The last post was a little more "rant-like" than I like to be, so hopefully this will make up for it.
Brandon's St. Louis contract was originally 12 weeks, but we fully expected to extend for longer. We hoped to stay here until Brandon starts his new permanent job this winter. We loved being able to live at home and for Brandon to be able to work in St. Louis three days a week and be home the other four. It was perfect-- we made tons of progress on the adoption and started working on our kids' rooms. It was the stability and home life that we wanted.
The manager at the hospital also expected for us to extend. She and Brandon had talked about it, and she had submitted the paperwork to HR weeks ago. We weren't even looking at other assignment possibilities.
Then, one day last week, Brandon and I both got a really weird feeling. We were in Arkansas, picking up some groceries, and it just hit us randomly. Have you seen Bruce Almighty? You know the scene where he's driving in the car and asking for guidance, and this truck passes him with all of these "DANGER AHEAD" flashing signs? It was kind of like that-- only we weren't asking for a sign, and we DID see it. The feeling was strong enough and random enough that it was like someone had all the sudden placed a flashing neon sign in front of us that said "GET OUT OF ST. LOUIS."
When we get those feelings (especially when we both get them at the same time), we trust it. We pray daily for God to lead us, and I believe that He does. So we took the gut feeling seriously and called Brandon's recruiter right there in the middle of the store.
His recruiter mentioned two possibilities for us that were still within a half day's drive of home. Brandon had his file sent to both, but honestly, we didn't expect to hear anything. We still had a few weeks left on the St. Louis contract and hospitals usually don't look that far out-- they want someone who can start immediately.
But a few hours later, Brandon got a call from one of the hospitals. He wasn't even expecting it. Normally, Brandon's company gives him a heads up about an interview call, but I guess they didn't even know it was coming. After a quick interview, Brandon was offered the job.
Brandon really connected with the manager, and was very excited about the ER. He was so impressed with the manager and the way she runs the ER. It was a job that we honestly hadn't even seriously considered, but when he hung up the phone, he said to me, "I want to work at that hospital." The only hang up was the pay, which again was lower than our norm, because the assignment is in a state with a lower bill rate. Like I said last time, that seems to be what happens when the economy gets tough. . . and with sky rocketing gas and grocery prices, we'll probably see more low paying locations and fewer high paying locations available until things level out again.
But this is why I love Brandon's travel nursing company. I mean, seriously love them. Brandon called and left a message for his recruiter saying that he had been offered the job and we were trying to make a decision. The recruiter called back and basically said, "Hey, I know you're in the adoption process and this would be a great job for you to be close to home and have good hours. I also know that adoption is super expensive and this pay is less than you normally get. I'll talk to our housing department and see if we can help you come up with a way to make this work."
First, I love that they care enough to remember that we are adopting and to be so supportive of that. Second, I love that they help us. They don't just leave us on our own to deal with it.
So with their help, we were able to make it work. Brandon officially accepted the contract. We are both really excited about this.
And that gut feeling? Right on the money. Less than 48 hours later, Brandon got word that the St. Louis extension fell through. The hospital had denied the manager's request for budget reasons. But if he had waited until he heard that to apply for other positions, we would have missed out on this new contract. If we hadn't called right away, while we were still at the grocery store, Brandon's contract wouldn't have gotten sent before 5:00, and the job probably would have been offered to someone else. I believe there is a reason for everything, and that there is a reason why we're supposed to be at this new contract. . . and I'm super thankful that it was all settled before we even had the stress of knowing that the hospital here wasn't going to be able to extend Brandon after all.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
What NOT to do when apartment searching
Travel nursing companies typically offer you a choice when it comes to housing-- either they will set it up for you and you don't have to worry about anything* or you can take a stipend and set up housing yourself. The stipend is a great option for people who can take it and pocket the money by staying with friends or roughing it in a cheap hotel. For those of us who want furnished apartments, it's usually better to let the travel company set it up. They are able to get better deals, use corporate discounts, etc. Since we prefer to have a nice, safe, completely furnished apartment, we avoid the stipend situation.
*Travel nursing companies vary in what they provide, which means your degree of worry also varies by company. When our company sets up housing for us, they really do take care of EVERYTHING-- deposits, utilities, pet rent, housewares, etc.
BUT. . . the cost of living is going up and contract pay seems to be going down. We've seen this cycle before-- from our perspective, it seems that when times are good, there are a lot of jobs on the coasts and in big cities that pay well. When the economy gets rough, these jobs start disappearing and there are more contracts in the south and the midwest where pay is significantly lower.
The job in St. Louis paid less (it's a Missouri thing) than our "norm", so we decided to take the stipend and rough it in an unfurnished apartment. Realistically, we could have afforded a furnished apartment and still have made a little bit of money on the stipend, but we are so close to home that we didn't plan on spending much time here anyway, AND we're saving up for an adoption-- our plan was to rough it and save up LOTS of money in a short amount of time.
The plan didn't work.
It could have worked. But we made some HUGE mistakes setting up this apartment. Rookie mistakes. Mistakes that cost us every bit of that money we should have earned by "roughing it." SO. . . to help other travel nurses avoid our mistakes (and to serve as a future reminder for us), I'm going to share what we did wrong and how you can avoid it.
1. Don't assume that apartment management companies have your best interest at heart. This is more a reminder for me than anyone else reading this. We've had some really great apartment managers in the past-- people who were very understanding about our situation and were willing to work with us on lease dates, extensions, etc. I assumed that was the norm, and that we could trust everyone to be up front with us. Am I a Pollyanna or what?
2. Be very specific about how much money it will cost you up front to get into the apartment (application fees, deposits, pet deposits, etc.) and how much of that is refundable-- and get it in writing. Factor this into your monthly fees to make sure your budget is realistic.
Application fees: application fees are typically $25-$50 dollars, and are non refundable. The apartment we are in right now charged a $310 application fee to our credit card. $310 for a 3 month lease. We knew that was ridiculous, but didn't argue with it because we were in a pinch-- we were short on time and hadn't found another option that was pet friendly, had a vacancy, and would take a 3 month lease. We thought it would be worth it at the time, it wasn't, and we'll never pay another outrageous application fee like that again.
Deposits: Deposits are expensive, there is no way around that. But pet deposits are negotiable, and SHOULD be at least partially refundable. The apartment we are in right now charged us a ridiculous non-refundable pet deposit for both dogs. An apartment I talked to today waived the fee for our second dog, and will refund 75% of the deposit at move out (unless our dogs destroy the apartment of course). We expected that our current apartment would at least repair pet damage since they charge so much, but when we moved in, there were numerous urine spots that had never been shampooed (none of which were listed on the inspection report). Again, a rookie mistake-- I should have requested that they shampoo the carpets on their dime since they were not acceptable on move in. Instead, I cleaned the carpets myself and purchased a roll of plastic to put on top of it so that our bed didn't have to touch it (I know, I know-- I'm OCD).
3. Be very specific about your monthly charges and get it in writing-- before you apply. Our apartment gave us a number for our monthly rent. Okay. So we paid our ridiculous application fee, deposit, and pet fee. . . THEN found out that we had to pay an additional monthly charge for cable (required), renters insurance (required), and pet rent (required for all three months even though our pets spent less than 4 weeks in the apartment the whole time and we explained up front that they would be living in Arkansas with me and would only be there occasionally when I came with Brandon).
(by this point, if you add up the money we spent up front and our additional monthly charges, we are up to $200 a month more than we thought we would be spending).
4. Ask about prorating-- in and out. We assumed that we would pay rent for the time we were in the apartment. They prorated our first month. But we just found out TODAY that even though our actual lease ENDS on a certain date, they are charging us for two extra weeks. Um, what? Our lease is ending. We are moving out. Our initial contract says nothing about this. Yet we checked, and they are legally covered in the fine print. But here's the real kicker. Not only are they charging us for these extra two weeks, they are charging it at a significantly higher rate-- which means we will pay an ENTIRE month of rent and only live there for a week of it. Our housing stipend certainly won't cover that.
Now this is, technically, our fault. They have a tiny fine print clause (that they never told us about over the phone or in person when we met with them to discuss the lease) that they have to have a 30 day written notice before we move out or else they can charge us this higher rate and we are legally obligated to pay it. But we never discussed that. We told them in the beginning that Brandon was a travel nurse, that his contract was 12 weeks and that we would be leaving after that. We had our lease written specifically to his contract dates. We paid a significantly higher premium each month in order to have a 12 week lease. They never told us that we had to give them additional notice in writing, BEYOND our original lease. However, they did leave a note on our door about it. . . while we were in Arkansas. We just got back to St. Louis yesterday, found the note, rushed over a written notice. . . too late. We have to pay the extra two weeks.
Here is where working with a reasonable apartment manager would be great. Now, we never once balked at any of their other charges. We didn't ask them to waive any deposits or fees, even the ones that they hit us with at the last minute. But this time, I asked. I said, "Since you guys knew we were here on a temporary assignment and that we were leaving on this date, can you help us out? Yes, we should have given you written notice, but until you left this letter on our door we weren't aware of that. We rushed it to you immediately. Can you help us out and only make us pay through the end of our lease? Or at least prorate those two weeks according to our original rent (which would have saved us a few hundred bucks)?
Nope. They wouldn't waive it, or even lower it. They really could care less.
It's just money. But do you know what makes me angry? This apartment building is taking away money that I had designated for our adoption fund. Brandon and I slept on a mattress on the floor during this assignment, thinking that we were making a sacrifice to help bring our kids home. Instead of helping bring our children home, that money will now pad the pockets of this huge corporation who charged us exorbitant amounts of rent to live in an apartment with urine filled carpets that they didn't even bother to shampoo for us. This is a NICE apartment complex, that jumped on the fact that we were renting sight unseen and stuck us in their "bad" building. It's at the back of the complex, filled with smokers, people who don't pick up their dogs' poop, college students and criminals. Meanwhile, the other buildings are full of nice families and older couples-- and have updated kitchens, new carpet, etc. I would tell you the name of the corporation, except that I'm still hoping to get our security deposit back. HA.
If you haven't figured it out yet, we are leaving St. Louis. I'm not sure what it is about this city, but we have bad luck here. Brandon accepted a new assignment and we are SO looking forward to it. I'll post more details later. It's still close enough that we can be home for adoption stuff and it's also close to some good friends that I'm looking forward to spending time with. I've been a lot more careful about our apartment hunt this time, and I think I've found a really great place-- our company has used it a lot the other nurses have great things to say about it, and the manager is an actual PERSON instead of corporation. He has worked with a lot of travel nurses and we were able to negotiate a contract that works for us and the apartment as well.
I've now interviewed a dozen apartments for the area, and I'll give you a rundown of my new format
So those were my questions-- I got a lot of interesting responses. I scratched anyone off the list who seemed mechanical/non flexible. We're waiting to talk to a couple of other places before we make an official decision, but our "first choice" right now was willing to waive the short term lease premium, waive the second pet deposit and second pet rent, refund the first pet deposit at 75%, change their prorating policy to accommodate our specific contract, and give us a choice of apartments based on our priorities. I've gotta say, I'm pretty impressed! I feel good about our next assignment. I'm just ready for it to get here.
*Travel nursing companies vary in what they provide, which means your degree of worry also varies by company. When our company sets up housing for us, they really do take care of EVERYTHING-- deposits, utilities, pet rent, housewares, etc.
BUT. . . the cost of living is going up and contract pay seems to be going down. We've seen this cycle before-- from our perspective, it seems that when times are good, there are a lot of jobs on the coasts and in big cities that pay well. When the economy gets rough, these jobs start disappearing and there are more contracts in the south and the midwest where pay is significantly lower.
The job in St. Louis paid less (it's a Missouri thing) than our "norm", so we decided to take the stipend and rough it in an unfurnished apartment. Realistically, we could have afforded a furnished apartment and still have made a little bit of money on the stipend, but we are so close to home that we didn't plan on spending much time here anyway, AND we're saving up for an adoption-- our plan was to rough it and save up LOTS of money in a short amount of time.
The plan didn't work.
It could have worked. But we made some HUGE mistakes setting up this apartment. Rookie mistakes. Mistakes that cost us every bit of that money we should have earned by "roughing it." SO. . . to help other travel nurses avoid our mistakes (and to serve as a future reminder for us), I'm going to share what we did wrong and how you can avoid it.
1. Don't assume that apartment management companies have your best interest at heart. This is more a reminder for me than anyone else reading this. We've had some really great apartment managers in the past-- people who were very understanding about our situation and were willing to work with us on lease dates, extensions, etc. I assumed that was the norm, and that we could trust everyone to be up front with us. Am I a Pollyanna or what?
2. Be very specific about how much money it will cost you up front to get into the apartment (application fees, deposits, pet deposits, etc.) and how much of that is refundable-- and get it in writing. Factor this into your monthly fees to make sure your budget is realistic.
Application fees: application fees are typically $25-$50 dollars, and are non refundable. The apartment we are in right now charged a $310 application fee to our credit card. $310 for a 3 month lease. We knew that was ridiculous, but didn't argue with it because we were in a pinch-- we were short on time and hadn't found another option that was pet friendly, had a vacancy, and would take a 3 month lease. We thought it would be worth it at the time, it wasn't, and we'll never pay another outrageous application fee like that again.
Deposits: Deposits are expensive, there is no way around that. But pet deposits are negotiable, and SHOULD be at least partially refundable. The apartment we are in right now charged us a ridiculous non-refundable pet deposit for both dogs. An apartment I talked to today waived the fee for our second dog, and will refund 75% of the deposit at move out (unless our dogs destroy the apartment of course). We expected that our current apartment would at least repair pet damage since they charge so much, but when we moved in, there were numerous urine spots that had never been shampooed (none of which were listed on the inspection report). Again, a rookie mistake-- I should have requested that they shampoo the carpets on their dime since they were not acceptable on move in. Instead, I cleaned the carpets myself and purchased a roll of plastic to put on top of it so that our bed didn't have to touch it (I know, I know-- I'm OCD).
3. Be very specific about your monthly charges and get it in writing-- before you apply. Our apartment gave us a number for our monthly rent. Okay. So we paid our ridiculous application fee, deposit, and pet fee. . . THEN found out that we had to pay an additional monthly charge for cable (required), renters insurance (required), and pet rent (required for all three months even though our pets spent less than 4 weeks in the apartment the whole time and we explained up front that they would be living in Arkansas with me and would only be there occasionally when I came with Brandon).
(by this point, if you add up the money we spent up front and our additional monthly charges, we are up to $200 a month more than we thought we would be spending).
4. Ask about prorating-- in and out. We assumed that we would pay rent for the time we were in the apartment. They prorated our first month. But we just found out TODAY that even though our actual lease ENDS on a certain date, they are charging us for two extra weeks. Um, what? Our lease is ending. We are moving out. Our initial contract says nothing about this. Yet we checked, and they are legally covered in the fine print. But here's the real kicker. Not only are they charging us for these extra two weeks, they are charging it at a significantly higher rate-- which means we will pay an ENTIRE month of rent and only live there for a week of it. Our housing stipend certainly won't cover that.
Now this is, technically, our fault. They have a tiny fine print clause (that they never told us about over the phone or in person when we met with them to discuss the lease) that they have to have a 30 day written notice before we move out or else they can charge us this higher rate and we are legally obligated to pay it. But we never discussed that. We told them in the beginning that Brandon was a travel nurse, that his contract was 12 weeks and that we would be leaving after that. We had our lease written specifically to his contract dates. We paid a significantly higher premium each month in order to have a 12 week lease. They never told us that we had to give them additional notice in writing, BEYOND our original lease. However, they did leave a note on our door about it. . . while we were in Arkansas. We just got back to St. Louis yesterday, found the note, rushed over a written notice. . . too late. We have to pay the extra two weeks.
Here is where working with a reasonable apartment manager would be great. Now, we never once balked at any of their other charges. We didn't ask them to waive any deposits or fees, even the ones that they hit us with at the last minute. But this time, I asked. I said, "Since you guys knew we were here on a temporary assignment and that we were leaving on this date, can you help us out? Yes, we should have given you written notice, but until you left this letter on our door we weren't aware of that. We rushed it to you immediately. Can you help us out and only make us pay through the end of our lease? Or at least prorate those two weeks according to our original rent (which would have saved us a few hundred bucks)?
Nope. They wouldn't waive it, or even lower it. They really could care less.
It's just money. But do you know what makes me angry? This apartment building is taking away money that I had designated for our adoption fund. Brandon and I slept on a mattress on the floor during this assignment, thinking that we were making a sacrifice to help bring our kids home. Instead of helping bring our children home, that money will now pad the pockets of this huge corporation who charged us exorbitant amounts of rent to live in an apartment with urine filled carpets that they didn't even bother to shampoo for us. This is a NICE apartment complex, that jumped on the fact that we were renting sight unseen and stuck us in their "bad" building. It's at the back of the complex, filled with smokers, people who don't pick up their dogs' poop, college students and criminals. Meanwhile, the other buildings are full of nice families and older couples-- and have updated kitchens, new carpet, etc. I would tell you the name of the corporation, except that I'm still hoping to get our security deposit back. HA.
If you haven't figured it out yet, we are leaving St. Louis. I'm not sure what it is about this city, but we have bad luck here. Brandon accepted a new assignment and we are SO looking forward to it. I'll post more details later. It's still close enough that we can be home for adoption stuff and it's also close to some good friends that I'm looking forward to spending time with. I've been a lot more careful about our apartment hunt this time, and I think I've found a really great place-- our company has used it a lot the other nurses have great things to say about it, and the manager is an actual PERSON instead of corporation. He has worked with a lot of travel nurses and we were able to negotiate a contract that works for us and the apartment as well.
I've now interviewed a dozen apartments for the area, and I'll give you a rundown of my new format
- Hi, my name is blah blah and my husband works for blah blah blah. He is a travel nurse and will be in the area from blah to blah. Have you ever worked with travel nurses, and are you able to provide short term corporate leases? (If your company has already worked with the apartment, mention that-- it helps).
- (If they respond positively and say they can do a three month lease) Do you prorate both in and out? Can we set the lease terms to fit our contract dates?
- Sometimes we extend our contracts. If we were to extend, could you extend our lease at the same rate or would the rate increase?
- Is there an additional rent premium for a short term lease? Can you waive this?
- How much is your application fee? What is your application process? How much is the deposit? What other monthly fees/services are included? What is the monthly pet rent-- is that for both dogs or per pet? What is the pet deposit, and how much is refundable?
- Can you waive the pet deposit? Can you waive the pet rent? (It doesn't hurt to ask. I got several places to waive at least half of it, only charging us for one dog)
- Do you work with any furniture rental companies?
So those were my questions-- I got a lot of interesting responses. I scratched anyone off the list who seemed mechanical/non flexible. We're waiting to talk to a couple of other places before we make an official decision, but our "first choice" right now was willing to waive the short term lease premium, waive the second pet deposit and second pet rent, refund the first pet deposit at 75%, change their prorating policy to accommodate our specific contract, and give us a choice of apartments based on our priorities. I've gotta say, I'm pretty impressed! I feel good about our next assignment. I'm just ready for it to get here.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Wilderness. . . ?
Last time I wrote, I shared that Brandon and I had some big decisions to make.
Brandon and I recently both took personality tests. Oddly enough, we both had the exact same personality type (despite answering the questions in different ways) and our personality type happens to be quite rare. According to the profile, less than 2% of the population has this specific type.
Part of what it said about our personality type is that when we make decisions, we don't ask anyone for input. We prefer to get away by ourselves, think through the problem, and come to a decision. We usually don't even tell anyone the dilemma until we are completely confident in our decision (as a side note, it made me laugh because we said almost the same exact thing during our homestudy when our social worker asked us how we dealt with stress).
The day we were presented with new information/options in our adoption and Brandon's future job, I said, "Hey, let's go camping." I wanted to get away from all outside influences. I wanted to be alone in the wilderness, surrounded only by the friendly chatter of nearby birds, and maybe the cheerful laughter of a babbling brook. I wanted to walk, for miles, without any particular destination. I wanted to sleep under the stars. I wanted to smell the woods. I wanted to feel small. I wanted to talk through both situations, pray, meditate, and not come back until we had some resolution.
Unfortunately. . . Arkansas may be the "Natural" state, but there really isn't any true wilderness within an hour drive, and since our car had to be put in the shop (again-- seriously, it's time to stop making it drive us all over the country), we were quite limited. We ended up choosing a nearby nature center that supposedly had hiking trails (I'm not sure you can really call it a hiking trail, since it was paved and took less than 45 minutes-- even with my doubling back to the car to stow my empty Route 44 Sonic cup, then doubling back to the main center bathrooms because I had just finished a Route 44 drink, my stopping to pet a very strange dog, and my stopping to sit on a wet log because I wanted for the group of 30 + noisy children to get way, way ahead of us before resuming our walk).
Obviously, we weren't going to do any meditating or thinking out there. So instead, we went home and drank a bottle of wine, which gave us a surprising amount of clarity (in fact, Brandon went so far as to say that he understands the Bible so much better now that he drinks wine-- wow!) (and just in case you are offended by that, I'll explain that he was referring to all of the passages that actually refer to wine or use it as an illustration).
(Of course, getting a phone call from Brandon's future employer with some good news about his future prospects helped too.)
So. . .
We're sticking with our current adoption plan, and have made peace with the fact that it will likely take longer than we expected.
Brandon decided to (for now) pass up the opportunity that was presented to him in favor of his dream job. The position definitely had benefits, but would have required a long commitment. Realistically, he would never have been able to do the job he really wants to do. He has the opportunity to do exactly what he wants to do-- that is something worth waiting a few more months for.
So there we are. Decisions made. I'm still dying for a trek into the wilderness, but I'm sure we'll make it out of Arkansas and back to the mountains someday.
Brandon and I recently both took personality tests. Oddly enough, we both had the exact same personality type (despite answering the questions in different ways) and our personality type happens to be quite rare. According to the profile, less than 2% of the population has this specific type.
Part of what it said about our personality type is that when we make decisions, we don't ask anyone for input. We prefer to get away by ourselves, think through the problem, and come to a decision. We usually don't even tell anyone the dilemma until we are completely confident in our decision (as a side note, it made me laugh because we said almost the same exact thing during our homestudy when our social worker asked us how we dealt with stress).
The day we were presented with new information/options in our adoption and Brandon's future job, I said, "Hey, let's go camping." I wanted to get away from all outside influences. I wanted to be alone in the wilderness, surrounded only by the friendly chatter of nearby birds, and maybe the cheerful laughter of a babbling brook. I wanted to walk, for miles, without any particular destination. I wanted to sleep under the stars. I wanted to smell the woods. I wanted to feel small. I wanted to talk through both situations, pray, meditate, and not come back until we had some resolution.
Unfortunately. . . Arkansas may be the "Natural" state, but there really isn't any true wilderness within an hour drive, and since our car had to be put in the shop (again-- seriously, it's time to stop making it drive us all over the country), we were quite limited. We ended up choosing a nearby nature center that supposedly had hiking trails (I'm not sure you can really call it a hiking trail, since it was paved and took less than 45 minutes-- even with my doubling back to the car to stow my empty Route 44 Sonic cup, then doubling back to the main center bathrooms because I had just finished a Route 44 drink, my stopping to pet a very strange dog, and my stopping to sit on a wet log because I wanted for the group of 30 + noisy children to get way, way ahead of us before resuming our walk).
Obviously, we weren't going to do any meditating or thinking out there. So instead, we went home and drank a bottle of wine, which gave us a surprising amount of clarity (in fact, Brandon went so far as to say that he understands the Bible so much better now that he drinks wine-- wow!) (and just in case you are offended by that, I'll explain that he was referring to all of the passages that actually refer to wine or use it as an illustration).
(Of course, getting a phone call from Brandon's future employer with some good news about his future prospects helped too.)
So. . .
We're sticking with our current adoption plan, and have made peace with the fact that it will likely take longer than we expected.
Brandon decided to (for now) pass up the opportunity that was presented to him in favor of his dream job. The position definitely had benefits, but would have required a long commitment. Realistically, he would never have been able to do the job he really wants to do. He has the opportunity to do exactly what he wants to do-- that is something worth waiting a few more months for.
So there we are. Decisions made. I'm still dying for a trek into the wilderness, but I'm sure we'll make it out of Arkansas and back to the mountains someday.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Tornadoes and flooding and Dayquil-- oh my!
I've been feeling some major blogger-guilt for practically abandoning this blog. Not that you've been missing anything-- I can't talk about the ER or Brandon's job, I haven't even been in St. Louis, and my life in Arkansas is so ridiculously boring that you would fall asleep if I even attempted to describe it.
So, in an effort to give you something interesting to read, I packed my bags and headed to St. Louis for a little mini-vacation at Brandon's work apartment (yes, it was totally for you-- missing my husband had nothing to do with it at all *winks*).
We had big plans-- hiking trails, the wildlife refuge, the St. Louis Zoo, and maybe dinner on The Hill (little Italy).
Unfortunately, I forgot to check the weather before making this plans. Turns out, it's really hard to do those things with tornadoes, hailstorms, and widespread flooding.
The best we could manage was a very cold, wet trip to the dog park.
What happens when two people stand shivering for an hour in a cold, wet dog park with mud up to their ankles? Those two people get serious head and chest colds.
What happens when two people decide (at 2 am) to take some cold medicine, but choose Dayquil instead of Nyquil so that they will still wake up "fresh" in the morning? Those two people lie awake all night, hearts racing, staring at the ceiling. Those two people eventually doze off hours later and wake even more sick the next afternoon.
So, nothing truly interesting to report. That could change soon though.
Brandon has a meeting later this week with his hopeful/future/possible/probable employer. While we aren't expecting any new news, rumor has it that a meeting later this month might answer the question as to *when* this position will be open. . . which means it's possible that we will have announcement and timeline by the end of this month. Our expectation is that even if that does happen, the best case scenario is that we will have an official contract in hand but that the actual job won't start until fiscal year 2012-- which is exactly what we are hoping for.
So, in an effort to give you something interesting to read, I packed my bags and headed to St. Louis for a little mini-vacation at Brandon's work apartment (yes, it was totally for you-- missing my husband had nothing to do with it at all *winks*).
We had big plans-- hiking trails, the wildlife refuge, the St. Louis Zoo, and maybe dinner on The Hill (little Italy).
Unfortunately, I forgot to check the weather before making this plans. Turns out, it's really hard to do those things with tornadoes, hailstorms, and widespread flooding.
The best we could manage was a very cold, wet trip to the dog park.
What happens when two people stand shivering for an hour in a cold, wet dog park with mud up to their ankles? Those two people get serious head and chest colds.
What happens when two people decide (at 2 am) to take some cold medicine, but choose Dayquil instead of Nyquil so that they will still wake up "fresh" in the morning? Those two people lie awake all night, hearts racing, staring at the ceiling. Those two people eventually doze off hours later and wake even more sick the next afternoon.
So, nothing truly interesting to report. That could change soon though.
Brandon has a meeting later this week with his hopeful/future/possible/probable employer. While we aren't expecting any new news, rumor has it that a meeting later this month might answer the question as to *when* this position will be open. . . which means it's possible that we will have announcement and timeline by the end of this month. Our expectation is that even if that does happen, the best case scenario is that we will have an official contract in hand but that the actual job won't start until fiscal year 2012-- which is exactly what we are hoping for.
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