Friday, January 9, 2009
Oh F**k!
Sorry. I hate to just go around shouting like this, but I can't help but shout that right now because oh, f**k oh f**k oh f**k. A couple of oxygen sensors just blew on our car, along with some other crap that I don't even understand, and it will cost us about $1000 to fix it. Oh this is such a bad news. Alright, if I can negotiate a deal on our energy bill, extend our payments out even more, maybe we can come up with about half of what we need. I just don't know. I just don't know how we're going to pull this off.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
My Latest Financial News
First, the good: The congregation will not be cutting any staff this year. I can keep my job.
There are a range of staff cuts being considered, however, ranging from 3% of income to 15%. The different levels have different implications. Some involve cuts in hours, others we are expected to simply "suck up" because hey, these are hard economic times and we've been saved from lay-offs.
Nothing is in stone yet. The finance committee still needs to make a recommendation to the board, the board needs to vote, and then the whole congregation needs to vote. But, I suspect I am personally looking at a 3-5% cut, hopefully around the 3% range.
The only thing that is saving me from despair (since as the board president here said to me, I am "already cutting awfully close to the bone" in my personal finances anyway), is that they will allow me to take my cut in professional expenses (my training and development budget). Luckily, this budget line is able to absorb a 3-5% cut, though it will mean my professional activities will be on hold for the year. However, it won't take additional cuts, so let's hope the economy turns around and fast!
The (hopefully minor) bad news is that one of my proposals for a potential budget cut, I think, varied significantly from how the senior minister here views our work as a congregation...and I am just hoping she is gracious about it. I am still learning here when I can push for innovation, and when that is problematic for my working relationships in a congregation where folks have served for almost entire careers.
There are a range of staff cuts being considered, however, ranging from 3% of income to 15%. The different levels have different implications. Some involve cuts in hours, others we are expected to simply "suck up" because hey, these are hard economic times and we've been saved from lay-offs.
Nothing is in stone yet. The finance committee still needs to make a recommendation to the board, the board needs to vote, and then the whole congregation needs to vote. But, I suspect I am personally looking at a 3-5% cut, hopefully around the 3% range.
The only thing that is saving me from despair (since as the board president here said to me, I am "already cutting awfully close to the bone" in my personal finances anyway), is that they will allow me to take my cut in professional expenses (my training and development budget). Luckily, this budget line is able to absorb a 3-5% cut, though it will mean my professional activities will be on hold for the year. However, it won't take additional cuts, so let's hope the economy turns around and fast!
The (hopefully minor) bad news is that one of my proposals for a potential budget cut, I think, varied significantly from how the senior minister here views our work as a congregation...and I am just hoping she is gracious about it. I am still learning here when I can push for innovation, and when that is problematic for my working relationships in a congregation where folks have served for almost entire careers.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Why is My Horoscope Always So Darn Accurate?!
Here is the monthly horoscope page from astrostyle.com: http://astrostyle.com/Scopes/Monthly_Scope/index.htm. I'm gemini. Already my January horoscope is describing my January experiences to a "T." What the heck?!
My weekly horscope (weekly horscopes are here: http://astrostyle.com/Scopes/Weekly_Scope/index.htm) is also pretty interesting, and close to my experience so far this week.
How does yours look?
My weekly horscope (weekly horscopes are here: http://astrostyle.com/Scopes/Weekly_Scope/index.htm) is also pretty interesting, and close to my experience so far this week.
How does yours look?
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Ghost Towns
Something I would really like to do in my life is to "visit" at least ten to twenty distinct ghost towns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_town
I don't know when my fascination with ghost towns developed, and it is an ironic fascination in many ways because I am definitely not a "small town girl" in any sense. I think it has something to do with some gut level feeling that we all have some "ghost towns" inside of us: places we dwell at one time, but never visit again for any number of reasons. I find the idea really interesting, and somehow visiting ghost towns seems an appealing way to explore that. Maybe someday I'll spend a sabatical that way, in a road trip to multiple ghost towns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_town
I don't know when my fascination with ghost towns developed, and it is an ironic fascination in many ways because I am definitely not a "small town girl" in any sense. I think it has something to do with some gut level feeling that we all have some "ghost towns" inside of us: places we dwell at one time, but never visit again for any number of reasons. I find the idea really interesting, and somehow visiting ghost towns seems an appealing way to explore that. Maybe someday I'll spend a sabatical that way, in a road trip to multiple ghost towns.
My Son's Teacher's House Burned
On the first day of the new year, my son's teacher's house caught on fire when a freak thing occurred in her very clean chimney...a spark flew through a small crack in a brick and lit their wall on fire.
She and her husband woke their children and got out of the house, but a portion of their house (their living room, dining room, and kitchen) was burned beyond repair. There is also an awful lot of smoke and water damage throughout the entire house. Half their house will need to be gutted and rebuilt. Many of their personal items will need to be replaced, from furniture to quite possibly their clothing. Even all their Christmas presents were destroyed. They will be living in a mobile home on their property for a few months while their lives are recovered.
Thank goodness they are safe. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness.
Thank goodness their home owner's insurance company has been wonderful to them so far.
Thank goodness that the many, many hours she spent preparing the new classroom she is opening in her own home were not for nothing, as those items were miraculously spared.
Thank goodness friends and family have rallied around her and she is feeling very supported.
I pray that they can begin to heal from the tremendous emotional trauma that this was. I pray that their property is quickly rebuilt and that they can truly return home soon. I pray that they will grow ever stronger and closer as a family through this. I pray that they continue to feel the loving kindness around them.
Tomorrow I break the news to M. because this means he can't go back to school for a while. We don't know when his teacher will be up for teaching again. She's still sorting through a lot of wreckage, trying to find her bearings in all this and get a clear picture of what the coming months will be like.
This will be a very big blow to M. One of the best things I think I can do for him is to help him see that we can be part of the community that cares for his teacher and her family. We'll be cooking some meals for them...or something. And I will invite M. to take part in whatever it is we do.
As for his schooling, I don't know what this will mean. I have offered our house as an alternative location, but some folks won't be able to make the drive into our city. I also don't know, like I said, if his teacher will be up for teaching. In fact, she's not even sure yet if she'll be ready by the time the second trimester of the spring rolls around, when K. is scheduled to start. This may be a push for me to do something here at the house. Both the kids really appreciate their school time with the other kids in addition to homeschooling. I'm going to just let the chips fall where they may for the next couple of weeks, and hopefully by then we'll be able to make a gameplan with M's teacher.
This is hard to get out of my head. What a crazy, crazy thing!
She and her husband woke their children and got out of the house, but a portion of their house (their living room, dining room, and kitchen) was burned beyond repair. There is also an awful lot of smoke and water damage throughout the entire house. Half their house will need to be gutted and rebuilt. Many of their personal items will need to be replaced, from furniture to quite possibly their clothing. Even all their Christmas presents were destroyed. They will be living in a mobile home on their property for a few months while their lives are recovered.
Thank goodness they are safe. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness.
Thank goodness their home owner's insurance company has been wonderful to them so far.
Thank goodness that the many, many hours she spent preparing the new classroom she is opening in her own home were not for nothing, as those items were miraculously spared.
Thank goodness friends and family have rallied around her and she is feeling very supported.
I pray that they can begin to heal from the tremendous emotional trauma that this was. I pray that their property is quickly rebuilt and that they can truly return home soon. I pray that they will grow ever stronger and closer as a family through this. I pray that they continue to feel the loving kindness around them.
Tomorrow I break the news to M. because this means he can't go back to school for a while. We don't know when his teacher will be up for teaching again. She's still sorting through a lot of wreckage, trying to find her bearings in all this and get a clear picture of what the coming months will be like.
This will be a very big blow to M. One of the best things I think I can do for him is to help him see that we can be part of the community that cares for his teacher and her family. We'll be cooking some meals for them...or something. And I will invite M. to take part in whatever it is we do.
As for his schooling, I don't know what this will mean. I have offered our house as an alternative location, but some folks won't be able to make the drive into our city. I also don't know, like I said, if his teacher will be up for teaching. In fact, she's not even sure yet if she'll be ready by the time the second trimester of the spring rolls around, when K. is scheduled to start. This may be a push for me to do something here at the house. Both the kids really appreciate their school time with the other kids in addition to homeschooling. I'm going to just let the chips fall where they may for the next couple of weeks, and hopefully by then we'll be able to make a gameplan with M's teacher.
This is hard to get out of my head. What a crazy, crazy thing!
Friday, January 2, 2009
Family Planning
The other day was our every-60-day mandatory reminder that K. is still in foster care...er, uh, I mean our every-other-monthly homevisit from the social worker monitoring our home (in our old state, by the way, the visits were monthly).
In between these visits, we live in a sort of bubble. K. no longer has visits with her birthfamily, we have moved all the way across the country with her, and we keep in touch with M.'s birthfamily, but the state won't permit contact with K's birthfamily because of the risks they present to her safety. We rarely need to consult with or ask permission from the social worker for anything anymore because at this point, for all intents and purposes, she is our daughter.
This social worker who comes to visit our house now, I have a kind of mixed relationship with her. G. calls it "a weird tension." She is nice and all, but very hard to read. We needed her approval to manage our case in order to complete the interstate agreement that allowed us to move, and through the homestudy process she gave us no feedback at all. This left us wondering until I finally heard from our old state that the approval had come through. Because she is so "flat" in her interactions, she makes me nervous.
She also gives no indication that she remembers that we are long-time foster parents (not only that, but former therapeutic foster parents). She treats us like novices, which is subtle, but undermining. You have to understand, of course, that G. and I come from a county in which we felt like "star foster parents." Almost the whole staff at the county offices knew us and always treated us like we were the best of the best. We frequently got calls for placements, they asked our opinion about things that mattered, I participated on the foster parent advisory board, and we never worked with a social worker who didn't come to trust our expertise (about the kids we work with) implicitly. I think we are very good foster parents. It was treatment not undeserved.
It is so different now to have this woman come into our home every couple of months who never seems to drop her skeptisism or her lectures about "how it is done" (which result after we learn some different procedure between the two states, not from a fundamental ignorance).
Now that K.'s case is wrapping up, we have the question of whether we will get foster licensed out here or whether we'll seek another adoptive homestudy. Apparently, the homestudy we had done was for K's case and the interstate agreement alone. G. and I have been foster and adoptive homestudied numerous times over the last six or seven years. We've had at least five homestudies...switching agencies, updating expired homestudies, expanding previous homestudies to include adoption, etc. There are truly few homes as well monitored as ours. Our homestudy here in our new state was completed just under a year ago, so I asked the worker who has been visiting our home whether it would take a lot to get a new homestudy if we chose to keep our home open.
She told me we'd basically have to do everything over again! "The only thing that won't change is your childhood information from your homestudy interview." She said we'd have to do all of the other massive paperwork again, including but not limited to new letters of reference (five required), a financial background check, new letters from all the doctors our family has seen since our last homestudy, a letter of good-standing from my employer, and so forth. She'd also have to come over and complete another hour-long interview, do an inspection of this house even though she's been here visiting every 60 days, and...the list goes on. Oh, also, we have to take the foster/adopt training program because she won't consider transferring credit from our old state for their foster/adopt training program. Which is no big deal (other than finding a babysitter for 30 total hours of training time), but irritating because before we moved here I inquired with the foster licensor at the county office (this worker is, alternatively, from the agency that was contracted in our case) and she said they'd definitely be willing to at least take a look at the training we've done. Again, we used to be therapeutic foster parents, so it is worth noting that we've done some pretty intensive training along the way.
I almost took the worker's reaction as trying to discourage us from moving forward, but at the same time, she also actually told us about a three-sibling set for which she was seeking an adoptive family (almost as if she was "feeling us out" about it) and she was eager to give us the dates of the upcoming foster/adopt training. Also, she discouraged us from doing foster care (which couldn't be done through her agency) and encouraged us to stick with her own adoption program. She said, "we have access to all the same kids as the state does." I think that is misleading because most kids are going to have a state-- rather than agency-- social worker, and though a social worker who is looking to place a child might seek the contracted agency's help, if they know of a waiting foster or adoptive parent through their own program, wouldn't they go ahead and place there first?
These are questions to which we are currently seeking answers. I have a call into the state adoption office, I've chatted with the foster care office (there is no foster-adopt program here in the formal sense, so the departments are separate), and I am going to call the state licensor for our section of town as well.
We're not quite ready for another. We are hoping K. will be out of diapers, that the kids will be just a wee bit more independent, and that we can hammer out our financial life a bit more before another placement. But K. is almost three, and homestudies in our experience take a very long time, if nothing else because of the time it takes to get the paperwork done. It does seem time to at least start working slowly toward being ready. The conversation with the social worker who visits our home was in a word: discouraging. I am hoping the conversations I will be having with others over the next couple of weeks will be the opposite.
In between these visits, we live in a sort of bubble. K. no longer has visits with her birthfamily, we have moved all the way across the country with her, and we keep in touch with M.'s birthfamily, but the state won't permit contact with K's birthfamily because of the risks they present to her safety. We rarely need to consult with or ask permission from the social worker for anything anymore because at this point, for all intents and purposes, she is our daughter.
This social worker who comes to visit our house now, I have a kind of mixed relationship with her. G. calls it "a weird tension." She is nice and all, but very hard to read. We needed her approval to manage our case in order to complete the interstate agreement that allowed us to move, and through the homestudy process she gave us no feedback at all. This left us wondering until I finally heard from our old state that the approval had come through. Because she is so "flat" in her interactions, she makes me nervous.
She also gives no indication that she remembers that we are long-time foster parents (not only that, but former therapeutic foster parents). She treats us like novices, which is subtle, but undermining. You have to understand, of course, that G. and I come from a county in which we felt like "star foster parents." Almost the whole staff at the county offices knew us and always treated us like we were the best of the best. We frequently got calls for placements, they asked our opinion about things that mattered, I participated on the foster parent advisory board, and we never worked with a social worker who didn't come to trust our expertise (about the kids we work with) implicitly. I think we are very good foster parents. It was treatment not undeserved.
It is so different now to have this woman come into our home every couple of months who never seems to drop her skeptisism or her lectures about "how it is done" (which result after we learn some different procedure between the two states, not from a fundamental ignorance).
Now that K.'s case is wrapping up, we have the question of whether we will get foster licensed out here or whether we'll seek another adoptive homestudy. Apparently, the homestudy we had done was for K's case and the interstate agreement alone. G. and I have been foster and adoptive homestudied numerous times over the last six or seven years. We've had at least five homestudies...switching agencies, updating expired homestudies, expanding previous homestudies to include adoption, etc. There are truly few homes as well monitored as ours. Our homestudy here in our new state was completed just under a year ago, so I asked the worker who has been visiting our home whether it would take a lot to get a new homestudy if we chose to keep our home open.
She told me we'd basically have to do everything over again! "The only thing that won't change is your childhood information from your homestudy interview." She said we'd have to do all of the other massive paperwork again, including but not limited to new letters of reference (five required), a financial background check, new letters from all the doctors our family has seen since our last homestudy, a letter of good-standing from my employer, and so forth. She'd also have to come over and complete another hour-long interview, do an inspection of this house even though she's been here visiting every 60 days, and...the list goes on. Oh, also, we have to take the foster/adopt training program because she won't consider transferring credit from our old state for their foster/adopt training program. Which is no big deal (other than finding a babysitter for 30 total hours of training time), but irritating because before we moved here I inquired with the foster licensor at the county office (this worker is, alternatively, from the agency that was contracted in our case) and she said they'd definitely be willing to at least take a look at the training we've done. Again, we used to be therapeutic foster parents, so it is worth noting that we've done some pretty intensive training along the way.
I almost took the worker's reaction as trying to discourage us from moving forward, but at the same time, she also actually told us about a three-sibling set for which she was seeking an adoptive family (almost as if she was "feeling us out" about it) and she was eager to give us the dates of the upcoming foster/adopt training. Also, she discouraged us from doing foster care (which couldn't be done through her agency) and encouraged us to stick with her own adoption program. She said, "we have access to all the same kids as the state does." I think that is misleading because most kids are going to have a state-- rather than agency-- social worker, and though a social worker who is looking to place a child might seek the contracted agency's help, if they know of a waiting foster or adoptive parent through their own program, wouldn't they go ahead and place there first?
These are questions to which we are currently seeking answers. I have a call into the state adoption office, I've chatted with the foster care office (there is no foster-adopt program here in the formal sense, so the departments are separate), and I am going to call the state licensor for our section of town as well.
We're not quite ready for another. We are hoping K. will be out of diapers, that the kids will be just a wee bit more independent, and that we can hammer out our financial life a bit more before another placement. But K. is almost three, and homestudies in our experience take a very long time, if nothing else because of the time it takes to get the paperwork done. It does seem time to at least start working slowly toward being ready. The conversation with the social worker who visits our home was in a word: discouraging. I am hoping the conversations I will be having with others over the next couple of weeks will be the opposite.
Cute Kid Story
The other day M. found an old "mom and baby" yoga video and asked to watch it on the computer. I put it on for him, figuring he'd soon lose interest, and K. joined him. It occurred to me then that they could probably do the yoga, so I fetched them each their respective baby dolls. So super sweet! M. watched intently and did the yoga with his "baby" uninterrupted for five minutes before deciding he was done. K. too was done in five minutes, and didn't "do" much of the video, but did stand there holding her "baby," smiling and mesmerized.
Also, I have to write this down somewhere or I am going to forget forever: I discovered that M. calls chapstick "lip chap." I know its just because I am his mom, but I find that so endearing!
Also, I have to write this down somewhere or I am going to forget forever: I discovered that M. calls chapstick "lip chap." I know its just because I am his mom, but I find that so endearing!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)