I have secured employment!

The short story:
Today I was offered, and accepted, a job as a clinic assistant at a family practice doctor's office. My job duties will primarily be receptionist work and paperwork, but I'll be trained to cover for medical assistants (CMAs) also -- which means things like taking vitals, giving shots, and drawing blood. I think it'll be a great opportunity to learn how a doctor's office runs and to gain some clinical skills. Also, I interviewed with four different staff members at the office on Friday and they all seemed like they will be good people to work with.

I guess I need to find some business casual clothing.

The long story, which is actually kind of interesting:
A few weeks ago, a single dad interviewed me to nanny for his three sons. We scheduled a time for me to babysit the boys to see how it would go. They seemed like a nice family, but I realized that the schedule they needed didn't really fit what I was looking for -- short-term employment until I could find a job in the health care or biomedical research field. Then I got my nannying job for the twins, so I called the dad back last Tuesday to tell him it wasn't going to work.

He wasn't that worried about it. He asked me again what field I was looking into. I told him, and then asked if he was in one of those fields. Yes, he was a physician, and his office had just started looking to add another clinic assistant, and would that be something I'm interested in and I should send my resume over. I did. On Wednesday, I was invited for an interview on Friday.

The interview went wonderfully. I left at 1 p.m., and two hours later the HR rep called me to say that the staff (I interviewed with four people) all really liked me and they would offer me the job as long as my references came through and I passed a drug test.

This morning I got a call from the HR rep. My references had both said positive things about me and he assumed I would pass the drug test (I did; not a surprise) and so they were formally offering me the job. Obviously I accepted.

Nannying

This week I started nannying part-time, short-term (to fill the employment gap a little). My charges are two-year-old twins. I will call them Ian and Phoebe. (To protect their privacy, I won't use their real names, but I find it confusing when bloggers protect identities with just initials, so I chose names I think fit their personalities. What can I say? I'm a name nerd.)

Let me start by saying I love two-year-olds. They're one of my favorite ages to take care of. Yes, they can be obstinate. Yes, they throw tantrums. Yes, it is uncanny how frequently they are drawn to things they should not be touching/eating/throwing/coloring. But in high school I worked at a daycare in the two-year-old classroom for two years, and I grew quite fond of that age of child. They retain their babyish adorableness, but they are so much more expressive than babies. They can verbally explain what they want or what they are thinking about. They have imaginations. They can be reasoned with (sometimes). They also sometimes say hilarious things.

At the park on Tuesday, I was pushing Ian and Phoebe on the swings, and out of the blue, Phoebe says, "Michael Jackson died."

What?

This child is two years old. Her parents do not allow her to watch TV. I have no idea how she knows that. I asked if her parents are Michael Jackson fans. She said they listen to Michael Jackson in the car. Then the conversation moved on...

Until this morning. I was reading a children's book to Ian and sort of to Phoebe, but she wasn't paying that much attention. So she says,
"Michael Jackson lives in Arizona."
Me: "I think he lived in California."
Phoebe: "Michael Jackson died."
Me: "I know."
Phoebe then points to a picture of a white woman with shoulder-length black hair on the cover of a book. "That's Michael Jackson."
I can hardly contain my laughter.
Me: "That's not Michael Jackson, but that woman does look a lot like Michael Jackson, doesn't she?"
Phoebe sings and dances: "Beat it! Beat it! Beat it! Beat it!"

This Michael Jackson thing is hilarious. I think Phoebe might know more about Michael Jackson than I do.

What to do with all this time?

Being unemployed is boring. I keep applying for jobs, but I'm letting the application flurry slow down a little bit while I hope to hear back from the jobs I've applied for. (But if you hear of anything...)

So what to do?

Answer: MAKE THINGS.

Here's an up-close shot on a blanket I made last week for my friend's new baby girl. They're doing a bird theme for her nursery and I was really excited to find this adorable flannel print (it's upside down, but it's still clear that those are cute little blue birds). The back is that fuzzy red raised-dot fabric, and you can't see it here, but I put a pink fleece flower detail on the back.















I hadn't sewn anything in a while, so I made this potholder to practice for the blanket (and get my sewing machine's tension right). The fabric is up-cycled from a skirt I got in Mexico as a child, and the lining is a fleece scrap I got a long time ago. When I was going through my stuff, I couldn't bear to get rid of the skirt, so I cut it up and made this:















The materials were essentially free, I got to make the awesome fabric into something useful, and now we have a big potholder. Everybody wins.


Now to shift gears into a different medium -- food. We had Ross's cousins over for dinner last night. One of them is vegan, and I wanted to make a dessert everyone could enjoy. Last summer when I worked at KU Med, Sara over at The Innocent Primate Vegan Blog brought her delicious creations into work a lot, so I know she knows her stuff when it comes to vegan baking. I made these raspberry jam thumbprints from her recipe for Blueberry Jam Thumbprints. They were a hit, and I'm definitely going to make more of them.

Another quick job update

Ross has a temporary job working construction for our landlord's company. Starting next Friday, he'll be operating a drill press for about 6 weeks. Hooray for income!

Edit to update: When it rains, it pours! Ross got a call back from Starbucks this morning and is meeting with a manager on Monday to discuss employment.