Day 64

Good day everyone. Well today I got an email from the financial aid department from University of Phoenix, saying that I was definitely chosen for verification. Basically what I was told when I enrolled last week was that there was a 50/50 chance that I would get selected. So, I guess it's official. Basically what I will need to do asap is print off their verification worksheet and cover sheet, and then I plan on going to HR block tomorrow and getting them to print off a copy of our 2008 and 2009 taxes. Right now they are only asking about 2008, but I figure if I send 2009 as well, then that will be on file and they wont have to ask about it later.

Then tomorrow evening I will fax it all to them, hopefully clearing that up and being good to go. I asked my enrollment advisor that, if I'm starting class on the 21st, when will my schedule of all the different classes be listed online. He said that probably around the 15th or 16th. So, I will turn in everything they need, and then I will be good to start, good to begin receiving financial aid from the school, as well as the Post 911 GI bill because of being a veteran, good to start receiving the pell grant again, so, pretty much, by that point I will only have to worry about passing every class and progressing slowly along. My first stage I will go through with University of Phoenix will be my associates degree in hospitality and tourism, and then after getting that degree I will be able to enroll in the bachelors degree in business with a focus in hospitality.

I'm looking forward to it all. When I started school online with Ashford, I loved it. I was doing really well, and only left because of the job offer with Schwans and the limited free time. Looking back by now I would be almost to my bachelors degree, but that's ok. Better late than never. I do know that once I start with University of Phoenix, I'm not going to stop for anything until I get both the associates degree and the bachelors degree nailed out. Too many times I have said "I will go back later and get my degree." Well, how many times should I allow myself to do that? I say I have done it enough and need to get them done.

So today, I would have been in bed by 6:30, but I wanted to take care of a few things. I loaded up the trashbags and stuff into the bed of the truck, and got rid of those. Then I changed out Tinche's cat litter to brand new fresh litter. Then, following a bowl of oatmeal with brownsugar and maple syrup, I went upstairs. Changing out of my work uniform into my Family Guy sleep pants, I emptied everything from the pockets of my work pants. Grabbed both the shirts and pants, and an arm full of other stuff, and took them downstairs and put them in the wash. Today we had an appointment for Teagan to get his vaccinations done, and so I set my alarm for 2:30.

I don't remember if i mentioned it the other day, but there was a cop that came up responding to a complaint. The complaint said that Teagan was always outside without food, water, or adequate shelter. She looked at the nice dog house, the full bowls both with water and with food, and basically her only issue was that Teagan's registration with the city was not up to date. So we got the shots done today and then got the new animal registration sheet. However, the police department was already in after hours, and so I will make a copy of the page tonight and tomorrow some time while I'm out cold, Erin can run it up there to the officer and drop it off.

I found out last night that Randy, the other guard I used to work with here up until he just stopped showing up suddenly, that he quit like that deliberately. When I went over to South campus by 4:40 to unlock, I chatted with the house keeping guy for a few minutes. He told me he ran into Randy at Wal Mart. He said "Hey, I heard you quit!" Randy said "Yeah, I wanted weekends off, but since I couldn't get them, I figured screw it."

I was like "Yeah, well he just screwed himself over as far as his employment history goes. Securitas won't be giving him a good reference with him just no-call-no-show'ing and quitting like that." Oh well. So as of tomorrow morning when I get off, I will have 60 hours worked for this pay week alone. When I get off thursday morning, I will have 72 hours. If I don't get a day off this week like I did last thursday after working 9 days straight, add in thursday evening's hours and I will end the week with 78 hours for this pay week alone, which leaves me with 40 hours for each last week and this week, plus 28 hours overtime last week, 38 hours overtime this week, plus 12 hours were on memorial day, so that's holiday pay as well, so I'm looking foward to seeing what my paycheck will be like next week. On Erin's advice after I mentioned something to her, I told Securitas that I would be willing to work 5 days a week if they could find people to work the other two days. They seemed to think that was a good idea. The reason I thought of it is this. I am going on 7 months that I have been here as a guard at the hospital through securitas.

I've never once called in sick, missed work for any reason, been late, etc.... I've ALWAYS been here when I'm supposed to be here, and on top of that, there were several times, probably about 7 or 8 times that randy called in, usually on holiday weekends or whatever, and I ended up working his shift too. 99% of the time he did it when I was supposed to have a long weekend after I had a long work week, and then suddenly a 4 day (40 hour) work week for me turned into a 6 day 60 hour work week (since that was when we were doing 10 hour shifts).

So, my main arguement with securitas as far as supporting me working 5 days in a row and them finding someone or 2 guards to fill in on the other two days, was that "You know you can depend on me. I've never missed work, called in sick, been late, whatever. Therefore I think that if you had me working 5 days a week, those 5 days you could pretty much count on the fact that I would be here. You would only have to make sure you had people for the other 2 days. My only request is that if you ok this, that the two days off would be together. Such as me work monday through friday, and have saturday and sunday off, or something similar to that." My on call supervisor was like "That sounds like a good idea. I tell ya Mr Blodgett, you really are on the ball. You're making some good decisions!" I was like "I love my job, and try to do the best that I can." So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Right now I know I will be enjoying the paycheck, but I will enjoy the work days more when I know a more definite, such as "Hey, here's the plan. You're going to work these 5 days. We're going to have you train so-and-so and they will be working the other 2 days." Then I can be like, "Sounds great! Thanks!"

In closing, with that in mind, I plan to find out when the next window is for signing us up for benefits. I know Erin and I both would like to resume being able to get checked out by a doctor. We may have to switch clinics because when I left schwans, our health insurance ran out and I raked up thousands of dollars in debt because of my gall bladder. Can you believe that? I didn't have that many appointments, but there were a few when I got the bills that said "such-and such, $1,295.00 Due". I was like O_O ohmygosh! When I was hired with schwans, our health care was an account that had $1,500 in it and then anything that went beyond that was out of our pocket. And so within 2 appointments with having to deal with my gall bladder, that account was tapped out! And could I have waited and not had it taken out? I might have been able to for a little while, but they said with the tests they ran that my gall bladder was only 10% functional, which would have meant a little ways down the road and it would have quit all together, and I would have gone full scale pancreatitus, which if you ask Erin, she went through and it doesn't sound fun.

If she hadn't been pushing me to get seen by a doctor, I might not have gone when I did.. But then again, that weekend when they decided I needed to be laying down until I could get it removed, I went in to their urgent care clinic because I woke up saturday morning with the knowledge that my schwans manager said we all had to work. However, when I woke up, I felt like I had knives in my back and chest. It hurt to move, to breath, to talk, to do anything. I dragged myself out of bed, tried to not scream because Erin was asleep and I didn't want to wake her up, then dragged myself downstairs to the phone, called the clinic and explained what was going on, they said "We have an opening in 45 minutes. See you then!" I hobbled back upstairs and took a hot shower, told Erin what was going on, and then headed out. I still remember going through all that. Sucks that now I have thousands more dollars in debt because of that little problematic organ. Oh well! So I will call that it for tonight. I wish you all a blessed evening.

Thanks for being here!

CB