Happy News?

OK fine. I've been procrastinating this entry long enough. Actually, after I wrote that first sentence, I went and made myself lunch.

Over the course of this past year, I exerted more of my energy than I care to think about as a public gardener making $7.50 and hour and driving 100 miles per day (because Mark & I share a car and worked in counties on opposite sides of our county). I enjoyed it except when I was weeding, which KILLED my esophagus (acid reflux). But with that much driving and that little money, we drained our savings. Why did I do it? There's a new park opening in Avon this spring and its a Public Greenhouse! how neat. I'd love to run a public greenhouse. Well, this greenhouse is part of the Lorain County MetroParks and they prefer to higher from within. "So," says I, "I'd better be 'within.'" I applied at LCMP's Schoepfle Garden in Birmingham, Ohio (not found on any map) and was offered to work as a seasonal for the required wage previously mentioned. yuck. ok...if it will help me get a good job, I guess I can work like a slave for a year.

The position was up for application in August and I readily applied. Duh! I'm perfect for this! I have greenhouse background and I'm a real people person. I fit the job description perfectly. But the greenhouse building process was seriously stalled and I didn't get called for an interview until Mid-January. First interview was a screening interview, weeding out the not-at-all-qualifieds--no problem. The next week I was called in for the second interview. It was an hour and 15 minutes and my old boss, who was not the best boss to me, was one of the 3 interviewers. My mind froze. It was a terrible and awkward interview, but I did it. After the Q&A interview, I had 25 minutes to do a bunch of test-like questions as part of the interview process. I guess I did OK there. I then had to wait another week to hear the results. How did I do? Let me first share my favorite proverb:

There was a farmer whose only horse got out and ran away.
"That's horrible," said his neighbor.
"Maybe yes, maybe no," replied the farmer.
A few days later, the horse came back and brought a whole herd of wild horses with it.
"Wow. What a wonderful blessing," exclaimed the neighbor.
"Maybe yes, maybe no."
The farmer's son was out working with the new horses and through incident, broke his leg.
"What a sad and terrible thing," said the neighbor.
"Maybe yes, maybe no."
So, the farmer's son was in bed, healing, and a decree came out from the government that all young and able men had to leave home and fight in the terrible war which was developing at the border. Because of his broken leg, the son was not required to go.

So then I think we can consider that the phone call I got at 3pm of Friday, February 4, saying that the job was given to someone "more qualified" can be a run-away horse. Truthfully, I would like to wail and moan about how the (I'm sure) Man who has 10 years more experience than me probably has severely less people skills and will not meet the required quota of exciting programs that the people of Avon would like to enjoy. I won't talk about that, but I will say that this let-down quickly became a relief for me.

I had pushed my life-long goal of being a good and righteous mother to the back burner. Actually, during the interview weeks, I was even considering the idea of being a full-time working mom my whole life. Uh-uh! That's NOT what I wanted for myself. EVER. So, I'm working on a new course of life direction. Mark and I are not exactly getting by, so it's not like I'm trying to get pregnant right now, although that will be a beautiful and exciting time I look forward to. I'm hoping to get a good job that I can do just sometimes.