. . . made time for

. . . a bit of art between a couple of very busy weeks. Last Friday was my Betsy's fifth birthday. She invited me to come along with her and her mother to "Build a Bear" workshop, where she created and outfitted a pink unicorn that she named "Uni." Then we had lunch at Nordstom's cafe (grilled cheese sandwich, not mac & cheese.) On Saturday I had a house showing for which I did indeed clean the house, and I went to Betsy's house to play "Sorry" with her. Joey didn't understand the rules of the game and kept trying to steal everyone's tokens or "sorry" them across the room. Last night, when Uncle Matt could be present, we celebrated with a pink and marshmallow birthday cake and ice cream. Elvis the Elf, who is sort of a spy for Santa, has arrived in the house and is watching the kids to report any good deeds or misdeeds. Joey was extremely helpful and Betsy mainly stayed out of Elvis's sight.





Last week, as though by magic, two jobs appeared on my CareerBuilder.com list that I am very interested in. One is at a bank as a Senior Trust Administrative Assistant. I figure I have the "senior" part down, for sure. The description of this job is exactly the type of thing I used to do in my previous life. The other is at a law firm as a paralegal with emphasis on estate and trust administration. Also exactly what I used to do. I quickly applied on line. . . sending in my resume and cover letter. I don't exactly like applying for jobs on line, but apparently that's the way things are done these days. Now I need to convince one of these places that they cannot survive without me. My sister told me she had read somewhere that people are showing up at work places bearing homemade cookies for the hiring staff, or having T-shirts printed up with the company's logo and something like "Hire Me." A bit extreme for me, especially the cookies. I am also going to apply at Kohl's today: I heard they were hiring for 7:00p.m. to 1:00 a.m. shift restocking shelves during the holidays. I figure I can do anything for a month or two. I hope they have jobs available for morning people, though. I can't imagine staying up much past 11:00 p.m., but going to work at 4:00 a.m. would not be a problem for me.

These pieces are 8 x 8" on wood, with no particular plan. . . just kind of playing around. The last one, although blurry, was very experimental. If you squint and look closely, you can see the outline of a dried hosta leaf. Also included are pieces of paper towels I used in the past for clean-up and even some wax paper and plastic bag bits, also used to clean up. I was surprised at how well the plastic bags and wax paper adhere. And the hosta leaf, too, for that matter. The top one is probably done; the bottom two may undergo further experiments.