The announcement of the reduction of work hours in the call center this week was not much of a surprise at all. Ever since the holiday shopping season ended the call center management has been offering to allow workers leave their shift early (without pay of course) due to a lack of calls coming in.
While only offered occasionally at first, over the last month "Early Out", as it's called, has been offered on a daily basis for both the morning and evening shifts.
On Monday, the 8th, the work hours reduction was announced. At least it's not a layoff just a cut back; although there was an option to voluntarily take a 6 week layoff with unemployment benefits. I will probably have my hours cut back but I can get partial unemployment for the balance of the hours I miss.
The only optimistic aspect of this whole thing is that once the 6 week period is over my schedule may change. Perhaps I'll finally get Sundays off. I've been praying for that for a while.
The announcement at work was not the best way to start off the week. Tuesday showed me that God does supply our needs at just the right time. The blessings of Paula's bonus and our income tax refunds was a double financial "shot in the arm" from and a testimony to the faithfulness of God. We now have some extra money to pay, on our credit card balances, for car repairs, and, use for our vacation.
Speaking of car repairs, I took Paula's Oldsmobile to get the brakes fixed on Friday. In addition to needing rotors and brake pads on the back it needed an intake manifold gasket replaced, 2 new front tires, a front end alignment, a new fuel filter, and an oil change. Overall it was a rather costly trip to Midas. But praise be to God we had the money to cover it.
Last week I mentioned that both Paula and I came down with colds. By the end of the week I was feeling better. This week Paula's cold got worse. She stayed home from work Wednesday and Thursday. She decided to go see her doctor on Wednesday afternoon. She got an antibiotic to help her get better. She was feeling a much better by the end of the weekend.
Three months after I bought it I finally set up and used the turntable that converts record albums to MP3 files. I spent Thursday recording an album of Disney songs by Mary Martin and the Do-Re-Mi children's choir.
This album is a special to me because it 's the first album of Disney music I ever owned. I used to play it on my Show N' Tell. (see February 19 post). Although the original album was long gone I managed to get a copy last year. One side of the album features songs from the movie Mary Poppins. That was the first Disney movie I ever saw in the theater. I think I was about 5. Thanks for taking me Uncle Gene.
Also on the album are (the B side) are other songs from other films popular in the early 60's. Having those songs to listen to brings back memories of all the time I spent in my room listening to and memorizing them. Who says you can't go home again? With these songs I made it all the way back to to the days I was in first grade...at least in my mind, anyway.
I also recorded to MP3 a 4-album set of Christmas songs by Lawrence Welk. The 1969 collection from Reader's Digest Records was played in the Havens' household during many a holiday season for nearly 3 decades (the 70's, 80's & 90's). My sister Peggy played these albums until they were worn out. I was excited to get a copy of them a couple of years ago and now I have them as MP3 files. I look forward to sharing these songs with my sisters this coming December.
As easy as recording the albums with my new turntable was I began to think about what other albums I might want to find and record to an MP3 file. The first one I thought of was a comedy album by Alan Sherman: My Son the Nut. It was the very first comedy album I "fell in love" with. I googled the title and found out that, much to my surprise, I could get the album from the ITunes store. I downloaded it immediately. Just another little piece of my childhood recovered.
While a lot of the plans are still up in the air I continue to do research and make some initial plans for our June vacation trip to Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. This week I received maps and information about the DC Metro Subway system. It's the only efficient way to get around that city, especially the area of the National Mall. I've also determined that if we drive (we're still looking into flying) the first night we're going to stop halfway there in Charleston, WV.
In my continuing education and effort to improve in the world of ventriloquism this week, I finished writing the first sketch for the Schnozz character I'm going to introduce at AWANA at the end of this month. I've also ordered a toy saxophone which I'm going to use with Schnozz.
In one of the first steps to making more contacts for VBS performances I ordered business cards promoting my ventriloquism. I've contacted a local Baptist missions director, our local librarian, and my associate pastor asking them for a letter of reference to include in the VBS packet I'm going to send out later this month.
I also decided to take the big step and buy a camcorder to make some promotional videos for future contact packets. I've been looking to buy one from ShopNBC for a while but couldn't find one that fit into my budget. I did find one within my price range on QVC though. Ironically I paid for it with my ShopNBC Mastercard.
On the weight loss front I am losing a a pace a bit better than last month. I've gotten into the bad habit of not exercising every day. But on a more positive note I did something this week I haven't done in a long time, if ever. I know I write that line every week but I never get tired of being able to tell you about my steps into new "territory". I went to Walmart and bought shorts right off the rack. What's even better is that the size I got was too big. I had to return them. So I no longer have to buy the biggest size Walmart sells, at least in athletic shorts.
To go along with that exciting (at least to me) event is the good news that I have now officially dropped 6 pants sizes since my surgery. That's good news with the exception of the fact that I am at the end of my clothes reserves. What I mean is that over the years I've stored away clothes that I planned on fitting back into someday. Well it's now "someday" and beyond. Nearly all the clothes I had stored away either fit me or are too big. That's a good problem to have.
The television show celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour Michael and I went to see taped in Nashville back in January (see January 13 post) aired on CMT this past Saturday night. I watched it and saw myself on camera for a few brief seconds near the end of the show. Michael wasn't on camera at all even though he was sitting to my right and should have been. He thinks they might have digitally edited him out because he had a Metallica hat on. So once again I have a small claim to fame. Technically I appeared on a TV special with Foxworthy, Engval, Larry the cable guy and most importantly Jamie Presley.
Speaking of this past Saturday night, I would like to thank my lovely wife for a good old fashioned "date night". We went to see a local youth theater group's production of the stage play "The Jungle Book". It wasn't the Disney version though. The two daughters of our friends (Ben & Debbie) played a wolf and a monkey in the show. I was nice to spend some time visiting with the family including Kaitlyn and Mayme after their excellent performances.
For dinner we went to my favorite downtown Bowling Green restaurant, Mariah's. We got dinner for each of us for under $20 thanks to their 30th anniversary celebration. There was 30% off the prices of selected dishes on their menu.
It was a little late when we got home (considering we lost an hour due to the start of daylight savings time) but it was a very very nice date night.
That's it for this week's review. I'll catch you up on what's going on with my job and other things God is doing in my life next week. Until then I'll keep praying for y'all.
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