Urgent Prayer Request

If anyone can spare a few moments today, or tomorrow, or Thursday morning, we could certainly use a few extra prayers.

Here's the deal in a nutshell.  After several years of skating by in the spirit of the law, we've been caught by the new draconian regime in the PT office which has begun enforcing the letter of the law.  Despite being able to perform at Navy standards in the gym, Dave has run afoul of their ridiculous weight limits and neck-to-waist ratio.  The numbers say he is supposed to be under 200 pounds at his height, which would be borderline anorexic for his body type.  He's lost ten pounds in the past five weeks in an attempt to meet these requirements, and is now living on lettuce and apples and weight loss supplements, but the outcome is still uncertain.  The issue is that we've had this kind of trouble a few times before, and this would be the last strike.

If he passes, he gets promoted and we're set for at least another year.  If not, the Navy will disregard the rest of his contract and release him back into the wild.  Basically, on Thursday we'll know whether we're staying here or organizing a fire sale of our worldly goods and embarking on a new and exciting semi-homeless phase of our lives.

I know God has a plan, but right now I really wish He would let me in on a few details.

Work and the Blahs

Work has really been running me into the ground lately.  I never wanted to worry or stress about work. Work was supposed to be what I did at home; the job was supposed to be something I did for a few hours in the morning to make some pocket money and get out of the house.  I was quite happy with 20 hours/week.  This week I have 40, which include showing up at 4:00 AM, two hours earlier than my scheduled availability.  The only reason I agree to do it is because our manager is really nice and deserves all the cooperation she can get.

The odd thing is that we're supposed to be extremely short on hours this month, mostly because the reserve was burned weeks ago bringing me and several of my fellow morning-shifters in for extra duty in an attempt to make the store presentable.  Whenever we hear of a payroll crunch on the horizon, the morning crew and I are worked even harder.  I assume we should be flattered to be considered some of the most reliable employees in the store, but I really have things I need to do at home.  We're two months into stocking season, and I'm already hopelessly behind.  I never feel like going to Krav Maga in the evenings ($160/month), I don't have time to cook properly, and I generally spend my afternoons nursing a headache.  Never mind that the store itself has basically become an understaffed, overworked, inefficient, unorganized Pit of Despair, with the district manager breathing down our collective neck.

Suddenly I'm very conflicted about Obamacare.  I still oppose it on principle, but I can't deny that I'm REALLY looking forward to that 28-hour cap on my schedule.

Realities of Obamacare

The unintentional effects of Obamacare are starting to rattle my workplace, and those apolitical creatures who usually take no notice of such things are having a rude awakening.

Here's the breakdown of the situation.  Almost all of us in the store are part-time.  That isn't a problem.  As part-timers, we regularly work anywhere between 20 to even 40 hours a week (when payroll is good).  If we have time to spare, we pick up shifts for other people or stay a little later than scheduled as the need arises.

Obamacare will now put a stop to that, as of February 1.  The way the government sees it, these evil retail companies are taking advantage of us by giving part-timers full-time employment without full-time benefits.  To some degree, I see their point.  At my previous job, I was working 40 hours solid every week with no benefits.  So, in an effort to put a stop to this shameless exploitation of the American worker, it has been decreed that no part-time employee will be permitted to work more than 30 hours a week or the company will be subjected to a $161 fine per team member per hour.

THE HOPE:  This will force these greedy corporations to create more full-time positions and everyone will have benefits and be happy and prosperous.

THE REALITY:  The company only has so many full-time positions that it can afford.  Rather than create any new ones, the solution will be to simply hire more part-timers to fill the shifts its current workforce will no longer be able to cover.  AND, in an effort to absolutely avoid those crushing fines for accidental overwork, the company policy has changed to reflect a maximum of 25 hours per week per employee.

Hours are being cut across the board.  Some of my coworkers who rely on those extra hours to make ends meet have begun looking for second jobs or entirely new jobs.  In the end, people will have to work the same number of hours as part-time employees but now juggle two different jobs.  Nobody is happy.

Thanks for nothing, federales.

Welcome To the Fake World

It's no wonder people don't seem to have a firm grasp of reality.  This whole culture of American consumerism is permeated with rank artificiality.  I spent eight hours at work yesterday unboxing more fake candles than I have ever seen in one place before.  I promised myself years ago that I would never own a plastic battery-powered candle.  "Flickers like a real candle!"  Not it doesn't; it flickers like a faulty lightbulb!

We have fake smells, fake flavors, fake fur, fake leather, fake flowers, fake trees, fake fingernails, fake diamonds, fake sunlight, whole fake lives in fake computer-generated worlds with fake friends and fake money.  Even real money is fake now.  Did you know quarters and dimes used to be made of silver?  Maybe you did, but lots of other people don't.  Almost everything real in our lives seems to have been replaced by a cheaper, more convenient plastic imitation.

I think it's high time we got back to the nitty-gritty.  Burn real candles this holiday season, and set the table with real flowers once in a while.  I don't care whether you buy a prepared arrangement or pick some dandelions out of the backyard.  It will be worth it, I promise.

New Routine

I finally took a job.  I really couldn't justify not trying given my wide open schedule.  It's one of those thankless and faceless part time retail jobs, but I wanted something disposable.  The real miracle is that they were still willing to hire me after I demanded never to work weekends or any later than 4 PM on weekdays.  That should nicely coincide with the husband's schedule, so there shouldn't be any real disruption of our home life.  That is, when we have a home life.

Deployment is every bit as sterile an existence as I remember.  The only thing to do is to somehow make the time go by without being terribly conscious of it, because if I were I'd be twice as miserable.  On the other hand, not having anyone to spend time with has allowed me to get a remarkable amount of work done on those Christmas stockings commissioned this year.  Despite an earlier bout of despair, I might actually get them all done in time.

But, speaking of deployments and general loneliness, I've been realizing just how vulnerable I am.  Living alone anywhere is still very new to me, and more than a little unsettling, especially with the strange characters we've had knocking on the door lately.  I've started making an effort to brush up on my target practice when I visit the old homestead, but that doesn't do me much good in the meantime.  So, in the interest of taking at least minimal precautions, I swung by Target after work today and picked up an old fashioned, wireless, all-purpose offensive weapon with built in fire escape.

Best of all, it doesn't require a license.  Yet.

No News is Good News

It's been rather slow lately, and there really isn't anything new to report. David is settling in and killing some time before he can really get down to business. It's been great now that he has his phone, internet, AND snail mail, even if they don't let him have Hulu or YouTube. I've been up to my neck in Halloween candy and tacky decorations at work. The life-size skeleton butler with pipes for legs was a bit much. The overall theme this year is the Skelanimals; I liked it better last year when Domo was king. The rumor is that the Christmas lights get set next week, sneaking in on the back wall behind all the other fourth quarter seasonal madness.

The wedding is on track, so far as we know. There still remains some paperwork to clear, but it's being dealt with in due time. Invitations are still en route, leaving the house in waves, about as many as will fit in a ziplock bag I can grab before work in the morning and drop off on the way home. The recommended hotels, driving directions, and all other such useful information included in the invitation (and some that isn't) will also be posted here and linked to the sidebar for future reference. The registry has been edited and streamlined for what must be the tenth time. This imminent cross-country move is already giving me a headache.

Oh, and I bought an iron yesterday. So, just in case anyone was thinking of gifting us one, that's all right; we're covered. :)