybe we were meant to be in Sandy, and that's why this happened. Without it, we would have moved up to Clearfield already. So, maybe what we are suppose to be doing needed us to be in Sandy, but it's not quite ready yet, so something had to happen to keep us there instead of moving all the way up to Clearfield. At least, that's what I'm hoping! I don't want to move twice, and I don't understand why this would happen! I don't know why we would change our whole course of life for something that wasn't even going to last a week! I really don't feel like moving again so soon, so I'm hoping something works out! But whatever happens, I guess I'll just have to believe it's for experience, and try to be happy about it! At this point, our plans are to stay in Sandy at least until the end of the month. Then, unless we feel prompted otherwise, we will probably move in with Shirley in Clearfield. So, that's us this week! I'm ready to be off this roller coaster!!!!!