The Unadventures of Tracie

As many of you know, I have been transitioning to working from home. Since it has now been a few weeks, I’d thought I share my feelings about it. And my feelings are that I love it. Working from home is one of the best things that has happened for me in the last while. Working from home is not without its drawbacks though. I’d thought I’d make a list of the pros and cons that I’ve experienced working from home. Pros: 1. No driving!!! 2. I’m saving a lot of gas, which means I’m saving lots of money. (I was filling up about every 4 work days. With gas being about $50 to fill up now, you can imagine how much I was spending.) 3. No traffic!! 4. No more struggling to be on time for work. (One of the things I hated the most and stressed about a lot.) 5. I get two more hours to myself every day. (A result of not having to commute.) 6. I get an extra hour of sleep. 7. I sleep better at night because I’m not stressing about getting to work the next day. 8. I get t...

This weekend was quite the whirlwind for Austin and me. (Yes, this is correct usage. See CACCAAA for more information. I will soon write an entry on this subject.) Anyway, quite the whirlwind. First of all, good news! I found out on Friday that I’m going to be a work-from-home editor! I will be working a few days here at the office, but I believe the majority of my time will be spent working from home. I am quite excited about this for a number of reasons. I will be saving a lot of money on gas (with me currently having to fill up every 4 work days and gas being about $50 to fill up now). I will be saving lots of time (with the average commute being around 2 hours daily). I will be able to get more sleep on a regular basis as I won’t have to drive into work. It also works out great with our current plans. We also won’t have to move anymore, which we were both dreading. Now, on to the rest of the weekend! Charity and James came over for dinner Friday night. I made Tomato & Basil Ma...

“And there it goes, my innocence. . .There’s something more than the world out there” Well, here I am again, posting. I actually have something to post about too. So, as many of you know, I’m not totally in love with my job. Don’t get me wrong—it is a good job. But it’s 40 miles away (80 miles roundtrip). And driving two hours every day is not my cup of tea, er, hot chocolate. Also, I don’t feel like my talent is being used for all it’s worth. There’s never enough to do, and I get tremendously bored. It’s the same thing all the time, and it’s really not the type of editing I’d prefer to do. I also realized that I’m not as happy here as I could be for various reasons. So, last week when my former editing teacher forwarded a job opportunity at an LDS publishing firm in Springville, I eagerly jumped at the chance. My dream is to edit fiction. It has been for some time. I also think I’d be great at it. Not to be prideful, but I think I’m a darn good editor. If there’s one thing I am good...

How tender are thy branches! Da-da-da-da, da diddly do, da-da-da-da, bah liddly do.....How tender are thy branches! Yes, those are the only words I know. So our Christmas tree is finally up & trimmed! (It's been up for a week or so, but it has shiny red and gold ornaments on it now!) It's so pretty! It's my first tree, and I'm so proud. I'm going to take pictures. Unfortunately, I can't post them since I still don't have a card-reader or a cord connecting my camera to the computer. If anyone want to get me that for Christmas, you're welcome to. Then you'd see pics more often. Anyway... today was my first performance review at WGU. I was a bit nervous, but everything turned out well. My managers actually rated me better than I did myself. I got "exceeds expectations" in every category! They said I was doing well, and they expected me to accelerate rapidly and eventually be a senior editor and leader. They also addressed my con...

So here I am, finally, posting about my new job. For those that don't know I am an editor at Western Governor's University up in Murray. It's an online university that measures student success by using assessments. They have two types of assessment: objective and performance. Objective assessments are objective test questions (multiple-choice, matching). Performance tasks are more involved. The students are given tasks to do (usually writing an essay or doing a project). The way the university works is that they have subject-matter experts determine what a person would need to know first-day-on-the-job in a given field. They then write competency statements (such as "the graduate will know how to do....") and then write objectives that would fulfill the competency requirements. Then all objective and performance assessments have given objectives that test questions directly align to. My job is to edit these objective and performance assessments to first...

Hello. Just wanted to briefly update. I did end up going to the interview in Orem. I didn't feel it was right, so I turned it down. I'm keeping the job up in Murray. I start next Monday. Hooray! I'm really nervous about starting a new, "real" job. I haven't worked full-time in a while, but I'm sure I'll adjust within a couple of weeks. I'll be happier being extra busy then I was being extra bored. I know it'll be such a good thing for Austin and I, and not just the monetary part. (Though that part will be awesome!) I'm nervous about being an editor. I know it's what I learned to do and what I loved to do, but everywhere you go it's different. I'm worried that I won't measure up to their expectations. What if it's difficult? What if I'm lousy at it? What if it's boring? I'm mostly worried about not being good at it and not being able to do what they want me to do. I'm sure once I get the...

So great news! I got the job in Murray! Woo-hoo! They offered $13/hr with benefits. I did talk to them about the wage. I'll get an annual raise automatically, but they also do performance reviews twice a year where they discuss raises. There is also opportunities for advancement from Tier One to Tier Two, which most likely comes with a pay raise. So yeah. I'm excited! I start in two weeks! I don't have to wear business dress, which is great because I don't own anything like that, except the outfit I just barely bought to interview in. So now I won't have to fork out money for new clothes, except I will after I start making some money! I'm looking forward to work as an editor. I'm not looking forward to the commute or having to get up at 7, but I'll adjust. It'll be good to be busy again and have something to do. And it'll be good to have money. I'm going to miss my boys horribly. I've become rather attached to my nephews....

Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger? Anyway...my interview was today. It went pretty well, I think. I really hope I get it. I don't know exactly how much I'll make..prolly between 12-15. The only downside is it's in Murray, which means an hour and a half commute everyday, if not more for traffic. The good news is I'll get to do a lot of editing, make friends, and make good money. Also, they have something called "flex-time" which means I set my own schedule. I just need to get 8 hours in anytime between 7:30am and 9:30pm. They also try to do an editor "work from home" day like once a week. That would be helpful. So if I get it I think I'll work from 8 to 4 and not take a lunch. I'll just eat at my desk. That way I'll beat traffic and still be home before Austin so I'll have time to make dinner and we can eat at 6. Then we can work out from 6 to 7 and go to bed at 10:30. It'll definitely be a d...

Yay! Good news! I finally got another job interview! The call came this morning at 8:30am. I was still sleeping (my alarm was due to go off soon.) I was in the middle of a sound sleep when my phone started ringing extremely loudly (did I mention my ringtone is extremely loud?) startling me awake. Lately I've been rushing to answer every phone call in the hopes that it will be someone wanting to set up an interview. In my startled state I knocked the phone off my nightstand under the bed where I frantically tried to recover it before it stopped ringing. Let me tell you the adrenalines was fun. I finally managed to answer it and I tried to respond as if I was fully awake and my brain was fully functional. Turns out it was a guy from Western Something University, an online university that had posted a job for an editor on craigslist. I mostly successfully handled myself and got an interview set up for next week. I was excited about this job because it's an actual full-...

So this....isssss....love. Sorry. Disney songs in my head. So, good news. Austin found a new job just like I knew he would. He starts a week from Monday, which is extremely fortunate as this was to be his last week at QualitySmith. This means that he will not have any days of unemployment. We're grateful that the company gave them two weeks notice before they were ultimately laid off. His new job is at a place called MarketPartner. They help out new companies that are just starting out with their marketing, brochures, websites, and the like. Austin will be a CSR (Customer Service Representative.) He will not have to be doing sales. They have salespeople for that. He will be checking up on customers for renewals and upsales. He'll be making at least what he was at the old place. He has a higher starting base, which is good, but we'll see how he does on his bonuses and stuff. The place also has benefits too which start after 90 days. They may not be as good ...

Today...not the best day. We just found out that Austin is getting laid off. He has two more weeks and then one week severance pay. And yes, this happened just as he was supposed to be getting a promotion. It totally sucks. So we have to yet again find a new job for Austin. We really thought that we had finally found a stable and secure job. We're trying not to get too down. Hopefully this will turn out to be a good thing. One kinda good news. I heard from Covenant. I'm one of the finalists and even if I don't get the position I will be able to do freelance work for them. So that's kinda good. I still have another two weeks until I hear back from them. Austin is now officially registered for school. He's taking Math 1010 on Wednesday nights and Student Success something on Saturday mornings. He's retaking the Student Success class because he didn't do so well last time and he needs to get his GPA up. I'm sure he'll do awesome. Be...

So we're all moved in now. We're not all unpacked yet, but we will be before the week is over. Then I'll just need to buy cute decorations... So we obviously have internet. We pick up a really weak signal. We'll still get our own internet set up in a few months. Not only do we not have cable, but the TV doesn't work at all. We're not even getting local channels. We can still watch movies and stuff, but we haven't had time for that yet. I really LOVE my new apartment. I don't even miss our old place. This place is just much nicer and feels more like home. I just like it much better. I'll post pics later when it's all finished. Good news! Austin got a promotion at work. He gets a raise starting next week! Woo-hoo! Bad news. Still haven't heard back from Covenant. I'm beginning to think that I'm NOT going to get the job which will be depressing. The one downside to this place is that it takes me twice as long no...

Just wanted to briefly update. I'm extremely tired. I'm working on another "test" thing for this job I'm trying to get. I had to read an ENTIRE book and evaluate it. When I first got it, I thought it was only 35 pages long. It wasn't until the day before it was due that I realized it was 354 page long. I had to read it electronically which was fun for my eyes. I was up until 4 in the morning last night reading it, but I finished it and am now working on the evaluation. I also just found out recently that my term project for sign was due today, but she'll accept it tomorrow as well. It's easy to miss things in my sign class as I'm not fluent. So I have to do my term project tonight. I was going to do it last night, but I realized there was not enough time to do the evaluation and the project. So, my deaf friend DJ is coming over for dinner tonight and I'm interviewing him. I also need to do an email interview with Heather and then t...