June 18-June 24

Happy 1st Day of Summer-June 21st! (Catching up with summer blogs!)

We were finally back at home from our Michigan trip and back to work. However, the owners of my Nursing Home had quite a surprise for the entire staff. Our building had been sold, and not to the current company. The owners of Transition Nursing Home were leasing the building, and the facility owners decided to sell the business. That meant all of us could either stay with the new company, or we were out of jobs. And unfortunately for the Rehab Dept, we were going to be taken over by a contract company. Which meant our team had to apply for new jobs. I decided to stay since I could work my same schedule for the same salary. However, the benefits were not as good and I was going to lose all my vacation and sick time. I would get it paid out, but I had a few upcoming trips already scheduled, and the new company could not guarantee my future time off. So I would have to wait and see if they could get coverage.

The rest of our team decided to take other jobs as they were not offered equitable pay. So it looked like we would only be working together for one more month-to the end of June. How sad. Our team has been together for the past 5 years, and we all work very well together. Not to mention we were all very experienced therapists. Meanwhile the facility staff began dropping out and moving on to other places as well. Our Human Resources Dept started filling in missing rehab staff with contract therapists including a rehab director and speech therapists.  Our previous rehab manager became ill and was no longer able to return to work. What a crazy situation.

Tom was also busy packing for a two week work trip to Salt Lake City. He was glad he did not take any summer PhD classes this year since we have been so busy. He will start up again in the fall however.

At the beginning of the week,  both kids had appointments at the oral surgeon's office to discuss their upcoming surgery to remove their wisdom teeth. We have been putting this off for a few years and decided it was finally time. Allison was going to start her new job and not have much time off. Scott was going off to school for 4-5 years and figured now that we had the time, we should take care of this as recommended by the dentist and the surgeon. Both kids had wisdom teeth that were growing in under their molars, or impacted, and needed to come out. Both kids would be sedated and decided to schedule their surgeries on the same day in July!  I took them to a new oral surgeon recommended by our dentist. Allison had a tooth pulled when she was younger by our previous dentist and surgeon and she did not enjoy the experience(actually hated it so much she would not go back to him!)  They both really liked the new oral surgeon, Dr Richardson, and he took both of our dental insurances, so we would be covered even when my job was discontinued.

So that was taken care of (for now). Allison does not have much time before she starts her Northrop Grumman job. However, she decided to spend the few weeks before her start date working at the Girl Scout summer camp since this would be her last opportunity. She really wanted to spend some time with her old friends and was also hoping to have her camp name, Dragon, retired after working so many years. So she was busy packing her camping gear for the upcoming week. The kids in the state of Maryland were just now finishing school. We had several snow and ice days this past school year, so they extended classes until mid June. So camp would not be starting until next week. Allison asked to work at camp rather than the travel camp this year since she was so sick last year. She did not want to take any chances. She left on Sunday morning and was assigned to the Theater Camp.

Scott was done with his job at After Care at Resurrection school. He decided to put in an application for work at Home Depot for the summer. He really did not have a lot of time left for a summer job until classes start at Western. He also decided he had had enough time spent working with kids at the After Care program during the school year and really could not handle 2 more months of Summer Camps as a counselor. I did not blame him. We also looked into having him take a summer college class. Unfortunately, he kept missing all the summer college class start times with our scheduled vacations and trips. We even looked into having him take an engineering class in Scotland for incoming freshman students, but it was going to be too expensive, so it looks like he will have a pretty laid back couple of months!

We did attend a small Art Reception that week put on by his High School teacher. The woodland carving Scott completed was highlighted with multiple students art work from his high school at our local Nature Center. His art work was also highlighted in a county wide Art Show at our local mall in the spring.  We had a private viewing at the Nature Center with hors d'oevres and punch. Very nice.