On Thursday, for the first time in three days, I did not have to go anywhere when it started snowing. It has been below average cold all week and back into the 20's at night. Dad sent me an email about the low temperature at his ranch predicted for this weekend, at the time I got the email it was 13 degrees here. He called late this afternoon and he was actually getting snow. Friday morning I woke up to a blanket of snow that fell overnight, but it is mostly gone now and it is just plain cold.
I did on-line applications to various places most of the day on Thursday. Kelly referred me to another agency and I filled out their application on Thursday and then made an appointment to meet them next Tuesday. I could not find the phone number for the Arts Commission, so I sent the Deputy Director an email and she promptly responded that she will be scheduling interviews in the next two weeks. Not very informative. Then I called the Department of Labor about one of the state jobs where I had a 98 score and asked if my score was high enough to get me an interview. Nope. First comes the veteran's preference, then the 100 scores, 98 doesn't cut it. I registered on the regular Idaho Department of Labor site and they have some workshops, including a resume workshop on Monday and I think I will go.
Thursday night I took a break and met with my Artist's Way group. Margo made meditation CDs from the writings of Diane Mariechild and gave us all one. One meditation is on Letting Go, good choice for me. Margo is a radio personality and when I listened to the CD this morning I figured she must have recorded herself reading the meditations and she sounds great. I was impressed. (KTHI/107.1 K-Hits morning show co-host Margo Vaughn, Weekdays: 5:30 AM - 10:00 AM Saturday: 6:00 AM - 12:00 PM.) I have to admit I am really struggling with the Artist's Way and working on letting myself be creative/having my dreams versus my reality, which looks like impending financial disaster and never-ending unemployment.
By Friday morning I was tired and out of ideas. I started a painting a week ago and I worked on that yesterday afternoon and this morning. Then I decided to do a study for my commission to work out a few issues, like what in the world to do with the background. This is going to be tough, the reference has interior lighting, a dark brown background that I can't quite make out, and I need to change the color of a shirt, which is really pea green. I'm glad I did the study, because so far I do not like my alternate color choice for the shirt.
A group of birds came and hung around my backyard this afternoon and stayed long enough for me to get my camera,
Pretty fat bird considering it's Winter. He actually came up close to me in the yard, but it sure can't be because he's hungry.
I am holding up surprisingly well under the circumstances.
Those are Orioles! Somewhat rare to see. We only see them here in Ventura around February usually, so the timing is right. My mother-in-laws house is up in the foothills and she gets a ton of great birds in her backyard all the time. While we lived with her for a while when I first moved to Ventura I used to love watching all the birds in the yard. Orioles, Red Tail Hawks, Vultures, Hummingbirds, Blue Jays (well, Scrub Jays technically), Robins, and many others. I've always thought bird watchers were kind of silly, but next thing I knew I was turning into one. Birds can be really fascinating to me for some reason.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, hello from Ventura. They're dispersing your old Help Desk out to the IEC's, so things are changing pretty drastically. I'm sure you don't miss it! Good luck with the job search...
Garrick! Great to hear from you, you can now be my bird identification expert. I keep seeing birds here that are unknown to me, but that's not saying much since I've never been a bird watcher. I loved seeing the Orioles since I thought it was a sign that Spring is coming.
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