After three and a half years of useless job searching around Chicago, I was forced to move in with my folks.  And now, after TWO WEEKS of job hunting, given that all the paperwork goes through without a hitch, I'm employed!  :-)  Wow!!!  I guess the move was the thing to do.

It's a contract-to-hire Tech Writing job for Dell in Round Rock, TX, outside Austin.  I will probably start a week from Monday.  And it's for good money!

Tomorrow will be a very busy day getting all the paperwork filled out and faxed back and forth.

I'll be living with my brother's family, sleeping in the camper in their driveway, as my hide-away from all the kids.  :-)  I've got the greatest sister-in-law to put up with this.  :-)

Sooo... changes are underway, yet again.

A head-hunter called yesterday, and I am now submitted for two Tech Writing contract jobs at Dell outside Austin.  For one of of the two jobs, my brother already gave my resume to the hiring supervisor.  So that's all good news.  :-)

Then I just got a phone call from that brother, and he says the supervisor he's been talking to is intending to call me tomorrow for a phone interview, so she can snap me up before the other department does.  Even better news!  :-)  Keep your fingers crossed for me. 

I'm not looking forward to moving again, but I much prefer Austin-area to Dallas-area, so that would be good.  And my brother has told me that I'm moving in with them until I can get my feet on the ground.  Wow!! 

<<teasing my little brother as big sisters are supposed to do>> Although I do suspect that this brother has an ulterior motive or two.  :-)  This is the brother who is writing the book that I've been helping him edit.  So having me there would make the process go a lot faster.  Plus having me work at the same place he does would give him somebody to commute the hour-drive with, and cut his commuting costs.  Plus all two of his three cars are broken and he doesn't have the bucks so fix them, so having my minivan down there would be a big help to them.  But even with the ulterior motives...

I've got such a great family!!!!   :-)

Update (11:30am):  Do have phone interview tomorrow!!  Yah!!!

After 6.5 continuous hours of direction, mis-direction, wrong-direction, missing-direction, and general run-around, I have my new drivers license today.  What a waste of my time and theirs, and an unbelievably stupid system.  I am not impressed by Texas' bureaucratic efficiency.

Ah well... I'll just tag the day as a practice in patience and be glad that it's done.

Today is the first day since I've been down here that the high temperature has been under 100-degrees.  And, I must admit, with the new perspective of the last couple weeks' heat, 82-degrees feels downright cool.  :-)  I'm enjoying every minute of it.  :-)

But while I'm doing that, I'm anxiously checking the news and IM-img my brother who lives east of Austin, TX.  The big wildfire there is within miles of his house.  (Picture is him standing in the street in front of his house.)  So far, he's okay.  But this afternoon he gassed up the RV and got some preliminary stuff done, in case he, wife and kids are required to evacuate.  He says he knows many people who are among the ~500 homes lost so far... and they've not even begun to get the fire under control.

And, having a fire that close to a loved one, can't do anything but put even more things into perspective.

Sure, I "lost" my house, and I "lost" a fair amount of the stuff in it (either by selling it, giving it away or leaving it), but I still have all the stuff that matters to me.  Sure, I "lost" my phone and wallet, and have to deal with all the paperwork that goes along with that, but I don't have to deal with the papwork nightmare of having my house and everything in it burn to the ground.

So... my folks, kids and I are keeping an eye on the news and being grateful.  Things could be a whole lot worse... puts a lot of things in a whole new perspective.

I lost my wallet and cell phone, so I'm busy putting things back in place. 

In the process, I've discovered the hardest thing I've found to put back is all the phone numbers in my contact list.  Bad me, a lot of them weren't duplicated elsewhere.  :-(

So, if I had your number, I don't have it any more.  And if I had your number, it was listed under your name and not your number. 

Therefore, if you call or text, don't assume I know who you are.  :-)  Like somebody did yesterday, expressing sympathy for losing my phone.  I appreciate the sentement... but who the hell are you?!?  :-)

After much work, angst and adventure, I arrived in Texas early Thursday morning.  Unpacking the truck took all day Thursday, as it was 104-degrees out.  Not fun.

Since then we have all been unpacking, sorting and arranging.  Finally, today, I found the box with my computer cables, so I'm back online.

Much to do.  Many adjustments to make.  But, it's good to be with my folks, and #1-son and #2-son.  Today we all went down to visit with two of my three brothers and their families, so that's nice, too.

I miss #3-son and #4-son, though.  :-( 

#3-son is off to college and having a grand time, so I can handle that. 

But I haven't been away from #4-son for more than the two-weeks he went on vacation last year, so this is going to be a challenge.  I haven't had a chance to do more than text with him a couple times, but now that I'm finally back online, I should be able to talk to him more, which will be nice.

Now that my computer is together and I've said 'hi' to everybody online, I'd best get this place cleaned back up and head to bed.  The lack of sleep and stress from the last couple weeks is catching up with me, and I'm exhausted, but all-in-all, I'm doing really well.

I realized for a lot of you, depending upon your definition of living room, the packing of my living room may not sound like a big deal.  But my living room included 55-linear-feet of books that needed to be weeded, plus the DVDs and CDs.  Granted the DVDs and CDs were mostly done when I started this afternoon, so it wasn't the chore it could have been, but it was still enough to be exhausting.

The big issue was the books, as these were my oldest antique books and my old encyclopedias that I use for historic reference, plus the fact that I really HATE getting rid of books.  So there was a lot of resistance in the process.  "Do I really need to keep this set of encyclopedias, since I have another set from five years later?" (no) "Yes, I bought this set of how-to books from 1920 because they were really cool, do I need to keep them?" (yes) and so on.

The good news is that I packed up 10.5 paper-boxes of books to take to the library used book sale.  Granted the boxes aren't stuffed completely full, as I kept the encyclopedia sets together, but I'm still impressed with myself.  I should have taken a before picture to compare.  :-)

Tomorrow I attack the art room, and I will take "before" pictures, because it's an impressive mess.

Since #4-son and I did his bedroom last week, and the attic and garage were emptied for the garage sale, this makes four rooms that are done.  Which leaves 9 rooms, plus basement, to go.

It's going to be a busy week and a half.

The garage sale was held Friday and Saturday.  Sunday was a day of useless exhaustion, and today was beginning to recover and catch up on stuff.

Note to self... only people who come to garage sales on Friday have money.  We sold a bunch of little things on Saturday, but made less than 1/4 of what we made on Friday.  And both days together didn't make even the smallest dent in the amount of stuff that needed to go. *sigh*

For a few minutes, I debated having another sale next weekend, but then I remembered that it would only be #1-son and me home, and sanity quickly set in.  So, I shall call Goodwill this week and have them send a truck to pick up stuff.

Also finally admitted I need to weed more books.  I calculated out that current books and bookcases are going to take up 1/3 of the space in the moving van.  *sigh*  Not good.  So, I gotta weed.  Which will mean I shall also call the library and have them send a truck.  :-)  I wonder if they really do that.  Huh.  It's a good idea; I'll have to check.  :-)

This week's plan: weed, sort, organize, pack, clean.

Twelve days and counting.  :-)

Yesterday, my garage sale went very well.  With the awesome, and priceless, help from chosen-family, everything got sorted onto shelves or tables or rods, and priced.  The weather was about as perfect as the beginning of August gets, not too hot, and semi-cloudy.  Made decent money for a garage sale, and got rid of some stuff that I thought might not go... but barely made a dent in the amount of stuff that was out there.  Then with the help of my sons, moved stuff into the garage, and what we couldn't move we tarped over.

Today, it's raining.  *sigh*

If the rain stops (and looks like it'll stay stopped), sons and I will go back out and get it set up, otherwise... don't know.  We shall see.

These last couple weeks are going to be full of going-away gatherings and that is kind of neat and kind of sad.

It's neat to meet with these people and to be able to tell them what they have meant to me.  But it's most especially nice to hear what I have meant to them.  Most of the time, I don't see myself as anything special, or that I do anything very useful for people.  I know it's silly, but it's a case of: I can do it, therefore anybody can do it, so it must not be special or important.  So, it's really nice to hear people say what I have done for them.

But these gatherings are also sad.  I have lots of friends who I'm going to miss seeing in-person. 

The one nice thing about this move, that I haven't had in any other move, is the internet... and skype. 

I LOVE skype.  I'm not fond of communicating by email or phone, because I can't see the other person to see how they are reacting to things I'm saying.  So skype is great because I can see them, and I can see how they are reacting, which for me makes communicating long distances much more comfortable.  I'm hoping that the wonderful invention of skype will let me keep in touch with people up here that I otherwise would have lost touch with.

And... if you want to get together, I'd love to, just let me know.  :-)  I'm always ready for a break from packing and sorting.  :-)