Arrggghhh! I feel your pain! I can think of 3 things that might do something for you:

1. Go to an employment agency and ask their advice
2. Go to the local "job center" and ask them to help you put together resume/portfolio materials (either as if you are starting from scratch or to improve your current resume)
3. Get to know someone with PULL

Don't you feel like you are smacking up against age discrimination? One of my friends who is extremely qualified in her field was applying for jobs for something like 2 years before she got one working for someone she knew. She was positive that it was age discrimination.

Flying off the handle now and then is entirely forgivable. I lost it in the car on the way home from NC once. DD made a U-turn and did it so fast and out of control she almost tipped the SUV over.

At least it was only once...

Going up to Oregonian friends' camp for dinner and swimming. Ta

Kiwi

Well, Kiwiwiwi, age is something else I can't do anything about so I've not been entertaining that idea. Now I feel worse. There is no hope .. at least not in my hands.

1. Local employment agency is staffed by giraffes and rhinos.
2. Job Center is the same place. This is podunksville.
3. As references, I have a former superintendent from this county and a board member from the other county. I haven't called them recently. Maybe I should.

Someone gave DS a book called "Sam Stern's Cooking Up a Storm .. the teenage survival cookbook." Yummy easy stuff with pictures of kids who all must love Harry Potter. It's a British book he says. We made Spiced PIta with Chicken and Hummus" today. I recommend it. In fact, you should buy it from my friend's book store. Pay shipping and all that just because you're nice people. Or go to Amazon like she would do.

Addendum:

I know of plenty of people who retire and get teaching jobs so I don't feel it's age really.

The hummus in the recipe was made by ds and me per bagz's recipe she gave me eons ago. There's a recipe in the book but I didn't follow it. It involved heating some oil and using tamari which I don't have.

I got a postcard from someone in Norway. It's written in English but I can only read 2/3 of it. They curve their letters in a way that makes H look like Fl and so on. Frustrating.

It's a left foot .....

That's a beautiful sock. I am concerned though: are you going to bbq it?

My den smells really weird. It smells like the kitchen of the messiest person I know (she is actually much worse than I am -- pathological perhaps). I don't think this is a good thing. And I can't figure out what it is that would smell like that. It's not a dead thing; I know what that smells like. It smells like stale food, which makes no sense because there is no food in here. That I know of...

I suck at giving advice. I should just shut up. DH would really appreciate that. Especially if I also stopped asking him questions and talking about anything that interested me.

I am in a super bad mood, can you tell?

My friend whose camp we were visiting gave DD's bf beers. I do not want him to drink, like it's any of my business.

We still have bats. DH assured me that he plugged up a hole they were using to come in, but he killed another bat last night. I am not impressed.

Kiwi, who left the beach to come home and beetch.

answers to your probable questions:

1. There is rotting broccoli or soup somewhere.

2. Rent and watch The Snow and the Tiger or some title with those words.Stars that cute chinless guy from A Beautiful Life. He recites poetry to bats and they fly out the window.

3. No matter how you cook socks, they are still stringy.

4. Do you think ANY men ask their doctors if they're healthy enough for sex? Viva Viagra!! (oh that was a question.) Answer: Nope.

5. They canceled Pirate Master with no notice and put on reruns of whatever was still laying on the table watiing to be filed.

oh maybe it was Life is Beautiful.

Hope everyone enjoyed their Whine!
Some days just require it.
Today wasn't one of mine... was busy and felt good about most things... but clients are graduating themselves en masse-- which means another few weeks (or months) of "self-promotion." I hate that part.

Cowie-- hand in there. Do not try to eat the sock! (Although somebody's been knitting what they called asparagus socks... because of the yummy color of her yarn.). I'd rather knit "hot fudge sundae" socks.

Best to each and every.

The Italian guy? I can picture him singing bats out the window. I was sort of hoping it was the guy from A Beautiful Life (Russell Crowe, no?) -- I can't quite imagine myself having any luck emulating the Italian guy, but if Russell Crowe could do it, I'd have a shot.

On the other hand, my voice, well, the bats might attack...

It's too hot here, even though it appears to only be 81 deg. For some reason that's too hot today. Yesterday it was 91 and it wasn't any hotter. Well inside the house anyway.

Kiwi

Yep, the Italian guy. Russell Crowe has a chin but isn't as delightful. I was hoping you'd watch it so we could compare notes. I found it deliberately deceived to advance the plot and make you all surprised later. But he's adorable and it's nice.

He doesn't sing. He calls the bat "beautiful something of the night." He's a poet.

Did Bagz run off to New Jersey?

I would watch it if it didn't require any effort to acquire it. It's too hot to do anything or go anywhere. Last time I looked it was 94 deg. Should I mention our lack of air conditioning? Whining on line takes less effort than whining in person, so yes, I think I should.
It's also too hot to go back and read a post accurately. I could probably call out the bats, but I prefer to whine about them and make DH do something.

Maybe I should go down to the lake and sit in the water. I have a noodle chair.

Seriously. I have a noodle chair.

Kiwi

I envy you. I would sit in the lake in a noodle chair. The movie is in our public library. You know, that makes me think of Lush. I won't go into it here.

94 is hot for Mooselyvania.

I did go float in the noodle chair, and swim a bit. It was quite nice. I even dragged the dog in. Jet only likes to wade in a few inches and won't come swimming with us, so I figured it wouldn't make it any worse to make her swim. I took her by the collar and towed her out till she had to swim and then towed her around in circles 3 or 4 times. She was pretty funny -- she had her front legs going so hard the whole front half of her was out of the water! I guess she will be needing more swimming lessons before she is comfortable. Weird -- I always figured dogs just naturally swam, but Jet definitely doesn't look "natural" out there. Poor goofy dog. DH says I'm mean to do that, but I don't think so. After I let her go back to shore, she was fine; she didn't bolt when I came near her or anything.

Later kids.

Kiwi

TGIF. Lazy day today, sort of: Gym, lunch with a friend. Paperwork. Hair cut and highlights. Dinner out with DH.
Not sure if I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow. I'm thinking now... extra sleeeeeep. and maybe the Simpson's movie.

My what a day we had yesterday. We went up to our friends' camp for the day for a party of swimming, boating, imbibing and stuffing ourselves silly. It turned out to be a fairly big crowd. Of course it was still beastly hot, so we spent a lot of time in the lake. I managed to trip walking into the water and fell on my knee, scraping it up in good shape. Apparently the dog cut her foot on something because one of her toes has been bleeding since (that's a lovely mess in the house; I'm going to have to shampoo the rugs). And for the piece de resistance, we all swam over to an island across the way from the camp so that some of the guys could jump off the rope swing (yes, we were all over 40 years old, why do you ask?). It was 20 minutes to swim over and us tough guys didn't bring any flotation or a boat, and lo and behold, DH, on his 2nd jump, broke a finger while jumping and fell flat into shallow water full of big rocks, got totally scraped up, couldn't swim back across . A couple of us had to swim back and get a boat, and then he and I spent the rest of the evening in the ER while they did x-rays etal. Not anything too serious, just one finger was broken, the rest was bruises and scrapes, but what a way to end a day. Now his middle and ring finger on his right hand are splinted together, so he will be helpless for some years to come I guess. Just kidding, but I did have to help him wash this morning. What a crappy time of year to have to stay out of the water (his leg is all bandaged up too).

So what's new with you?

Kiwi

hay yell hay yell hay yell

1. I'm offered a job at a school and want it
2. they tell me to come in and fill the application they have there
3. it has choices about what kind of certificate I have
4. i carry it to the principal and tell him I don't know what to do there
5. he says this and that which is nice stuff but meaningless
6. I go home and learn that I have a temp certificate in art but not in the field I'm to teach
7. it costs $56 to apply
8. then I call the lady at the school I went to who says I was supposed to apply for a professional certificate not a temp one and I don't know what I did
9. they want copy of transcript but they should have it
10. but I don't know if they do or not
11. they don't answer the phone, they let you leave a msg and call back in 3 days to get the answer
12. i am having anxiety attacks

You know how you make dinner and the dh doesn't come home on time and you get mad and throw it out? I'm about to throw out these socks. If Shots isn't even here to care that I'm knitting them, then .... I'll wear them myself.

I want a noodle chair and a lake.