happy halloween

this year wasnt the most exciting halloween, but at least i got to wear this cool hat...

props

new interview scored.

this job will be mine. oh yes, it will be mine...

you cant always get what you want

well, i was told that shc was trying to make a decision by today.....and i didn't get a call...

i guess i'm not really surprised. they really put me between a rock and a hard place at the second interview. they had the billing supervisor sit in on the interview because they had a billing position open...even though i hadn't applied for it and said at my first interview that, although i have an interest in billing, i wanted to gain new experience and do something different from my last position. the billing person really liked me, and i have a feeling that if i wanted the position i would've gotten it. but after thinking about it, i ended up telling her that i was more interested in the position i originally applied for. the pay and the title would be the same, but the work load would be 10 times more. and it sounded like i'd be doing exactly what i did previously at the clinic...which i didn't want.

i was worried that this action would cost me my chances at the job i really wanted. and it seems, unfortunately, i was correct.

i'm not too worried, though. i applied for two other jobs today (one at another clinic, and one in the hospial medical records department), and i'll scour the sunday paper for viable options.

more progress

i got a call from the shc today for a second interview on monday, and i'm excited about that. i hope the competition isnt too fierce, because i've decided that i really really want this job.


today, with a little help from parley, i started tackling the giant shrub in the front yard. we didnt get very far, but some visible progress has been made. i plan to take a lot more off of it in the future. we also cut out the larger plants in the front bed (we decided that they were all weeds, even the tree-looking thing), and took down the vine growing up the side of the porch (although we couldnt get to the piece on the roof- it'll just have to die and fall down). compared with the first picture i took of the house, i think that its looking far more cleaned up than before.

progress

i went to lowes and bought 2 essentials for my yard clean-up: a pair of gloves and some lopping shears. my goal for the day was to tackle this mammoth:


i've felt sorry for this tree since the day we moved in. it's so covered in vines that it grew little branches off of the trunk, as low as 1 ft from the ground, for added sustenance. i was worried that if i cleared the trunk the tree would suffer even more. but i figured that if the vines were gone, the tree would have no need for the smaller branches. so i removed both. after about an hour of lopping off branches and pulling vines down, the tree looked significantly improved.

you can see some of the vine stems still on the tree. they were too thick and too attached for me to pull them off. i took off what i could, and then severed the vines as far down as i could. hopefully the higher vines will die and fall off on their own. i took another picture of the front of the house, and was pleased to see that the tree trunk is now visible. maybe tomorrow i'll tackle that clump of vines on the side of the porch...