. I feel like I have piles of stuff to do and so I've only applied for one job thus far and reached out to 2 former My Bank employees who moved on to other area banks to see about possible job openings. I've also played phone tag with a job recruiter friend of mine who's asked me to send updated writing samples.
So today I hope to apply to a few more jobs, touch base with 2 recruiters I know and scan website of Creative Group headhunters.
So I definitely have tons to do on the job front. In the back of my mind I am still casting about for another local non-profit I could donate more art to and I would really like to sell locally somewhere a bunch of my mother's cameras and associated equipment. I also have a diamond engagement ring which is of no use to me.
I decided to enter 3 small pieces of art in the next show (theme: landscapes) at local frame shop; I can drop them off when I pick up the one piece entered in the previous show, which evidently didn't sell. Note to self: Take pictures of the 3 pieces before you drop them off so you can blog about them on mom's blog. There's a $20 entry fee.
I still fight moments of dwelling in an unhealthy way on my mother. The last 6 months are what I always think about and dwarf the other 80 years, but to be honest, she wasn't nearly as big a part of my life when she was doing her own thing and unaffected by Alzheimers. I often struggle not to be swallowed up by depressing circular thoughts that never seem to lead anywhere. This is why I have long believed it's best to stay busy doing other things.
I sent off my DNA sample (in saliva) to Ancestry DNA and should have results back in a month or so. Dad wants to do it too but agreed we'd wait to see whether we think it's worth the $79 price based on the results I get. Ancestry encourages more than one family member to do it because genes can skip a generation and his results could look pretty different than mind.
I'm still reading Steve Jobs' biography, which is pretty good even though computers are a snooze to me. As a teen he was into drugs, Zen/enlightenment and dropped out of college but he seemed to have a gifted mind from the start. I hadn't known he was adopted. His interest in the arts equaled his interest in technology. So it's a pretty good read.
Something...I'm guessing either a chipmunk or a vole...mowed down most of my stringbeans that I was growing near my front entry. I should have fenced it but hadn't gotten around to it. These were seedlings that had been chomped much earlier but actually recovered and were just starting to form small stringbeans that would have been ready to pick in 4 or 5 days. I'm feeling disgusted. Something did the same in the fenced veggie garden and since I could see the vole hole right near the beans there, I'm assuming it was voles. That's why I was trying to grow them near my front door so I could keep an eye on them.
So gardenwise, I've had a bounty of cucumbers from just 2 potted plants. I have a fair amount of green tomatoes and now I'm picking wineberries from my yard that I eat daily over my breakfast cereal. I had one smallish eggplant from my one eggplant plant. The other plant collapsed; I suspect voles ate through the roots. The remaining plant is looking very healthy but no further eggplants.
My onions are hanging in there, though some appear to have been dug up by voles. That's all I've grown this year except for basil and mint. It's a little frustrtating. With the voles, I may give up the fenced garden entirely. I did recently sow more beans in pots in my driveway and I see some of them starting to emerge from the ground. I will HAVE to rig up some sort of protective fence around them using plastic fencing. Otherwise, they're doomed.
Is it Thursday already?
July 21st, 2016 at 12:19 pm
July 21st, 2016 at 04:01 pm 1469116885
I hope as time passes your grief smoothes out to sweet memories.I think that the caretaking of a parent part of life generates a lot of feelings. You don't hear so much about that, I don't think.
Good for you getting going on the job hunt! Take care!!
July 21st, 2016 at 04:48 pm 1469119683
July 21st, 2016 at 04:58 pm 1469120336
July 21st, 2016 at 06:18 pm 1469125092
Let us know how the Ancestry DNA test goes. I had it done a few years back but did not know that a family member should also do it due to the possible gene skipping. I had only one slight surprise, but as Popeye says, "I yam what I yam." I have heard back from a few other people who are matches and hope to connect to one of them soon. Even had DH do it as well -- I had to pester him about it -- he is German and Irish and it was confirmed (a little Scandinavian, too).
July 21st, 2016 at 07:59 pm 1469131176
July 23rd, 2016 at 12:56 am 1469235392
July 23rd, 2016 at 01:04 am 1469235859
The other skeleton which I'd known about (but not many details) is that my grandfather's brother shot his wife, then himself in 1945. Becus he thought his wife was cheating on him. Cousin says she remembers her parents talking about him and they thought he was mentally unbalanced, that his wife wasn't cheating on him at all. I would think a murder suicide would make the papers, yet I can't find anything online about it. I have the exact date thanks to ancestry.com. I plan to see if i can find microfiche at library of NJ papers at that time.
July 23rd, 2016 at 01:22 am 1469236975