I like my job

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I know it’s only two weeks in, but I’ve been coding for a week straight – had three different specs tossed around and finally something I think we will start with. I’ve solved my biggest hurdle, the rest should be smooth sailing for this particular project.

I’m not sure I mentioned it but my official job is Web Developer/Data Management. So one of the things that I really need/want to do is take the tables and sketch out relationships in a visible way. There are almost 60 tables with varying degrees of foreign keys and the like. And it’s a true relational database as most sql databases are but this data is on Microsoft SQL server 2008. I’m only reading currently from the data so I don’t have to worry so much about the relationships in terms of deleting (yay!) but it’s a lot of data I need to know where it’s all at.

Shea reminded me again that he wished he could have a job he loved. And I must admit while I know I’m stressing over it (or was anyway) that I do really enjoy my job. I love coding and I love the problem solving even if it’s nerve wracking for a while. I hope this continues, it has been only two weeks.

A Letter to Kathleen

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We were asked to write a letter to our children for an “all about me” day for each child in Kathleen’s class. Here is my letter:

Dear Kathleen,

We are very proud of you. You have come a long way in so many things. You are an excellent big sister. I love the way you help your sister. She is lucky to have a big sister like you.
It was like only yesterday me and Daddy were taking you home from the hospital. We love you with all our hearts. I loved holding you and rocking you and playing with you.

Each year as you got older the more we could do together. You are a wonderful helper. I know your dad loves your help as well. You are such a big girl.

I’m glad you like school. I’m glad you like your class and I’m glad you’ve grown so much in the past year. You are off to a great start, keep it up. I know you will do great in everything you do.

We all love you very much.

Love, Mommy (and Daddy and Samantha)

Hello World

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For those people who aren’t programmers. One of the first tutorials/lessons you ever learn in a programming book/class is to output to the screen “Hello World”. I don’t know where it came from or why, but it’s everywhere in the programming world. So the pun is intended. I’m saying hello after starting a programming job.

I meant to do this yesterday but I chose to spend the time with the family. I miss my hubby and the girlies a lot, but all in all I’ve been too busy to think about it. Monday I didn’t work. Tuesday and Wednesday it was basically just researching and going through things I need. Thursday was a bit more actually work after my correct computer made it in. I still don’t have the right OS nor an email program, but hopefully that will be remedied soon as well.

Friday I actually started coding. I’m nervous, but I coded almost all of Friday. yay! It really is amazing how much like working at home it was. However I will have to bring in a headset, I’m sharing an office with the IT guy. He gets lots of calls and uses the speaker phone a lot and it’s distracting. I will have to put up a note/sign or get a mirror to hang so I know if people are there, since my back is to the door.

I found out after getting hired on that they will be moving offices in a few months, to Moss Point. I’m hoping not to far away, I really like the closeness, but we’ll see. When we move hopefully I’ll have my own office – another we’ll see.

I’m going to be a bit scarce while I adjust to the new life, so bare with me I do not intend to abandon my journal, my facebook or anything else of social internet. It’s just an adjustment I need to make.

Interesting First Day

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Today was an interesting first day at work. But it wasn’t a bad day. All in all I like the people I will be working with the most, so that’s good.

My day was “eventful” I guess you could say. My computer hadn’t arrived yet. It was out for delivery. No problem we went over what we could with out the computer. It came in relatively early in the morning. Then after we got it all set up, we started trying to install the software and it wasn’t going to work, it wasn’t the right computer type. So they started scrambling to figure out what happened and what to do. I should be getting my computer on Thursday, not sure how much coding I’ll get done before I get that but we’ll see.

I will be working on an iMac. It’ll be a challenge to pick up but I’ve always wanted to work on one so we’ll see how this goes. The only down side today’s computer was the mouse was a bit erratic. I think it was just this computer, I would move it one way and it would spaz out and go the other. It was annoying. Hopefully the new one will be better lol.

All in all it was a good day. I have a deadline for my first project so we’ll see how long it really takes me to code things lol. We’ll see if my current estimates are right or if I’m way off on things. I have some things I need to learn and start looking up and working on in my free time. I’ll have to make myself a list of skills to learn. Most of which are already on my so-called agenda, just haven’t gotten to them yet for whatever reason.

I am employed!

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As of Monday I will be gainfully employed. I was offered a position at Baber’s Corporate Office as a Web Developer. I am excited and nervous all at the same time. I’m going to miss my babies and my best friend, but I will be happy to be doing what I do so very much enjoy doing – coding.

The job is close to home – literally five minutes from the house. This is just a perfect job if there ever was one. I hope I do the company justice. I am nervous I’ll choke lol. But then I was nervous about the test too.

The tests today were nothing for me to fret over. They were based on PHP and SQL queries. Of course there were things that I didn’t get right away. I look a lot of stuff up! But it wasn’t a matter of getting a great “score” it was an assessment of my skills more or less. The second part of a test was to decipher someone’s code and tell him what it did. I think I did fairly well there with a few hints needed. The last part of the test was a code example. Basically he wanted me to spit out PHP that worked on a variable. It was probably the hardest of the tests because there wasn’t much information given and I had to find the inspiration to do something.

So I created an array of random numbers between 1 and 100. And had it output the random number, the sum of the number plus all other numbers before it in the array, it also output the sum of the current number plus the one before it and it decided if the random number was even or odd. What I liked most about this part of the test was that he liked the way the code read. So that was a big plus for me.

All in all I was gone about an hour and a half. The told me that they were going to speak with the owner/their boss and persue hiring me. Yay! They asked me when I could start. My reply was I needed a few days to get my wardrobe together as my business attire was small. So Monday was a good starting day.

BUT…

I got home and was on the phone with my Mom telling her the good news when I got a call. I didn’t recognize the number so I took the call. They wanted me to come in and take an assessment test. I said sure I could be back there in 15 minutes. No big deal but I was worried about what they wanted me to do. It turned out to be just your basic morality/ethics test. While there I also filled out all the necessary paperwork. Hopefully on Monday I won’t have much to do but we’ll see I’m sure there will be something – and a potential drug test.

All in all I’m still major excited and really nervous. But I know I can do the job and I am thankful for this opportunity, not only to do what I love, but to do it so close to home. (And to be able to work FROM home if necessary!)

Wish me luck and pray for me while I continue on this new journey. It’s going to be a very interesting ride!

Next Step

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I got an email this afternoon, asking me if I’d like to come in for a second interview and a 1-2 hour test. Of course I said yes. So at 9am on Monday I’ll be going in for attempt number 2 to impress.

I am nervous about the test. I haven’t programmed on the web with out being able to look things up I don’t use often. I really have no idea what I’d need to study. I suppose I should look into to Drupal a bit more and SQL queries just to be safe. But I’m not going to learn Drupal in two days. I can look into the differences between mySQL and SQL quickly I hope.

I am glad to get the call back. It means I at least made a good impression on them. I just wonder how many people will be taking said test. We’ll see I guess. I am going to need all the luck I can muster.

Wish me luck!

Interview Went Well

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I think my interview went well. I prayed for the strength to get through the interview and so many other little things I knew I needed help with. I thanked God profusely for the opportunity both for providing it and today after I finished the interview.

I hope that I get the job. It’s the perfect job if I like it. It’s close to home literally 5 minutes away from the house with traffic. It’s an 8 to 5 job so picks are easy etc. And I can telecommute if necessary on given days or if I have a deadline and need to work “late”.

The IT guy in the interview is a Wheel of Time reader. He threw me for a loop when he greeted me with ‘I see you’. I was literally speechless I mumbled I see you but I don’t know if he heard me. Later in the interview to break the ice he asked me who was better – Perrin or Mat? I didn’t answer right away cause I had to figure out who he was talking about. It wasn’t how I pronounce the names lol. But there is no question in mind what the answer to that is. Mat of course, but most people who know my online presence would know that… Matalina and all lol. He had just finished reading the books and has to wait for the last one. That made me chuckle, and I had to relay Shea’s story and mine and our long wait times.

My biggest concerns with the interview is my shyness and the fact that I don’t have a lot of Lead developer and fast paced developer under my belt. Those are the things that I feel will make me unacceptable. But I’m hoping I fit better than the others and I know I can do the job no matter how fast paced it is and how much stress it might cause. I really do want this job and I’m praying that the decision is made quickly. Either way I will hear back from them, so that’s a plus.

They didn’t seem too concerned I didn’t have iOS or Andriod under my belt, but I did emphasis during the whole interview, I love to write code, and learn new languages. I want to learn them but I just haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet. So here’s to hoping!

I am so proud!

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I am so very proud of both of my girls. They are growing up so fast and I love the people they are becoming.

First with Sam, she’s been going to school for two weeks. She’s received outstanding every day for the past two weeks. Awesome! Her teacher told me she is the loudest in the class when they start the verbal repetition of things – days of the week, counting etc. Today she was playing with her food instead of eating it, her teacher said she was lining her pears up on the table and counting them. “At least she was counting,” is what she said. My baby is growing up so fast.

Even though it’s only been two weeks Sam has showed a marked improvement in her language. She’s loving to tell us stories now and she’s making more sense. I’m proud of her. We have scheduled an eye appointment for her, she was complaining of a headache, but now I think it’s part of her cold she’s got – a fever tonight it looked like. But she’s in good spirits and now a sleep.

Kathleen is a much different person this year. We had no fights at drop off, she eager wanted to go. She even told me, “Mom, you can drop me off at the door.” It hurt for a micro second that she didn’t need me anymore, but the pride overwhelmed me. This is a girl who wouldn’t stay at daycare without a fight. She loved it there, but she just didn’t want to stay. She’s gotten green on both days, she’s doing well. She’s not had any accidents either, so far so good. I’m very proud of my little Kitten.

I truly hope that my girls will enjoy school for the entirety of their life. I want them to be eager to learn, because no matter what you think you never stop learning. And you never should.

In other news, I have a job interview on Monday for a Web Developer. It’s not a firm job it’s specific for one company. I’m fairly certain it’s a full time gig. I hoping it is. It’s local. Did I say that before? No, well its local. It’s right over the 14th Street bridge from the house that I pass every trip to Walmart. Wish me luck, cross your fingers and pray. We really need this job. No pressure right! I hope that it works out at least it’s an interview. Oh yeah, and I just applied for it today. So yay! It had only been posted for 2 days too, so yay! Maybe that’s a good sign. I’m praying and crossing my fingers and thinking good vibes.

Kindergarden & Preschool!

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Kathleen had her discovery day for Kindergarden today. I went in with her at 7:45a and she ate breakfast, she did fairly well on her biscuit, but with out her bottom two teeth, eating an apple wasn’t going to work. She ate lunch and a snack at school.

We went to Walmart and got a lunch tote for snack and another jumper so I can make sure she has a change of clothes for school. After breakfast she went with her teacher with out an issue. She came to me after her half day of school with no issues. No crying nothing. We had a good day.

Sam is got all O (outstanding) for the week, she did really well. Though we had an issue leaving, she wants to eat lunch with them, so we’ll pay the $10 for her to eat each week. Which is fine with me.

Kathleen has free lunches at school and free breakfast (they are free to everyone yay – lunches not though). a

She has a lunch number she’ll have to remember in order to get lunch so we got her a card with it laminated so she can have something easy to take with her to lunch. I will have to pay close attention to the lunch menu though there are several things she just won’t plain eat ie: hamburgers of any time, sloppy joes, basically anything with ground up meats.

It was quiet while they were both at school. Shea was even gone, he went to pick up the lawnmower at his parents house. I put all the laundry away and did some work for a website before I had to go get Sammi. It was productive.

Nearly two weeks of good sleep!

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I’m highly impressed with the girlies. I made a point of starting the girls early on their school routines. I know I’ve posted about it before. We’ve gone nearly two weeks with NO TV at bed time. They alternate nights of choosing the sounds they get to sleep to. Kitten likes the birds and Sammi likes the bubbles. We’ve only had one night of issues really, but I think it had more to do with Mommy being sick than them really not wanting to sleep in their beds.

I think we have to adjust bed time as the weeks go on. Some days Kathleen says she needs more sleep so she goes to bed a half hour earlier. She never was a morning person though. But 6am is working, I think a shower helps her wake up too I know it helps me. Sam not so much she’s pretty much wide awake once she’s up lol. My morning kid that’s for sure.

They adjusted well. Hopefully Kathleen will do well enough for school as well. She has half a day tomorrow and then starts on Thursday full time. That’ll be fun.