the down and dirty truth

To say that the last couple of weeks have been hard or strange would really be an understatement. To say that the last week has been hurtful would be true. To say that is has damaged my self-worth, played yo-yo with my emotions and really forced me to rely on our savior would be the absolute down and dirty.

My job has been cut to 10 hours a week.

My nice, salary-paying, health insurance giving, book reading job as a librarian is basically gone, and in it's place is the title "library aide."

Yup.

Its a story that goes back to last October when the technology facilitator left and the office wanted to combine my job with that job and have one person fulfilling both roles. I was informed of that and invited to interview for the position. Invited to interview. I did not think the two jobs could be done by one person, and said so. I started to look for new jobs, knowing that mine was safe through the end of the school year.

But then something started to happen. I had to do the job, because no one was there to do it. I solved technology problems, I facilitated the school-wide new computer exchange, I performed the technology inventory along with the library inventory. I did it.

At the end of the school year, I told the assistant principal I was willing to talk about the position, being more confident in my abilities to handle it. I was told that the principal would let me know.

Then they hired someone else and I got an email saying there would be 10-15 hours available for me. As an aide.

Of course, there is always more to the story and in this case that is true. But, I'm trying not to be spiteful and vindictive and cry out "it's not fair!" and "what could you be thinking?" and a few other choice words that aren't appropriate for me to type. I've cried and prayed and struggled with this, and I still come out feeling less-than and unwanted. I come out feeling not-enough and cast aside. I come out feeling unheard, un-cared for and shafted.

And I'm right. I did the get shaft.

But I'm really not unwanted and un-cared for by the people that matter. This was just my boss and the school system, not my family, not my husband, not my God. The reality is that YES, I'm hurting and scared and not sure where the money is going to come from, but God knows. He will see us through, even if I don't grasp that right now. Even if I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel or how it will possibly work out or how I will face all my co-workers feeling so embarrassed. And how it isn't the fault of the person they hired and so I shouldn't blame her at all.

We all want other people to see us and say "Isn't she wonderful?" but the truth is that not everyone is going to think that about us, and in this case, my principal just doesn't see me in that role. No matter how hard I worked or what I did.

So it makes me wonder what other role God has planned for me. What will he teach me next about myself? Where will he lead me? I pray that I can receive his peace and release the worry. I pray that I choose to believe his promises and release the feeling of shifting sands beneath my feet. I pray that I can talk about the details with my boss without dissolving into a puddle. I pray that I can clean out my desk and be thankful for the hours I will get, instead of mourning the ones I lost. I pray that I can explain this to little faces who wonder why I'm not the librarian any more when that's all I wanted to be.

I hope that you will pray with me.

See? The down and dirty truth. It hurts. It exposes me. It shows my weakness when all I want to do is show you my good side. I've hinted around in a couple of past posts that bad job things were happening, but I didn't want to tell you until I was sure. I still haven't told my mom. I'm just so embarrassed.

cleaning grout

Here is the picture of the "before" grout. It doesn't look that bad in the photo, but it was pretty brown after 40 years of use.

This is during the process. I used a cleaner called Heavy Duty Acidic Cleaner by Miracle that is in a blue jug available in the tile aisle of Home Depot. It is VERY smelly and you need to open windows and use your ventilation fan. You dilute it three to one with water and spread it out on the tile in small sections and use a scrub brush. Scrub, scrub, scrub. And ask your husband to come in behind you and take pictures because you are wearing rubber gloves.

Isn't it so lovely? The clean part is at the top of this photo.

The "after." Isn't it a miracle? We had to leave the fan running for several hours to really get the smell out. The cleaner certainly works and I have one more bathroom to go. The funny thing is that when we first bought the house the grout looked white, but then we realized that they had patched some drywall and sanded it down. All the drywall dust settled into the grooves and made it look white. When I mopped the bathrooms for the first time, the grout kept getting darker and darker and I thought I was going crazy. Then I realized what had happened.

So now I have clean grout! Aren't you proud?

the tale of two chandeliers

So this is the chandelier that came with the house. I imagine it was a shiny bronze back in the day, but had darkened up some in the 40 years this house has been around. It wasn't horribly ugly, but it wasn't the best chandelier either. At first, it was just the fake candles, but it was better once I added the lamp shades.

I really wanted one that came from Pottery Barn, but a three hundred dollar chandelier isn't in the budget.
Enter this FREE chandelier that came from the side of the road! A house around the corner put it out on the curb, and I spotted it one afternoon on the way to the grocery store. We had no idea if it worked or not but figured "why not?"

We didn't really like the finish, so I bought some spray paint and covered the light sockets with christmas plastic wrap. Then it was outside to spray paint. My husband held it for awhile, but then we hung it from a tree branch and sprayed some more.

I chose this hammered finish spray paint that was about $6.

I am so glad that it turned out well. Charlie worked yesterday to hang it up and once we got the right kind of light bulbs, it looked great!

So, for the cost of a can of spray paint, we got a new chandelier! I am so excited about how nice it turned out and that it was relatively easy to hang up. Well, easy for Charlie.

Tomorrow, stay tuned for before and after pictures of my adventure in grout cleaning! It was a smelly, messy pain, but it looks amazing.

bathroom befores

The old sink with the nice metal rim and obligatory rust spot. And a nice cheap plastic-y crystal faucet.

Our lovely tiny tiles. White and off-white with ugly grout.

This is underneath the sink, where I guess the previous owners had some water leakage problems and removed the bottom of the cabinet.


The whole sink and cabinet combo with mirror on the wall. We have already replaced the various towel racks and the light fixture above the sink.

There is this huge space between the toilet and counter, but if we got a bigger cabinet we wouldn't have ANY space. In this picture you can also see the handy-dandy cup and toothbrush holder attached to the inside of the cabinet.

master bedroom questions answered

Oh, first I am going to answer some questions about my master bedroom. Yes, my bedspread is from Pottery Barn. It is one of the few things that I own from PB and I think I got it on sale. The wall hanging over my bed is actually an old door that we had from taking down a wall in the kitchen that I painted brown and then found the translated French online. I wrote the words with a colored pencil, then painted on top of them, then I glazed over most of it.

Yes, I will certainly post some before and after pictures as we do this project. Tomorrow we start with ripping some things out and cleaning up some things. This means I won't be able to use the bathroom for a couple of days, which isn't fun, of course, but is a means to an end.

There is more job stuff going on, so if you would keep me in your prayers, I would appreciate it. Without giving too many details, let me just say that my school job is changing drastically and I am struggling with the change. It is really an odd situation and I will give you more details when I can. Needless to say, there are always financial concerns when a job changes, and I tend to worry about that kind of thing. I keep telling myself that God has this all in control, and that he has a plan.

Pictures of the bathroom to come soon.

master bathroom

Our house has been a work in progress, from the kitchen remodel we did, to painting and decorating all the rooms. The last room we are working on is the master bathroom, which, since our house was built in the 60s is tiny and boring. Oh, and I have no pictures yet, since my bathroom is a little dusty and you don't want to see that.

It has a single sink, toilet and shower/tub combo, except the tub is too short for me to actually sit in it, so it is useless. We have little white square tiles and old fixtures, and the bathroom cabinet has no floor, so you see through to the cement subfloor. I promise I will actually have some "before" pictures before we start anything.

This is our master bedroom.

Anyway, we found a vanity that was clearanced out at Lowe's, a new toilet, faucet and light fixture. We can't do anything about the tub at this time, but I am going to clean the grout on the floor and seal it too. Then I had to go and pick out a paint color, which was so frustrating because I wanted to pick out a shower curtain first. So we went around and around looking for a shower curtain, only to have the one I liked best be a plastic one. It is clear with white leaves, and we have white towels, so I could go with any color. I almost did a lavender gray color, but I ended up with a Behr color called Gobi Desert. I wanted a Martha Stewart color called Tobacco leaf, but they wouldn't match it in Behr paint because MS won't let them, so I had to pick another color. So frustrating.

So, this project is going on this week, so I'll keep you posted!

my saturday

Today I started out with the best of intentions. I tried to sleep in, but I kept waking up and finally just got up. Charlie and I had talked about washing the cars today and cleaning the inside, plus I was going to weed the front flower bed. Since the flower bed was in the shade at that time, I started with weeding. I got that done about the same time Charlie came home from his Saturday morning coffee date with his friend Tim.

Before we could wash the cars, we had to wash off the driveway from all the berries that have fallen this week. My husband always throws in that we wouldn't have this problem if I would let hm cut off branches or cut down the tree. I point out that we like having the shade the other 48 weeks of the year and it provides us a little more division between our yard and our neighbors. Plus, I get to take cool pictures of the berries, right? LOL.

But once all that cleaning was done, and I could rest, I got a little blue. I've been in a little bit of a funk the rest of the afternoon. We even gave Lucy a bath, and that is normally a pretty fun time, since she is all wiggly and cute when wet. Today she even turned around and licked a big swipe of shampoo of her side and had all this green shampoo in her mouth that we had to rinse out. But I'm still feeling a little out of sorts, and it isn't PMS. I guess I don't really know what's bothering me, but I feel like I could cry. But my husband just called and said he would bring me a hot fudge sundae, so that will be a nice treat.

Hmmm. Hopefully things will look up tomorrow.