Moving on...

It's past 1 am right now, and I really should be going to bed, not blogging, but it's been a long time since I've written, and I know I couldn't sleep, anyways. LOL

We've been slowly getting into new routines these days. "School" has officially started, which means our mondays at the park are back and I'm actually trying to keep some sort of record of what we've been doing.

We got a new computer system, printer/scanner and digital camera. We've blown our funding the the process, but that's ok - we're still getting used to the idea of *having* funding in the first place.

We have a new homeschooling facilitator that we'll be meeting for the first time tomorrow. That means we have to put together an "education" plan for their records. It'll be fairly easy for our eldest, as she's pretty focused right now on her online comic book (which is why we needed the new scanner/printer) and various other projects that would be easy to build a "curriculum" around. The younger child, however, isn't really focused on anything in particular, so it's a bit more difficult to come up with something. About the only things that are for sure are that we're going to be regularily using Rosetta Stone to learn French, raising triops, and working on digital photography.

On top of all this, we've been hit with another rent increase. It had been our intention to move up to a much higher floor to get away from the constant street noise. Rent is already higher on the upper floors, and with the new increase, it's no longer affordable for us to do so. So now we need to move on again, but where? The main reason we are where we are, even though the rent in this area is higher, is because it's so convenient for my husband to get to work. Healthwise, he simply can't have a long commute. That limits where we can look to someplace that still lets him get to work quickly.

As if that weren't enough, things are getting screwy with his client. He works for company A, which has contracted him out to company B, which needs him to work on a project for company C. Company A, his actual employer, isn't even in our city, and he rarely sees anyone from there. He works in the offices of company B.

The problem, though, is that company B doesn't seem to be very efficient with their budget. The client pays them X amount at the beginning of the fiscal year. Well, they seem to have run out of money. They've let one person on the project go completely, another has been asked to take some time off (without pay, of course), then come in on a part time basis for the rest of the contract, and my husband has been asked to work a few short days, too. Thankfully, my husband is pretty much the only person who can do various things for the client, so they can't afford to have him gone for any length of time. This effects his pay, of course. The thing is, when Company A hired him for this contract, it was for a specific amount per year, which was broken down to an hourly rate to bill company B for, rather than have him on salary. So as far as we know, that means he's supposed to be paid that amount for the year, regardless of how many hours he actually works. Now, when he's had to take sick days, it just wasn't an issue - we never expected him to get paid for that, once he'd used up all his sick days and holiday pay. This is a different issue altogether. Unfortunately, these are the same people that told him he'd have full employee benefits when they hired him, only to backtrack because he was considerred a "term" employee. We'll have to take a close look at that contract. It isn't a very long one - a single page, and no small print - which is why I remember it fairly clearly. If the contract says he's supposed to be paid X amount per year, it doesn't matter what company B does, as far as billable hours goes.

Ah, well. We'll figure it all out.

Until then, we need to figure out where we're moving.