Whew

[juthwara]

The budget crisis has been averted! The Senate approved the bill, and all it needs is the governor's signature, which I can't imagine he wouldn't give. We will both remained employed for now.

I can't express how relieved we are, although I feel a bit at sea tonight. All of our thinking in the past few weeks hasn't gone beyond the beginning of October, so now I actually have to do things like figure out my work schedule for next month and contemplate scheduling volunteer hours at K's preschool. We had also been putting off proceeding on buying a new car. We certainly could have survived fine without doing it, but it would be nice to have something a bit bigger, and between the fact that there's a nice tax credit for people who buy cars this year and that my brother's car is falling apart and he would happily buy ours for considerably more than we could get in trade-in, it would actually be financially advantageous to do it now. I've been researching both the Mazda5 and Kia Rondo, which are very small mini-vans that are small enough to have good gas mileage, but have more cargo room than we have now and optional third rows of seating so we will have enough room for everyone to travel in one car if grandparents are visiting.

longstrider is going to continue sending out resumes even if he still has his job for now. His job has been under threat for a year now, and after surviving two rounds of layoffs we're not counting on anything. There's also the small matter of the fact that his contract expired June 30 and negotiations are going about as amicably as two rabid badgers tied in a sack and poked with sticks.

But for the moment, yay!

****

K started Big Girl Preschool this week, which is what we've been calling the public school preschool program to distinguish it from the daycare she had been attending. We went in last week to meet her teacher and see her new classroom, and acquire approximately 35 forms to fill out that all wanted exactly the same information.

It still blows my mind to be dropping my baby off at the elementary school every morning, to a classroom filled with four-year-olds, complete with all of the trappings of elementary school like hot lunch and Scholastic book flyers. So far she seems to be having a good time, although when asked, she tends to give answers like "I took a nap," which doesn't exactly give me a... lively picture of her school day.

****

After hearing an interview with the creator on Fresh Air last week, we sat down and watched the first two episodes of Glee. Oh my, how fantastic.

I enjoy the music, of course and the demented depiction of high school society. I had expected it to be funny. But it surprises me a bit how much the tone and style remind me of the largely underrated movie Election. This is definitely on the dvr, and is providing some consolation for Leverage being gone until January.

Comments

[slightlyjillian.livejournal.com]

I'm relieved to hear that the job is still intact and that gives you more choices. Also, good luck with the car!

[kristeljohns.livejournal.com]

we sat down and watched the first two episodes of Glee. Oh my, how fantastic.

Oh, isn't it just? I can't believe how quickly and deeply I've fallen in love with this show.

[kristeljohns.livejournal.com]

Grrr...the post button before I meant to. Anyway, I wanted to say "YAY!" for still having a job, even if it's not one that's necessarily stable. Paul's company has been through...3 (I think?) rounds of lay-offs this year, so I'm very familiar with the sigh of relief when the ax once again manages to drop without catching your neck beneath it.

I haven't heard great things about Kia in general; the consensus seems to be that they're disposable cars. But given how much improvement has been done to Hyundai, which once also wore that label, maybe they've improved. We love our Toyota Sienna, though we do sometimes covet the model that was released the year after ours was manufactured, which has neat features like stow-n-go back seats, a much larger "trunk" area in the rear, and power windows on the back slider doors. For a 6-cylinder car, it doesn't have bad gas mileage, either.

[archangelbeth]

Hooray for job!

I'd poke around Consumer Reports for car stuff. (Consumersunion.org or something? Dn't make me google in the morning... i kant evn spel gud.)

[lady-zylle.livejournal.com]

That's great news.