And the job search goes on

Well, anyone who's gone through a long, drawn-out job search knows that it can wear a person down. There's a lot of effort, resume/cover letter writing and re-writing, traveling for interviews, feelings of rejection, and (in my case) lack of money until you actually find a job. There is also a lot of weighing pros and cons, money vs travel, location vs schedule, and so on. It can make your head wanna explode.

I might have mentioned before that the Athens job market really isn't so great for vets. We already have more vets per capita than we should and too many vet offices for our own good, in my opinion. And, while Athens is a very animal-friendly place, many of our residents are transient college students with little money and/or no pets, so that can also cause the small businesses to struggle. That's why my previous boss had to finally lay me off...just not enough business coming in.

So, that means I have to look outside of Athens for a job. I'm not a person that minds driving, pers se, but I've always resented any sort of significant time it takes away from my non-work life. If I work a 10 hour day to begin with, that extra hour or two of driving takes the place of me exercising, cooking, grocery shopping, and, most importantly, spending time with my kids.
For any of you professionals out there that want to have kids, let me just tell you that you really don't get to have a lot of time with your kids if you work til 6 PM and they go to sleep at 8 PM. Especially if you have a commute.

But, despite all of my more pessimistic representations of the situation above, I feel like things are going OK. I think I have some options. I had a job interview today and I have one tomorrow as well. Both are out of town, but at least one of them is within a reasonable commuting distance. The other would definitely require moving in the middle and make both of us commute long hours/week, but I want to keep my options open.

Gabriel's job has actually kept him out of town two nights this week and I've been a single mama tonight and last night. While I really enjoy it, because I get so much quality time with my boys, I sure am tuckered out after getting them both bathed and put to bed. Glad I don't do that by myself every night!

-Shirin

This week I dropped Kai off at Beth's house and went around to vet offices in Athens with my resume. Hope it pays off.

Beth and David played a game with Kai on their exercise balls and he loved it.

Yay!! Mommy is here! (He's pretty much obsessed with me right now. I love him, but I'll be kinda relieved with his "Mommy Phase" is over).

Later that day, I picked Cyrus up from Tamala's and headed to the indoor playground at the mall. Our beautiful spring weather from last week has turned into dreary cold rainy weather, so the indoor playground is a godsend.

"I want to play too!"

Riding that horsey.

"I caught you speedin', little lady."

I'm in love with these little boys, can you tell? I could just squeeze and kiss them forever.

The mall had the perfect-sized toilet for Cyrus. He said it was made just for him!

Cyrus took a picture of Kai looking on.

I interviewed at this office today. It's only an hour north of Athens and the owners are very nice. The wife is the vet and the husband is the manager. They have a busy practice and there are a lot of good things about this job. It's definitely a contender.

My little destructobot

I've got a major destructobot on my hands these days. I just watch in awe of his amazing destructive forces as he goes from place to place in my house. If you ever come over and notice how messy it may be, please don't hold it against me. I am but one small woman fighting the never-ending battle against the mess (and I am usually losing). Here is a series of pictures from yesterday that I took within a range of only a few hours.

-Shirin

Kai vs Styrofoam

Ripping up toilet paper.

Um...it tastes kinda funny.

More and more bags!

I came upon this scene early, thankfully. He somehow unscrewed the lid off of the (brand new) kitty litter and was pouring it all over the floor. Glad he didn't get the bird seed open too!

Then, where did he go?

Oh, yeah. Just pulling out all the pans, Mommy. No biggie.

The predator senses the prey on his older brother's plate.

He descends upon his prey.

Snatch! The plum is his. Victory!

It's kitten season!

Unfortunately, it's kitten season again. That means every darn female cat is having kittens now or very soon. It's a very hard time for the rescue/shelter groups, who have to try to accommodate all these moms and babies. The kittens are all highly adoptable, but the problem is that they have to stay quarantined with their moms for at least 6 weeks to nurse and not be exposed to diseases, which increases the need for foster homes drastically.

This is where we come in. Since we have been discussing wanting to start fostering again at some point, kitten season seemed like just the right time. So, I drove up to Seneca at my (possibly) future vet office and picked up two litters of kittens and their mamas.

I plan to keep them sort of separated from the boys for the most part. Little boys can be quite dangerous to small animals and I want the moms to feel comfortable. I'm sure as the kittens get older, Cyrus will be able to interact with them more and more. Kai...well, Kai will be kept away at all times. Babies plus kittens really isn't all cuteness...it's pretty much a disaster.

Here are a few preliminary pictures.

-Shirin

The perfect man

We are doing some spring cleaning and I just came across a list I wrote on 9/6/04 titled "What I want in an ideal man." I thought it was funny, and certainly no surprise for anyone who knows me. I should mention that I had just met Gabriel but was in no way interested in him romantically yet. He was just a smart, silly classmate of mine that I rarely saw socially. He actually even had a girlfriend at the time, so this was all just my wishful thinking about some hypothetical man that I wanted to marry in the future. Reading through the whole list, I have to laugh at myself for some of them. Others of them, I know exactly what I was thinking or which of my exes I was trying to avoid.

Do you think Gabriel meets my criteria?

-Shirin

What I want in an ideal man

-Intelligent/intellectual

-Worldly/culturally open

-Knowledgeable about politics--has views

-Outdoorsy/athletic

-Compassionate/kind to me and others

-Strong family structure/ties/values

-Attractive mentally/physically to me

-Not a push over

-Not too confrontational

-Socially adept

-Veggie friendly

-Speaks another language

-Fun/funny/adventurous

-Admirable/demands and earns my respect

-Good father (future)

-Not girly

-Very moderate in use of any/all substances

-Ambitious/could take care of me if needed

-Not bad with money/frugal/responsible

Push me, Mommy!

Videos of Cyrus and Kai

CE reunion with Beth

Today I attended my first of many vet conferences to come to obtain some CE credits for my vet license. Luckily for me, Beth was able to come too and we got to do what we did for many years of our recent life: sit in class together. She is planning to move to the West coast in May, so I won't get this chance very often.

I enjoyed my day with her and learned a lot. It seems funny to already be back in class after just graduating so recently, but there's always more for me to learn and I got a lot out of it. We learned about lymph node aspirates, diagnosis and treatment of ear infections, and disease information on pocket pets (guinea pigs, rats, hamsters, etc), among other things.

-Shirin

Beth laughing at me for always taking her picture. I told her I had to keep her mom reading my blog, although I don't know if she still does.

You can't actually see my name tag, but I was proud of my 2010 graduate status.

Our list of courses for the day.

Where we got our learning on.

A studious Beth taking notes.

Baby Kai's 9 month check up

Just a quick stats report on our favorite chubby baby in Athens. He was deemed "perfect," by his doctor, although he's still cryptorchid and will have to have a small corrective procedure at age 1 if he doesn't fix the problem himself before then. Otherwise, though, he's at all the right developmental places he should be and doing very well. Despite not actually gaining any weight, and indeed LOSING a little weight, since his last check up a few months ago (due to all his crawling and activity), he is still off the charts for his weight, height, and head circumference. I think we've got the next pro football linebacker right here in our house!

The stats: weight= 25 lbs 7 oz (98%), height= 30.5 in (95%), and head circumference= 19 in (98%).

-Shirin

Norooz and Mommy's birthday weekend in RH

Eide Norooz! (Happy Persian New Year). Last weekend was a big deal to the Modaresi family. Not only was it Persian New Year, but it was also my mom's birthday. We also threw Lisa a baby shower, which you can read all about here.

Persian New Year always falls on the first day of Spring, which really makes sense, since it's kind of like the world is getting rejuvenated with all the daffodils blooming and days getting warmer. Since I don't have a job right now, I went up to Rock Hill early with the boys to spend lots of quality time with my parents. Since my mom took off for my dad's Spring Break, we got lots of good days to spend playing and eating. Tita arrived Thursday and Gabriel arrived Friday, so we all got to be together for the weekend. It was a lovely visit.

-Shirin

When I drive home with just the boys, it's always tricky. I have to stop several times to give them a break, especially the baby. Cyrus usually gets a chance to go potty, eat a snack, and stretch his legs.

Thank goodness there's a McDonald's playground 30 minutes before my parents' house. We always need to stop there. "Where's Cyrus?" (Can you see his little hand silouettes?)

Peek-a-boo!

Yay! We're there.

A happy reunion for Baba and his second grandson.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

My dad's greatest mission for the weekend was to feed us all tons of Persian food. Here are some pictures of our meals. Some grilled veggies for the "kabobs" we ate with rice and yogurt.

Tadeeg (crunchy rice and potatoes) with saffron rice.

Picked radish salad.

Cheese, flatbread, walnuts, apples, dates, and greens (basil/cilantro) for breakfast. Yum!

Ash-e-sabzi (stew of beans, rice, and veggies with fried onions on top)

It was a gorgeous weekend, and when my dad wasn't cooking, he was working outside in the yard.

Thanks for all the good food, Daddy! There was more I didn't photograph, but it was all good. One of the meals we ate that was surprisingly good was another type of stew (ash-e-anar) that had lentils, beets, and greens in it with pomegranate. Cyrus, amazingly enough, ate a ton of it.

Tita and I got a chance to go eat our favorite Thai food in Pineville, NC and meet up with our great friend Ricardo. I love that boy.

One of the hardest parts of being on vacation is how early we still have to get up, thanks to this little guy. Here he is right at 7 AM asking Gabriel to read him this book. It's another book written by Arthur Lobel (author of Frog and Toad) and it's very cute.

"Wake up, Mommy and Daddy!" Oh well, at least they are cute.

I can't believe Kai is already climbing up on top of Cyrus' little toy vehicles.

"Born to ride."

Tita and I also took Kai with us to a super-cool store in Rock Hill that reminds me of a Mexican supermarket. It's full of great produce that we bought for the baby shower. We also bought my mom's cake mix there.

Cyrus got so excited about putting candles in my mom's cake that we made her. I guess I was too busy with lighting candles and singing to take any pictures of her actual birthday celebration. Sorry, Mommy!

Gabriel and I got her an interesting book by Oliver Sacks (and scooped cat litter for her).

Then, on to celebrating Nowruz! This was our haftsine table (it has 7 things that start with S, like garlic, vinegar, coins, sweets, apples, etc, to help symbolize important parts of our new lives next year).

After lunch, we played a game called "Would you rather...?" We had to predict what a person would rather do between two hypothetical situations.

I must've been concentrating really hard, because I totally lost this game. I thought I knew these people better than I did.

This weekend, Kai discovered how fun cats could be and crawled towards all of them.

"Obi! You'd better run for it!"

Silly Auntie Tita!

Happy Norooz!