Woo hoo....we finally got an interview, at least...

First nibble we've had, but it sounds promising. It's a design house in Scotts Valley (just past Santa Cruz), much closer than we've been working before. And, the guy knows several of Sam's references. The circuit board design business is kind of a small world, so that wasn't much of a surprise. He worked at a design house that Sam worked at before, though they weren't there at the same time, so we're kind of hoping that they'll be open to working at least part of the time from home. With the price of gas these, days, that would be nice. We were paying about $450/ month in gas just to get him to work. Our old, gasping cars might last another year then, too. (They're both over 120K miles).

Anyway, this guy has offices in Santa Barbara also, and is coming here to talk to Sam on Monday night on his way down there. He says they have lots of business and stay pretty busy, so that's nice to know, too. Maybe we won't get laid off again in six months.

Keep your fingers crossed.....

Oh, and the official Elsberry Biggest Loser weighin is Sunday (also Sam's birthday). So far, I've lost 21 lbs and he's lost 19. Cool. If we don't get a job, we'll get a LOT skinnier, lol.

Still hanging in there...

There's not much to write about. We still haven't found work, but I guess it's only been a couple of weeks, I should be patient. But, I'm better at panic than patience. And, I really hate problems that I can't do anything to fix right now. My sister Julie says excessive worrying shows a lack of faith. She's right and ought to know, she's had a way tougher time of life than I have, and has emerged with her sense of humor intact and is wiser than most people I know.

In the meantime, Sam has been working on several projects around the house that have needed taking care of for some time. It would be easier if I felt we could spend any money on some of them. But, it always seems like we have time OR money, never both at the same time. But, Sam is remarkably resourceful, and we have a friend at the Last Chance Mercantile who gets us good deals on recycled wood, etc. We're also working on getting a garden in this year, something we've slacked on the last couple of years. After a week of solid rain, the weather has been beautiful and it's been a treat to work outside.

Yesterday, after we dropped Meghan for school, we went down to the beach for our walk. Sam's been walking on his lunch hour at work and I've been going with some friends. It was nice to be together and we had a great time walking and watching the giant waves left from this last storm. The one upside of being unemployed, is we get lots of time together. I will miss him when he has to go back to work, but then I can quit panicking.

Reunion Cruise - Thursday

Reunion Cruise - Wednesday

Reunion Cruise Slideshow - Tuesday

OK, pictures from the 1st day (Monday)

Just stuff....

Haven't had time to do much more with pictures from the trip, as I've been very busy chasing down PCB Designer jobs online. Sam's busy calling every engineer he ever worked with, even a couple that he really hoped he'd never have to work with again. I only found a few positions advertised locally to apply for, but if we can drum up a bit of contract work, it'll buy us some time.

I'm finally feeling somewhat human again, but now Meghan is sick. She has a fever, a case of some weird hives and a bit of a cough. She seems to be feeling a little better today, she had a temp of 101 yesterday. It's not measles, chicken pox, fifth disease, or purpura (all stuff I recognize), I think she may be having an allergic reaction to something. I just don't know what.
I figured if she didn't look better by this morning, I'd take her in. She's well enough now to make me nuts with all of her "crafty" messes, so I think she'll be fine.

Mom Bailey and Donnie were here for a couple of days while Liz and Greg went on an anniversary trip to Carmel. It was fun to have them here, but we didn't get out much due to Meg being sick and Sam wrapping up final stuff at his old job. Sam took them out for a bit in Monterey yesterday and we sat outside and chatted for awhile this morning with Liz and Greg when they came back to pick them up. I'd like to talk Mom into staying for a couple of weeks, it's always nice to have her around. But, we probably need to come up with a better place for her than upstairs...I think the stairs are getting harder for her to manage.

Well, I have "stuff" to do....

Oh, and I'm annoyed that Romney threw in with McCain. I can't figure how that guy is getting so much support when I don't personally know a soul who likes him. And I have diverse friends, even one (gasp!) Hillary supporter.

That is all.

We're hoping for a better day today...

I spent yesterday with a pounding headache due to a cold or the flu or something. So, I was not in the best of moods. Sam came home from work early and I was glad to have someone to take over dinner, etc.

However, he told me that he'd been laid off. Actually, they offered him two months severance pay if he would "resign" (they're trying to avoid a hit to their unemployment insurance, as we can't file for unemployment if he resigns). If we find a job fairly soon, this could end up being a good thing. However, there isn't a heck of a lot out there, and most of it seems to have moved from Silicon Valley to San Diego, Irvine, Washington and Austin. After a couple of hours searching online, we found one in town here, which he sent a resume to last night.

The upside is, he hated working there anyway because his boss was an idiot. We leave with 17,500 vested stock options that may pay off in the next couple of years, so a year and a half with the idiot wasn't a total loss.

So everyone, keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer for us....this would be a terrible time to have to try and sell and move. And, if you hear of any weddings coming up that he can photograph, let us know. We need all the extra income we can get to help that two months severance last longer than two months.

On a lighter note, what in the world are these people doing????:

We're back!

Well, we survived. We ate too much, laughed alot, argued about politics and apparently passed around a cold. I'm sick as a dog. We only had minor car trouble, though, and that was within a few miles of a friend's house.

I decided that I love cruising. I also decided that I really hate LA and it's accompanying nasty traffic, nasty air, etc.

Amazingly enough, Sam and I came home having not gained any weight. In fact, we both lost weight. I thought for sure that I was eating myself into oblivion, but I guess not. So, we're still in the running for the contest. In fact, last I heard, we're winning.

Some assorted pictures:

I'll publish more pictures later when I'm sure my head isn't in danger of falling off.

Ow!

If we weren't leaving in the morning to get on a big boat, I'd have Sam starting on the Ark. Yeesh, I think we've gotten 300 feet of rain this month.

Well, as I was eating my healthy breakfast cereal this morning, and contemplating my huge "to-do" list, I broke a tooth on something. I didn't think cereal was usually that hard. Anyway, it meant I spent the day sitting in a dentist's chair. Saturday is a terrible day to get into a dentist, but since we're leaving tomorrow and I didnt want to spend the week wondering if the rest of the stupid tooth was going to come out, I went anyway. Took me about six hours. Now I have a sore jaw, a sore tooth, a temporary crown that feels weird and a giant "to-do" list.

In better news, we reported our weight loss this morning to the Elsberry Biggest Loser official (AKA my mom) and she told me that we're doing the best so far!!! Woo hoo!! I'll probably need the $1000 to pay the dentist. How pathetic is that??

We're excited to be leaving on our reunion trip with the sibs and hope that everyone travels safely. The weather is supposed to clear up on Monday, but it's cold, rainy and yucky now. I'm NOT excited about driving to LA in it tomorrow. Say prayers for my old Dodge, he's got 120K miles, but I'm not renting a car for a week just to pay to park it. We'll cross our fingers and chant hymns through Paso Robles (we've broken down there three times), and hopefully we'll be fine.

Woo hoo! Sunny day!

Well, the Christmas tree is finally put away, my daffodils are about ready to bloom, the sun is shining on a crystal clear day and I can see sailboats out in the bay. If it was warmer (it's about 50), it'd feel like spring! If it was a bit colder, it'd feel like summer. :0) We have weird weather here, summer is cold and foggy).

I got a surprise call today from an Elder who served in our ward from Tonga. Weird coincidence since I just visited that ward, huh? He was in our ward for quite a long time, then they transferred him to San Jose, and after that to our Tongan branch. Since we do a lot of activities together with the Tongan branch, it was like he was in our ward for a total of over a year. He's home now and was calling from Tonga! While he was here I really tried to encourage him to go to college when he got home. He said his family was pretty poor, and he wasn't sure he could manage it. I bugged him about it a lot, told him to talk to his bishop, etc. He called to tell me that he was accepted to BYU Hawaii and that he was going to be working at the Polynesian Cultural Center to pay his way. WOO HOO! He was such a sharp guy, I'm excited for him and for his future.

This is Elder Lauti with the fire dancers from the Polynesian Cultural Center when they were here last June.

Visiting the Tongans

Today we had my favorite of all the ward conferences we attend in our Stake, the Tongan Branch. It's always a treat, they are all such lovely, warm people.

But, the most amazing thing is the music. They've never had an accompanist or organist. They sing all the hymns a capella, in nearly perfect four part harmony. I found out when we tried to sing along though, that they hear their own harmony, they don't necessarily sing what's in the hymnbook. They always sound amazing, and it's fun to just sit and listen.

Once, when I was going to be out of town, I told my Fijian friend Selai that I needed to find someone to play for Sacrament meeting. She said, "Ah, they should just do as the Tongans and sing without an organ.".

I told her that while that works great for the Polynesians who have music in their souls, but you get a bunch of white people with no musical training and no organ and it definitely does NOT sound like the Tongans.

It was a nice day, but it was sad to come home and find that our beloved prophet had passed away. I'm sure he and his sweet wife are excited to be together again, but we'll miss him greatly. Meggie cried for hours before she went to bed.