In the Ranks

DeAnn was supposed to start at her new job on Tuesday, provided they got the drug test back. The only job that was still in the works that we hadn't heard back from was offer from General Dynamics. As many of you know, GD is the contracting firm with whom she landed the job that moved us out here in the first place. They pay really, really well. She had interviewed and was confirmed for a Program Coordinator contract, pending the results of the bid GD was making to the government on the job. This was quite some time ago, and we'd prayed for it, but put it in the "Wow, that sure would be nice" category...

God is good. On Monday, while she was at home, she got a call from General Dynamics, informing her that they had won the contract and the position was hers if she was still available for it. O.O We're talking almost as much every month as the both of us were making combined. The job is decidedly more administrative than physical, so she hesitated at first, but then realized just how much money that was and jumped on it. :D She's out of the lab, in an office where she can wear make-up and open-toed shoes. No more hot and stuffy labs, slicing up small animals or hours hunched over dangerous machinery. As an inadvertent bonus, she can't start until next Monday, so she has the whole week off from work. She's been getting forms filled out, running errands, doing housework and, of course, getting in some well-deserved game time and rest. I'm so proud of her.

I got out of work early on Wednesday to take Clara to her 2yr well baby check up and shot update. Happy to report that she's doing very well developmentally. And, as always, she took her shots like a champ. A very brief display to let us know that she did NOT appreciate that, and then back to her typical cheery self.

Colin's homework has been mounting on him the past few days, and he's starting to realize he can't just slide through his work like he did last year. His teacher expects quite a bit out of him, including neatness, of which he has always been sorely lacking. We was working on a piece of spelling homework the other night that had scribbles, doodles, whole blocks of sentences heavily marked out and was crumpled like it had been picked out of the trash. D and I insisted that he neatly redo it on a clean sheet of paper, and he threw every reason he could think of not to at us. He worked on his homework the better part of the evening and wasn't able to go out and play like he wanted to. His friends are starting to spam our doorbell and phone, I just have to tell them that he's not available until he finishes the things for which he's responsible.

In game, Keri and I have been fairly busy trying to make gil. While home, Keri has been farming up dark clusters in Xarcabard for Rhylosha's gil machine. She'd wait for weather, kill some clusters, the odd Shadow Dragon pop and afk for a bit when weather was down. Well, on one shadow dragon, she popped Biast (AKA Shadow Dragon's Mommy), and it was none too happy that she was killing her babies. She was able to take down Biast with some help from an LS mate, but she nearly got "eated by teh dwagon." I've been trying to farm up enough money to afford a Serket Ring through alchemy and other NPC/bazaar activities. I'm really close, but everytime I get this close, some jackass decides to gouge the price of the ring up another 100k while other jackasses undercut the things I make money on. I hate people.

Finally, we can officially say we're among the ranks of the BLM army. After several months of drama, manaburning and rats, Keri and I dinged 75BLM at last. Seemed like every night this week we were out getting experience points: 2k here, burning off a ring charge there. Last night, while duoing Wamoura Princes, we both dinged on the same mob. :O We took a moment to warp back home and dump the 6 merits we'd been saving up on the AM2 spells Freeze II and Burst II before heading back out and completing the ring charge. All I have to say is AM2 spells on those mobs is almost like cheating. We kept a constant chain 3 without breaking a sweat, even when Gravity failed to stick.

My Wish List over there is starting to look like Swiss Cheese... XD