And the Gods smiled down upon me....

This is image is the thousand words of my day today.  

The clouds parted and the Gods smiled down upon me.  Mind you, there are still clouds, but these little rays of sunshine certainly helped:




My Dad is a wonderful man.  He is not in the greatest health, and is spending his retirement trying to put his house back together, after 40 years and 6 children wore it to pieces.  Very soon after he found out I lost my job, he called with a proposition.  If I, Monkey Boy and Ninja (my 2 children) would come over and help carry things up and down 3 flights of stairs, if we would help paint the 3rd floor, he would pay us.  I would have done this for free, just because he asked, but I wasn't going to turn down $$ in my situation.  The ray of light which is my father paid my boys, BFF (Monkey Boy's best friend) and myself each $10/hr.  Thank you Dad!  And thank you Monkey Boy, for insisting I keep your share as well...


While preparing to spackel and paint, my phone rang.  Someone wanted to talk about a resume I'd submitted the first of the month.  Wait!  I'm painting!  Let me get clean hands, get somewhere I can talk, find a pen and paper (used envelope) and... you're breaking up...  Please don't drop the call!  Let me go outside...  Turns out the owner of several Qdoba restaurants in the area is interesting in meeting me tomorrow morning!  YAY!  It's a pay cut from where I was, but the medical is paid in full.  It could be fun, what with the chance to run out every once in a while to man the register at one of the stores.  There was mention of a free lunch periodically, too.  Gotta love a free burrito!  If nothing else, it gives me practice at interviewing, which I haven't done for a VERY long time.  It's all good!


After spackling enough that my half marathon legs were shaking, then eating a marvelous mom's-home-cooking chili lunch, I went home and checked the unemployment site.  Saturday morning I'd received 2 emails from the site, saying I had mail.  This site is a bit frustrating because it will send an email to my personal address, but when I go to the site there is no mail.  Sometimes it takes a full 24 hours for the mail to show up on the site.  So Saturday morning, there was no mail on the site.  Then the site was down the rest of the day, through Sunday, into Sunday night.  Because I received 2 notices, I naturally assumed one was my rejection and the other instructions on how to appeal.  Simple logic, you see.  Why would they need to send 2 emails to tell me my claim was approved?  Apparently, to tell me I'm also eligible for a Pell Grant, and unemployment will pay me to go to school (as long as I'm in one of their accredited programs).  The upshot is, my claim was approved!  It appears my former employer did not file a rebuttal.  I still intend to wait the 3 weeks allotted for appeal, just in case.  Maybe they didn't file in time, or forgot or something... Anything is possible...


My boys (who will always be "my children" to me) are also a ray of sunshine.  They and BFF had me laughing throughout the attic work, and then again when Monkey Boy and BFF brought the 3rd Musketeer home.  I haven't seen him since he was shorter than I, and somehow he's grown to 6 foot.  The resulting conversation was very fun, and I'm glad I got to see him before Monkey Boy leaves again.  3rd Musketeer says he will call about running the Towpath Half Marathon with me next month, but I won't hold me breath.  It was enough to see him, laugh and reminisce.  


My final ray of sunshine today is that Superman is home!  He has to leave again in the morning for another week of work, but for tonight he's mine.  


I'm off now to enjoy that particular ray of light... 8-)