It's been awhile....

I've been working on a post to tell you all about my first official craft fair over the last few months from last November....this last year has just flown by in an absolute blur however.

A lot has happened since I last updated this blog and if you'll bear with me, I would like to just share what's been going on for me.

I was working a 2nd job towards the end of last year for a little extra cash, but also because I enjoyed being able to spend ~20hrs/wk getting paid to talk to people about crafts and getting deals on buying my own supplies (at Joann ;) ) and it was pretty alright, it just made me a little extra tired during the weekdays at my desk job.

I quit working at Joann in February 2015 as I believed I was 5 minutes away from being promoted to being a full-time trainer at my day job since I'd been doing training responsibilities off and on for years, and had just finished an 8-month 'pilot" of sorts performing various training and project management (for building training materials) responsibilities and tasks. Instead, management determined not only that they did not want to have a full-time trainer, much less that person be me, but that I should be removed from any and all training tasks I'd been doing and I was moved back to full-time on my main project in Support.

As training is and was a pretty big dream of mine at this company, and I'd put so much into that goal for so long, this was a pretty heavy blow to my emotional stability. I was down and depressed for 4 months up until July hit and I sat down with my manager in my monthly one on one...with HR....to be given a written warning for my performance. I was caught quite a bit off-guard however as I'd been having monthlies with my boss in that period of time and he'd never mentioned there was a problem, and I didn't think my performance could be *that* low!!

July passed and I worked to improve my performance, but also took the last week of the month off to go out of town with my boyfriend to just get away and relax....The relaxing didn't do much good however as the day after we got back in town, I received a call from my mother telling me that my father had a heart attack earlier that morning and passed away. My boss allowed me 7 business days bereavement, but admitted that company policy usually is only 3 days, and it was barely only enough to take care of my mother and brother who'd flown in for the week (since he moved to Alabama 2 years ago) and neither of them were able to manage helping me with the tasks too terribly much. My brother was able to go to the funeral home with me the first time to help make general decisions on the funeral arrangements, but was unable to help any further as he was having difficulties, rightly so, concentrating for lengthy periods of time. It's easier for me to get through tough situations like these when I have tasks to focus on, so I was going what felt like non-stop that week in organizing the funeral with the home and being their main point of contact.

Anywho, I went back to work after the week and a half had passed, and of course had trouble focusing still for a few more days. Continuing on after the "main event", I was having to deal with additional stress as my father had taken care of EVERYTHING for my mother for 40 years (celebrated 4/20/15) and so I had to work to teach her how to adult (and still am working on teaching her these things...) My boss said he understands, and to just deal with whatever I need to as long as I'm getting my work done as well. I did what I could, but when I sat down in my next 1x1 with my boss mid-October, HR was there again. This time, I got questioned as to why my performance had still not gone up to where they expected it to be. I tried to stay calm but after the 4th time asked, I did happen to mention "perhaps I'm not quite over my father dying...????" They didn't seem much fazed and still gave me a final written warning, that if I don't get to where they expect me to be performance-wise by end of December, I'm to be let go.


In trying to ensure I was doing my best, I was running queries on my performance daily for the next 2 months and for all I could tell, I was doing fine; great even since I was usually in the top 2, maybe 3, of my team of 7! Alas, I was called in to a meeting room by my boss 12/10/15 and was informed that my work was not getting to where they want, steadily enough, and so they would have to let me go. No numbers, no stats like the other times, only the above statement and that I was "no longer a good fit for the company."

**siiigh**

It's been almost 3 weeks now and I'm not even mad or upset. I was vaguely shell-shocked at first, and for the first few days or so, nervous about what I'm going to do and how I'm going to find another job and help make money to pay the bills.....To be honest though, I was absolutely MISERABLE working there at this point and just about dreaded going in every day.

My boyfriend and I discussed and decided that for the month of December, there's just not a whole lot going on in the ways of finding a new job; searching for new postings to apply to or anyone in the office to even interview! Therefore, I will re-start my job-search in January and in the meantime, I have taken these weeks to decompress and spend some time on me. I have also gotten a LOT of cleaning done to de-clutter and get the main entertaining areas of our house looking much better for when friends come over...especially for Xmas!

I have also been working on my craft room (yes, again... I knooooowwww...it's just SO hard keeping organized!) and might share that progress with you tomorrow. I spent 8 hours alone in there today and am maybe a little less than halfway done? That sounds so pathetic, I know, but I am only just getting out of the major depressive funk I've been in since February, and my dad's passing sending me to the lowest I've ever been in my life, and so I have not been in the mood to keep up with any cleaning. Each time there was even an attempt, things were just tossed in to my room until it was just about impossible to walk in there or even climb over anything to anywhere in there.

If you've gotten this far, I want to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read and let me share a little of my life this last year with you. I did do a little crafting throughout this time, and I hope to share that all with you as best I can recall (and find as many pictures as I can since I had to replace my phone and may be missing some....) but I felt bad for being gone for so long. Also, with posting this, I hope to not have to go over any of the main emotional parts again (unless there are any questions/comments and I will try my best to answer/respond to any that you have) and hope to just be able to try and get back to a bit of normalcy with crafting and telling you fine folks about what my hands and mind have been up to!

Again, thank you and as always...craft ya laters! :)