Moving was so much work that I don't even want to think about it anymore. Now, 90% of my things are in Florida – cozy in their new space, finding corners and shelves and wall space to occupy. I’m finishing up the month of January at my job and then hauling myself, my cat and some odds and ends 1,000 south to Central Florida. I’ve made a list of to-do items and I’m steadily working my way through it: officially change my name (done); tune-up for the car (done); clean the car (er, not done); clean the room I’ve been using at my brother’s place (also not done).
I’ve also made a list of suggestions for myself when I’m feeling bored and lethargic this summer. Something I can look at when I feel like doing something but I’m not sure what and if I don’t come up with an activity soon I’m heading straight back to bed for a nap. This list is going straight on the fridge and I’m going to do at least one thing from it every day:
Unpack – there’s no shortage of this that needs to be done.
Exercise – Cardio Salsa, free weights, boogying to my favorite tunes
Practice dance – Swing, Belly and Burlesque. I put up a wall-full of mirrors to help.
Study Spanish – I have a three-disc audio tutorial. So far I can ask where the bathroom is and tell you that I want the next train.
Ride my motorcycle – The small, quiet town I live in will be perfect for getting to the next level and riding in moderate traffic.
Blog – Hello.
Write letters – I have so many people to write to!
Daytrips – Florida is filled with small coastal towns, art districts, wilderness preserves and I wanna see them all.
Walk around the lake – I’ll visit my neighbors the horses, and the pigs and geese down the street.
Paper crafting – I love paste.
Paint the bathroom – After much serious deliberation I think I’ve settled on blue. Yeah. Blue.
Work on the backyard party barn – Whoo-hoo! This long-unused two-horse stable just needs a string of chili lights and a couple of chairs to make it the swingin’est barn-bar there ever was.
Do laundry – bleh.
Garden – I’m thinking of starting small with some summer herbs on the front patio. We’ll see if the critters will allow me to grow for myself or if they’ll eat everything as it sprouts from the dirt.
Water the trees – I hear this is a beautiful, meditative task. Soaking the leaves and branches with water and watching the droplets meander their way down. Sometimes a couple of birds will shower themselves.
Sew – I have lots of half-finished projects…and I’ll probably start lots more
School enrollment – This is going to take a lot of time at first; enrolling in the Federal TAA program, then with the school. I’m expecting lots of visits to the unemployment department where the program is coordinated, lots of waiting in lines, lots of paperwork. Hopefully it will all go relatively smoothly and then not take too much time till the semester starts.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Friday, November 20, 2009
Begin at the beginning...
This has been one crazy year. Almost exactly 12 months ago I found out that my 70-year old manufacturing company was going to close down my facility. At that point, everything in my life was tossed in the air like a deck of cards, and I'm finally starting to see how things are landing.
I've been lucky to have so much advance notice. My job will end December 31, so I've had plenty of time to save, ponder and plan. There were a lot of different options on the table, but when my then-boyfriend proposed to me in June my path started to get much clearer. He lives in Florida, I live in Indiana. Our options mostly focused around him moving here or me going there, and practicality soon made it obvious that I should go to Florida. We married in October, it's now November, and I'll be moving down there in February after my job ends and I wrap up some loose ends.
One of those loose ends is enrolling in a very cool federal program that's going to allow me to go to school for FREE for two years and give me extended unemployment benefits during that entire time. It's called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and it's designed for employees of manufacturing companies who lose their jobs due to businesses sending work out of the country.
Sooo, my plan is to move to Florida, begin my life with my new husband, be an unemployed full-time student and hopefully emerge into a recovered job market in 2012. I haven't been out of work for more than a month since I was 15 years old, so this is bound to be quite an adventure. For the first few months, from February until the start of the fall semester in August, I'll be a complete lay-about. I really want to fill those months with creative and enriching activities - and that's part of the inspiration for this blog. I won't have anything interesting to write about if I spend all day watching Firefly. Okay, that *would* make for at least one interesting post, but not every day!
Right now I'm entrenched in the details of moving: packing, painting, change-of-address notifications, etc. By the time that's settled I want to have some goals to work on over the summer. So far I'm thinking about studying Spanish, finishing a couple of history books that I've started twice, working out regularly and riding my motorcycle. That sounds like a good start! But now...back to packing. Ugh.
I've been lucky to have so much advance notice. My job will end December 31, so I've had plenty of time to save, ponder and plan. There were a lot of different options on the table, but when my then-boyfriend proposed to me in June my path started to get much clearer. He lives in Florida, I live in Indiana. Our options mostly focused around him moving here or me going there, and practicality soon made it obvious that I should go to Florida. We married in October, it's now November, and I'll be moving down there in February after my job ends and I wrap up some loose ends.
One of those loose ends is enrolling in a very cool federal program that's going to allow me to go to school for FREE for two years and give me extended unemployment benefits during that entire time. It's called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and it's designed for employees of manufacturing companies who lose their jobs due to businesses sending work out of the country.
Sooo, my plan is to move to Florida, begin my life with my new husband, be an unemployed full-time student and hopefully emerge into a recovered job market in 2012. I haven't been out of work for more than a month since I was 15 years old, so this is bound to be quite an adventure. For the first few months, from February until the start of the fall semester in August, I'll be a complete lay-about. I really want to fill those months with creative and enriching activities - and that's part of the inspiration for this blog. I won't have anything interesting to write about if I spend all day watching Firefly. Okay, that *would* make for at least one interesting post, but not every day!
Right now I'm entrenched in the details of moving: packing, painting, change-of-address notifications, etc. By the time that's settled I want to have some goals to work on over the summer. So far I'm thinking about studying Spanish, finishing a couple of history books that I've started twice, working out regularly and riding my motorcycle. That sounds like a good start! But now...back to packing. Ugh.
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