Christmas past

Well it's two days after Christmas and no we didn't get quite all the traditions in. We still had a very nice holiday though. We did get some cookies baked and decorated. I made bunches of divinity, a couple batches of toffee and a batch of peanut brittle. We had a pleasant evening tracking Santa on NORAD. Killian read the Christmas Story out of Luke chapter 2. We watched some Christmas movies and then went to bed before Santa came. Every one seemed really pleased with their presents. Every night since we've played scrabble. As Kim puts it we've been busy making memories. Of course now we've got to get back to the real world and the mundane day to day activities. But all in all we're thankful to have jobs and to be able to provide for our family. So we're glad to have mundane activities to get back to.

Festivities

With Christmas just 4 days away, I am wondering where the time has gone. I am currently working on divinity. We haven't baked any cookies although the fruit cake is done. Kim and I barely did the Christmas shopping yesterday. I am wondering if we are going to get all the traditions in this year.

Work is going fine. I am learning my job and hopefully will get to the point where I am the one being asked questions instead of doing the asking.

Arianna is here and while the older kids are doing thier own thing. (quite natural for twenty somethings) we are mostly together as a family.

I guess I should just be thankful that we are all healthy reasonably happy and doing fine. this past week two different young people we know attempted to take their own life. It is horrifying to me that they (at ages 17 and 18) find life so awful that they want to end it. I will keep praying for them and their families. I don't know what else I can do.

I am enjoying my calling as first councilor in the RS organization. I hope I am taking some of the burden off the President.

Well back to the divinity.

working women

First full week of work is past and I still really like the job. I am learning so much and still have a tremendous amount to learn. I once again in working with a lot of women though and that has it's down side. I've found that they can be rather catty. The QC dept. seems to be split into two camps. One side likes (or doesn't mind) Tiny (a QC Tech) and the other doesn't. Of course the side that doesn't like Tiny, don't really like each other either. There is a lot of pettiness going on behind people's back. I just try to stay out of it. If they want to vent to me it stays with me unless it may hurt the company in some way then I'll go to my boss. Rod Matthews is my boss and he is stuck with all these petty quarrelsome women. I really feel sorry for him at times.

Life is peanuts

I've made it through the first 3 days. I am starting to get the hang of things. I've shadowed a couple of the lab techs this week and learned a little about what they do. I've been learning about the different paper work and records I'll need to keep. It's been interesting. At this plant we make dry roasted peanuts, honey roasted peanuts, peanut toppings and peanut butter.

The company I work for is named John B Sanfilippo & Sons. There are 5 different plants in the company. The headquarters is located in Elgin, IL. There are plants in Garysburg, NC, Selma, TX, and Gustine, CA as well as the one in Bainbridge, GA. They do private labels as well as their own brand, Fisher Nuts. Our Plant only processes peanuts but I can get all the different nuts the company makes at an employee discount.

I am enjoying working and am looking forward to working for this company for a long time.

New Job

Hurray!! I start my new job on Wednesday. I will be a quality control supervisor at a peanut processing plant. I am actually starting at a higher wage than originally discussed. Corporate felt the original offer was too low. Of course this makes me very happy. The only down side is the 40 mile commute. Still it's a great job. Thanks to every one for their prayers.

Thanksgiving

We went ahead and had Thanksgiving with out Kim. Tatianna and I started out cooking around five or six in the morning. I really do like cooking for the holiday. I guess it's because we tend to be all together working on it. Killian was shelling pecans for the pecan pie, and peeled the potatoes. Perigrine made the jello salad and helped with the yams. TaKayren made the cranberry sauce and helped with the pies. Tatianna helped with the pies, the stuffing, the Turkey, and the rolls. Then we pigged out. We watched the Parade and Christmas movies. We had a relatively quiet and simple holiday weekend. It was nice but we did miss our Kim.

waste

I'll never understand my in laws. On Thanksgiving, Kim and I got up at 2:30 am so he could drive to Atlanta to catch his flight to Salt Lake. Arianna was going to pick him up in Salt Lake. Kim's flight got delayed and by the time he got to Salt Lake both he and Arianna ended up missing Thanksgiving. Kim went to Idaho so he could go to his parent's 50th wedding anniversary party on Friday. He didn't want to go but his sister Lynn went to the trouble to plan it and with all the silliness going on in his family he felt it would be the last time they all got together. It turns out that Kim's sister Shann threw an invitation only party for their parents on their anniversary and invited almost everyone the Lynn had invited. She left out Kim, Lynn, Dell, Fwan, and Jan though over half the brother and sisters. To make a long story short, the party that Lynn planned was ruined and Shann and Todd never showed. We gave up having our first holiday in over a year together so Kim could go to this for nothing. Now it's over, Kim won't be going back there for any reason. He may go to hunt with Dell but as far as the family goes it will never get back together. Kim is saying he won't even go back for funerals. His family's rift is beyond repair and the ones who care are not the ones who are in the wrong. I don't understand why Alene (Kim's mom) would do this. She let Shann plan this party and went along with it. Why didn't Robert (Kim's dad) do something. Parents are suppose to try and heal the wounds between their kids not make them worse. Alene drives wedges between her kids. She makes up stuff, tells it to the people involved and it makes bad situations worse. It is a waste. A waste of the holiday. A waste of a good family. A waste of a good relationship. A waste of a good life.

Yankee in the Deep South

Here is is November 24, 2008 already. We've been in Ochlocknee, GA for a month now. So far so good.

We are in a branch at chruch and boy do we feel welcome there. Killian makes up half of the Aaronic priesthood quorums. Tatianna makes up a third of the Young Women's classes. And TaKayren and Perigrine are one fourth of the whole Primary.

It's been a different culture. Tatianna was her usual polite self to an older man in the Walmart and he asked her if she had taken Jesus Christ as her Savior to which she replied "yes" He then asked her to pray with him. She said she would and he prayed for her to be protected and guided. She found this to be a little weird. I told her "welcome to the deep south" People here are really friendly and genuinely so.

There are a few kids around us and the three youngest actually have playmates. They spend most afternoons outside playing until dark (6:00pm). It has been good for all of them.

I, of course, found a fabric/quilting store close by and our local Walmart has fabric so I won't be going through withdrawal any time soon. I know there is a Joanne's in Tallahassee but I haven't found a regular craft store as of yet. I am sure I will as soon as I take the time to look. I have taken a quilted table runner class that turned out really cute and I actually quilted it on my sewing machine.

I continue to be unemployed and draw unemployment. It averages to about what I brought home in a slow week at the cheese plant. I am waiting to hear when I start at the Peanut Plant in Bainbridge. He offered me a dollar more an hour than I was making. I will have less responsibility. Plus benefits and raises. I will basically be the assistant to the Quality Assurance Manager. A lot of paper work, some lab work, doing all the GMP Training, and all things dealing with holds, returns, customer complaints, and audits. I will be expected to sit on safety teams, haccp teams, etc. It's a fairly big company based out of Chicago, IL. They have 5 plants processing different types of nuts throughout the country. The one in Bainbridge does peanuts. I may not get a start date until after the Thanksgiving holiday though. I am hoping I will start soon though because it is getting harder to come up with two new employer contacts a week. The job market down here is not great. and with unemployment climbing I want to be working before it gets much worse.

Well that's about it for today.