scuba_texas

I've lived in Texas my whole life (almost 30 years now) and I love it. Lived in Houston area, DFW area, west Texas (UUGH!) and finally settled in the Austin area. Housing is a little more expensive in the Austin area, but the hill country is gorgeous. I'm totally in love with the scenery out west of Austin. One thing I might caution before you settle in Texas (or anywhere else for that matter) is that you are well-educated in what kind of salary/wages you will be able to earn in your industry after your move. As a cautionary tale, my BIL and his family moved here a couple of years ago from N. California. They moved for the cheaper house market. BIL took a huge paycut (about by half) by moving here and they've been really struggling money-wise. Now, it may have just been his industry (he's in construction) and the lack of union work here in Texas compared to California, but it's definitely something I'd check out before making the commitment to move. BIL and family are probably actually going to move back to California just so he can make a decent living. They really kind of moved here on a whim I think and didn't do very good research.

Such a pretty dog!!!! Your Lucas was pretty too. I read your earlier thread and I'm so sorry for your loss. We have 2 weims right now and are considering getting a young GSP from rescue a few years down the road. I love the colorations on the GSP.

We bought an airtight dog food container to store our dogs' (2 large dogs) poop until trash day. It works really well. We bag it up on poop day (also usually lawn mowing day also known as the least favorite day of my week) and throw it in the container. We can't store our trash can outside of our garage and leaving the poop outside in plastic bags made the whole yard smell (and our neighbors VERY unhappy). The container we bought has a lid that screws on really tight. We actually store it in our garage and can't smell a thing! But when you open the container up....whoa! It's totally deadly. My BF says the smell is the second worst smell he's smelled in his life...the first worst you ask? Rotting human flesh. It's really that bad, but the lid only has to be open for a few seconds. My ultimate goal (when we can afford it) is to just pay someone else to do the chore for me though. There are companies that pick up and dispose of the poop for you. Can't wait for the day when there's no more poop duty for me!

I should also add that I would rather keep as little about any legal experience I have on the backburner (truthfully, one of the girls I used to work with at that law firm wrote that part up for me. I couldn't find nice words to put for that job. I didn't notice those 2 words until a little while ago and immediently removed them. Thankfully I didn't send it out!). There is no way to nicely explain the firm I worked for. It was a mad house, one attorney, nearly every case was going over the SOL, no one knew who was doing anything and the 3 of us (secretaries) were being screamed at each time one of us would try to make sense of the mess. I cried on my way to work, spent my lunch breaks in the park hysterical and bawled on my way home knowing I would have to go back the next day..... I went though because I had planned to go to law school and figured it would be a stepping stone. I AM NOT looking to work in a law office again! I'm not going to come out and specifically state what all jobs I would do before going back to a law firm but going back into one is not something I can mentally put myself through (matter O fact, I'm not even returning to school this fall. Until I figure out what path I want to take I'm going on an extended break!). I hear you on bad jobs at law firms. Been there, for almost 2 whole years. Feeling nauseous when you wake up in the morning because you have to show your face there? Check. Crying at lunch because you're so relieved to get out for 5 minutes AND because you know you have to go back? Check. Getting screamed at and called stupid? Check. Receiving inane emails regarding staples stuck in the carpet and how we all need to be extremely careful because they are a major hazard? Check. Getting told to go sit in your office and "think about what you've done"? Check. It was VERY hard to come up with any good thing to put on my resume after that job, but I couldn't leave it off because it was my ONLY job after I got out of law school. Couldn't very well have 2 years blank on my resume. Even harder was talking about that job during interviews (and being nice about my former employer and not calling him out for the stark raving lunatic he really was). While all law firms are crazy and hectic at times, not all are such terrible places to work. I stuck it out and finally found a good one, but I totally understand if that one place turned you off from the law (or anything remotely similar) for life. One piece of advice during interviews, be as nice and gracious as you possibly can be about your time there. If you bad mouth them (not saying you would, but it is SOOOO tempting during that interview, trust me!) it's only going to make you look bitter. Here's wishing you good luck with your job search!!!

One of my dogs figured it out! He can even pull doors open if they have handles. Thanks to that mongrel, we have to lock all the doors (especially the pantry with the trash can!) when we leave the house. We're probably the only people in Texas with a lock on their pantry door!

I thought of something else. Your "Accomplishments" section is really impressive. I might retitle it "Non-Profit Involvments" or "Community Projects" or something along those lines and move it near the top of your resume. Be very specific about what you did, who you lead in those campaigns, might even name drop the elected officials you worked most closely with. A ton of people are legal secretaries and admin assistants, but not very many have been such a big part of campaigns to improve public safety and health (like you apparently have). The goal here is to stand out from the crowd and I can't imagine someone getting your resume, seeing those things first off, and not at least wanting to meet you. And that's the goal with a resume right, to get the interview. Then your shining personality will do the rest. In the interest of full disclosure on my credentials relating to job-hunting: I was unemployed last year and it took me 7 months to find a job. I'm no expert except in the sense that I've revised my own resume and cover letter a thousand times.

Couple of things to suggest: First, I agree with the other regarding adding specifics to your previous job descriptions, adding numbers of things or people you managed or maintained automatically improves your resume and adds some credibility. For example, with your construction experience, you could add how many employees worked there, how many hours they worked on average, how many jobs were going on simultaneously, etc. Second, regarding your law firm experience, and along the same lines as above, it would be helpful for prospective employers to know the size of the firm you worked for, i.e. how many partners, how many associates, what the average case load was there, what kind of law they practiced (was it litigation or transaction based?, did they have a specific focus in one of those areas, personal injury, real estate transactions, etc.), that sort of thing. You might state that you managed and organized the personal and professional calendars for 2 partners and 2 associates. Or you maintained the docket for a busy commercial litigation firm with an approximate active caseload of 250 cases. Lastly, one thing stands out about your law firm experience, one of your bullets is "argued motions." To me that means you stood in front of a judge and argued something on behalf of a client. Unless the rules in your state on non-lawyers appearing in court are different than those in Texas, someone who has not gone to law school and passed the bar cannot appear in court on behalf of a client. If you mean something different than what I'm thinking, you need to clarify that. I would think that phrase might turn off a lawyer who's looking for a legal assistant.

My firm's old office manager and his partner sold their house furnished earlier this year. After the buyer toured the house, she made an offer on the house and then told them to name their price for all the furnishings, and I mean everything, towels, sheets, vacuum cleaner, dishes, EVERYTHING. They came back with some outlandish (in their minds) offer and SHE TOOK IT! No negotiations. They packed up their dogs, clothes and their pictures and moved to Colorado with plenty of cash to furnish a new place. Talk about an easy move!

How 'bout when you're going home on a Friday night and your big plan is to mow the lawn?

OMG! I must be the worst grocery shopper EVER! I had my suspicions, but this thread confirms it. For 2 people every month, we have $700 budgeted (in cash, so we rarely go over by much) for food (includes groceries and dining out) and entertainment (movies, other stuff we do for fun). The kicker is...we've cut back! I'm embarrassed now to say how much we used to spend. We have $60/month for dog food and other random doggie supplies and $60 for household stuff (shampoo, soap, TP, etc.) I have to say, I thought I was doing good with the $700 for food. I get happy when I go to the store and only spend $70. And it's not like we ever have anything left over in our food budget at the end of the month. AND it's not like we eat all this expensive, super healthy, organic food. We eat CRAP! At least compared to the things other people are talking about in this thread! I just don't know how to plan meals and shopping trips. I HATE doing it and I can't trust BF at the store. I suck. I'm just going to have to try harder I guess.

Your last sentence reminded me of this article I read in Slate yesterday, I haven't checked the stats in it or anything, but it argues that preschool CAN make a big difference. By the way, I know nothing about kids...don't have any, don't want any, but I thought others might find this article interesting too in light of this discussion. Teach Your Children Well The economic case for preschool. By Joel Waldfogel Posted Friday, May 25, 2007, at 7:36 AM ET Softhearted people always advocate spending more on kids. But according to a new and authoritative synthesis of available evidence, there's a hardheaded case for investing more in young kids over older ones. In the United States, we've spent trillions of dollars over decades on K-12 schooling in the hopes of making young people more productive, or at least less criminally delinquent. The results have been mixed. About 20 percent of the American workforce is essentially illiterate (compared with 5 to 10 percent in Sweden or Germany), creating a major drag on our international competitiveness. And an astronomical 5.6 million adults in the United States have served time in state or federal prison, with 1.3 million there currently. Their incarceration, along with other costs of crime, costs us around $1.3 trillion a year. Why doesn't all our spending on education buy better results? Nobel Prize winner James Heckman of the University of Chicago and Dimitriy Masterov of the University of Michigan argue that by waiting until kindergarten, we throw money at kids when it's too late. Their evidence urges shifting educational spending to younger children. The early investment is needed, the authors argue, to supplement the role of the family. Recent developments in neuroscience have shown that the early years are vital to cognitive development, which in turn is important to subsequent success and productivity in school, life, and work. Early-childhood nurturing has traditionally been the province of families. But families are deteriorating. Roughly one in six kids was born into poverty or single parenthood or both in 1970. In 2000, the rate was about one in four. What's more, almost 10 percent of children were born to unmarried teenage mothers in 1999; these kids tend to receive especially low levels of emotional and intellectual support and cognitive stimulation. They arrive at kindergarten cognitively disadvantaged, and the gap widens as they get older, eventually leading to early babies, lousy jobs, and elevated crime. Heckman and Masterov look at a number of pilot programs in early-childhood education that have targeted high-risk kids in disadvantaged families, and studied them into adulthood. These programs are like Head Start, only more intensive. For example, between 1962 and 1967, the Perry Project in Ypsilanti, Mich., provided two years of intensive preschool to a group of disadvantaged 3-year-old black children, chosen from an eligible pool by a coin flip. The program consisted of a daily session of two and a half hours and a weekly 90-minute teacher home visit. In today's dollars, it would cost $10,000 per child per year. Perry participants have been followed through age 40, and the program has shown substantial benefits in educational achievement and other social outcomes. Participants achieved greater literacy and higher grades, and they were more likely to graduate high school. Later in life, they were more likely to be employed—and to earn more—and less likely to be on welfare. They also committed less crime and had lower rates of teen pregnancy. The authors estimate the rate of return for programs like the Perry Project to be a substantial 16 percent. While some of this payback accrues directly to the kids, in the form of higher earnings when they're grown up, about three-quarters of it goes to the rest of us in the form of lower crime and savings on prison spending. Heckman and Masterov compare the return from investing in preschool kids with the returns from lower class size in high school (smaller than the return to preschool) and to GED programs (smaller still). They propose that the return on investment declines with age, although they don't offer a ton of quantitative evidence on this point. The big economic return for intensive preschool for disadvantaged kids has two implications. First, while many people advocate spending on these kids for reasons of fairness or justice, Heckman and Masterov make a different case. They're saying this preschool spending is a sound economic investment. Each dollar we spend on targeted, intensive preschool returns more than a dollar invested in, say, a pretty good mutual fund. Many families already make this investment on their own, either by spending time with their kids or by purchasing high-quality child care. Why involve governments? Well, Heckman and Masterov show that if your kid goes to one of these programs, the rest of us get most of the benefit. Economists assume that even if parents of disadvantaged kids are rational and forward-looking—as if they didn't have enough to worry about—they will invest in preschool only to boost their kids' earnings and not to reduce crime and prison costs, which are borne by the rest of us. As a result, even conscientious parents will under-invest. So, Economics 101 tells you—granted, in an end-of-semester lecture that you probably skipped—that clearly this is a job for government. The hardheaded case for Perry-like preschool extends beyond higher pay and reduced crime. Unlike many efforts to boost productivity—think trickle-down—this one would reduce inequality as well, by raising the incomes of the disadvantaged. Investing in preschools can also enhance international competitiveness. Much of the growth in American standards of living over the past half-century has flowed from our population's ever-increasing educational attainment. But for the generations born since 1950, the growth has stopped. The problem is not that a college education costs too much, but rather that many disadvantaged kids aren't academically ready for college when they finish high school. And Heckman and Masterov argue that it stems from the academic deficits they bring to kindergarten. If preschool whips them into shape, they'll be better prepared for all the other steps along the way. A sales problem remains: These programs invade the traditional province of the family, and in Heckman and Masterov's conception, they would target disadvantaged populations that are disproportionately minority. Wanted: a credible and sympathetic pitchman. Paging Barack Obama.

I was worried about the reporting too. Thanks for your help Marv! (even if you didn't have great news for me ) so... can I borrow $875? j/k

GRRRRR...So, in your opinion then Marv, if I called they would just tell me to jump off a cliff? Or do you think it's at least worth a shot?

BF and I are having a bit of a cash flow problem this month. I work contract work and the last 2 months have been slow AND I haven't been paid yet for the work I have done (some from back in February). I think that we've fixed our income problem as I've picked up a good amount of work from another firm in town, BUT that doesn't solve our immediate problems in May Both of our cars are leased through U.S. Bank, one is due on the 18th and the other on the 20th. The payments total $875. If we could get rid of them this month, it would closer to putting us in the black. We couldn't afford to make double car payments in June, so would U.S. Bank divide our payments up between our remaining lease payments or just tack another one on at the end of the term? Is U.S. Bank known for being hard-marigolds about this sort of stuff? Or are they willing to work with you? Who do I need to talk to over there? We've only had these leases since September and November, so we don't have that long of payment history with them, but every payment has been on time. I'm NOT willing to go 30 days late on either of these payments. We'll eat and buy gas (or just not eat) on our credit cards before I do that. We have a high debt load that we can handle now, but a universal default would send me running with my hair on fire to the bankruptcy court. Thanks

I was able to keep my grace period when I consolidated some of my loans. I graduated from law school in May 03 and I consolidated all of my law school loans in June of 03 right before the rates went up. I didn't make my first payment until November of 03. Each lender may be different though, I'm not positive about that this holds true for every lender.