blabbery blessings family featured flickr travel: brighthouse stadium central florida family hard rock resort marketlauncher orlando travel ucf universal studios work
by Blabby
leave a comment
old home week
A couple weeks ago, I traveled to FL for a work conference. First of all, as a corporate girl turned stay-at-home mommy, this was a wonderful escape. My awesome job put us up at the Hard Rock resort, a lovely establishment, and fed us like queens (and one lone king…until last week, we only had one male coworker). I had a ball. We got lots of work done, but we also did quite a bit of drinking, eating, and we saw Blue Man Group! In our conference room, there was this huge coffee bar set up - coffee, flavored syrups, hot tea, ice water, soda…I drank fresh coffee all day. I loved it.
As for the work part, I’ve worked for this company - which is strictly virtual - for almost a year, and this was the first time I had met my bosses and coworkers. It was so nice to put faces with names and acutally have a conversation with people without emoticons. I learned a ton of ways to work more efficiently, we came up with great ideas…it was invigorating.
Funny what a little adult conversation does for stay-at-home-moms.
I structured the trip so I could see some friends and family also, since I went to college in Orlando, and High School close by in Cocoa Beach. I got to see my grandfather in the nursing home, which was kind of awful because he didn’t recognize me. I got to see my best friend from high school, my best friend from college, I took a tour of my unrecognizable campus, and went up to Jacksonville to see my sister and nephews real fast. It was a whirlwind, but it was awesome. Here are a few photos:
Well, that’s probably enough for now. I’ve got some crafty pictures to post, so I better get to it :)
working from home
I work from home now. I mean, I take care of my kid and my house just like always, but now I have a paying job also. I make phone calls. I have two cordless phones in my house, and I connect a headset to one of them, and I make my calls. The problem is that these phones are old. Old old old. I guess. Because after about 20 calls, the phones start beeping and telling me things like, “move closer to base.” A-NOY-ING! (I know that’s spelled wrong. I’m trying to emphasize here.) So anyway, should I carry the little batteries to WalMart or Radio Shack and try to get new ones? The whole system is two cordless phones, an answering machine/charging base and a 2nd base that doesn’t require a jack. It’s all very handy - except for the battery limitations.
Honestly, I’d like a regular desk phone with a flat keypad. I hate having to hold my cordless to dial. I have to pick it up to dial and put it down to type. A-NOY-ING!
So I went to some stores looking for solutions, and did you know that there aren’t a lot of options besides cordless these days? I looked at some small business phone systems, and that’s kind of what I want, but it’s really a little more than I need.
I’ll probably just get new batteries. But it doesn’t really solve all the problems.
My new job!
Did I tell you guys about my new job?! I’m so excited. It’s with an honest to goodness virtual company. And not of the “pay us for the envelopes, then stuff them on your own time and earn up to $1 million a year!” I’ll only be working 10 hours a week, doing Outbound Marketing (a.k.a. phone calls), but I’m calling corporations during business hours, not residences, and I’m not selling anything, so I consider this an excellent opportunity. Besides, the company is growing fast, and I think that down the road there will be good part-time but more hours or even full-time opportunities in PR. Anyway, the extra money will really help us, and it’s the PERFECT schedule for me and my son.
I am a very lucky girl!
Oh yeah, they use this super cool server, so I just log in with my hand high speed internet, and I have a virtual desktop with all of their programs on it. I’m sure this technology has been around for a little while, but I think it’s awesome. I didn’t have to load any software on our home computer, I just had to have high-speed, which we already did, thanks to our trusty fiber cable from Verizon. I got a phone headset today, and it looks very official. My coworkers are spread out all over the country, and conference calls invariably include the sounds of babies on the line, but everyone is completely professional. Hats off to the ladies that started the company - lord knows there are tons of highly-educated, highly-qualified parents staying home with their kids - I’m lucky they’ve given me this opportunity, and I plan to make the most of it!
