Last day of Training Today!!

It is barely light out, it is raining 'Again', we have had no summer this year, a bare few days.  And here I am going into my last day of training. We had our last practical test yesterday with managers listening to our practice scenarios, which I think went well for the most part.  Not sure what they have in mind today to top that, but tomorrow we are supposed to go into 10 days of 'Nesting', this is where we have help on the floor when we take calls, so I think the nerves will be showing for that experience.

I am thinking that once I settle into all this, I can start treating it as a job, and begin working on the rest of my life, and do some more crafting.  I have my eye on a crochet pattern for a skirt. It is part of a book, and have sent off an enquiry to make sure that the pattern is for the skirt in the picture as opposed to the beret and fingerless gloves the model is wearing.  I don't want to buy the book of 25 patterns, only to find that the skirt I love is not one of the patterns, you get the idea !

Well off to work now, have a great day readers.

Grey Matter is fighting back!!!

I have always has the theory that when you are learning new things, that something has got to give - space is limited. When you force new information in, other random information is pushed out. 

This week I find my mind is fighting back, and telling me they don't want to lose the information it already has, and saying I am not accepting this new stuff!

We have had online tests on work we have not covered, as a way to get us to familiarise ourselves with the website where we find all the answers we will need. This involves also trying to understand what we are reading, and from that working out the answers. We need to get 80%, but at least we can keep trying to get there.

The time in between these tests has been great, our trainer has a great way about her, and makes it fun. We also have activities within our teams, which means we get to know our colleagues better as we go along. 

We seem to have the tests in the last hour of the day, and by then your mind is saying enough already, so for me Friday ended on a stressful note.  We will be covering this work later once we have done the tests, with the logic that we will already be somewhat familiar with the information.  My Grey Matter is not seeing that logic right now.

I have found myself quite exhausted every evening, mostly mental, but the body is saying I have to switch off and sleep now. 

We have had a relaxing weekend for the most part, we did see some sunshine yesterday, so the grass got cut. We really did not get a summer this year, and here we are in August and it is not happening. 

I have calmed down from the stressful state of Friday evening, and hoping I can keep that up for next week, and get through the tests without panicking, so I can complete them.

I am now Employed!

As of yesterday, I am now ranked among the Employed. I had Orientation yesterday, and will be starting two weeks of training today.  Can't really say much about it, other than it is in a Call Center, and everything else is confidential. My understanding is that we will have two weeks training, and then a week doing the job, then back into training for another week, and then back into the job.

The location is the same one as I got laid off from over nine months ago, so it was wonderful to see all the familiar faces, and everyone was glad to be back together again.

My husband just had to listen to me last evening, about how my day had gone, so there was no crafting going on in sight.  My hope is that once we are through the training phase, and I am on some sort of routine, that I will be able to continue with making things, which I will show you.

Today could be described as another Saga!!

This is my last day of freedom basically, as tomorrow I start my new job.  First thing, I pondered how I would spend my day, and apart from my hen Margot not being well, and needing to be hand fed, I thought I would need to enjoy my last day at home.  Nine months is a long time, and it has been one saga after another, and one crisis after another, so Tough is the only description for it.  

So this morning I went out to attempt to get Margot to eat, and there was very little interest. I suddenly felt I was really crawling with crawling things, and took off the shirt I had on, and I had a sweater on under that, and turned back one sleeve, and I was crawling with some sort of mite. I put Margot back in the nest box, and I decided that I would make an effort to clean out the chicken palace, and give it a good scrub. I even found a bathroom cleaner that had added bleach, which my husband no longer allows, due to the septic tank: so that got used spraying walls and floors and roosts.. and water and lots of scrubbing, plenty of elbow grease went into that.   I had the lid of the nesting boxes open, and the front door.. for air to go through and dry everything up again.. there was sunshine and a breeze which was perfect.   

I had moved Margot to the mini run on a towel before the scrubbing started, so I tried to get her to eat, but no interest truly, then I realised I had things crawling on my hands again.. I checked her and she is truly infested with some sort of mite.. and for lack of any better ideas coming to me, I brought her into the house, and filled the washing up bowl with warm water and washing up liquid.. and washed her.. and the water was full of these mites. I just kept emptying it, and doing it again and again.. endlessly. Then when I thought I got them all, I took her through to the lounge, and tried to dry her with a hair drier, then moved her up to the bath tub, wrapped in a towel, and she seemed comfortable. 

The rest of my day, was checking on her, and seeing signs of mite life, and she got bathed again and again, and so it went on four times in all. I discovered that the mites moved to her head.. and I was protecting that.. but even that got soaped up.  She is now keener to eat, and even gave her water with honey, also water with electrolytes so she seems more settled. 

I did check the rooster and the four hens, and they were all clean, and also one of the four chicks is also free of mites. I conclude that Margot is the only hen that had an infestation.

During the day, emails went back and forth with my husband, and since it was a  civic holiday in Canada today, and yes he was working at his workplace: it was down to him to find something to dust in the chicken house when he got home, so that we could put down fresh  bedding for the chickens.

I still have Margot on a towel in our bath tub, and she has had some of the powder put on her too, as they suggest putting the powder in their dust baths, so I knew it was not dangerous to do that.

About to have our evening meal, and will see what the end of the day brings.  Suffice to say, tomorrow I am back to work, and am planning on being suited and booted and be on top form.