Taking My Proud Moments Where I Can Get 'Em

Corey's 15 and in need of something to fill his time while we wrap up the independent study program. Let's face it, the kid needs to be supervised, but there are no babysitters for people his age who aren't immobile or ill. So he needs a job. At his age, the best bet is volunteer work. His availability is awesome, he could develop some outside relationships and *trumpeting fanfare* he could learn something.


My job, for the better part of the past decade and a half has been related to pre-employment and basic job skills. So I'd be the ideal teacher of this information for you. Or your spouse. Or your kid. Or that crazy lady down the street. But not for my son.


I asked my coworker, Jill, if she would work with him and she agreed. They met, oh, about two months ago and laid out a plan of action. Of course, very little of it has occurred since then. Jill sent out a reminder email the other day, which Corey just got to read. He was then compelled (ahem... by his mother) to finish up some of the tasks. One of the "easy" ones is getting references.


He made a list of people to ask. I nixed the teacher he had from third to fifth grade as too long ago to be relevant. Then I made him actually dial the numbers and talk to people. The first one didn't go well at all. He called his instructor and apparently started off with, "My mom said I should call...," which resulted in Derek asking if he could speak with me. So I had to explain it all to him. Then Corey and I role-played asking the next person. Twice. Corey was pretty nervous, but he called her and got her to agree to a letter of recommendation.


Too bad he'd forgotten to get her contact information to use her as a reference. So he spent nearly 10 minutes trying to get out of calling her back, but eventually he did do it. As if it wouldn't be embarrassing enough to forget that in the first place, the person he was calling works at my mom's church. As does Mom. Grammy answers the phones there, in fact, so he had to go through her twice, too.


But *more trumpeting fanfare* he did it! Woohoo! I couldn't hear the whole thing, but what I could make out sounded great, even the second time around. I'm pretty pleased.


In other news, the house hunt is taking up nearly all of my free time. We went out last week on Monday and saw 22 houses, three of them twice. Why so many? The area we're hoping to buy in is about 45 minutes away. So we try to get our realtor for the day and knock 'em out like crazy. I love our realtor, Dave. He has three rules:

• If we pull up and you don't like it, we leave.
• If we go in and you don't like it, we leave.
• This is a cursory inspection, so we're not opening every cupboard and drawer.

Well, there's really a fourth rule, too. He has veto power. If he doesn't like the area or there are too many things wrong with the place, he vetoes it. Why does that work? He knows our taste and sensibilities pretty darned well.


Last week we found the house. Fricken huge, new paint and carpet, two years old, great neighborhood, views of mountains, desert and even some "city" lights. Bedrooms and bathrooms for all the people we now have and all the people we hope to have (including company). Ginormous backyard. Dual a/c. Ahh, yes. Love, love, love. We knew immediately where we'd put the Christmas tree.

But we wanted to check out the neighborhood in the evening when residents would be in residence. That couldn't happen again until Thursday night. We submitted our offer first thing Friday morning. That afternoon we learned we'd been beat to the punch.


We probably could have increased our bid or something, but it was at the top of the amount we want to spend, and there some 4000 homes in the region to consider. We hope the new owners are as happy there as we would have been. We hope we find something just as wonderful and happy-making when we go out on Saturday after my classes.


Tom and I compiled a list of 26 homes we're hoping to see. Since we're starting later in the day, we might not be able to get to them all. Homes are rather difficult to check out in the dark. Wish us luck!