September 2009

September came and went without much action until the very last day. I went into my favorite clothing store, Lane Bryant, with Allen one day looking for clothes, and I asked them "Are you hiring?" (I ask this in pretty much every store I go into) Many of the stores I've asked have pretty much said it would be an eternity before they were hiring again because the horrendous job market has lead hundreds of unemployed people to apply anywhere and everywhere, leaving them with hundreds of applicants for a handful of positions. However, this time things went a little differently. They said that they were hiring, so I filled out an application on the spot (much to Allen's dismay). A few weeks later I called back, asked if they were scheduling interviews yet, and secured myself an interview. When I went there, the person had no questions for me, and wanted to hire me on the spot. Awesome!

Not to sound like a broken record, but Allen's job searching process entered its 4th month on September 1st with very few prospects presenting themselves. Early in the month, he attended a career conference at the LDS Employment Resource Center with his spiritual guru Elder Larsen where he learned a lot about generating resumes and being confident in interviews. He parlayed the knowledge he had acquired into an interview with The Family Summit Foundation - A Center for Grieving Children and Top Ten Reviews (toptenreviews.com). The first interview went well, but he didn't get the job because someone more experienced came along after he met with Barbara Norris, the lady who runs the center. The second interview was far more promising. He had several good conversations with their recruiter, and a first interview that went extremely well. But you will have to wait until next month to hear the rest of that story.

On September 19th, Allen was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He had to be submerged a second time because his knee floated to the surface, but it went off pretty seamlessly regardless.

We got our awesome niece McKenna a pink bicycle. The party was awesome. She fell asleep before we ate cake though, so she wasn't too happy to be woken up to blow out the candles. Oh well!

Toodles, sunbeams and sunbeamettes!