Watch Out World!

I'm driving a schoolbus.

The school informed me that I needed to get my CDL license and that I would probably be given a route. No, you don't have a choice, and if you don't take a route you won't have a job either. Thank you sir, may I have another.

Yikes.

I was told in the beginning of the year that I wouldn't have to drive a bus because I was working in a special ed classroom and I had 30 hours a week. Full-time staff isn't required to drive a bus. Well, apparently that provision is flexible depending on the needs of the school. In other words, if we need you to drive, your gonna drive. Great.

So, starting today, little ol' me will be driving a schoolbus. A schoolbus! I was afraid to start driving a normal car! I didn't want to drive so much that I postponed getting my license until I was 18.

Lord help me.

To make matters worse, I rode the route with the old driver and the new afternoon driver (I'll be driving mornings) on Friday. Our bus, is a fossil. This was the bus in the bus lot that the trainer took us on for five minutes, just to show us. He walked us on saying the words, and I  qutoe: "Oh, you'll never have to drive one of these, but I want you to get a look at one just in case."

Thanks Bo.

To top off the fact that we're driving this wreck, we also found out that there is a really bad turnaround on the route. The road we have to turn around on is unfortunately very accurately named Point's End.

It's one lane.

With a lawn on one side and trees, shrubs and mud on the other.

You have to execute a five-point turn in a bus. A school bus, for those of you who are curious, weighs in at 32,000 lbs, is 8 feet tall, and 40 feet long.

40 feet.

And I have to do a five-point turn in it. AHHHHHHHH!

Hang on a second while I stop hyperventilating.

Ok, I think I'm alright now. The only saving grace is that I'm driving so early (6:15) that there won't be anyone on the roads, and I'll be able to do my turnaround before any kids are on the bus. The last thing I need is a bunch of Highschoolers witnessing my humiliation and my destruction of private and public property...

Wish me luck, and if I don't write for a while you'll know that I'm out looking for work.

~ Jen

I Haven't Dropped Off the Face of the Earth.

Well, maybe technologically speaking I have.

We moved into our own place on the 24th of January! It's a cute little blue duplex about five minutes down the road from my folk's house, and the kids and I love it.

I just don't have internet access there, and I probably won't be able to afford it for a good, long, while.

Which would be why you haven't heard from me in a really, really long time...
We also don't have a washer and dryer, so every Saturday after Alex's basketball game we schlep all of our dirty clothes over to my parent's house and do laundry. Geez, I feel like I'm in college.

So while I remain unconnected internet-wise, I will write posts at home the good old-fashioned way and post them on Saturdays.

At any rate, it has definitely been an adjustment being on our own again. I do love it though. I have my own room (thank goodness!), and the kids are sharing their own room. Oddly enough, both of them seem very happy to be in a room together. Well, not that Sarah can protest much, but Alex actually loves sharing a room with her. He's never liked being by himself, and I suppose that this is perfect for him.

Mornings are a bit of a logistics problem because we try to let Sarah sleep while Alex gets ready for school and eats breakfast. We've settled on him picking out his clothes the night before and setting them out in the living room. In the mornings I get him up, we sneak out of their room, and he gets ready in my bathroom. All in all it works pretty well.

So wish us luck guys. We're on our own, and so far, we're doing pretty well.

Auld Lang Syne

Greetings from the South,

HAPPY NEW YEAR Y'ALL!!!

The Lord's Day

"But forget all that -
  it is nothing compared to what I am
       going to do.
  For I am about to do something new.
    See, I have already begun!
       Do you not see it?
  I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
  I will create rivers in the dry wasteland."

      ~ Isaiah 44:18-19

I'm Sorry, We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties...

So I was working at The Grocery Store Friday night, and it was about 11:30. At this point in the night, it's just me, the overnight manager, and the stockers. A young man walked in and handed me some coupons for two free packs of cigarettes, and I didn't think anything of it. I rang him up, and my register required an override from a manager because the free product went above a certain amount. No big deal, right? Right. I paged my manager, he came up to the front, and did the override.

His password didn't work.

He tried it again. His password still didn't work.

Yikes.

You see, when the register requires an override, there's no way to continue ringing anything else up until you resolve the override. Sigh.

Now we normally don't have anyone (and I'm not exaggerating here, I really mean that the store is empty) in the store at this time of night, but tonight (of course) we had five other people in line. Twenty minutes, two phone calls, one grumpy woken up manager, and five pissed off customers later, we finally got another drawer open and I was able to check out the rest of the folks in line.

I'm surprised they didn't riot.

Gosh, I love working at The Grocery Store.