Happy New Year!
I know. I know. It's January 31 and I'm just now getting around to wishing you all a happy new year. Well it's a been a bit busy the household since mid-November. You can imagine that holidays with 4 little ones makes life a bit hectic (fun though!) And well toss into the mix the cross country move and other excitement, well I'm a bit behind.
So to catch you all up on things. Just before Thanksgiving I accepted a pediatric physical therapy position at a lovely children's hospital. They gave me a start date of January 14, so we had to do some hustling to get to our new location (9-10 hours from where we were then located). We made it through Thanksgiving. I cooked a lovely turkey and my father fried a lovely turkey. We ate turkey for what seemed like weeks! It was heavenly. Directly following Thanksgiving S had her holiday dance recital and then hubby and I flew out to look at homes. Lucky for us we had our current home already on the market so we at least didn't have to add to the chaos of finding a realtor to sell our current home. On a whirlwind weekend in which I believe we actually outpaced my parents in looking at properties we picked a house. Well the mortgage companies had other ideas and basically told us no! you can't have 2 mortgages. So we had to rent........sight unseen........which we found out at the end of December is nearly impossible to do in our new state. Lucky for us the realtor in the new location was willing to walk through a property for us.
So imagine, prior to Christmas we think we are buying a house, days before Christmas we find out we have nowhere to live. Makes for a joyful Christmas right? Well lucky for us the excitement of the kiddos rubs off. We made it through Christmas and into New Years, still with no housing. Lucky for us the real estate agency approved our application to rent days before we were scheduled to move.
We had packers come Tuesday January 8, they finished on the 9th and the truck was loaded that day as well. Also lucky for us the driver promised us delivery that Friday! So we set off really late Wednesday the 9th for our new destination, 2 cars loaded with 1 driver each and 2 kiddos. My hubby had the joy of driving with our cat as well. The family arrived late Thursday afternoon at our new location and we had a camp-out in the master bedroom. Early the next morning arrived our moving van and we started the process of settling in. Let me tell you that this house has some interesting quirks...... (though I'll have to save those for another post or two or three).
So that was the first half of my month of the new year, thus the extremely late "Happy New Year!"
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Thankful
So I know a lot of people (including me!) did the 30 days of thanks on Facebook Well I took a few moments and went to look at what I was thankful for over the month. It generally summed up to my family and friends. There were quite a few posts about hubby and his consideration and support and love, which were followed by assistance from family, from filling in with daycare to providing financial support, none of what I have accomplished could have been done without them. Then of course there were my friends, finding me a last minute babysitter, keeping pace with me through the years, etc. It was interesting to see how it varied each day, and the occasional days that I was thankful for something rather than someone. It makes me wonder if I forced myself everyday to find ONE thing that I was thankful for how would it change as compared to November. Well........honestly I don't know. I (like everyone else) stopped on December 1 counting these blessings, but it is something I am going to keep doing, at least in my head.
I mean I know I complain and whine about not having any money (it's true!) and being stressed (also true), but there are a lot of people who have it much worse. My family and I have a roof over our heads, food to eat (while it might not be a lot or exactly what I want- it's food!), a safe car(s) to drive and a lovely school for our children. This is significantly more than a large portion of the world. I have freedoms that others do not, and a large host of other things, material goods and non-material things as well. And well, I generally try to keep my blog free of politics and religion, but I can't keep to myself that God has provided for me and my family through some very difficult times, and I just wanted to share that.
I mean I know I complain and whine about not having any money (it's true!) and being stressed (also true), but there are a lot of people who have it much worse. My family and I have a roof over our heads, food to eat (while it might not be a lot or exactly what I want- it's food!), a safe car(s) to drive and a lovely school for our children. This is significantly more than a large portion of the world. I have freedoms that others do not, and a large host of other things, material goods and non-material things as well. And well, I generally try to keep my blog free of politics and religion, but I can't keep to myself that God has provided for me and my family through some very difficult times, and I just wanted to share that.
Job updating
Well I am sure you have been wondering what I (we) have been up to these past few weeks (months?). It has been steady work trying to keep our schedules intact, including for August through October I had been working teaching the odd lab and lecture for the physical therapy students in the midst of their pediatric course.
The major update is that I have applied for multiple clinical positions and heard back from a number of them. The biggest issue is that people think I have been getting my DPT (doctor of physical therapy) degree, so I have to clarify, which if they actually read my resumé then would know the difference. The other issue is salary, being that I would be considered underpaid in my first PT position and then had contract work at a higher rate of pay no one quite knows what to pay me. I guess that's a generally good position to be in, as they have been offering me higher rates than I would have been expecting. I interviewed in Chicago a while ago for a clinical position. I decided after much thought not to accept the tentative offer I had been given. I realized I have a few issues with their practice, one being that they early intervention clients they service are only at the clinic, when early intervention is meant to be home-based services, two they do not believe in episodes of care (which is basically that you only provide services to children when necessary, not just because they have a disability), and three because it does not appear that they are providing services to those with Medicaid, which I found crazy since the clinic is right in Chicago. Crazy right?!
So I have also applied and interviewed at two major Children's Hospitals as well. One was a Skype interview and one was in-person. So, I bet you are wondering how you manage to have interviews when you have four kiddos. Well...... it's a bit tricky! I have had multiple phone interviews at home with children being entertained by the electronic babysitter (tv or computer), which I generally try to schedule when I have at least one child out of the house. This means squeezing in an interview while the boys are at preschool and praying that B won't have a fit, which she has had EVERY time I have had a phone interview (or Skype), OR trying to have an interview over nap while S is at K (which sort of works). I think my favorite moment was 5 minutes into a Skype interview B decides that the basement is boring and she wants to come upstairs, but I have gated her in downstairs with S and the closed the basement door at the top. Well, this upset her quite a bit, so she starts crying........and then screaming........and well generally carrying on at the top of her lungs while I am in the room above pretending that I can't hear here and PRAYING that the people I am Skype interviewing with can't hear her. And what should have been a 20 minute interview lasted 45+ minutes!
Of course my other favorite interview moment was trying to carry on a telephone interview in the car while picking up S from school with the other 3 in the backseat.......I'm thankful that it actually went well and that my interviewer had a very limited time to speak to me.
I did manage to have a successful onsite interview with one hospital, which was following a less successful phone interview (boys were screaming during what was supposed to be nap.......). This was managed by flying out of our local airport at the crack of dawn, almost missing my flight because of delays at the check-in counter, having the interview (lasted about 3 hours), heading back to the airport and getting in really late the same night. All of which could not have been done without my mother-in-law because our regular babysitter was ill! Oh and this was followed by taking Al for minor surgery the next morning......
So...... yes you can job search at home with four kiddos, but man it is tough! Sometimes I have to lock myself into my room and then into our bathroom to hold a phone call briefly when I am at home with all four. It's a crazy thing, but it has worked out well for me. I can say that I have accepted a position at a wonderful children's hospital as a pediatric PT working 30 hours (full-time)!
The major update is that I have applied for multiple clinical positions and heard back from a number of them. The biggest issue is that people think I have been getting my DPT (doctor of physical therapy) degree, so I have to clarify, which if they actually read my resumé then would know the difference. The other issue is salary, being that I would be considered underpaid in my first PT position and then had contract work at a higher rate of pay no one quite knows what to pay me. I guess that's a generally good position to be in, as they have been offering me higher rates than I would have been expecting. I interviewed in Chicago a while ago for a clinical position. I decided after much thought not to accept the tentative offer I had been given. I realized I have a few issues with their practice, one being that they early intervention clients they service are only at the clinic, when early intervention is meant to be home-based services, two they do not believe in episodes of care (which is basically that you only provide services to children when necessary, not just because they have a disability), and three because it does not appear that they are providing services to those with Medicaid, which I found crazy since the clinic is right in Chicago. Crazy right?!
So I have also applied and interviewed at two major Children's Hospitals as well. One was a Skype interview and one was in-person. So, I bet you are wondering how you manage to have interviews when you have four kiddos. Well...... it's a bit tricky! I have had multiple phone interviews at home with children being entertained by the electronic babysitter (tv or computer), which I generally try to schedule when I have at least one child out of the house. This means squeezing in an interview while the boys are at preschool and praying that B won't have a fit, which she has had EVERY time I have had a phone interview (or Skype), OR trying to have an interview over nap while S is at K (which sort of works). I think my favorite moment was 5 minutes into a Skype interview B decides that the basement is boring and she wants to come upstairs, but I have gated her in downstairs with S and the closed the basement door at the top. Well, this upset her quite a bit, so she starts crying........and then screaming........and well generally carrying on at the top of her lungs while I am in the room above pretending that I can't hear here and PRAYING that the people I am Skype interviewing with can't hear her. And what should have been a 20 minute interview lasted 45+ minutes!
Of course my other favorite interview moment was trying to carry on a telephone interview in the car while picking up S from school with the other 3 in the backseat.......I'm thankful that it actually went well and that my interviewer had a very limited time to speak to me.
I did manage to have a successful onsite interview with one hospital, which was following a less successful phone interview (boys were screaming during what was supposed to be nap.......). This was managed by flying out of our local airport at the crack of dawn, almost missing my flight because of delays at the check-in counter, having the interview (lasted about 3 hours), heading back to the airport and getting in really late the same night. All of which could not have been done without my mother-in-law because our regular babysitter was ill! Oh and this was followed by taking Al for minor surgery the next morning......
So...... yes you can job search at home with four kiddos, but man it is tough! Sometimes I have to lock myself into my room and then into our bathroom to hold a phone call briefly when I am at home with all four. It's a crazy thing, but it has worked out well for me. I can say that I have accepted a position at a wonderful children's hospital as a pediatric PT working 30 hours (full-time)!
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