Well the roller coaster ride has finished now to pick up the pieces. Things were getting a bit hectic last week, changing every hour so I didn't do any updates on where I was going or not going with my job since it was just going to change. The final fall out was the position my boss had created for me was approved and I qualified by the chin or my chinny chin chin. I don't have a masters degree so we had to write up a very elaborate resume that showed I had qualifying experience. The final outcome was I had to give up reinstatement rights as an Administrative Assistant II. See there was this other job that came up last week that I could have transferred to but I didn't want to if I was able to qualify for the new job. But when you are laid off and they call you and say we have a job. If you say no, that's it your off the reinstatement list. I and hoped that if the new job didn't work out I would be able to go back to being an Admin II. No such luck and on top of that I am now in a position that is exempt. This is good and bad. The good is I can't be bumped, the bad is it's an at will position so if my boss decided to cut it for budget reasons I'm out with no job I could bounce to.

During all this I was training my replacement from the Port. She is actually a nice lady and I don't hold anything against her for everything that happened. She's pretty happy I'm still around so she can ask me questions as things come up.

On Monday September 21st I started my new position as Management Intern. Yeah Intern is an odd title but the City does not see it as a temporary position. It's seen as a management training position. Oh God you know what this means don't you? I'm being trained to go into management. My new direct supervisor is great. She's all about making a path to where I want to be in 5 years and making sure I get everything I need to get there. It's a bit scary to say the least and I kind of feel I have been throw in the deep end with the sharks. It's sink or swim time.

I'm not going to lose my job. Why, oh why, do Unions and City politics have to make it so difficult and put you on this roller coaster that if your on the bottom of the list there is a chance you will get bumped/laid off. Which I'm not after all. Thank you. I know my boss was pulling every string she could. She didn't want to lose me. She is a bit of a strong personality, I like her a lot but I know people who don't want work for her. So for now I have a job to come back too. I'm taking a week vacation to go camp in the great out doors. Dahlia's first camping trip. Wish us luck.



She is all ready she has her water bottle and everything.

I'm on it again. It's a bit stressful and not at all fun like a roller coaster should be. Things are made even a bit worse that M got laid off June 1st. He was hit by a Mack truck while we were watching my possible layoff train in the distance. It was a bit unexpected but in this economy there is not much you can expect except more layoffs it seems. So tomorrow night is a big budget meeting with City Council, lets not even discuss what the governator is not doing to the States budget that will affect the City's budget and the City will have to do another budget mid year. After the 3pm meeting tomorrow and I have no idea how late it will go they are going to start sending out the layoff letters Wednesday.

M and I leave for our camping trip to Yosemite on Sunday so I should know if I have a job to come back to or not. If I get a letter my last day will be July 3rd. So basically I'll be off a week of vacation and come back and have a week to clean up my desk and get everything ready for someone to come in and take over. It's a bit depressing. I'm looking at the side that I will be laid off and I will get a letter that way if I do I'm not shell shocked and if I don't I'll have a happy day.

I had a notion for Dahlia's Birthday I would make healthy but good cupcakes for her party. I have this idea I have to make organic, home made meals for Dahlia when ever possible and stay away from store bought and boxed stuff. I'm constantly failing in so many ways to live up to these ideals and many others it's not even funny. I was given a cook book called deceptively delicious by Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry's wife) http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com/site/

I thought I'd try and make the yellow cake recipe that called for pumpkin puree and yogurt instead of oil or butter. I followed the recipe as best I could but I substituted a few things and this may be where things went wrong. It called for a standard yellow cake mix from the store but with how much crap and dye is in those things I bought a cake mix from Trader Joes that was a more natural version without the coloring. I mixed up the recipe and baked up the cupcakes. They looked like normal cupcakes coming out of the oven but as soon and they sat on the counter to cool they collapsed in on themselves. They went from a 3 inch high cupcake to a squashed, chewy, dense less then an inch high hockey puck. They were still some what edible. You can ask Martin he ate most of them to get rid of the evidence of my failure.

So now it's the night before her party and I don't have any cupcakes. In a panic I pulled out the yellow cake mix (Dunkin Hines) with its yellow #5 and who knows what else and mixed it up. Of course I'm short on cup cake foils since I used them all on the last batch so I had to scrounge around for others that I could use. So none of them matched and they barely fit in the muffin tins I had. I made the cupcakes and they at least looked like cupcakes when I was done.

I waited till Saturday morning to frost them. I mixed up a cream cheese frosting cutting out 3/4 of the sugar they tell you to put in. Oh my god. The Betty Crocker cookbook cream cheese frosting called for 4 cups of powdered sugar. You have got to be kidding me. So I put in ½ a cup at first, made M taste it, and then added a little more only using a cup of sugar total. I also did not use butter but a little ½ an ½ instead.

OOh #5

I really hope we get to go. We have a site reserved and I really should start getting some of the equipment we are going to need just in case.

All together now (from SF Chronicle May 1, 2009)

Top family-camp destinations:

1. Historic Camp Richardson Resort, South Lake Tahoe

2. Lake Siskiyou Camp-Resort, Mount Shasta

3. Convict Lake Resort, Eastern Sierra

4. MacKerricher State Park, Mendocino

5. North Pines, Yosemite National Park

6. Lake Oroville boat-in floating camps

7. Lake Alpine, Stanislaus National Forest

8. Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

9. Dorst Creek, Sequoia National Park

10. Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite

Source: "California Camping," by Tom Stienstra

I don't talk to my sister (Tamara) much, she's busy, has 5 kids and is not very connected to technology, lives in San Diego, need I go on. Since having my own baby she has reached out a bit more. I think because now that I have a little one we have something in common. Also her youngest is only 3 months older then Dahlia. I wanted to share this. T sent this to me today on my cell phone. It makes me smile I may not talk to her much but it's nice when she sends a pic on the phone.

She calls this Baby Yoga. ahhhh

This is Earth Month and I for one have been doing what I can, I’m not so up on it that I know what my carbon foot print is but I’m still trying to do what I can to reduce the one I have. I try in my everyday choices to not put more in landfills and I recycle everything possible. Dahlia is in cloth diapers except when we go out of town. M has a worm box and I save all food scrapes (non meat) for him to feed his worms. I try and buy recycled, natural and organic when I can. M and I have a few things we do around the house to save water and electricity. This weekend we volunteered at the Oakland Rose Garden pulling weeds and planting trees and it felt good to be out doing things in the community. I have always wanted to volunteer more but life gets in the way and I don’t actually do as much as I think I should. Now what I’m a mom I have this idea that I need to be a good roll model for Dahlia and do all those things I always meant to do but never found the time.

Here is a picture of Dahlia helping as well

HI!

Yes that's what she said Hi! While waving at every single person she saw. It started when I was leaving the house last night about 6:30pm to go pick up dinner for a friend indrigirl as a thank you for watching our cat Salome and a chance to socialize with her since I don’t get to see her enough. Dahlia had just woken up from her nape caused by food coma. M wonders if I have some narcotic drug in my breast milk. Seems every time Dahlia nurses she falls asleep. Anyway I put Dahlia in my Ergo carrier and grabbed the stuff one needs to carry along for baby, diaper bag, blanket, etc. and headed down to grab the stroller out of the jeep. I was going to walk down Piedmont Ave while I can carry D easy in the Ergo with all the other stuff it’s easier to take the stroller. A jogger was approaching us on the sidewalk. D raised her hand waved it and said "Hi". The jogger I think gave a slight smile but mostly just kept on jogging. I was floored. While D has been starting to wave mostly it's been after someone leaves or hours later like an after thought.

Does "Hi" count as a first word? I called my mom to check. As I was on the cell phone with my mom and pushing D down the street we crossed paths with the neighbor and D raised her hand and said "Hi". That's twice! As we rounded the corner and were going down Pleasant Valley two young girls (less then 20 I'd guess) were walking up the hill on the sidewalk and D raised both hands and said "Hi". Wow Okay that's three times and the last one was a double hander. We crossed at the signal of Piedmont and Pleasant Valley and there was a person waiting with their dog to go down Piedmont. D raised her hand again but this time the sound she made was more of a grunt and it was directed at the dog. Maybe that's how you say Hi in dog I'm not sure.

This was pretty much the end of her raised hand and Hi. She was sitting forward in the stroller with both hands clasping the sides as we went down the street. There was a lot more activity. People and stuff going on so I'd say she was distracted. At Baja were I grabbed the burritos for dinner the lady at the counter smiled and waved and D just stared at her. It seems the people who try and initiate a smile and a wave she doesn’t respond but total strangers not paying attention to her at all she was all about waving Hi too. I just don't get it but I'm excited and mystified by Dahlia often.

I've been meaning to write this up. Monday I was home early to watch Dahlia because daycare was closed that day. It was warm day and I had the porch door open and the screen door closed to the house. We have this little sun room/porch, then the main door to the house. Dahlia and I were on the couch in the living room, she was sound asleep when I hear a large crash on the porch. This wakes Dahlia up, crying I might add, I set her down to go investigate what happened. Two birds had flown in and crash landed on the porch, both are trying to get out but instead of going back out the door they are trying to get out the windows, which are closed. At first I thought they were similar birds all I could see were wings flapping and plants being knocked over. Through all this Dahlia is crying. I'm trying to figure out how to get the birds out of the porch and stop Dahlia from crying.

It was a little crazy. Then one of the birds gives up and slides behind the plant stand. I was worried at first it has hurt its self but it was just too tired to keep trying to get out. I moved everything aside and got a cloth to throw over the bird so I could pick it up. It was a little brown dove, tiny thing as small as the palm of my hand. I pick up the bird and carry it outside. Mind you the cat, Salome is wondering if I giving it to her for lunch but I release the little dove and it flies away. Now to tackle the other one, this is when I realize this is not the same kind of bird.

The other bird is still flapping again the window and it's between the large plant stand in the corner and the wall. This bird was big, the size of a raven. It dawns on me what happened. The large bird was trying to catch the small bird for a snack and they crashed into my porch. Great! Now what do I do. This bird is not happy, I just released its lunch and now I'm trying to get it out of my porch. Dahlia is still crying and I don't want to get to close to this bird and have it scratch me or something.

It was a beautiful bird but the beak looked big and mean and the talons were sharp. So I tried to open the windows which have probably not been opened in a year or two. I yanked and yanked on those sliding windows and was wondering what I was going to do if I couldn't get it open, where do you call when you have a hawk on your porch. I was thinking about how I would have to move a bunch of stuff to try and get to the bird see if I could throw a towel over it when the window finally budged. I got it open about 3 or 4 inches and the bird was able to squeeze out and it flew off. It seemed to have survived all it's flapping against the window and wasn’t hurt. It took me a while to calm Dahlia down and I was so wired from the experience I had to call Martin at work and tell him all about it.

I did a little research and I think it was a female Cooper's Hawk. The females are bigger then the males. I wish I had gotten a picture but it was a tense situation that I wanted to solve as fast a possible so I could get back to Dahlia.

Friday being one of my favorites. Only would have been better if I had gotten Anne McCaffrey

I am: Robert A. Heinlein Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Well this is the second week for Dahlia in daycare. We found a nice in home daycare close to our house, affordable, with no more then 6 kids. I really like the lady but it’s a bit of a transition for all of us. Dahlia got sick over the weekend. I think she picked up a new bug from the other kids at daycare. It’s heart wrenching to have to leave her all day. Martin drops her off in the morning on his way to work and I pick her up on my way home. Jackie says Dahlia does really well during the day but Martin says she cries when he drops her off and as soon as I show up she cries until I pick her up and hold her. I know it’s going to take time for all of us to get into the routine but even now I’m sitting here at work wanting to leave early so I can go pick her up. It’s not that I don’t trust the new day care. I spoke to all the parents who have kids at the day care, I checked to see if there were any complaints against the daycare and I felt very comfortable taking to the woman who runs the place. I just want to hold Dahlia. D has been extra clingy these last few days maybe because she was sick maybe because of the new day care and all the change I’m not sure. To tell you the truth I’m not sure about a lot of things.

I mean to write but when I have time I end up spending it reading everyone else's journal rather then updating my own. I've been sick and I'm still sick, it's a never ending cycle. Dahlia and I have had an ugly cold with lots of congestion for a while now which equates to me getting very little to no sleep. I think I'm reaching a breaking point and depression of being sick and not sleeping has set in. I'm stressed out about work and if I'll have a job come July, I'm stressed out about finding affordable day care at a place I feel good about. On top of that then someone tells me stress releases bad hormones into your body which you then transmit to your baby through breast milk. I can’t win.

I’m also starting to wonder if the congestion is caused by something other then a cold. Now I'm worried Dahlia has a milk allergy and I have to give up all dairy products. You have no idea how hard on me that is going to be. I could live on cheese alone. This is all just a possibility but I want to try and explore all possibilities and I'm willing to try anything to make Dahlia more comfortable, which might lead to getting me a little more sleep.

With my lack of sleep I day dream often at work, my current day dreams involve travel. I see airfare deals and wish I could just hop on a plane and go to Hawaii or Australia. I mean wow when was the last time you saw a roundtrip flight from SFO to Australia for $700 (high season), not since 2000 at least, Oh wait I have a baby and a husband and I can’t just hop on a plane. I do have shut down days at work which give me long weekends so then I start trying to plan a trip to Hawaii. While there seem to be some great deals out there I can’t get them to work with my schedule or have the time to really explore them. So I’ve just given up and need to stop these silly day dreams. Wish I could get some sleep.

So today is the 14th. This would have been my last day if I had been laid off. It's been a bit of a rough emotional two weeks. Through all this I have been trying to still do my job and continue on but it really hit today that other people are losing their jobs with the City while I get to stay. Every day in the paper I read about layoffs and that could have been me. What would I have done if it had been me, M and I had come up with a strategy but how long would it have really lasted before we were out of our savings and just scraping by. With so many people looking for work any job out there is going to have a lot of competition.

I'm feeling a bit roughed up by the whole experience. With so many other people being laid off it seem that they are faceless both close to home and in the news. I think the City should publish a list of names of everyone laid off so those of us who are still here know just how many people lost their jobs today maybe we would appreciate the job we have a bit more. I heard a story about one of the utility workers who was laid off who’s been living out of his car with his 5 year old son. I wish there was something I could do for them. How many of those who were laid off today will also be losing their homes because they can’t make the mortgage payments? Unemployment doesn’t pay much and only lasts for 6 months.

My boss faxed to to me (shes downtown in meetings) so I would have it but it's being sent certified mail to my house.

Dear Ms. Pschirrer

This letter rescinds the previous letter you received that advised you would be terminated during probation. You will continue in your present departmental assignment.

I am please to communicate this good news to you. If you have any question or need assistant please call.....

It's from the Director of Personnel Resource Management.

Yea Ha!!!!

Yep that’s my life right now. It’s a big roller coaster, one of those old wooden ones I wonder how it stays together. There was the big lead up to the City making cuts and who would get laid off (chink chink as the cart is dragged to the top of the ride). The whole time, “Oh I’ll be Okay they won’t lay me off”. Then I reached the top and there was this quite and I get the lay off notice, the cart I’m ridding in drops straight down into the first loop, I’m pushed back into the cart by the force of the drop, all these emotions are raging through me, dazed, fear of not having a job, what am I going to do. There is a little leveling off, the ride is still moving pretty quick but I survived the big drop and now it’s just twists and turns. There is this acceptance that I will survive and can figure something out. Then hope as the cart comes into the last turn. Maybe I won’t lose my job and the waiting for the ride to be over, hoping I get a letter that will rescind my layoff notice.

I’m still waiting but I have been told that a letter is on the way. My boss has had meetings all week dealing with the layoffs and she asked that I not be laid off and that they open up a vacant position to bump the person who is being laid off into. She went to the City administrator and showed him her back up to prove that in the next round of budget cuts that she did not plan to cut those positions. She said to wait for the letter to be sure but she has told me that I won’t be losing my job as of Nov 14. Now there is a chance in June when the next round starts that things could change because I am the bottom of the sonority list but she still feels they will not layoff anyone in my position.

I had reached an acceptance and had started to make plans of what I was going to do with myself. Martin was going to put Dahlia and I on his insurance at work. I would be Spending more time with Dahlia and being a stay at home mom for a while. Starting to work on my crafts and jellies and seeing about starting up a cottage type industry getting a table at a farmer’s market kind of thing. So I am sad that I will not be able to explore those plans. But I’m happy I still have a job and with the economy and so many layoffs I know any job out there I might have gone for would have stiff competition.

I’m not sure how to end this except to say there is hope and for now I still have a job.

yep I'm being laid off by the City of Oakland. I'm depressed and the skies look like they are going to open up and rain on me as well. Joy.

Why think for yourself when the media and corporations will gladly do it for you. I have been really upset by the tainted Chinese milk formula and was thinking it was because of the industrialization of China and woman could not breast feed that had to work but then after reading some articles it’s the formula companies, the same ones who’s ads were banned here in the US and are not allowed to give formula to Dr’s or gifts (ie money) to them who have turned there eye on nations like China to sell their products touting they are better then breast milk and encouraging Dr’s to give formula to there patients with bribes and gifts.

"With the recent tainted formula scare in China I immediately became suspicious - why are so many Chinese using formula anyway? It is a poor country, surely they would be breastfeeding? Sure enough, just like in the West in the 40s and 50s, formula is being promoted in China as better than breast milk."

"Consider a little further why there is a growth in formula use in China. It is undergoing rapid industrialization and urbanization, but that does not have to mean the fall in breastfeeding rates that is being experienced. Part of the cultural change is prompted by western companies. For example, Nutricia, now owned by Danone (a French food company), promoted its ‘Kissing my Baby' formula in China in 2004 with this gift CD with children's music."

So who’s to blame for the tainted milk? I think possibly western companies need to be slapped down for this as well. It’s an ugly cycle. Chinese trying to make a buck water down the milk to make it go further and add a substance to make it look like it’s high in protein and western companies push on the consumer that formula is better then breast milk.

Yay! I just love watching the Olympics but I am bad, I check the paper since everything is delayed you can find out what happened before you see it on TV. Of course the best were the pictures of Michael Phelps after the US won the freestyle relay. Oh my can his swim outfit getting any lower (Please;)

http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/08/10/sp-phelpsjmp11_0498914949.jpg

http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/08/11/ba-olympics_swim_0498915123.jpg

Happy Birthday!!! winter_elf

Dahlia Says thats cool