Looks like my job is safe...for now

As some of you know, I have been worried about the potential loss of my job for about a month now given the cuts the City is facing from the State. I have been talking to my boss about it over that time because I'm in a unique position in which I could get bumped out by someone else who has held the position (which is luckily only a couple of people, neither of which are on the chopping block).

I'm not out of the woods quite yet though since there is a possibility that one of those people could potentially get bumped, and subsequently could bump me out of my job, but I'm keeping my hopes up that that won't happen. Either way we will all know likely in April the status of everyone.

So hooray for me today! Besides that, we're of course still really busy. I am going to be in the community meetings held by the Mayor on February 9th and 10th, which will be extremely interesting for me since these will be my first community meetings. I don't think I will be presenting, but I am putting together some of the materials. I will get to see my work in action!

As you can tell, I'm in much better spirits since I know my position will not be cut in 2009. Given the LGA cuts the City will receive in 2010, there will be discussions throughout the City on how to handle those, but for now I have a job :)

Crazy Launchin' Levi

Here's a story about a guy I went to high school with. Crazy kid that loves snowmobiling. It's so great to see someone from my hometown getting this kind of recognition. Great guy that clearly loves what he does!

Say hello to my little friend

While my little friend doesn't pack the painful punch of an automatic weapon, he's still damn cute:

He's one of my creations over the weekend. Next up: a raving rabid. (hee hee)

And release...

Work has been extremely crazy over the past how many weeks. I finally cracked under the stress Thursday night (luckily I was at home!). Even though I felt really crummy, it felt good to release and even better, Friday turned out to not be as bad.

We are still trying to get the Council's budget published; we're pretty close to having it done, but since our boss is extremely busy, we haven't had anyone reviewing our work until the last minute. And changes take time, especially if it's a change to the system, in which case, it takes at least four hours or more.

And now we're down to just two of us since the third is on vacation for a week. Actually, I'm quite glad to have a reprieve from him because we have lots of communication problems which has only added to my stress. I'm trying to work on it, but he has severe tunnel vision and does not register social cues.

This weekend, I am planning to knit in my rocking chair. The gentle rocking and focusing on stitch by stitch helped me relax. Right now I am trying to reduce my stash of yarn by knitting all sorts of different stuff, mostly for MVNA. I'm going to try out some different stuffed animals today to work through some funky colored yarns I have.

Another one bites the dust

My fish is dead. I managed to kill two fish in less than a week. Great.

I came home to that after having a shitty day at work - people claimed they updated the documents we asked them to and I was blatantly lied to. Yes there may have been some sort of misunderstanding, but I poked around in the electronic files and couldn't find any evidence that they had in fact done the work. I will ask them about it tomorrow when I'm not upset.

Also, I managed to completely piss off a coworker. I privately talked to them after a couple of hours and I think we're ok now, but it made for a very awkward end to an awkward meeting.

And I am terrified that something I can't talk about will happen (nothing life-or-death, just something at work). I have put a lot of work into this thing I can't talk about, and it would break my heart if it goes the wrong direction.

Needless to say I am very much looking forward to a weekend with my parents. I'm hoping Slasher will warm to Chris and I.

Fish and Rocker

I had the brilliant idea of getting a fish. A guppy to be precise. The reason is because I desperately want a dog, but I think that an apartment would be too small of space of the type of dog(s) I want and not having a backyard for them to play in is a problem. So I decided to try to fill the gap a bit by getting a fish.

I started out buying two guppies yesterday, and unfortunately one when belly-up overnight. Apparently I put it through way too much shock. Already I'm failing! But it's ok (tear, sniffle).

The other exciting purchase I made today was getting myself a rocking chair. I've been looking for a couple of months, thinking about what I wanted. Today I finally walked down to the antique shop at the end of Selby that often has a bunch of furniture outside; I figured that was the place to go to find a rocker.

I walked in and looked around a bit. There were a lot of different chairs and different rockers too. I found one hanging along the ceiling. It doesn't have arms, made of oak, and is in kind of rough shape (lots of scratches and the seat is messed up a bit), but it's solid, quite light, and is usable (fixing the seat is an option). It was a great price and I carried it home with pride. I'm excited to knit and read in it!

Back from PA

We flew in today after spending the past 3 1/2 days in PA visiting Chris and Kim's family and friends. It was great to be able to meet the people that I've heard so many stories about and everyone was really fun. I'll post more about it later after a long night's sleep.

My only regret? Getting a migraine last night, missing out on Pictionary, and feeling nauseous through the beginning part of the trip home. I have a potential candidate for making me feel better during a migraine: Dramamine. When I couldn't eat more than half a pancake for breakfast, we stopped by a drugstore before hitting the airport and it allieviated the nausea for the rest of the trip. Chris's dad said he'd pay me 20 bucks if I hurled through the security checkpoint. I managed to hold it on, so no 20 bucks for me. Maybe next time...