Alot has happened

Let's see, the 1st weekend in September, my sister (Leigh), a friend (Pam) and I drove to Walsenberg, CO to visit mom and dad (and Edla) over the Labor Day weekend. We had a great time. Mom had a garage sale that weekend, which she REALLY needed to have. We hauled boxes out to the caul-de-sac, where she and neighbors had tables set up ready for the early morning garage sale buyers to come buy all there wares. In Colorado, the hard-core garage sale buyers don't wander out until 9am or so. Even with the slow start, she made $114.00 the first day. (She could have made alot more, if we could have pried the good stuff out of her hands). We really just wanted to get rid of the junk, so we were selling boxes for $1.00 each, but they had to take the entire box and couldn't pick and chose what they wanted.

The second day, the girls and I headed over to see our good friend Elda, she owns the LYS in Walsenberg. She was so glad to see us (we made her sales go way up for the week). We bought way to much yarn, started a couple of new projects. I made the Fake Isle cap out of Boku and Encore. I haven't got a picture of it yet. But I'll add it later. I also started the Gone Fishing Sweater for my grandson. Leigh also started the sweater for her grandson. I'm sure they will only wear the sweater once, but we are going to get a picture of both boys in the new sweaters.

We left Edla's at closing time and drove over to LaVeta and had a couple of tacos at the Mexican Cantenna. Pam and Leigh indulged in a margarita or two and got a little loopy. But we had a good time laughing and taking pictures.

By the time we got back to Mom and Dad's it was around 7pm. We settled in for our evening of knitting and watching tv, and Mom decided to count her garage sale money. Remember the 1st day she made $114.00. She counted and had $106.00. I thought that's pretty good $120 bucks for a bunch of old junk. But she said that she hadn't taken the 1st $114.00 out of the box. I started thinking about that morning. I had gone down to the caul-de-sac with her to get things set up. There was a younger lady who came by and was looking at stuff. Then a friend of theirs came by and bought the old church pews for $10.00 he handed me a $20.00 I put the money in the box and gave him a ten. I noticed there wasn't much money in the box, but assumed Mom had taken out the bulk of the cash and just had a few dollars for making change. I walked back up to the house to get her drink and something to eat and when I came back, I noticed the cash box was on one of the sale tables. I handed her the box and said "someone will end up getting this if you're not careful" and she put it by her chair under the tent. The problem was that someone had already helped themselves to all the money. So, it ended up she made $106.00 for 2 days worth of work. We can only hope that the person who took the money needed it more than Mom needed it. And if the truth be told, most of that stuff was just old junk, that we should have donated to goodwill.

Monday morning we drove back home. I went ahead and took a couple more days off just because I needed to use up some vacation. I came back to work on Wednesday 9/9/09. Everything was good until Friday, when I was informed that my position as Operations Manager was being eliminated. The company decided to merge the Claremore and Tulsa office into what they are calling a Hub and Spoke model. Tulsa will be the hub, which does everything. Taking orders, placing employees on assignment, all administrative work will be done in Tulsa. The Claremore office will be the spoke which won't do much at all. The office will only be open by appointment. If an employee needs to come to the office for some reason and they can't get to Tulsa, they can come here and sign papers or do whatever needs to be done.

So, tomorrow is my last day officially. I'll get 9 weeks severance pay and the rest of my vacation, which is almost 2 weeks. This week has been torture and I've cried more yesterday and today than I have in a really long time. In fact, even when she told me my job was eliminated, I didn't cry. I think I had a tear or two, but I think I was more in shock. Thank God, my sister and niece had decided to eat lunch across the street. Because she was there for me. I've decided that I will finish out the day today and tonight before I leave, I'll send her an email and let her know that I won't be back. Tonight I'm knitting with Rita and Michelle and I'll give Rita my key to take back to the office tomorrow.

It's sad, I really enjoyed my job and my employees and co-workers. I spent 9 years with these people and they were like family. I'll miss all of them but one person. But, I'm the type of person that hates change. I would have stayed here forever, making low-mid salary and crappy bonuses. Maybe this is the push I needed. There must be something bigger and better out there for me. I wish I had the funds to open my yarn store. I think it would be a big hit in Claremore, there are tons of knitters who have to drive 50+miles to Tulsa to buy yarn. But in reality, I still have to pay the bills.

The Rogers County Fair is this weekend. I entered my Barn Raising Quilt, so maybe I'll win the blue ribbon. I'm going to go to the fair tomorrow afternoon and see if I won the prize. I'm spending Saturday with my BFF Sabina and we are going to work on my resume.