justjoslyn

Today I came home for lunch because our bank account was negative and I had to deposit some money in order to keep from paying the overdraft fees (I hate those things). Besides that, my car didn’t start this morning so I had to take Brad’s truck to work, which I was returning in the event that my car would start. Which, it did.

While sitting on the couch eating lunch, I looked across the living room and saw Brad making this awfully strange face – a contorted look, with one eye slightly squinting with the other one focusing on something not within my eyesight. He was sitting with one leg underneath him in his oversized, slightly smooshed yellow chair, when I asked, “What are you doing?”

“Lining up my toes. I do that sometimes. Line stuff up.” As he continues to show by example the contorted face mentioned above.

“You are SO weird.

“You’re the one with weird on it.”

Today I had supervision with my supervisor at work. This is something the case workers for our program are required to do on a monthly basis in order to receive direction or correction on things we are working on with our clients. Normally this would not seem like a big deal, but the supervisor of our program tends to be very dramatic, and makes a huge deal about very little situations, and tends to draw out the time together where now the case managers dread supervision. Today she wanted to debate that my client does not have a sense of reality and that I need to threaten her with having her kids removed from her care. Um, okay. First of all, I don’t threaten my clients, and secondly, it is not that easy to just tell your client that she’s close to having her kids taken away when that hasn’t been an issue the past 4 1/2 months she’s been with our program. And said supervisor gives off this odd impression that she lies awake in bed at night thinking of how to make our cases harder to manage than they really need to be.

But this isn’t really the topic of my post. The point of this brief introduction on “how Joslyn’s boss approaches supervision” is that she also has a tendency to try and turn our monthly one-on-ones to a counseling session – like today. You see, after we’ve beaten my cases to death trying to brainstorm every possible referral for services, serious conversation, or ways to threaten my clients, my supervisor gently asks, “so, Joslyn, do you like working for Family First?”

This question triggers a slew full of responses in my head, that I carefully ponder and decide not to voice with her. Instead I say, “What do you mean?”

In an abbreviated version of the rest of the conversation, my supervisor tells me that it appears I have been dragging myself to work lately, and that she was hoping it would get better after I got back from vacation. She said I don’t seem very happy at the office and that I am somewhat “negative” about my clientele and is this something I really want to get my Master’s degree in? I let her know that I am having a hard time getting to work, and that I am feeling premature burnout, and that I do suffer from mild depression that seems to be aggravated lately, for which I take a small dosage of Zoloft. I tell her that I don’t really want to work at all, but I figured getting my Master’s in Social Work would open doors for me later in life, after I’ve had my family and am ready to go back to work. I tell her that all I really want to do is have a family, do the laundry, clean the house, run errands, do educational things with my children, make meals for my husband, help my husband more with his job, and go to play groups with my stay-at-home-friends who have children.

Well, with that bit of news, my supervisor continues by telling me she knows one thing for sure (I’m sure she knows more than just ONE thing for sure… That is such a weird phrase): that I LIGHT UP around children. She says whenever she sees me with my clients’ children I am cheerful and pleasant, even during a recent extravaganza (one of my supervisor’s favorite words) where I had to literally baby sit a child who was waiting to go into foster care and did not get any work done that day at all, yet she says I was very positive about the situation. She asks me to consider seeing a counselor through our Employee Assistance Program to monitor my dosage of Zoloft…oh, and to reconsider going to graduate school for Social Work…

…This reminds me of when I was a senior in college, majoring in Sociology, when one of my Sociology professors says to me, “Have you ever thought of going into journalism?” What? It’s my senior year! I am graduating in 3 months!

What? I’ve worked in the Social Work related field for 5 years and have always understood my calling to be to work in the social services. Plus I’ve registered for a Statistics class on SATURDAYS of all days because it’s a prerequisite for the MSW program I’m looking at. Now I’m being told to be a teacher or a daycare instructor. Not that those fields aren’t enticing to me, but it is a little intimidating to think of changing careers. I realize people change careers far further into their’s then I am in mine right now, but I guess I have some things to think about.

The even funnier thing is that just last Monday, Brad asked me a similar question during lunch at McDonald’s (when I procrastinated going into work until 1:00). He asked, “why would you get your Master’s degree in a field that you are tired of working in?” I don’t know. I really don’t.

This weekend Brad and I made some pretty important (and expensive) decisions about our home renovations. Not like we have the money. Each trip to the local home improvement store is a guessing game with our finances: “What card do we use for this?” “How much credit do we have on this card?” “Well, if we float this check, we can afford this…” We desperately want to save money with this project, but we also don’t want to compromise our desire for a customized home by cutting too many corners. We are constantly being reminded that we are not rich people who have the luxury of high paid contractors, and that the terms unique and cheap will highly unlikely ever coincide in the language of home repair in our instance.

In the midst of our financial ponderings, we were able to make some much needed purchases, therefore giving Brad the freedom to get some things done to the house. I had my own tasks. While I pretended to “clean up” the house that, as Brad puts it, really isn’t “clean up-able,” Brad started installing the ceiling.

And, as you see from the pictures, we extended hospitality to my parents and invited them over to help. At least we fed them afterwards. They are always asking to come help, and after a brief hiatus from having them over (reference the setting boundaries issue), Brad and I decided it might not be so bad to have their help and to feed them, too. Aren’t we the epitome of the perfect adult children every new parent hopes and longs for their infants to become?

Two years ago, the last time I went to the National Youth Worker’s Convention when it was in St. Louis, Illinois, I attended a seminar led by a female, junior high youth worker from Minnesota (Heather Flies, is her name). Since then, I’ve also attended a leadership seminar where she was the keynote speaker, as well. Anyway, Heather always starts off her talk with a power point presentation reflecting on her life growing up to the present, which always includes a “self-portrait” of her and her husband, whom she affectionately refers to as, “Hot Chad.” So, seeing as how imitation is the highest form of flattery, and seeing as how I think Heather Flies is an awesome woman, I decided to begin fondly referring to my own husband as, “Hot Brad.” See how it flows…

This picture is from when we were in Nashville last week (sigh of reflection). I think Brad looks extraordinarily handsome in this picture (even though he is playing with his wedding ring that he spontaneously decided to wear just for the vacation obviously, since it has not been spotted on his hand since then). And, since it is nice to share beautiful images with your friends, I thought I’d publish the photo in my blog.

I love you, Brad (wink)

“Yummy” the cat. She makes my heart melt, which is weird, because I have always been a self-proclaimed dog lover. Brad loves her too. He says she’s the most loved cat in the world. However, he’s the one who named her. Because cats are edible.

Our one-year anniversary was yesterday. I can’t believe it has been a year. It is sort of depressing to hear about Nick & Jessica, as I prided myself on the fact that they were so much like us…

Neither of us got cards for each other. Brad gave me a Franklin Covey planner that I wanted for Christmas, and since it was our “paper” anniversary, he justified giving it to me early.

Brad’s gift from me? That he basically bought himself after asking my permission? A book of SUDOKU puzzles. His paper gift.

If you don’t know what SUDOKU puzzles are, try google-searching it. I learned how to play from my good friend and former supervisor, Therasa. I then showed Brad how to play. And that is the beginning of the SUDOKU story as it involves the Huntsman family.

Because Brad’s family has been inundated with family members at their tiny midwest home, we now stay in a local hotel whenever we visit (which is usually overnight, due to the 4-hour drive each way). As small as their home may be, it is always clean, warm, and so very cozy. I took what I think was a 2-hour nap today… very nice.

The thing that I have found ironic recently, is that while we were in Nashville for the National Youth Worker’s Convention, we stayed in a relatively cosmetically impressive hotel, which, with our youth worker discount, cost us $99 per night. However, much to our disappointment, our “special requests” were conveniently not guaranteed. Our room had two double beds (hello? married couple on vacation…), NO mini-fridge, NO microwave, and NO complimentary continental breakfast. But then, we come to good ol’ Litchfield, IL, where we stay in a good ol’ Comfort Inn hotel and are spoiled with a huge king-sized bed, mini-fridge with a sink, a microwave, an indoor pool, and a COMPLIMENTARY BREAKFAST! All this for $39 per night (we have a discount here, as well, as Brad’s sister works for the hotel)! Despite the discounts at both locations, our stay at the small town “nowhere, USA” is so much more reasonable and accomodating than the upscale, 12-story hotel in Music City.

But, being in the spirit of “thanks” due to the holiday, I will close simply by saying despite the difference in settings v. cost regarding our hotel stays this week, Brad and I recognize how blessed we are to have been able to take this vacation. We are able to work and earn money and vacation time so that we can have trips like this one. We have family and friends we are able to visit. We have transportation that is reliable enough to take us where we want to be. It is so easy for me to complain about my job, my income, our bills – but, I am so very lucky to have these things to complain about, and none at all.