Sweet Hubby has a job interview on Thursday for a Jr. Graphic Designer position with Rubicon Publishing.  Still only 30 min from home (QEW & Dorval) and right up his alley.  They make educational children’s books, with a particular interest in using graphic novels as a literary tool for kids at risk, or those having difficulty with reading in a traditional sense.  How many more places could they write his name on this job?

For those who don’t know, Sweet Hubby spent 11 years working for SmithBooks (later Chapters) in the kids departments.  His second job is as a librarian in the children’s department of our local library.  He has two separate graphic novel series’ on his resume, AND does all the graphic design, desktop publishing etc. for the Burlington Art Centre, his day job.  He is PASSIONATE about kids literature, and the value of reading from a very young age.  He TEACHES cartooning to kids through various city run programs in Burlington and Oakville during spring and Christmas break.  He’s a walking encyclopedia of kid’s authors, publishers and illustrators.

Cross your fingers for us. 

He’s been a misery to live with for a lot of the last 24 months.  Since losing the Ontario Renaissance Festival, he’s had no real outlet, has been miserable in his day job, and largely blaming everyone else around him.  Not intentionally, but self examination isn’t a skill he really has.  I don’t care a whole ton about the money, and MY job offers us good benefits, I just want him to be happy getting up and going to work every day, because then he comes home happy at night. 

I’M a bit grumpy today.  A recent course of antibiotics to kill the ear infection that wouldn’t die has left me bleeding again, with joints flaring and feeling like garbage.  Meds are back UP, (at this rate we’ll be able to start considering baby # 2 at about the time I’m ready to retire) and if it doesn’t stop by the end of the week, I’ll be back on prednisone, just in time for my birthday again.  I’m off today, but Sweet Hubby left his oil change until his car was in serious danger of not working anymore, so he’s taken my car today while I deal with THAT.  (This is fairly high on my list of pet peeves.  And the reason why I will NEVER allow him to buy a new car) There are dishes in the sink, none of them mine, dishes in the living room, none of them mine, laundry on the floor, none of it mine,  and some unidentifiable substance under the dining table, stuck to the floor, that looks like rice.  Definitely not mine.  There’s just one problem.  I HATE rice.  Rice has not darkened my door since I left home.  So it definitely cannot be rice.  It seems I will need a putty knife to wash my floor again today.

So instead of resting, which I desperately need to do, I’m spending my day cleaning up after others.  I don’t usually mind, but today it’s making me grumpy.  All I really want is a hot bath, and my bed.

EDIT:  $185.00 and 5 1/2 hours at the garage and I have a working mini van, and an estimate for $980.00 worth of additional repairs.  About HALF of which could have been avoided by not leaving the gas tank empty and waiting until the cylinders seize to think about maintenance.

Add to that the 20 minutes the idiot mechanic spent talking to ME like I’m some dumb broad that doesn’t know how to maintain a car.  This is also high on my list of pet peeves.  I’m not a mechanic, but MY cars are always well maintained.  Thanks to a Dad that had the patience to do things WITH us instead of FOR us I know what most of the bits are called, where they are, what they do (in an ankle bone connected to the leg bone kind of way) and can do simple things like fan belts and even removing an alternator and replacing it, on my own.   Mechanics who assume that I don’t know what they’re talking about frost my weenie in a big way.  I actually DO know that the ball joint being worn has nothing to do with my CURRENT trouble.  Including it in the estimate and trying to tell me it DID have anything to do with the current problem was a shitheaded attempt to take advantage of me.  He got a lot less pushy after I told him so. 

In front of a waiting room full of people.

Loudly.

No, I didn’t get my bath, and no, I’m not feeling any less grumpy.