I turned my office at work into a beach retreat!

 The cylinder in the corner is actually a light fixture made from recycled materials.  Sadly, it doesn't photograph well. 

The sarongs (fabric) on the wall were purchased, but pretty much everything else is homemade or embellished.  I even made the window, as, sadly, my office doesn’t actually overlook the beach.

Happy Halloween!

Last year's office decorations, plus me as a Jane Austen heroine:

This year:

I'm in Portland!

...and I don't have my camera.

Does it help if I describe it as like Prague, only more industrial and in more of a hurry?

I'm at a conference for work and enjoying it, but boy am I exhausted!  Hopefully I'll sleep better tonight.  Last night I accidentally set the alarm to go off at 3 am.  Which it did.

Weekly Round Up

Lately we....

... enjoyed my sisters Rachel's performance in her parish's annual melodrama.

... started planning the garden

.... started planning the garden shed.  We used an old role-playing map that can be written on and then erased with ordinary dry-erase markers, and then we made shapes in the sizes of the stuff we wanted to put in it.

.... decorated my office.

BEFORE

AFTER

What I Did at Work Today

As of Today.....

I have been at my new job three months and I still love it!

and the first seed catalog of the year (and the only one we usually use) has arrived:

Now What?

And so we are coming at last to something I have longed for, something I've wanted for many, many years: normal.   My husband is ill and my belly-button is still not healed but soon, please God, those things will be behind us and ordinary life will be in front of us.  Right now, I don't have to stress about money, or work, or really anything at all.  I have less time, but it doesn't really feel that way as often as I thought it would because work stays at work for the most part.

So what shall I do with the free time that I have?  What do I do with all this drive, passion, and energy?

Before I used a lot of my free time for money-saving activities and money-earning activities.  I did freelance writing, I did crafting, I did penny-pinching.  But I don't really need to do those things now.  Yes, that sort of thing will help me pay off the house a little bit sooner.  But is that little bit worth it?  If I did all of those things when would I ever relax?

I'm sure many of the habits of frugality I have contracted will remain.  And because I was too sick to go to the craft fair this year, the stuff I made for it also remains.  Do I go next year?  As I get farther and farther away from that other life that I wanted to escape from so intensely, crafting starts to seem kind of silly.  I knew that I could work all afternoon making gift bags and earn five dollars, but I was so eager to do any little thing I could to escape my situation that I didn't really mind much.  It will be interesting to see if all of that gradually fades away.

More importantly, I think when we have a big change in our lives is a good time to think about our values and our spiritual goals.  So the question I'm asking myself is also: What can I do for other people?  How can I get into habits of generosity?  What would happen if I used what little free time I have now to make other people's lives brighter?  I have that gift – the gift of lighting up a room when I walk into it, of making people feel more cheerful, of making them feel special, of helping them to see their gifts.  I suppose most noble thing to do would be to work for the poor and downtrodden, but I'm wondering what I can do for friends and family first.

I guess what I really thinking about is how I can make my new goals match my values.

Weekly (?) Round-Up

..... and now my husband is sick.

He has a bad cold, complete with a sore throat, and plans to spend the weekend on the couch with my hearty approval.  Poor chap!  First my illness, complete with at least five doctor's visits, one surgical procedure, 20 days of antibiotics, and bandages covered with pus and blood.  In the middle of all of that, his new job which turned out to be far more technical than he had any idea.  So no wonder he got sick.

I have been back at work almost a full week.  My new employer was extremely generous in dealing with my being gone since I obviously had not accrued nearly enough sick time to handle being gone that long.  I am very grateful for that.

What else is new?  I just found out last night that the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 100+ years.  Oh, and someone I didn't like got elected but that was pretty much inevitable, considering the two choices.  Dad is at Deer Camp but has yet to get a deer.

And finally, I've got just enough energy to look around and conclude that the housework is lagging sadly behind, but not quite enough energy to do anything about it.  That last part isn't true.  I'm going to make myself tackle at least laundry and cleaning off my desk.  There's only so much moving of piles one can do before one just has to sort through said piles!

Health Update

I'm back at work, finally!  The doctor gave me the "all clear" in the morning and I was at my desk by afternoon.

My belly button incision is not pretty.  The too-red center looks like a little pac man with a slightly open mouth that oozes blood and pus as it slowly scars over.  Oh yes.  Lots of fun at our house lately!

But I'm back at work now, and my supervisor has been so supportive and understanding (and her supervisor and HR as well) that I'm really glad I took this job.

I don't feel too bad.  I thought I'd be exhausted, but I'm doing OK.  It might be a long week, though...

Budgeting: Some Lessons

Lesson #1: Check the cost of benefits when applying for a job.

My husband's salary didn't change much.  But because his employer pays much less of his insurance, our income took a nasty hit.  (Previous two employers paid 100%.)  I went from part-time to full time so my income jumped significantly, but because his went down so much, our net gain is $200 a month.  Yup.  Not happy about that.  An expensive lesson.

Lesson #2: Transportation matters

BEFORE:
His commute was 59 miles one way.
Mine was 22 miles one way, but my expenses were lower due to carpooling.
Total transportation expenses for a month:  $197.97

AFTER:
Our commute is about 3 miles.
We both biked to work for a month.
Total transportation expenses for a month: $35.20

We aren't going to be biking during the winter, but we plan to start up again in the spring.

Job Hunt Update: A Good Post for Labor Day

I got the one job I didn't apply for.

I've accepted a position as a writer at an educational non-profit.  I'm very excited to be able to combine my writing skills with supporting education, something I passionately believe in.

And I didn't apply for the job.  I didn't even know that it was open.  A friend of a friend, someone whom I had met for coffee for 20 minutes, someone I didn't even know existed prior to that coffee, passed on my resume to a friend of hers whom she met through a professional association.  In fact, passed on my resume without even telling me, so when I got a call for a job interview, I was very confused!  When I was emailing back and forth with HR to set up a job interview, one email included a link so that I could apply online.  I went through the entire job interview without even knowing how I had gotten there!  Finally, at the end of the interview, my future boss asked me how I knew her friend, and then I figured out how I had ended up at the interview.

Job hunting is probably very different depending on the economy of where you live and your level of education.  But as a reference point, I live in Lincoln, Nebraska and I have a doctorate in English.  I was changing careers from teaching to writing, mostly using my five years of freelance writing experience.

My job hunt statistics:

Interviews: 19

Companies interviewed with: 5

Networking meetings: 10

Jobs applied for: 38

Duration: exactly 6 months, to the day  (Feb 17-Aug 17)

Budget Update

Amazon portal revenue this month = $1.18.  Thank you for your purchases through our portal!

I got my last paycheck from my former teaching job a few days ago.

Today we made a budget for our time when I am between jobs.  It involved things like paying the minimum on the mortgage and not putting anything in investments.  More drastic cuts were things like 'no spending money' and trying to cut our food budget down to half of what we usually spend.  I'm now trying to drink more water and less milk and asking myself if I can afford to take my niece swimming.

The most draconian budget we can come up with still leaves us $400 short.

I did some temp work in June, and I have some scheduled for July.  And we have a healthy savings account.  However, we don't know how long I will be out of work, or if my new job will pay decently, so we are going to try to live as frugally as possible and try not to touch the savings. So it feels like we are "playing" at what it would be like to be poor.  There will be an end to this.  We won't always have to say 'no' to what we want to do.  But some people live this way their whole lives, always scraping and pinching, and saying 'no,' and still just one disaster away from wiping out.

It's been oddly thought-provoking.

Plus there is this unsettling feeling: What if it stays like this forever?  What if I can't find anything and I have to scrape by with temping and freelancing for years?  Unlikely, but not impossible.

Trusting in Divine Providence is proving most difficult right now when it is most necessary.

An End and a Beginning

My husband's last day at his old job is today.  Good luck, my sweetheart, as you move from education into data management!

Finances.....

This month we're going to get income from 5 sources:
my old job (one last paycheck!)
my husband's old job
my husband's new job
my temp job
garage sale proceeds (hopefully)

Next month:
My husband's new job
One freelance writing gig = $65

I do have a phone interview for a job on Wednesday morning.

My unemployed self would be very grateful if you should happen to make any Amazon purchases by starting out at my Amazon portal....

Job Hunt Update

... I'm dealing with water in the basement, I think from an overflowing washing machine, plus I need to defend the peas from slugs and get ready for a garage sale.  And I have phone interview tomorrow for a Copywriter position with an insurance company.

Job Hunt Update

I have a phone interview for a position as a Marketing Copywriter on Wednesday morning.  It is for an insurance company.  Here's hoping!  I am going to spend the rest of the afternoon prepping for it.

And doing laundry.  Always, the laundry...

Job Update

I applied for four more jobs today, leaving off my Ph.D on three of them.  Hopefully that will help, or at least, I can see if I get different results.

I did find a temp job at a construction company.  It's subbing in for their receptionist who is going to be gone two days here, three days there, a week here for the next month and a half.  I really liked the people there.  I've been wondering if I can invent my own thing called a "perma-temp": someone who  knows the job but only comes in when you need her.  I'd be part-time in the spring and fall, full-time in the summer, and sporadic during the winter.  I wouldn't need benefits, and in exchange for only having to pay me when they needed me, they could give him a higher-than-usual hourly wage.  I'd also want the flexibility to work on my freelance writing.  I bet they would go for it.  It's a thought.

Today I am....

.... interviewing with two temp agencies.  Hopefully I can find a temp job without too much typing, as my old wrist problem can flare up if I am pounding away at a keyboard too long.

I am paid from my teaching job through June, so any extra income can go toward tiding us over my employment gap.  I am hoping that I won't be out of work for too long, but regardless I will try to trust in Divine Providence.

Job Hunt Update

Jobs Applied For: 16
Networking lunches/coffees: 4
Job Fairs: 2
Job Interviews: 10 with three companies--(one company has had six interviews)

Job Offers: 0

What I've Learned:

1. Most people are really nice, to the point that they will go out for lunch or coffee with a total stranger who is a friend of a friend, and give out lots of insight into their field.
2. Keeping a "Job Log" has been SO helpful!   It answers the burning questions like 'When did I send that resume?' and 'When was the last communication I had with that company?' and 'When did she say she'd get back to me?'
3. I'm not 19 and looking for a summer job.  Job-hunting takes a long time in Grown-Up Land.....
4. "I'll get back to you by ___________" means almost nothing, even from really nice HR people.

Happy Shakespeare’s Probable Birthday!

Normally, I don’t post pics from work, but since there aren’t any students in it, this is me, getting ready to introduce the Shakespearean part of the semester.

And, of course, a Shakespeare quote:

"To business that we love, we rise betime

and go to't with delight"

            -- William Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, Act IV, scene IV

It’s a good quote for someone who is finishing a job she used to love and going to a job that she will hopefully love just as much.