Daily Herald - Multimedia Center

Daily Herald - Multimedia Center

Summer's Over - Back to Work!

It's that time.....again.... School starts this week. After enjoying the last 7 weeks off, I'm really not looking forward to starting the morning routines once again. Most of our summer has been spend shuttling back and forth to football camp. The camp ran all summer long from 7:30am - 11:00am and the team is currently doing double practices for 6 hours a day.

When summer started, I made a set of "goals" to complete prior to returning to school and have finished them all - including the "extreme makeover" of Ryan's bedroom.

I made all 3 of these valances and the curtains - the red valance was made by piecing together a table runner and adding on some fabric - I love the way they turned out.

I took a condensed sponge and die cutted a star shape. I then sponged the accent wall with three different colors of stars....It looks so clean on the bright white. I then put the wallpaper border on the remaining 3 walls - it all came together very well.

Ryan absolutley loves it. He picked out the loft bed - although I think it's to close to the ceiling - he's been doing fine during the night. I purchased a small refrigerator that sits on the desk below - which he stocks with milk chug bottles, pop tarts, string cheese and bottled water. He's got his own "dorm room".

It was time to say good-bye to the "truck" theme! With his buddies coming over-and as they head over to high school - this gives them some extra space to hang out!

Speaking of High School....Freshman Orientation took place last week. The new high school is amazing. Everything is so new and clean. The facility is big, however only Freshman and Sophomores will attend this year - as only 60% of the school is complete. Here are some pictures from our visit:

Ryan is actually on his knees - the lockers are not very tall

This is one of the classrooms he will be in.

Here is the football field - it is all artificial turf - it's beautiful

This is Ryan's football locker - nice and big!

Ryan was very impressed by the "MV" in the bleachers.

GO MUSTANGS!!!!!!

So Long GOGO - Hello Summer!

It's official, my final day at GOGO was on June 26th. You think with all this extra time on my hands I would have posted sooner! You think after almost 27 years of working there I would have been sad.....but I wasn't - actually I was quite relieved. Ever since Flight Center bought our company a year and 1/2 ago things continuously changed - and always for the benefit of the stock holders and not the employees. Everything from the 401K employee match benefit, to the paid time off policy, to less insurance coverage for a higher premium, a new computer system with no training, and 2 days prior to my departure and entire new phone system allowing phone calls to be monitored and impossible to receive an incoming personal phone calls, and the topper was the announcement of a downsizing our office space which requires a move to another office building. The day prior to my final day they emailed over my separation package documents. I found an error on my accrued vacation time - by 2 weeks! We were able to keep 2 years of vacation time (which should have totaled 8 weeks.) However, each month they kept banking more hours into my benefits package so I had a total of 10 weeks..........they agreed to pay the entire 10 weeks! In addition I received a very generous total of 35 weeks gross pay. Net pay is close to a full year - as insurance and 401K will not be deducted. In addition, I qualified for the stimulus COBRA insurance which will only be 100.00 more than I was currently paying and I qualified for unemployment. My insurance through the school district kicks in September 1st - so since August payment for COBRA isn't due until August 30th - I most likely will only need to pay one month of the COBRA rate. Things worked out so well, I definitely made the right decision on not taking another position and leaving on the terms of position elimination! No regrets at all! However, I do feel sorry for the few employees that remain - most told me to put on my running shoes and keep running and not to look back. I have kept in touch with a few coworkers and they are miserable. I have actually been doing some "side work" at home for the team leader for some extra money. I've been asked to come in for a few hours next week to work some reports for a little extra cash also.

Summer is flying by - as you can see from the countdown clock above the posts showing how many more days until school starts up again. Ryan has been in football camp along with strength and speed training all summer long. It starts very early in the morning, so we've been getting up earlier than we had to when school was in.

I took Ryan and one of his friends to Raging Waves in Yorkville. I have free passes and thought we'd take advantage of them. It turned out to be a great time - they had a lot of fun.






Tomorrow Bill is off and we are planning another water park visit - we were thinking Great America but we aren't up for the long ride.

This past week I've been doing a lot of running around, renewing drivers license, getting service done on the car, luncheon with a friend, bike ride, cleaning windows, deep cleaning, and I purchased a Netbook. It only weighs 2 lbs and I got a pink snap on cover - it's a fun new toy - and the best part is it was 1/2 off at my favorite store - TARGET!!!!


Hope to post again soon - - Lisa