worry

My grandmother-in-law posted this on her blog and I think I should try to heed it's advice right now.


"For every problem under the sun,
There is a remedy or there is none;
If there be one, hurry and find it,
If there be none, never mind it."




"Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something
to do, but doesn't get you anywhere."

Some bad news.

I don't really know how many people are aware of our situation with Dannon. I am pretty sure everyone knows Raymond had surgery in March. Raymond took FMLA leave in order to have the surgery because Dannon refused to give him vacation time because he did not know two weeks in advance of the surgery in order to schedule it as vacation. When Raymond was released to return to work by his doctor Dannon refused to allow him to return to work, they called him the day he was supposed to go back and told him not to come in because they needed to deal with their legal department and they would call him when he could come back. Needless to say we hired an attorney (difficult thing to do when you are poor.). Our lawyer and Dannon's lawyer finally worked out an agreement and Raymond was finally allowed to return to work on July 14 with some demands that were agreed upon. Federal law says that a person cannot be penalized for taking a leave under the Family Medical Leave Act but that is exactly what Dannon had done and we knew eventually Dannon would have to allow him to return to work, when Raymond initially took the leave on March 12 Dannon gave him what they call an Occurrence which is basically a mark against him on his record, one of our demands was that this occurrence be removed and was agreed upon by Dannon's lawyer. Well anyway this Wednesday when Raymond went to work he was asked by his coach to come with him to speak with the HR director. The purpose of the meeting was to Terminate Raymond's employment with Dannon, they used the unlawful occurrence wich was added to Ray's record on March 12 as grounds for his termination which is obviously in violation of their own legal agreement, our lawyer has already drafted a letter to Dannon's lawyer to make them aware that they are in viloation of a legal agreement and demanding Raymond's immediate reinstatement. Our lawyer has given Dannon's lawyer until until the Aug 26 to reply. Obviously we are upset and frustrated and are somewhat at a loss about what we should do at this point. Luckily I did just get hired by fairchild however my income will be less than half of what Raymond was making. We understand that people are concerned and worried about us, we appreciate it and ask that everyone give us some time to deal with this situation and decide what we are going to do. We have a lot of decisions that we need to make in a short amount of time and I am taking this especially hard. Please keep us in your prayers and hopefully things will work out ok.

A new job?

So I applied for a job at Fairchild Semiconductor online and was later invited to attend a " Getting to know you/ Interview " thing. Two days later I recieved a phone call,(I didn't answer because I didn't recognize the number) they left a message informing me that they would like to offer me the postion. I called back but they are in South Portland, Maine so they were long gone by the time I called. On Saturday I recieved a packet by fedex with a bunch of forms that needed to be signed and returned and the drug test paper that I needed to take in to an urgent care office to be tested for pre employment. So I did all of that and they called me back and officially offered me the position again. So as long as my Drug test comes back clean I will be starting Sept. 2 at 8:00 am for orientation. I will be working 12 hour shifts every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and every other Wednesday 7:00 am - 7:00 pm. It is a clean room enviroment and I will have to wear what they call a bunny suit, basically I will have to wear latex gloves that come up to my elbows, a full smock with sleeves coming to the wrists and legs down to the ankles, little white booties, a hair net, face net and hat, pretty much the only thing visible will be my eyes but even those will be covered by safety glasses. I wont be able to use hair spray or wear perfume, make-up or nail polish. So pretty much you just roll out of bed and go to work, I could even go in jammies.

How to stop swearing: Painful

So I have decided that I swear too much and that I want to stop. I typed "How to stop swearing" into Google search and got lots of answers most of them the same. They all had at least 10 steps most of which included, 1. Recognize that you have a problem. 2.Understand why you swear. 3. Know why you want to stop swearing. 4. Make a commitment with yourself to stop. 5. Express yourself better. 6. Accept responsibility. 7. Enlist support. 8. Find substitute words. 9. Punish yourself. 10. Reward yourself. 11. Persevere.

That seems like an awful lot of steps for something that I thought was a relatively small problem. I feel like I should be walking into a meeting and saying " Hi, My name is Britteny and I swear." and then everyone will clap and say " The first step is admitting you have a problem."

So anyway I have completed steps 1-4 and 6-9, I will work on expressing myself better (step 5) and reward myself when I feel I have accomplished my goal (step 10). As far as my punishment goes (step 9) I have chosen to wear a rubber band around my wrist and every time I swear I pull it up and then let go, man it hurts! A swear jar that you place a quarter into every time you swear was also suggested but I just don't have that many quarters, and I think the pain will be more effective for me.

They also say 21 days to break a habit, so by August 24Th I should be able to walk into my meeting and say " Hi, my name is Britteny, and I no longer swear.". Wish me luck and if you catch me swearing make sure I pull my rubber band.

My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. For some reason 28 feels so old to me. Raymond and I got to go out to dinner with my parents and his parents, plus Colton, and Roby & Amanda. We were planning on going to Chili's but when we got there the wait was 30-45 minutes and we didn't want to wait that long so we went to Famous Daves, it was good but I was kind of bummed about not going to Chili's, I seriously love their southwestern eggrolls. After dinner Ray and I went to see Hancock. Good movie, though I was able to guess fairly early on what was going on between the Hancock and Mary characters. In between dinner and the movie I got a horrible stomach ache and I am almost worried that I have food poisoning, I am still having the stomach pain today, it has been awful I can hardly move. I am thinking I will avoid food on special occasions from now on, my anniversary meal resulted in gall bladder surgery and now this stomach ache.