**WARNING INCOMING TMI** I’ll cut here to save your fragile eyes.
Summary: Bad things happened. Change is scary. We’re ok, we’ll get past this.
“Everything works out okay in the end. If it’s not ok then it’s not the end”
1. Work/Programming
On Tuesday November 13th my boss called a whole departmental meeting at 7:15am PST (my boss and most of the rest of the dept is on the east coast). Needless to say, I worked at home that day and dialed in. At this meeting he, his boss and the CTO announced what I feared was coming. The three main programs my department created, continue to develop and maintain are being phased out over the next year in favor of third party solutions. Because of this our team would no longer be needed. We have all been given notice with terminations from 2 months to 13 months from now. Some people have been offered and accepted positions elsewhere in the company.
I guess technically this means I’m laid off. My work has given me notice. My termination date is 12/31/2013 (that’s the end of NEXT year). At that time if I have not accepted another position at the company and I sign an agreement (ie, “I promise I won’t tell your competitors all your secrets”) then I’ll receive a fairly nice severance package(6.7 months salary). I’m one of four people in my department who is being kept on for the full year.
Well that.. and the project I’ve been working on, my new pet project.. there’s a chance that may get adopted.. and if it does then there’s a pretty good chance that they company will need to keep an engineer on to continue to maintain/develop it.. and since I did the initial development there’s a fairly good chance that engineer will be me. But this is all a bunch of maybes.
The facts: in 13 months I may no longer have a job at CBS. But 13 months is a lifetime away. So my plan is to keep on keeping on. If I don’t know anything by October 31, 2013 then I will start making more pro-active plans.
Change sucks.
This does mean, that because of our uncertain future F will no longer be competing in Coronets or Crowns. We can’t afford to reign with our future in its current state so he will not be competing. He will be on-hand for byes and roses. In all we’re planing to curtail our SCA participation in general to save money. I -am- still getting married.. Seriously, like I’m going to let some silly job stop me from doing that. As if.
2. Home
We contacted furniture guy just before Thanksgiving and ordered and received a Cal King sized bed frame and mattress. It is TONS better then the queen sized bed we have. I wake up every morning and spend a few minutes just mulling over how fantastic it feels. All told the new bed+mattress came to $780.
On Tuesday 11/20 when we woke up our dog, Fynriss, was whimpering a bit in pain. A half hour later he could no longer stand up. When the vet opened at 8am we were waiting at the door. The vet diagnosed Fynriss with some kind of neurological problem and referred us to a local pet Neurologist. The Neurologist suspected a back problem. Treatment was going to be very expensive.. but he would have a good chance (90%) of a full recovery. After scrambling for a bit we borrowed the money from my parents and had the doctor proceed with an MRI and then surgery. The final diagnosis is that Fynriss had a herniated disk and the surgery removed that disk. At this point, 4 weeks after the surgery, he seems to be making an excellent recovery. He occasionally whimpers in pain, which the Doctor says is to be expected until he’s fully healed, but he’s off pain meds and is walking/running/jumping pretty much back to normal. He is not allowed to do any lure coursing for at -least- a year, if ever.
3. Health
I was pregnant.. and then I wasn’t.
Right around Halloween I noticed that suddenly I was totally losing the battle of the bulge. For the last year I’ve been gaining and losing the same two pounds pretty much consistently. The only time I lost consistently was on the CrazyStupidDiet.. but even then.. two weeks later I was pretty much back to my same year-long weight. Anyway.. right around Halloween I shot up 10 lbs. I was in shock.. I hadn’t been eating everything in sight.. heck I’d even been (fairly) good at Halloween and avoided all the candy but still.. suddenly I gained a HUGE amount of weight.
I expected my period on 11/6. When it didn’t appear I started to suspect the reason why I had the huge weight gain. I finally did a pregnancy test on 11/18.. and then another on 11/19. Both came up positive. Fearghus and I were elated.. happy.. scared.. overwhelmed. We started to make plans. At Thanksgiving we announced it to our families. I wanted to keep it secret from friends for longer but F cant’ keep a secret (especially this type of secret) to save his life. So we also told a few (a lot) of other people.
We have Kaiser and Kaiser set my initial OB/GYN appointment for 12/7. On 11/21 I started spotting.. and had slight cramping. We called the Kaiser advice nurse and he advised that what we were experiencing was normal and that we should not worry unless it got worse. It didn’t get worse.. but it also didn’t go away. Sadly at our first OB/GYN appointment we found out that this was a non-viable pregnancy. The fetus had no heart beat and was smaller than expected for how far along I should have been. Over the next few days I did a few blood tests which confirmed that I had been pregnant.. but I no longer was. We didn’t feel terribly social at that point so we cancelled our weekend plans and just stayed home.
We’re sad.. but only because we were so happy before. We will get past this and we still plan to try again.
4. SCA/Projects
All things SCA have been back burnered. I’ve thought about a few projects..but nothing has actually been done on anything.
5.
All things considered.. I guess some people would expect me to curl up in a little ball of hurt and stay in a deep state of depression for the rest of the year. I’m not. Honestly I’m kind of glad it’s the Holiday season. This is my favorite time of the year. Christmas songs make me smile. Baking makes me happy. I’m sorrowful.. but hopeful. Nothing that has happened has taken away my hope.. and I see a path through all of it.
Like I said.. change is hard.. and I hate all of this most because it entails change.. but I still smile.. and hum and I’m making it through the day with a fairly light heart. So there’s that at least.
Future:
Dec 21 World does not end.. everyone stops talking about the Mayans
Dec 21-31 In Montana visiting family
Jan 5 12th Night
Jan 26 Cynaguan Winter Investiture
Feb 2 War College (maybe)
Feb 23 Northern Wolf Prize Tournament
Mar 22-24 March Crown
August 31, 2013 My wedding in Billings Montana
