Month: January 2015

I just finished the January finances. I had 3 paychecks this month, which is 3 paychecks more than I had last month or the month before, etc. Anyway, we were able to fill our “non-emergency emergency fund” with $2,000. That is for things we should have seen coming, so they aren’t really emergencies, but we still need to have money for them, but we don’t normally put away money for them. Plus, I got the November family get-together paid for and I have the money for our upcoming April trip totally set aside! And I paid an extra $900 toward the mortgage on this place. (That wasn’t ALL from my paychecks, of course!) Next month we start paying extra towards another mortgage, as well.

There is no way to express what a great feeling this is, considering that only about 4 years ago, we thought we would never be able to retire because our finances were such a train wreck. And I don’t tell you this to brag or anything. I just don’t want any of you to worry about having to take care of us in our retirement because we were so out-of-control with our spending and finances.

The year of my not working was a good lesson in what it will be like to get by with less money coming in. But we were able to prioritize and make good decisions, so we still  finished our emergency funds, even on much less income. That said, it is great to have more money coming in again!

That is, if I get hired on Tuesday. Only two applicants for the position. I know who the other person is and am not too worried, since he has no experience and I have 8 years experience in this exact senior center. But I know there is no guarantee, so I’ll be glad when it is all settled.

I woke up to snow just dumping down out of the sky. So I checked to see if contest (and/or school) had been cancelled. (I think we may not have had school anyway.) But nothing was cancelled, so I took off for Ladysmith about 8:00. My windshield kept freezing up the whole way over. And that was with the defrost blowing so hot that I about cooked my forehead and the wipers on constantly. I almost used up the whole container of window washer melting it off every 20 seconds or so. The roads were pretty snow-covered, too, and there was a lot more traffic than I remembered on Hwy 8. But I got there okay and on time.

I was done with my first three events and had a break by 9:45. My next ones began at 2:28. And I was in Ladysmith. So what I did was go to the library and pick out a book that I thought I could finish in a day. I did get half done, but I was starting to fall asleep a bit often by lunch time, so I decided I’ll order it in inter-library loan and finish it another day, although it was very exciting. After lunch I sat in the car and listened to talk radio a while – until 1:00. Then I went by and checked out our house from the road. Then back to school.

My last events were in the auditorium, so I just spent the rest of the afternoon there, listening to mostly really bad middle school vocalists. (I don’t know how the judge could stand it.) My kids did pretty well, although none were nearly as prepared as you guys used to be. But no one comes to me knowing how to breathe properly, pronounce properly, or sing the right notes. And the balance in the ensembles is usually bad, too. But by the time we mostly have the notes, it is contest time, so I don’t get much of a chance to work on the other stuff with them. I sure wish they learned a little of that in lessons or choir, so when I mention it, they at least know what I’m talking about.

Not the greatest day.  But they  pay me…..

Well….. If I had known how much people were going to attack me, personally, I would have been even more stressed. But, on the good side, we had a great turnout – over 60 people. And intelligent, uninvolved people from the community saw just what we are dealing with. And, believe me, those that are the problem were apparent to everyone there. I won’t go into it, but it was appalling, really. I’m not sure much was accomplished other than letting the people that are sort of on the sidelines see for themselves what the problem is and who is causing it. I don’t think a lot of them believed it until they saw it themselves. I can’t go into details, because it would take too long.

And, also on the good side, I was very in control the whole time. I was complimented by many, including the mayor, the police officer there and the Office on Aging representative, on the way I handled the whole thing. The past mayor came to my defense on an accusation I just decided not to respond to, which I appreciated. I didn’t have time to deal with all the lies, quite frankly. We had business to handle and a time limit in which to do it. As it was, we went almost 20 minutes over.

But things are far from resolved. At least I am not the one totally responsible for resolving it.

Well, tomorrow is the membership meeting that I have been dreading since this whole mess at work started. All of us in positions of authority have done all we can to insure that things don’t get out of control, with people taking sides and going off on tangents.

But, if you think of it, could you pray for that meeting? It is at 11:00 tomorrow (Thursday). We hope to be done by 11:45, but noon is probably a better guess. If everyone could just be civil and respectful of one another, that would be a huge accomplishment at this point!  If we can’t get things ironed out, we may have to move on to legal action against some of the instigators. Yes, it really is that bad….

The competition was yesterday. I must say, we both played splendidly! Considering how nervous I was and the caliber of the other accompanists (like one was a professional pianist and another was a professor at the college), I did very well. And so did Clay. And we got second place, out of five finalists!! So he doesn’t get to play it with the orchestra, but I think that was a great showing for his first try. He can always do it again next year. The winner was a pianist.

The professional pianist/accompanist was Katie Lanzer. Actually Dr. Kate Lanzer.  She charges $55 an hour to play for people for things like this. I can’t imagine what the entire bill is, what with rehearsals and such. She surely doesn’t rehearse with them as much as I do, or it would cost hundreds of dollars. Anyway, my student did better than hers, which is not totally her fault, of course. But I did help Clay a lot with his musicality, especially on the cadenzas. He didn’t do everything I coached him to do, but he was starting at zero experience playing a cadenza, so he did much, much better than he was doing back in November!

So so so so glad that is finally over!!!!

Yes, today was the day to submit my first newsletter to the new printers. I did a test copy first and my tech support said it looked great! I can’t wait to get them. They should arrive next Tuesday or Wednesday. Full color! Photos! Ads I didn’t have to get! Even tear-off pages for things like calendars and reminders people will want to keep and post! And I had way more than enough content, so much of it was put off until next month. Looks like I won’t have any trouble filling 10 1/2 pages each month.

Other than that, things were peaceful at work today.

I started Nathan Vlcek’s son in piano last night. What an adorable little third grade boy he is! He was so excited to start lessons and not at all shy! Teaching him promises to be great fun! So now I have the children of two people you went to school with – Nathan Vlcek and Leslie (Madison) Olson.

And something really cool happened at work today. Someone that sometimes does church services at the Center came in to get the key and store some of the equipment they will be using in our closet and she was so glad I was back that she and her partner went out and bought me a dozen red roses and brought them back with a “welcome back” card. Pretty overwhelming!

And one more thing – the job that I’m doing was finally posted in the paper today, so I took my resume over to City Hall and dropped it off. So I have officially applied for it.

Well, we woke up to 20 below this morning. Not the best morning for older people to get out, but I still had 20 people at 9:00 in the morning for my meeting. I felt it went very well, and many people told me they thought it was excellent and helpful and other wonderful things. Of course, they are my friends!

Yesterday the next chapter in this very bizarre saga at the senior center unfolded. I received a copy of a letter sent to the heads of the nutrition program at the county level, accusing the nutrition site manager (my co-worker, basically) of shouting profanity so loudly that it could be heard all over the building. If you knew this person, you would know how absurd that accusation is. I’ve never heard her either shout or swear and she has been an absolute saint (well, almost) though nine months of this sort of thing, which is basically all aimed at getting her fired. Fortunately her bosses knew this and just filed it with all the other untrue letters and emails they have received. But the writer made a mistake in sending me a copy, because I was there (she must not have know that!) and can also name other people who were there, and we can all testify that the accusations are untrue. I’ll tell you the actual incident some time if you want to know, but no-one even got angry. We were disgusted and appalled that people could be so petty and that it was going to cost the nutrition department money.  And the letter came from someone I’ve trusted (and been warned not to…), so I was so mad that I was wrong about her. And I’m tired of our very nice and capable site manager being harassed like this. And none of us even know why!

So I went online to see what we could do. Basically what they did is libel and she can sue, if she wants. If you put lies about someone down in writing and then send that to a third party and it does injury (in this case emotional injury, because she isn’t going to lose her job over it), that is libel.  I’ll let you know what happens.

Other than that, my job is going quite well! I have the February newsletter ready to send off to the new publisher on Thursday. It is beautiful!

I never did this when I was there before, but I thought I would try having a volunteer brunch, to get all the people who volunteer in our building, either for me or for the nutrition program, together and go over emergency policies and other policies and get their suggestions for how things could be done better, etc.  I am serving breakfast pizza, bagels and cream cheese, sausage links, Bob’s Grill’s donut holes (4 different flavors), cut up bananas, pineapple, and oranges, and coffee and juice. Doesn’t that sound good? It is only scheduled for one hour at 9:00 on Tuesday. My hope is that everyone leaves feeling that they have learned something, that they are appreciated for what they do and that we are all on the same TEAM (to borrow a term from Dave Ramsey.) I’ll let you know how it goes.

It is snowing today – that light fluffy snow that is a breeze to shovel. It is so beautiful out, just like being in a snow globe. I always say, “If it is going to be cold, it might as well snow.” And it has been pretty cold, although most of it has been wind-chill, so if you can stay out of the wind, it isn’t too bad. And the sun was shining yesterday.

Only 97 days until April 15!