I'm not going to post again until we are out of our house, which will not be our house anymore at 12:30 on Monday. Packing is arduous, and we couldn't have done it at all without the help of Mom and Dad, and Bridget and Steve. Thanks so much! Now I can unplug the computer.
Congratulations to Alex and Katie on the birth of their baby girl!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Holdin' Steady
We've had a nice week. We've been feeling like we're unable to do anything fun, since we should be finding jobs 24 hours a day. But now we have things fairly mapped out, so we had a fun family day at an outdoor pool yesterday, and are leaving momentarily for the last weekend of softball this summer. I feel able to leave for the weekend, since I heard back from the potential employer, and I'm not on call for potential interviews with surgeons for the rest of this week. My second interview is scheduled for Monday, and Mike doesn't have anything going until a potential interview, yet unscheduled, after August 24th.
Off to gracious Sioux Falls we go!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Tag! We're IT!
LOST IT (July 14)
Mike went in to work on Tuesday the 14th, that his office would be closing, and he no longer would have a job after July. That same day, we were slated to go look at houses, which we ended up doing anyway, after hearing the news. The last house we went to was our Dream House- the house which prompted us to get on this whole roller coaster ride in the first place. Our realtor spoke very frankly with us regarding the large fissure in the limestone foundation, the need for a structural engineer inspection, the possibly $100,000+ needed to make this house livable, and the fact that we would never get our money back if/when we tried to sell. She also finally checked with the sellers' realtor, and discovered there are 2 purchase agreements on file with the bank already. But he encouraged us to write up a bid. Thanks, we'll get right on that... When we returned home from that disappointing trip, we got a call that we'd be getting an offer on our house in the morning. Wow, what a day. [The offer turned out to be an insult, and they didn't end up meeting our very firm counter.]
SOLD IT (August 5)
We received a second VERY low-ball offer on Monday, the 3rd. But after several counters over the next two days, we actually came to an agreement, and SOLD our house on Wednesday, August 5 (which has been on the market since May 14). The surreal aspect of this paragraph is not the simple joy of selling our house, the confusion of keeping our house on the market in the midst of job loss, but the speed of closing. We will be closing on the sale of our beloved home since 2002 on August 24. Which brings me to our next challenge- the job hunt. Or Race to Employment, as I have labeled an email folder in Outlook.
NAILED IT (August 7)
I started to apply for jobs once we got the news about Mike's job. I did this in part as a good faith gesture, and I was hoping that Mike would get a job before anything came of my emailed resumes. But then I applied for a position in colon and rectal surgery, and realized that I was actually excited about the possibility of doing surgery again, the chance to use my brain in a different way, the chance to use all of this pent-up medical education. They called me, and I had a quasi-phone interview on Tuesday, and a real interview was set up for Friday. Since our whole life is boxed up in a storage pod, waiting for things to get back to normal, I had no options to wear to this interview. I went shopping on Thursday, bought a few nice suits, and was dressed to impressed by 8 am Friday morning, when we had to leave the house for the 4 hour-long buyers' inspector's appointment. Mike and the kids dropped me off at the corporate office in St. Paul on that rainy Friday morning, and after leaving Annalise's rainbow umbrella in the entryway to drip dry, I walked through those double doors and tried my hardest to be a real physician assistant.
The interview went really well (tell me about a time when you had a really bad day....how do you handle it when surgeons yell and throw things...what have you been doing for 5 years...) and they would like me to move on to the next step and meet the surgeons. I will keep you all posted...
LIFE- ALWAYS CHANGING, ALWAYS SURPRISING. LOVE IT.
Mike went in to work on Tuesday the 14th, that his office would be closing, and he no longer would have a job after July. That same day, we were slated to go look at houses, which we ended up doing anyway, after hearing the news. The last house we went to was our Dream House- the house which prompted us to get on this whole roller coaster ride in the first place. Our realtor spoke very frankly with us regarding the large fissure in the limestone foundation, the need for a structural engineer inspection, the possibly $100,000+ needed to make this house livable, and the fact that we would never get our money back if/when we tried to sell. She also finally checked with the sellers' realtor, and discovered there are 2 purchase agreements on file with the bank already. But he encouraged us to write up a bid. Thanks, we'll get right on that... When we returned home from that disappointing trip, we got a call that we'd be getting an offer on our house in the morning. Wow, what a day. [The offer turned out to be an insult, and they didn't end up meeting our very firm counter.]
SOLD IT (August 5)
We received a second VERY low-ball offer on Monday, the 3rd. But after several counters over the next two days, we actually came to an agreement, and SOLD our house on Wednesday, August 5 (which has been on the market since May 14). The surreal aspect of this paragraph is not the simple joy of selling our house, the confusion of keeping our house on the market in the midst of job loss, but the speed of closing. We will be closing on the sale of our beloved home since 2002 on August 24. Which brings me to our next challenge- the job hunt. Or Race to Employment, as I have labeled an email folder in Outlook.
NAILED IT (August 7)
I started to apply for jobs once we got the news about Mike's job. I did this in part as a good faith gesture, and I was hoping that Mike would get a job before anything came of my emailed resumes. But then I applied for a position in colon and rectal surgery, and realized that I was actually excited about the possibility of doing surgery again, the chance to use my brain in a different way, the chance to use all of this pent-up medical education. They called me, and I had a quasi-phone interview on Tuesday, and a real interview was set up for Friday. Since our whole life is boxed up in a storage pod, waiting for things to get back to normal, I had no options to wear to this interview. I went shopping on Thursday, bought a few nice suits, and was dressed to impressed by 8 am Friday morning, when we had to leave the house for the 4 hour-long buyers' inspector's appointment. Mike and the kids dropped me off at the corporate office in St. Paul on that rainy Friday morning, and after leaving Annalise's rainbow umbrella in the entryway to drip dry, I walked through those double doors and tried my hardest to be a real physician assistant.
The interview went really well (tell me about a time when you had a really bad day....how do you handle it when surgeons yell and throw things...what have you been doing for 5 years...) and they would like me to move on to the next step and meet the surgeons. I will keep you all posted...
LIFE- ALWAYS CHANGING, ALWAYS SURPRISING. LOVE IT.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Or this one...
Thursday night was quite shocking. Hope actually said yes when I asked if she wanted to shop 50th and France with me. I then figured out that she didn't have work the next day, so it wasn't as wild as going out on a school night. After a bit of window shopping, and looking at what the modern-day ladies wear for job interviews, we stopped in at Danielle's for some chit chat.
Friday night was filled with more Hope (in more ways than one). We had a showing in the evening, so we had dinner with Hope and the kids. The kids played so well together; it was really an enjoyable evening. Saturday was pretty much a do-nothing day. Sunday we had a second showing, so we went to Prior Lake for the day. The kids had lots of fun playing with their cousins.
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