Snow Day & Opportunities

My dad's old place.

Even though we just came back from Utah and 12 inches of powder, my friends wanted to go up to big bear for the day and make a snowman and do some sledding--- so we had to oblige.

The neat thing was I was able to drive through the old town on the mountain my dad used to live in and not only visit his grave marker off the mountain, but find his old home and drive though the town I'd spent 2 years calling home every other weekend.

It brought back some nice memories...

We also stopped off in Big Bear to make our snowman, do some sledding, and ate at a hole in the wall pizza joint. We took more pictures, but they are on my friends camera, so no snow man pictures for show and tell.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a Saturday and get away. But man was it cold when we got back... Winter has officially arrived in So-Cal and so have the winds and the chill apparently.

Big Bear Pizza Joint :)

I'm glad that I've been baking all our bread just to have an excuse to turn the oven on to try and warm up the house! I even made cookies the other day and that's normally an activity that I leave to SCB because he's the better baker (but I'm getting a lot better-- no more melt downs in the kitchen.) but I was cold and tackled the project on my own just to heat up. 

It got so cold the other day that we actually were debating about turning on our heater that's some how attached to the boiler system... but we didn't because we haven't used it in 3 years and the boiler has had so many issues of late that they up and replaced the whole unit-- and when they did that a few people lost all their hot water... and I don't think its wise for us to try and use it until we have someone come out and inspect it to make sure that it is in working order before we burst a pipe and are in over our heads with water damage.

For some reason I thought our little wall AC unit had a heating function on it... but apparently it doesn't... so we might buy a small space heater as a short term fix. While fixing our windows has done a whole lot to help insulate our condo, these below freezing temperatures at night are making everything just so darn uncomfortable-- And apparently our front door is so drafty that you can feel the cold air blowing in by standing a good foot away from it. We never noticed it before because the glass windows were so poor that the front door never bothered us...

But now it does... but before we start drooling over getting a new front door with a window and taking off the ugly black rod fence thing and getting a nice hide a way screen door--- we have a lot of other things that must come first--- especially since we would need to re-do the whole door frame itself because its very old that the people who lived here before liked to slam doors and have the cops come over and bust them open.

So space heater it is! If we can find one. They were all out at Walmart and Target's selection was nil.

In other news, 

I tossed my hat in the ring for a new job with the City. It's in another department, but it looks to be something not only up my alley, but something I would enjoy doing. It also comes with a much welcome increase in base pay...(like $10k a year) not to mention I would no longer be doing more than one job and I'd feel a real sense of direction with my career.

Three other people applied for the position, but I'm not sure who the other candidates are and what department they are coming from. I actually applied before I left for Utah and when I got back earlier this month the scheduled the pre-interview assessment testing. While I passed all the tests but one (I missed one too many questions in an advanced portion of the Microsoft Word assessment)... they thought my stronger skills in the other areas allowed me to advance to the first round of interviews.

I ended up interviewing with three individuals from 3 different cities who work in the department I'm applying for... and while I only spent 20 minutes in the actual interview itself, they must have decided I merited further inclusion in the process because I was directed to the final round of interviews.

It's now between me and two other individuals for the position... and I had the final interview on Friday. I thought it went incredibly well and I'm really proud that I was able to not only answer all the questions easily, but that I was able to be "me" throughout the whole process. I honestly think that if I'm what they are looking for--- that the job is mine. If I'm not a good fit, then they will choose someone else and I'll just go back to the normal rhythm of things.

But I feel really good about knowing that I gave it my all, that I was honest, and myself. I didn't panic and I felt like I was able to effectively let them see who I was and what I had to offer.

So, let's send some good vibes my way!!!!