Things have sure been busy around here. I've been working overtime trying to get our offices rearranged, because the ED staff is finally getting new desks. Yippey! I'm also still working my 2nd job on Wednesday nights with Catholic Charities, but sadly our class is coming to an end. This Wednesday is our last. I will probably join up with another class again after the first of the year. I've been babysitting like crazy lately as well. There's a family that I met through a nanny website that I've been babysitting for on occasion for the last year and a half and they gave my name to someone, who gave my name to someone else, and so on. It's spread like wildfire recently, so much so that I'm going to have to learn to say no. How do you say no to a desperate family who just moved here and has no family... plus they pay well? I made $105 the other night and the kids were amazing. It's good side job for occasional money, but I don't want to get to sucked in. I would like to have a personal life as well. The Special Event's coordinator has left the museum and her job is the only other one I would want. I went for the job and was the only internal candidate to apply. Things were looking up until I was pulled aside and told the museum wouldn't be hiring anyone to fill her position until next fiscal year (July), because the economy is bad, etc... It was a total bummer, but I'm still hopeful for July. If I get this job it will be a pay increase and a normal Monday-Friday schedule, only occasional nights and weekends for events and rentals. If it doesn't work out then I think I'm going to look into preschool teaching next fall. I love my job, but I'm ready for new challenges. Since they aren't filling the position right away some of her daily duties are being split amongst people and I will now be taking on the Community Outreach projects. This means I will be planning all the projects for fairs and festivals around Denver. The museum is teaming up with Red Cross which means as a supervisor I will be trained to be a RedCross trainer. Peter (the other supervisor) and I will be teaching Babysitter BootCamps starting next year. Basically anyone who wants to get CPR & First Aid certified as a babysitter can take classes through us. I'm kind of excited about this.
Jesse has been busy too. He recently finished up his overtime stint and has moved his focus on to his band. They recorded in Oct, but haven't had the funds to get it professionally printed just yet. They're also working on printing up more t-shirts, but Jesse and his friend have been having a hard time making that work. Faulty materials and sub-zero temperatures haven't made for very good results. They might not have new shirts and CD's until Spring now.
Let's see the weekend after Halloween we had visitors, our good friends Moe & Ben came from Taos and stayed for the weekend. I ended up throwing a last minute dinner party for 8 after working an extra long day at work. It was exhausting, but fun. My parents came and stayed with us for Thanksgiving which was nice. I made my first turkey ever and even though I cooked it upside down half the time (it's true) it turned out fabulous. I was quite proud of myself minus the stupid mistake of course. This morning we walked to the post office today to mail our Christmas cards and packages to their respective address. It was around $40 for everything.YIKES! We've been researching ways to get to the airport for our Christmas travels. I really wish DIA was closer to town. What a pain and who knew it would be so expensive. With the cost of checking our bags and now parking we're spending another $60 on top of our ticket price. To make matters worse we have to fly into Omaha since it's nearly $300 a ticket cheaper than flying to DesMoines. I'm becoming worried about our holiday travel now, because my lovely beast of a car wouldn't start this morning. I really hope it's just because of the sudden cold snap. It was 50 som degrees on Saturday, then 17 degrees on Sunday, and today it's -4 degrees or more. I'm going to give my car a break, hopefully it will warm up and then I'm going to get my neighbor (Chris) the mechanic to give it a look. Everyone cross your fingers and hope it's not something worse, because I just can't afford that right now. Knowing my luck it's probably bad. I seem to have the worst luck when it comes to cars. If I had the money I would buy a new one, but I don't. I think that's going to be our goal before next winter though. #1 priority new car (not brand new, just new to us).Look out Iowans here we come Dec 24th - the 29th we'll be crashing with my parents &/or Dave & Chelsey.
Hope you're all having a Happy Holiday Season!
Love,
Erin & Jesse
Photos from top to bottom
1. Clarice the reindeer and her friend the elf (Santa came to the museum with Clarice, but I missed getting his photo, too many kiddos standing in line & I had to work)
2. Jesse & I sitting on our couch. We tried to take this for our Christmas card to send everyone, but decided to go with a different picture.
3. Jesse & I and my mom & dad hanging out in our living room (no we aren't minimalist, he is... if it was up to me we would have pictures all over our walls)
4. (L-R) Amanda (one of my friends who was married in Oct), Moe (our friend from Taos, who was staying the weekend with us), Me, and Tana (another friend who got married in Oct)
