**I started writing this post on December 11th...and I'm only finishing it now...on December 20th.  What can I say?  I'm super slow as molasses.**

It's been a long time since I've posted and much has happened since I last posted.  I'm not very good at regular posting.

•  My Mom sold her house and moved to an apartment.  It's been a relief not to have to worry about the house and her being in the house in the winter.
• I am still waiting on that job that I posted about almost a year ago.  The job was posted in December 2009.  I went for the test in April, the interview in July, they checked my references in October and a couple weeks ago I got an email about the position.  It told me that I met all the essential qualifications and that I was placed in a pool that may or may not be used to staff the position, blah, blah.  I can check the job poster to see if the position has been filled and so far it's still open.  So, I guess I'm still in the running?
• My Discernment Committee recommended to my Church Council that I become a Candidate for Diaconal Ministry!  The year long discernment process is over! It's mostly official now.  It still needs to be approved by Presbytery and I have to sit two candidacy interviews, but I am pleased that things are moving along.  If all goes well I can do the first module this May/June.  I hope to post more about the program I am undertaking and what it all involves.
• I applied for another position in a different department and I've gone to write the test for the position. 
• I've been super busy making things for Christmas.  I've got so many pictures to take and upload for everyone to see.  Andrew is super excited about Christmas this year.  He woke Husband and me up at 6:15 AM this morning to tell us that Christmas is coming in 4 days!  lol.

Well, that was a hard test. A hard test and a long test.

We had 1.5 hours, but I easily feel like I could have written for about 3 hours. Maybe even 4.

Some sample questions & exercises in no particular order(I tried to take the copy of the test questions, but they wouldn't let me):

The section in your department has decided it needs a new records classification system. What steps would you take to make this happen & why?

What is the difference between an official and transitory record?

What is the role of Information Management in the Fed Govt.?

Here, recreate this 4 sheet spreadsheet with a zillion columns of numerical data on the laptop WITH NO NUMBER PAD. Go ahead, I dare you and while you're at it do these vague things too and oh just when you think you're done with this shitty excel spreadsheet I'll throw in this demand to make a header field.

Write a short memo to Ms. Smith asking her to appoint you acting information holdings specialist. Be sure to include your reasons behind this request.

Write a short memo to Mr. Smith (oh, I betcha didn't think I would notice that did you?!) asking permission to meet with his department to provide them with recordkeeping training. Be sure to include why this is important what you will include in the training.

Please tell us whether the following are an official record or a transitory record:

They throw in some easy ones and then this...You are at lunch with your boss. She writes down an amount for a budget allocation on a napkin and hands it to you. Official or Transitory?

Please tell us briefly what all these acts do and are about:

Then follows about 6 or 8 acts and I end up allocating about 3 mintues to each act. This act deals with...got real tiresome, real fast but I didn't know what else to do.

So, I don't think I passed. It was....an experience. Writing this test I knew it's not what I want to do and I know that my heart is not in it and that nowadays records for me is quite blah and boring and I've got no drive to keep good records or manage records or preserve them or anything. I know I want a real job, with real duties, that help real people do real things and REAL STUFF, ya know?

Anyways, I hope I make it into the pool of qualified candidates, but I'm not betting all my cookies on that. So, I'll keep everyone posted if I hear back from them.

I am writing my test for the CR-05 position this afternoon. I printed off and read a bunch of material about the Department and Information Management. It was as dry as dry could get and I don't even know if it's the right stuff. I'm feeling quite nervous about this test. I am telling everyone I am just doing it for the experience and I think that is true. I didn't pass the last CR-05 test, so I'm not sure about this one, especially because I wasn't provided with any clear direction about what to study. I'm expecting an essay question, short answer, t/f, and multiple choice on the test.

Wish me luck. I'll (try) to report back tonight!

Thank goodness today is Friday. This week felt like it was never going to end!

Just a bunch of little snippets today while I eat my Raisin Bran (yep, that's right, Raisin Bran on a Friday night) and wait for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution to start.

• In work news, today was the other civilian's last day. Monday she starts another job with the Department. I'm sad to see her go, but also maybe a little secretly glad because she was starting to outshine me in the work department. :P Now it's back to me being the only civvy and therefore the best civvy. :)
• Remember how I had emailed Betty in Edmonton about the CR-05 position? She emailed me back yesterday and let me know that there was a Winnipeg position open as well and was I interested in that one. I immediately said yes and she invited me to write the test! I go for that next Friday, the 16th!!! Yay me!
• So now because of the test I have quite a few policies/directives/boring shit to read about Information Management. Yawn. I also have a rather thick required book to read for my discernment committee. & about a dozen 'recommended' books to read. (I'm thinking I might do a post tomorrow solely about all these books). & I have a Worship Service to create. So, lots to do and not so much time for relaxation this weekend.
• My aunt is in town! Yippee! Hope to get to visit with her before she leaves.
• We did our taxes. We are just about breaking even. From what I owed, what H&R Block charged us (read here about why we don't do our taxes ourselves), and what Steve was getting back I think we are getting a .38 cent refund. I'm a little sad as I was planning to put our refund towards spending money for the UK trip...but life goes on I guess and we'll just have to watch our pounds more carefully while we are on Holiday.
• My church is trying something new. Starting this Sunday we are going to be having a shorter service for children and their parents and any adults that are interested in learning more about faith (& perhaps helping with the little ones). This weeks activity is Name Tags. :P

That's about it. I'm feeling quite tired from all the stuff I've been doing and now I'm going to go lay on the couch.

Have a great weekend everyone.

I went to the funeral of an old friends father today. I have not seen my friend in many years. I went through a...shall we say turbulent time a few years ago I distanced myself from many of my friends and family. Most people I've reconnected with over the years, but I never had with Jane. It was very nice seeing her today and in some ways it almost felt like no time had passed. We both cried and I've made the commitment to call her so we can go out for coffee or drinks one night.

I found the whole experience much harder then I was anticipating. Generally funerals don't have much of an effect on me. In a strange way I find them very fascinating. But today I was affected. I know that it is very close to my Father's death still and that events like this will make me sad. I almost felt like I would not be able to return to work in the afternoon.

But, I am glad that I went back to work because I was able to meet with the MFRC 's employment counselor. It was nice to meet with someone and talk about my future. He is going to put me in his database and he gave me some tips for improving my resume/cover letters. He was also telling me about a very interesting sounding job at the Legislature for an MLA.

I emailed Betty from Edmonton about the job and politely declined to continue with the screening process. Husband and I talked about the situation at length and we have decided that for the time being Winnipeg is where we need to be. Andrew has just settled into his new school (& we don't want to replay another disastrous school), my Mom needs us right now, I would have to stop my call to ministry and re-begin the call after a year with another congregation, and the cost of living is so high in Edmonton that we would not be able to enjoy the same standard of living as we do here (ie. Husband staying home with Andrew and working part time in the evenings/weekends). I'm sad, but also feeling like we made the right decision for our family at this time.

Tonight was the second meeting of my discernment committee and I have lots to say on the subject. Just not right now. Right now I'm tired and not doing well with words. I'll have to leave it to another day. In a nutshell though, I don't find I'm communicating very well what I've learned, what I believe, what I've been doing for reflection, and I don't find myself answering their questions very well.

Husband bought a slide converter and we've been transferring slides onto the computer. My Father had a whole box of slides in the basement at his house that no one had ever seen from circa 1983. It's been good for remembering going through all them. I thought I would leave you with some of my favourites.

Months and months ago, back in November I applied for a CR-05 job in another department. It was a posting for positions in Winnipeg & Edmonton and a nice pay raise. You were supposed to indicate which location you were interested in and I checked off Winnipeg & Edmonton. We have always talked about moving to Alberta. I love the landscape, the atmosphere, my aunt lives there, we've got friends there and a new start somewhere has always appealed to both of us. I have applied for a few postings in Alberta: Calgary, Lethbridge, Edmonton, but I've never ever received a call back before.

Wednesday I got a call back. Betty from Edmonton phoned my work (I guess after I had already left for the day) and left a message for me to phone back.

Problem?

I don't know if we want to move right now.

My Dad just died. My Mom is all alone. She has to sell her house and move. All she has left is Me, Husband, and Andrew. My aunt is moving back to Winnpeg and we wouldn't be able to stay with her in the interim until we get sorted. I would have to fly to Edmonton (most likely?) to take the test and probably go back for an interview as well. Our funds are all tied up in this England trip. & what if they want me to start while I am supposed to be on holiday?

Some other thoughts:

• The Public Service is always about Pools. Just because I write the test/interview for this position doesn't mean that it would be the one I end up in. But it would be nice to be in a Pool.
  
• This whole process could take months, even a year.
• The lure of moving and living in a new province and a new city is still with me
• While the position itself was a term, only 1 year, I think because I am a permanent employee with the Public Service they would have to return me to my original job (or a job?) -- Does that mean I would have to move back to Winnipeg?
• If I decline this opportunity to test/interview will it reflect negatively on me in future job applications?

When I phone Betty back what should I say? Decline politely? Ask for more information (ie. what happens after the 1 year is up? can I write the test in Winnipeg, interview via conference call?)? Accept readily?

Thoughts? Any insights are greatly appreciated. I feel lost in this situation.

I have much to report today. It has been a busy time for us! In summary...

• I wrote the test. It was hard. Very hard. It seriously just focussed on asking questions regarding policy and legislation. There was also an essay question. I am confident that I passed...but I am not confident that I will be one of the top 10 test takers that they are going to interview (there were about 75 people taking the test). Even if I don't get an interview I am glad that I took the test. I learned a lot about the Public Service Employment Act and what happens surrounding appointments and what my rights are as an employee.
• The Dept I work for is making a ginormous pool for candidates for a higher up classification. I am going to apply for that I think.
• I have accepted a 'temp' position at my previous church. It is a very different position from the one I was doing before. This position is focusing on intergenerational worship for families. I have a fabulous relationship with the minister and I will be involved in the creation of the position. It's for 16 hours a month and at this point for about $175 a month. In the fall the position will be posted and I will need to apply for it (mostly to ensure that all qualified applicants get to apply & because my mother is the chair of council and my uncle is chair of M&P) but that's okay. I might find it too much to continue on with...or they might not like my style. I am pretty laid back. I feel much more at ease and excited about this project then I ever did at managing the Sunday School.
  
• I continue to take my anti-anxiety meds. It is helping. My OCD issues though are always constantly in the background waiting to spring back up. This is a bad time of year for me and my mental problems. It's always a struggle.
• We continue to save and I am enjoying it still.
• Husband went for a job interview today. It sounds like a good job and if he gets he will be ecstatic. If he doesn't get the job we have decided that we are going to try something a bit different. We have been tossing around the idea of husband staying home full time with Andrew and having me continue to work full-time. A big chunk of our budget is eaten up by daycare and a big chunk was devoted to debt repayment. We have eliminated quite a bit of our debt by re-financing the mortgage and if we could get rid of the $400/month daycare payment our budget is not short by that much. The idea would be that husband would work part time (1 or 2 shifts a week) to make up the difference. Anyways...we have asked daycare if we could pull Andrew for the summer months to do a 'trial run'. Basically see if it is something that we could feasibly carry-out. The trial run was husbands idea and I think it is brilliant!
• I am still working on my Round Ripple Afghan. It is getting to be HUGE! I really love the pattern and I love that I am using up yarn that I have had forever. When I finish this one I am going to make another one out of scraps for Andrew. He keeps asking where his blanket is.

That's about it for me. Busy and busy as per usual. I'm off to tuck Andrew into bed and watch Biggest Loser Australia now.

Cheers!

PS. Northern Living Allowance...I never connected with that reporter. I sent her an email...but she never responded. Oh well! Them's the breaks. I have been working on another post for Gails Success Blog...maybe I should finish it and send it off to her.

On a lark I applied for another position within the govt that is a couple steps up the pay scale. I was quite pleased when I got an email inviting me to go for a test on this upcoming Tuesday...my present office? Not so pleased, but that's okay.

The invitation had some links that 'I might want to study'...well, the links turn out to be policy, after policy, after policy. About 300 pages printed. I know this because I printed them all and now I'm reading them all. That's my big weekend plans. Learning about employment equity, official languages, and Dr. Mario. Oops, did I say Dr. Mario? I meant area of selection. Yeah, that's right. Area of selection.

Anyways, I keep plugging away and making notes and highlighting. The nerd in me must be coming out because I am actually finding some of it interesting.

Wish me luck!

"there is one path for all, but each must walk it in their way"

for years i've had problems with goals. i used to be very good at ignoring my lack of follow through. recently, my quasi-add has really become more noticeable and has begun (i think) to affect my future.

the advent of my blog(s) has made me recognize my shortcomings in this area of personal development. we worked on goals in the portfolio course and of course it was a tough thing for me to work on and elucidate. i'm all over the place. one minute i want to go back to school and take my master's degree. another minute i want to work in a funeral home (long story). or i want to stay at home with andrew and work on my crafting business. it goes on and on for me. sometimes it feels like if i make a goal (ie. to make a post on my blog every day or exercise so many minutes a day) then it's the very next day that it all falls apart. how do i stop this? are my goals too vague? too specific? too unrealistic? too random? too everything?

i have worked on some stuff, and i thought i'd share it.

Craft Corner

In six months to 1 year I will have opened an Etsy Shop and created and launched a website for my business. I will also have researched owning a small business.

In 1 to 2 years I will have achieved 100 sales and instructed classes on how to make the plarn bags and frog a sweater. I will have also written a business plan for success!

As a long term goal (5 years plus) I will be on the road to doing this as my full time business.

In The Now Career

In six months to 1 year I will have completed my portfolio and identified which areas I am interested to pursue as full time employment (this includes recognizing any education or training I might need, any practical experience that I will need to gain, and a plan on how to go about the achieving the above).

At this point I am hesitant to make any more goals until I really know what I want to do. I wish to pray and meditate more on this subject. I want to ask God how I should be discerning.

Money Matters

In six months to 1 year we will have completely eliminated the need to use the overdraft. We will have well established our emergency fund and will have well established a fund to be used for big ticket items (ie. car repairs and house repairs.) We will not use credit anymore.

In 3-4 years well will be consumer debt free. We will have paid off our credit cards, car loan, and consolidation loans. We will also have begun an aggressive Retirement savings plan for Steve as well as myself.

Gail talks a lot about being financially fit--and in this area this is my long term goal--to be truly financially fit. We will maintain our lifestyle of not having or incurring debt, by being prepared with savings that will cover a variety of issues. We will be on a plan to pay off our mortgage quite early (20 years vs. 40 years).

Healthy Living Bandwagon

This is probably the hardest section to write. I make promises to myself all the time. Every minute of every day I am waging a war with my insides about what to eat and how to move and when to weigh myself.

In six months to 1 year exercise will become a part of my daily routine. Just as I surf the internet and watch tv, taking a walk or doing aerobics will become like that.

In 1 to 2 years I will run a 5KM race. I will have learned to run and will be healthy enough to run that distance for that length of time.

As a long term goal I will run a half marathon.

These goals need to be re-evaluated every month I think. I need to stay focused, I need to be checking in to ensure I am still on track and breaking large goals down into smaller, more manageable ones. If I accomplish a goal early, I also need to remember to set another goal to fill it's place! I don't want to not have a path to walk.

I need to recognize and appreciate the fact that things will change and my goals might change as well. Life is fluid. Nothing is set in stone.

Jehovah Shalom.

Today was session 2 of my Portfolio Course. As with the last session I left feeling inspired and driven to do something--anything--to make a change in my life. I need to keep this sense of urgency outside of that course. Among other things we discussed values and value statements. A statement of values is essentially a mission statement as well as a personal philosophy. & while it is easy to say that I have values and strong ideas surrounding what is important to me, it is another thing to identify them as quantifiable and then to put them into words. I find it even harder to put them into words knowing that others and potential employers will be reading these and gaining insight into the depths of, well, me.

but here goes nothing,


I strive to maintain a healthy balance between my work and home life and value the importance of sustaining familial, community, and spiritual responsibilities

I work best when it is work I believe strongly in and provides me with moral fulfillment.

I seek an ethical workplace that recognizes the need for job security, respects diversity, and honors promotion from within by offering staff the opportunity to grow in responsibility, in part by ensuring supportive supervisors participate in information sharing and appropriate guidance.

I am committed to continuous learning and to being part of a harmonious work environment where all involved work effectively together.


& phew that was hard. That was a good hours worth of work to get those 4 statements. I think it is a good start. I'll let it sit for a few days and return to review.

Today I realized I am tired of separating all the parts of Carrie. There's so many boxes I keep. Church, friends, work, family, home, volunteer work. Being computer savvy, being well written (I hope), being spiritual, being crafty--why can't they all go together. Why do I keep them apart and far apart from each other?

Bah, maybe those statements are too righteous.

i have a soul sucking job, and i hate it. there, i said it. it's out in the open. i'm not pretending to ignore it anymore.

this is what i do all day (in a nutshell). open message. click a variety of times. copy. undo. press the format message button. click some more buttons. file, print. save. close. delete. hole punch. staple. repeat 120 times a day.

seriously.

in between those fascinating tasks i also am responsible for PA (their way of saying filing, PA = Put Away), opening and sorting mail, transferring phone calls (mostly to the desk about 3 feet away from me), doing data entry, and my personal favorite alphatizing (yep, that's right, alphatizing).

up until 3 months ago i had the most boring job ever. i had very little to do and most of my day was spent surfing the net, writing emails, and chatting with co-workers. then, someone realized i was competent and could actually follow through with tasks. my job description was re-written and i was given loads more to do. so much more that now there is no way on earth that i could complete all my tasks in a work day--let alone the work week. i am forced to spend the rest of my working days in some kind of paper pile repetitiveness hell.

i miss my old job as school secretary. i miss the unpredictability, the excitement, the hilarity, the craziness, the creativity involved. i miss all the good stuff. (i know i'm ignoring what drove me batty--the misbehavior, the crazy rules, the heartbreaking stories i heard and events i witnessed, the inability to change, the teachers--but really even the bad stuff is looking pretty good).

i took this new job mostly for the money and because it was the government. now, i wonder every day what i should do next and where is this job taking me. where is this job taking me? can i do this for the next 30 years? what do i want to do for the next 30 years--or longer?

i have signed up for this course offered by my employer. it's about creating and maintaining portfolios. sounds simple? hardly. this course (which is six days long spread out over 12 weeks) is so much more. it is about finding your passion and what drives you and what you want out of a career and how to get there and what makes you happy and so on and so on and so on.

last week (the first week) we started writing competency statements. i'm finding this very hard. i had lots of skills and varied duties and broad experience at my previous job, but now? now all i do is click and click and click and hit file and print (& mostly poorly i might add). *sigh*

these are the 3 competency statements for computer skills (we're supposed to have statements for 3 'areas'--i've got a long way to go)

1. enter data efficiently and accurately into ABCD program and departmental MS Access Database to ensure personnel info is up to date.

2. create and design month school newsletter using MS Publisher to inform students and families.

3. identify a need and design in Excel a form to easily and clearly slot students into their options courses.

see how 2 of these are from my previous job?

essentially, i'm feeling like i currently have no skills or competencies or anythings. i'm just a skill-less clicker.