Sorry I've been absent here for a while - life has been extremely busy with several big changes.
TJ retired in early April and has been looking for work since the beginning of the year - most employers looked at his education and military service and decided "nope, overqualified" and passed him over in favor of those without the college degree or whatever - which from an employer's standpoint, that makes sense, but from the standpoint of a man who isn't looking for a second career and just wants a job to supplement retirement income in order to provide for his family, it is frustrating. Anyway, as we were quickly reaching the tail end of our savings, we agreed and decided that perhaps it would be best if *I* applied for work to help through the transition of settling in to civillian life. Since I love being around elderly folks and enjoy taking care of people, I applied at an Assisted Living home, interviewed for the position two days later, and got the call offering me the job later that afternoon. I started working the following Monday. It's a good job, though hard work, and I have come to love the residents that I help care for - but it's been hard being away from home and family so much. I've been a stay at home wife and mom for the last 16 + years, so this has been a big change/ transition for all of us. In the meanwhile, TJ has continued to look for full time employment while working a part time job unloading semi trailers of packages for delivery - which is also hard work (and how!). That position is coming to an end as he prepares to start his new full time job in a warehouse tomorrow (Monday) morning.
On other fronts, the kids are finishing up 4-H projects for the fair this weekend, with interview judging coming up in just two more days. I think we'll all be thankful when Wednesday rolls around and it's all done and submitted. Next week we hope to attend the fair and see all the projects submitted by all of the 4-H kids in the area, as well as our kiddos' displays - I'll try to post a picture soon, taking one is an annual tradition "for posterity".
Our barn critters are doing well, this newest batch of pigs seems to be doing well and the male pigs are surprisingly large for their age - the females are all pink/ white and not nearly as big as the males, but that's ok! They still have time to grow and fill out, and we're not locked in to butchering them all at the same time anyway. The calves are growing and all are weaned now, which makes feeding time so much faster! Our mare continues to grow and we anticipate her baby arriving in another month or two (I didn't mark the calendar from when the neighbor's horse ended up paying us a visit, so I'm not entirely sure when she conceived... it was sometime in September or very early October, though.
That's pretty much it - the kids are enjoying their summer break from school, and we're hoping that I can go to part time hours soon, now that TJ has a full time job - I've been putting in 40+ hours a week up to this point, but will go to working 4 days a week instead of 5, plus one of those days is not a work day for TJ, so our oldest (18) is only in charge 3 days a week. Her next college semester begins next month, and we plan to start our upcoming homeschool school year in early September - another change - we usually start in the middle of July - you know the kids don't mind delaying our start, though!
Anyway, that's it for now... I'll try to get a picture up in the next week or so of the kids' finished 4-H project display.
