One door closes...

When I 're-entered' the workforce three months ago, I was looking forward to having some adult interaction and time out of the house that didn't revolve around preschool or elementary school routines, or plain old grocery shopping. Starting on a minimum wage of $9.42 an hour, with part-time shifts, I knew I wouldn't be bringing home riches but told myself it would be a good way of easing back into work again.

The shifts I was hired to do were from 6-10pm, three nights a week, and longer shifts on Saturdays when I was available. This was perfect because it gave J time to get home from work (still a rush for him) and be with the Faery and Miss Pie. My financial contribution to our household would be tiny, but at least my self-esteem would feel a little better about the status quo. Even better, it was within walking distance so tussles over who would get the car on Saturdays weren't an issue.

On my first day - in the deli department of a national supermarket chain - warning bells sounded when several other staff members asked which department I'd be in, and then expressed no surprise, mentioning a high staff turnover in the deli department. High staff turnovers are not usually a good sign, are they?

However, I was determined to make it work. I enjoyed chatting to the other team members as we worked, and hearing various life stories. Likewise with the customers. It was one of the things I enjoyed about my time as a pub wench in London, too. I used to mentally file away little details about characters I met, for that book I planned to write.

On my third day, I was given seven large garbage pails to hose out. Bins that each had a good week's worth of chicken juice, flaked off meat, old cheese and sandwich bar scraps stuck to the inside. I don't need to describe the smell, or vomit factor. On that shift, I realised the job was going to be a little harder to like than I'd anticipated.

Over the next couple of months, though, I gradually got used to the tasks I had to perform on those evening closing shifts. Customer service was only a small part of it, as sales tend to taper off after 8pm. Much of the job was about cleaning the deli and getting it ready for the next day. Pulling apart meat and cheese slicers to clean, washing dishes, discarding the day-old pre-made sandwiches, washing dishes, hosing down large chopping boards, washing dishes, cleaning out the hot soup counter, washing dishes, wiping the greasy fingerprints and spills from the many windows of the display cases, washing dishes, emptying the garbage, washing dishes, and cleaning the floors.

Good times. You don't want to know what the soles of my shoes looked like at the end of each shift, or how my apron smelled. My muscles ached in ways they hadn't in many years.

Do I sound like a princess? I hope not. I certainly never felt that I was too good for the job. I viewed it as honest work, humbling, and a good reminder of how lucky I am - that for many people, this was how they earned a living, and it was their only option.

The strange thing is, even though I wasn't exactly loving it, I was determined to make it work. I've never walked out of a job - I've always finished on good terms, because I was either moving to a new city, or into a new field, professionally.

The customers seemed to dig that I'm Australian (a novelty, compared to my London pub days), and overall feedback from upper management was that they were all super happy with me. "... best new hire in a long time", was one quote.

Then in January, word trickled down to me that the corporate office was changing the evening shift to 5-9pm, instead of 6-10pm. Would I be able to start at 5 instead? And the answer was no, as I'd made it very clear when I was first hired - 6pm was the absolute earliest I could start. J is often in meetings until 5pm, we have no family in town to watch the girls, and a babysitter would cost more than my wages.... so, nope. No can do.

That's when my shifts began to dry up. I was still scheduled for Saturdays, and the occasional weekday 6-10pm shift, once or twice a fortnight. They could never explain to me why those hours were still possible sometimes, but not regularly anymore. Every time I asked, the deli manager (who wrote the schedules) told me her hands were tied and she had to go by what the head office told her for shift times. I went over her, to upper management, and they all gave me the same spiel: they really wanted to keep me on and would do their best to find more hours for me.

I heard that spiel many times over the last month, but nothing changed. My pay period for last week was for a single four-hour shift. After the weekly union fees were deducted, I received fifteen dollars. FIFTEEN dollars for FOUR hours of busting my arse.

I'm not a princess... I'm also not a slave. That amount of money was just plain offensive, and I felt a strong urge to place my fist through a wall (or the deli manager's face) when I saw that pay slip.

With no guarantees of increased hours, I resigned on Saturday, and finished my final shift last night. I have better ways to spend four-hour chunks of my time, and decided that tutoring - even babysitting - would be preferable. I didn't want to have to quit... but I feel better for it. Much better.

The funny thing is that a day after I resigned, I was offered another job. Things have a way of working out okay, don't they?

Once I'd realised they were in no hurry to give me back my initial shifts, I began looking online to see what other local jobs were out there. As luck would have it, another nearby supermarket had a number of vacancies so I put in a general application, thinking anything there would be better anyway. It's a bit of a groovy store, with an emphasis on local produce and higher-end products - a little like Whole Foods. A bit on the posh side, but so much nicer.

I was called in for an interview shortly before I decided to call it quits where I'd been. They loved me, I loved them, and it looks like I'll be working... in their deli. I had to laugh when I was offered the position. The silver lining is that they pay more by the hour, and are keen to give me more hours than the last place. Also exciting - they have a cleaning crew for the deli so that I can just focus on customer service instead of breaking my back. Most importantly, everybody there seems super happy. It's right by the Faery's school, so I've often popped in to grab last minute things for dinner, or coffee and cake after school. I've always liked the atmosphere there, so I have a feeling I'll be much happier.

Wish me luck.

Blues

The winter fucking blues.

Ugh.

They seem to have crept up on me, but they're here. It's cold, it's grey, it's wet and windy - to be expected for this corner of the world, at this time of the year, yes. But it feels like it's been cold, grey, wet and windy for five months now. Oh wait, that's because it has been. With a good couple of months more to go.

Ugh.

This morning I received an email from Shutterfly, about a free offer of 101 prints. This is perfect for catching up on the backlog of photos I need printed for our photo album, and an offer that I occasionally take up, so I opened up our iPhoto library to start compiling.

The trouble was, it had been a while since I last got a big batch printed and so I needed to dig out the fat envelopes sitting next to our photo albums - still waiting to be dated and ordered, then placed in an album - to see where I was up to in the backlog.

The photos I've just sorted through were from November 2011 to August 2012. From memory, when I received them I was happy to (then) be only a year behind in printing photos... and then promptly placed them next to the albums, delaying the dating (which I like to do, in case the photos get misplaced or handed over to the Faery and Miss Pie down the track, so that they'll know how old they were).

This means I've just finished the excruciating process of putting about a hundred photos in order and writing dates on their backs - necessitating a trip down memory lane.

The majority of the photos were from the winter period of 2011-2012, and the contrast between life in Washington and life in California has never felt so stark. The photos were full of blue skies, palm trees, turquoise swimming pools, sun-kissed limbs and golden-freckled faces. T-shirts and skirts weren't just theoretical, they were actually worn on warmer days in winter.

It didn't take long today for it to start physically hurting as I picked up each printed photo. Life in L.A. wasn't perfect, but it was still pretty sweet.

I've been trying to convince myself for some time that life in Seattle is better for us. J's the happiest he's ever been with a job, our finances are slowly improving, the air is cleaner, the schools are better... and let's not forget the coffee.

However, it's harder to focus on those things lately. Perhaps I'm just being an ungrateful whiner, but all I seem to focus on right now is the cold crappy weather, that I have little in the way of friends here, and that my current job is one that I don't particularly love.

I'm not feeling happier here. I think I was happier there.

I want to be happier here.

I don't know what the solution is, but all I want to do is eat my feelings with pastries, doughnuts and chocolate. That's part of the problem, I know. I need to get into exercise again, but the weather isn't exactly inspiring me, and the yoga classes I've looked into seem to clash with school.

Meanwhile, I continue to put on the happy face I'm so good at putting on, because that's what I do.

Maybe it's time I googled Vitamin D lamps...

February snow

Our first snow day in Seattle was a good six weeks ago, but we finally had another dumping of snow last weekend. It had the good sense to start around dinner time on Saturday evening, and continued through the night, so the girls knew before bed that they'd be waking up to a morning of sledding, snowball fights, and snowmen. Needless to say, there was a lot of excitement here. We Australians are easily impressed by snow.

Sadly, drizzles of rain kicked in on Sunday afternoon, gradually getting heavier - pretty much washing away all but the biggest piles of snow overnight. Monday morning was back to the usual status quo, but I was happy with the amount of snow play we were able to have. I did learn, though, that I should pull my finger out and get some adequate snow gear for myself. Jeans and rain boots do not cut it. Procrastination is my middle name, if you haven't figured that out yet...

At this point, my DSLR's battery died. Lucky for me I had my phone as well. I have been Instagramming for days now, but I'll spare you the monotony. The following two are my favourite iPhone pics.

I hope that from wherever you are sitting to read this, you are warmer than us!

A bang

With only one day of January to go, and zero posts here from me so far, it's safe to say that 2014 has started with somewhat of a bang.

Not only have I been trying to settle into some kind of groove with my new working hours (about to change, but that's a story for another time), we've also played host to family and friends visiting from both Australia and Los Angeles.

The first celebration, though, was Miss Pie turning the big FOUR. It was a fairly low-key event, but one that kept repeating with various visitors bearing gifts. Lucky kid. The thing that made her feel most special on the day, however, was when the candle-lit cake (lemon-cream cheese with butter icing) came out. Hell, I wished I was four again.

That same evening, my brother and sister-in-law arrived for a stay. We spent the next few days cramming in some sightseeing - mainly places I hadn't been to before.

We hung out at the EMP Museum, where they had a Nirvana exhibit. My brother, J, and myself, were (were?... still!) all massive fans of Nirvana so it was a pretty special afternoon. Bonus sightings were the Fantasy exhibit, complete with Jim Henson's hand-scribbled notes, one of David Bowie's costumes from The Labyrinth (I was obsessed with that movie as a kid), and the Lion's costume from The Wizard of Oz. As if that wasn't enough, we discovered the Sci-fi exhibit - Christopher Reeve's Superman costume, Star Trek memorabilia, and more from Dr Who. Knowing what science fiction buffs our soon-to-be-visiting friends from L.A. are, we knew we'd be back the following week.

Another new experience for me was the (downtown) Underground Tour at Pioneer Square. I'd had no idea about the history of the pioneers in Seattle, and it was interesting to learn about how the underground passages came to be, when they'd been the original open streets. There is some bizarre history behind Seattle's early days.

After my brother's visit was done and dusted, we welcomed our friends from L.A. Their daughter is the Faery's 'BFF', and they have another child the same age as Miss Pie. Get-togethers with these guys is pretty much as good as it gets, as we share a lot of the same interests but also get introduced to new things to love - through them - whether it's food, movies, TV shows, or books.

After six months of feeling a little (socially) isolated in Seattle, it was wonderful to spend time with our friends again. Their entire visit was a blur of chasing four-year-olds, eating, story-telling, more sightseeing, more eating, and late nights with four kids doing their best to evade us at bed time. What made me happiest, though, was witnessing the joy that the Faery felt to be with her little soul mate. The two of them giggled about nonsensical things, late into the nights, and it was incredibly sweet. Understandably, there were many tears when it was time for our friends to leave.

Of course - in that entire period of sightseeing with family and friends - do you think we saw the blue sky just once? Nope. Seattle did what Seattle typically does at this time of year, but I was pretty mad when the sun came out in full force the very day our friends flew back to L.A. A day earlier - when we'd been up the top of the Space Needle - would have been nice. Ah well.

After a run of dreary grey - but busy - weekends, we finally had a full three days of sunshine. We soaked it up by discovering another local beach and park (including views of Mt Rainier that guarantee I'll be frequenting the place in warmer weather and Instagramming my little heart out), and a trip to the zoo.

 I looked at our calendar the other day, and was in genuine shock when I asked J where January had gone. I'm hoping February will be gentler, but I wouldn't redo January for the world. The time we spent with loved ones was more than worth it, and my soul was a thousand times happier for a week or so. In the mean time, I need to start putting those pennies aside for a trip down to California...

The belated-everything edition

This is the murky post where I remember that - oops - November was the 3rd anniversary of this blog, and I was fully intending to write about that. A month ago.

It's also the murky post where I share pretty photos of a festive nature from the lead up to Christmas.

It's the post where I briefly mention how crazy these last few weeks have especially been - starting a new job, having my wisdom teeth extracted (timing, right?), playing host to family members that visited, and officially breaking in my new role as (co-) Girl Scouts Brownie troop leader. Who knows, I may even touch more on this another day. God only knows, I've been meaning to write about several of these things for some time now.

It's the post where I quickly rave about the wonderful little trip downtown that we made on Christmas Eve, in the hope of wearing out the girls nicely for the night. It's where I share a pic or two from Christmas Day, and wax lyrical about the beautiful outing we had the next day to Gas Works Park. Okay, 'wax lyical' might be a tad exaggerated... but you get the idea.

It's also the post where I throw in the fact that we have visits in January from more family, and close friends from L.A... and I wonder about how the hell people work, live life, entertain, host, and find the time to blog? Regularly? It may be my way of excusing the upcoming lack of posts - unless I have an insomniac episode, in which case, blogging will be perfectly easy to fit in. I'll see what I can do.

In mean time, here are some photos... see you in 2014.

The boy who cried snow

Over the last month, there have been three separate occasions where the weather app on my phone predicted snow. Each time, we all got our hopes up, only to be disappointed the next day when the snow never eventuated, or the little snow icon changed to a boring old cloud or rain icon. Boo.

The last time that little snow icon popped up, we tried not to get too excited. It was probably just another false alarm, right? Still, when I woke up in the early hours of the morning for a loo visit, I couldn't help but peek through my bedroom window's blinds... and when I saw a soft white glow covering the trees and road below, I had to wake up J to show him. We couldn't tell if the snow was still falling or not, so we tiptoed into the girls' room for a better look out their window, where the street lamp would answer our question.

It was still falling, and we stood watching for a minute, hushed whispers as we discussed how we'd spend the day (I was pretty sure that school would be cancelled). As we whispered, our voices must have woken the Faery because she stirred, saw us looking out of her window, and then sprang out of bed to see the snow.

It was still early, so in attempt to keep Miss Pie from waking, we offered a space in our bed to the Faery. She eagerly accepted, but spent the next hour tossing and turning - too excited about her first proper snow day to let sleep pull her back in.

After a while, I accepted that I, too, was a little too revved up to fall asleep again, so I switched my phone on and found two recorded messages from the school district. The first one had been left at 6am, and notified that school would be starting two hours later than usual. I almost deleted the next message without listening, thinking it would be the same, but then saw it had been left at 7.20am, so I listened. Due to 'worsening weather', school was cancelled. It was supposed to have been the last day of school before the Christmas break, and the Faery was a little bummed not to give her card and gift to her teacher, but the lure of snow play outweighed any bad feelings there (and her teacher emailed all the parents with the loveliest thoughts and sentiments for the students to read about their hard work so far).

For part of their Christmas presents, J and I had bought some snow/cold weather boots and mittens/gloves for the girls. We decided that they may as well receive them early, so as they ate their breakfast, I hurriedly wrapped the gifts in our closet, and then presented them.

Then, thermal underwear on and new snow accessories in check, we headed outside. I only had rain boots for myself, which I discovered do not keep feet warm enough, but it was worth it. We had snow ball fights, I took photos, the girls built a snowman with J, I took more photos, then we shovelled snow from our sloped driveway and found a bag of chunky salt to spread, worried about slush freezing to ice later. Then we piled on more layers of coats and walked to our local park and embarked on more snowball fights and snowman-building... along with dozens of other kids. It turns out that baseball fields are an excellent source of endless snowball-rolling, and snow-forts.

Eventually we decided to head home again, and passing the last cul-de-sac before our street, found a number of the Faery's classmates on their sleds, so home was delayed a little longer while the Faery and Miss Pie joined in and took turns on various sleds. As we walked home, the Faery chatted about how the weather app had wrongly forecast snow a few times, so she hadn't really believed that it would snow on this day: Mum, it's like the boy who cried wolf, but instead, it was the boy who cried snow!

By midday, the swirls of snow had given way to soft rain. By the end of the day, much of the snow had melted, and by the following day, the only evidence of snow were the occasional piles left where the biggest shovel-fuls and snowmen had been scattered around town. Just grey skies and drizzle, business as usual. We were all a little sad, but it was a fabulous start to our Christmas break and I'm crossing my fingers that we get more snow, locally, this winter.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Yesterday, I looked out my bathroom window and noticed a very long icicle suspended from one of the down pipes. That is how cold it is now. Nonetheless, I got a small thrill from seeing this - I hadn't seen any icicles in real life since our trip to Sweden more than ten years ago.

Seattle's weather has been a truly mixed bag in recent weeks. The standard grey wet days have been outnumbered by crystal clear skies. There's also been some amazing fog to behold, and now I understand why people liken it to some kind of shapeshifting entity. One morning I drove J to work, and the fog had lifted from when we first got up. After dropping him off in sunshine, I got onto a freeway and headed off to get some errands done. As I merged lanes and checked my rear view mirror, I saw Mt Rainier behind me - clearer and brighter than I'd seen in a month or so. Less than a minute later, I entered such heavy fog that I couldn't see immediately in front of me, and the exit signs couldn't be read. Deep breaths and headlights flicked on, I had to rely on my memory of the route to know when to exit. Then - once I exited - I was fog-free and in sunshine again. Given my dislike of driving on freeways, I was hi-fiving myself when I arrived at my destination.

In other news, I'm now part of the employed world. After four years out, it's time to start feeling useful again. The more I looked into it, the less of an option teaching is at this point in time. Unlike in Sydney, part-time EFL teaching positions seem to be non-existent - not to mention working hours that fit in with school and preschool. Factor in the costs of after-school care/babysitting, and childcare for Miss Pie and, well, I may as well just be working a minimum wage job on the side instead...

...which is what is what I'm doing. I'll be working several evenings a week, maybe some Saturday shifts too, and not have to worry about childcare for two kids on different schedules, because J will be home. The hourly rate is less than what I've earned in many, many years, so that's taken a little time to get my head around. Then there's the fact that part of me worries a little about encounters with the school parents in my area - so many of who seem to have high-flying careers, or present the image of the perfect stay-at-home, gym-honed, soccer moms - and may judge me to be less educated than I actually am.

I was worried at first, but then I thought, fuck it. In this economic climate, plenty of people accept jobs that they may be overqualified for. If there's something wrong with getting out and meeting people a few evenings a week, bringing in some extra dollars, and feeling useful, then so be it. I've been doing training stints over the past week, and surprisingly, enjoying the social side of it - seeing co-workers banter, and realising how I've missed that.

For legal reasons, I won't be able to identify where I work, or talk shop, so apart from this post it's likely to be a part of my life I'll keep separate from the blog. It's nothing exciting anyway (although who knows where it may lead to), so let's just leave it at that. I just had to mention it because, you know, the first job in four years is kind of a big deal, regardless of what it is. At any rate, it's going to be interesting to compare my work experiences in a third country now.

So. Here's to winter, trying to keep warm, and employment.