I Lost My Job With HGS

So for those of you who aren't aware, I lost my job. Crazy, right? I know!

I've had a lot of time to reflect on things with all of this unexpected spare time I now have which as led me to come to some realizations about working from home: Though it is convenient to be able to work from home and not require a second car, the scheduling is quite difficult to deal with. When I first started working for HGS (or Rogers as per my position), the scheduling was fine. I was able to schedule myself for 12-hour days earning myself much overtime and giving myself more time to spend with Carley and Isabelle because I'd have three whole days off! Every once in a while things would change a bit with how much hours were offered, but for the most part it was pretty consistent; then things changed.

It was around December when things went sour for a bit with myself and Carley. Between December, January, and February I used up all of my sick days by being depressed and not wanting to go to work. You'd be surprised how much an event like that could make a person not want to work even when working is as easy as walking downstairs and sitting at a computer where you never meet a person face-to-face. Luckily I was able to get through that and there was still plenty of hours to work at the right times that I pulled through. Being able to schedule yourself for 12-hour days at that point is quite nice for dealing with a situation like that where you need as many days off as possible.

After that event everything was good again and continued on quite well up until Carley got her job. Now I was (and still am) quite proud that she managed to find a job working at a care home and found what it is that she wants to do with herself moving forward into the future career-wise. The hard part with that is transitioning into having two full-time working parties in a relationship; this wouldn't be so bad if there were no child involved, but we do have a lovely little girl to take care of as well. So our little Isabelle needed to be enrolled in full-time daycare and we had to coordinate ourselves to having Carley working evenings (right up until 11:00 PM) and getting Isabelle to daycare as early as possible the next day (6:45 AM) so that I could then work during the time she'd be at daycare and then be done in time to pick her up. Now that would be perfect if not for two problems...

1) I'd have to schedule myself to start at 6:30 AM to be "done" by 3:00 PM. Now when I say DONE, what I mean is, I'd be done *IF* I didn't get a phone call that would last beyond that time. Of course if you get a phone call, you can't just hang up on a person and that call could potentially go overtime by an hour or more if it was a customer with a lot of questions or possibly an angry customer who wanted escalate to a manager. Hence, I had to be "done" by 3:00 PM to ensure I would have enough time to go get Isabelle before daycare is closed.

2) The part where I had to schedule myself for 6:30 AM. Carley is sleeping because of how late she was working and then able to get to bed after finally getting home late at night, and daycare doesn't open until 6:45 AM. Now we did manage to transition into being able to deal with this with Carley able to get up to take Isabelle then come back and go back to sleep (naturally there would be a bit of an adjustment period when not being used to working shifts like this).

There was a bit of another problem as well which sort of started to come up, but we didn't quite get around to that before I was let go. Carley was hired to work evenings at her care home, but wasn't being given consistent days to work, her schedule came out late, and she was starting to get a couple random day shifts; not too much of a problem... except where I'm working 7 days a week early in the morning to fit in all my required hours and there's no daycare on weekends. See the problem with that? Not able to just leave Isabelle locked in her room for a few hours while she's awake, huh?

So they let me go because I missed enough days and was late enough times that they felt it necessary to do... followed by immediately posting jobs to hire more employees. Now... I understand what happened and that it's obviously not great to be late so often and miss so much work, but the combination of knowing that I put out good scores in my work each month (amazing scores even), but then they're fire me due to absence and then immediately want to hire more people... hurts a little. I'm alright with it, and I've certainly learned my lesson from it; we need to work together to make sure everything is covered between us and care for our child.

So... now we're here. I have no job right now. Little update on Carley is that she's now working a new job as a housekeeper at a hotel which is a bit less pay and a bit less hours, but it's CONSISTENT hours. You really don't realize how important it is to have such consistent hours as a parent until you start having two working persons, requiring daycare, and having to coordinate with each other to get everything to work properly.

Wish me luck everybody as I figure out what to do with myself and how to get there. There's much job-hunting going on and I'm looking to keep myself busy while keeping the house in order during the time that I have.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== What's Wrong With People? ===

     The first thing that comes to mind right now is simply... what's wrong with people? I hardly know how to start telling you all about this other than to simply hang my jaw open in disbelief at the sorts of things that go on in the world. Now don't get me wrong, I love it here in Moose Jaw; there are just some things that are a little bit odd happening of late. Let's just get right into story-time shall we?

     This past week, we've had a couple odd things go on while I've been gone to work. It seems like this first started when my parents were over and Carley saw a man walking down our back alley. Naturally, she didn't think much of it; there's no reason to give much thought to a person walking by. The real oddness starts a couple days later when someone walks by unlocking the back gates of every house in the area. What makes sense for someone to ever do that? As strange as that was, we didn't think too much of it other than to realize that we should put a lock on our back gate just in case something like that were to ever happen again. It certainly wouldn't be fun to have Furgle run away especially since we lost his tag and need to get him a new one.

     Do you think that's strange? You'll never guess what happened the very next day. Someone walks by (whom Carley thinks is the same guy all three of these days), reaches over the fence, and gives something to Furgle. Carley didn't think much of what it could have been at the time, but was pretty pissed about someone doing something like that. Now, when we have company over and Furgle is being too crazy, we put him downstairs in the office to chill out for a while. Usually he voices his opinion on how he would rather be with us by howling like a banshee in the basement being chased by a cop car, but on this night he sounded like he was going mental. Almost like he was throwing himself at the door.

     It wasn't until later on that night after company had gone home that we let Furgle out and Carley noticed his heart was pounding and he was pacing so badly that he just couldn't lay down for longer than a minute. At this point, Carley thought about it and asked what the symptoms of a dog eating chocolate are. I didn't know, so we looked it up and realized what the man gave him earlier Carley believes was about a cup of chocolate in total. I'm so flabbergasted that someone would do that I'm unable to process what even could go through the mind of someone to want to do that. The good news is that Furgle is fine now and he isn't having any issues of any sort. He just needed a little bit of time and rest to get back to normal.

At this point, all I can say is... what's wrong with people?

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Crying, Babies, and Midterms ===

     So we've been handling our baby and wow, those midterms sure showed up fast; I didn't realize the spring semester would go by so quickly. Everything has been rushing by it seems with things to do every day followed by crying, crying, crying, and more crying... which results in sudden losses of consciousness at various times of the day when there is nothing immediately important to be doing. All of this however, is interrupted at equally random times of the day by more crying.

     This past month has been pretty much continuously assignments due at least every second day. As you may be able to imagine: driving 45 minutes to and from work every day, being short on sleep, trying to help with the baby, and then trying to get some school work done at the end of the day... it's a little bit difficult. There are times when things end up being late. There are times when things just don't get done at all. Currently, this includes booking a couple of my midterms... so I'm going to have to figure out how to still write those even though there is no available time to write them left in the system. Ugh...

     I look forward to the times when everybody is sleeping; the baby, the dog, and Carley. At these times I actually get some uninterrupted time to myself... for a bit. Inevitably someone ends up needing something. Carley needs a bit of help or attention or something to get done, the baby wakes up and wants........... I really don't know what, or the dog needs to get outside. I can't believe I'm thinking this, but the dog is probably actually the least needy at this time.

     I'm certainly looking forward to being done with my classes so I won't have to be doing so much all the time anymore. Oh how I can't wait to have proper time to think each day after I get home from work. One day Kyle... one day.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== When Are The Ducks Coming? ===

     I know it's a little bit early to look forward to the ducks coming back, but I think we're looking forward to spending our second spring and summer in Moose jaw. One of our favourite things to do in the nice weather is feed the ducks all of our large supply of bread. The beautiful place in Moose Jaw known as Crescent Park is a lovely place with a man-made waterfall contraption which takes the water from the bottom of the park and pushes it out a waterfall at the top. Along this sort of man-made river quite a bit of wildlife has actually made their homes here including ducks, groundhogs, and even a beaver.

     As much of a homebody I tend to be, I do enjoy getting out for adventures and things sometimes. It'll be a little bit more difficult now with our baby in tow, but I'm sure we'll still manage anyways. I still have plans for us to get out and go on some hikes and things and get some nice fresh outside in our lungs. I know it's quite surprising for a person such as myself (who would generally much prefer to sit in a dark hole and play games rather than go on a road trip) to enjoy going outside on adventures. Who knows, maybe I'll let Carley take me camping one day?

     In the mean time, I think we'll just make more trips to the park and enjoy ourselves in the beautiful weather and throw pieces of bread at the birds. Now that I think about it though, we should make some more trips over to the dog park. Moose Jaw has a dog park split into a small dog side and a large dog side. We've driven by there before, but we haven't yet had a chance to go there on a nice day when there are other people there. I think it would be really good for Furgle to get some doggie socialization time.

     Now that I really think about it, it would be a great idea to get some active time in somehow. I haven't had much time to do anything besides work and be at home with the baby. I just found out that I'll be able to use an active reimbursement thinger from work to get a bicycle, so I'm thinking I'll do that next month if possible and then I'll bike around Moose Jaw whenever possible. I'm also thinking I need to get the DDR things hooked up for something a little more active I can do at home as well. Hmm... something to think about.

Bye everyone! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

The Baby Is Finally Born!

     What an amazing event to finally watch our baby be born. She's here now and ready to explore the worl--... oh... she's asleep. She was pretty wide awake at first, probably something to do with being thrust into some alien world she's not used to. She's eaten a couple times and this morning she managed to have one of the biggest poops I've ever seen... compared to her body weight.

     So far, Carley is super amazed with her. With all of the experience she has with children, she's terrified of newborns; She wants to do everything so gentile and to be sure she doesn't hurt the baby. Me on the other hand... I have no idea what to do with kids at all. Alright well... that's not totally true, I think between the two of us, we have plenty of experience to deal with toddlers... it's babies we're unsure about; we're plenty prepared for having a toddler. 

     A couple days later and here we are at home. I was terrified to bring her home and not have the support of the nurses at the hospital, but I think we're managing so far. She seems to sleep sometimes and then wake herself up every once in a while and get a little bit fussy. At the moment she's pretty much an angel during the day, then she becomes a monster at night. Last night in particular we had quite a few issues getting her to go to sleep until I found the swaddler and used it on her in place of a regular blanket. I don't know how other people do it, but neither Carley, nor I are capable of doing a great job of swaddling her with a regular blanket. At this point it seems totally insane and I'm absolutely looking forward to getting another one or two to use throughout her years.

     Besides that, we're holding on for now. I'm not looking forward to some upcoming drives to work where I'll be super tired falling asleep, especially considering the fact that I have such a long drive to work. I'm sure I'll pull through with a healthy supply of caffeine to keep me going on those particularly tough days. Between work, school, a baby, and our puppy, I'll have a lot to keep me busy. Oh yeah, and I have hopes that I'll be able to grow a garden, practice my dusty violin, and keep on blogging and streaming as we go along as well. I would love to find more time to stream and / or record YouTube videos because those I particularly find enjoyable, but that may have to wait for a bit depending on how things are going... I mean... I do have the recent addition of a baby in my family to take care of now.

Well, that's all for now, have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa



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I'm mostly living a comfortable life.

     I have to say, I'm feeling awesome. I still need another job to make me feel more secure on the money front, but besides that, I'm doing quite well. I have a comfortable home and people who love and care about me, and I have time to do hobbies and things I want to do rather than only work at all points in time.

     I'm thinking that once I get another job I might start baking in my spare time for funzies. I do like baking believe it or not. More so when it's for other people as well. Besides that, I'm hoping to be able to find more time to sing a couple songs to post on YouTube, and I'm wanting to take more time to stream because I'm really enjoying meeting new people to talk to and entertaining them.

     More good days ahead! Keep being awesome everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle

And So I Have Four Less Teeth Than Before

     Seems like I've had a pretty short day so far. Two hour drive with my mother up to Saskatoon, followed by missing out on a about an hour of my day due to anesthetic. Then I happily slept the entire way home. I really haven't done much today / yesterday and I'm perfectly alright with that. My gums hurt a it, but for the post part, I'm feeling pretty good. Maybe just a little bit groggy and perhaps a little slow likely due to the strong dose of painkillers.

     Today was a good day though. I can definitely think of a rant that I'd like to post about in the near future, but I'm going to wait on that for now until I've had more time to articulate my thoughts.

     In the mean time, I'm eating some wonderful banana bread made my by amazing mother and I'm looking forward to a feast of soft foods tomorrow for supper. If I get around to it, I'll post another video or two tomorrow and we'll go from there.

Have a great one everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle

First Semester Finals

   Well, that wasn't so bad. I wasn't sure how I would do this first semester. It was my first whole semester back in school since high school. Now I know I could have done better than I did, but I'm actually quite happy to have only failed one class. Sure my other marks weren't as high as I probably would have liked, but I'm thinking it will be much easier now to focus on school this coming second semester now that I'm living in Moose Jaw with Carley who's working full-time.

   I managed to fail math. I've never been awesome at math, so I'm not too heartbroken over it. Obviously I would have liked to pass the class, but I'll get through it when I get the chance to take it again. The extra time to do it again, this time in the comfort of a closer home, will be good for me I think. I'll be able to take the time to go through my textbook and get math practice in. Especially since I don't have to worry about making money while I'm trying to learn school things.

   I guess I don't really have a lot to say today. Mostly I'm just really happy to be done my first whole semester. That's a milestone for me. It's been a while since I've actually accomplished something useful outside of my room or having a girlfriend. So here's hoping us moving here was the right choice. I know it will make my life in school easier, and I know Carley is really happy to finally have a job... even if it's a little hectic for her right now.

~ Kyle

Moving To A New Home

   So my Carley and I have decided to make the leap together into having a place of our own in Moose Jaw. We figured it would be nicer for me to live close to school, her to live somewhere that they're actually offering her jobs, and for us both to live together to avoid the driving back and forth from each other's houses.

   Now last time I was living here was also for school, but it was on my own. And I certainly don't remember it being so difficult and tiring. We rented a large Uhaul truck to carry all of our stuff together... and maybe that's why I remember it being easier. I'm pretty sure last time I only had enough stuff to pack up my old car, maybe a little bit more. This time, we had a whole 20 foot truck to load and unload... lots of heavy things.

   I had plans to do so much more today, but I was actually exhausted and didn't get it all done.  I had to take a nap today instead of going in to Regina for my dentist appointment. Carley is pretty tired from working full time the past few days, she's not used to it after not doing so for quite some time. So while she's sleeping, I'm working on unpacking some boxes and moving other ones to the rooms they're supposed to be in to make it easier to work through. It sure is dark in the living room without a light on... just gotta move a few more things until I get to the lamp...

~ Kyle