Thinking outside the job-box

What would you do if money was no concern? I don’t mean take a permanent vacation on a deserted island. (Quite frankly, after awhile I’d get bored anyway) I mean, what job would you do if you didn’t have to worry about insurance, mortgage, family commitments?

I know exactly what I would do. I would do the same thing I’m doing now. And I only know this because after only a few months of what was to be the beginning of my “stay-at-home” mom life, I started messing around online again, playing with HTML/CSS, PHP, and WordPress. I started doing freelance work, then more, then more and more and more. It still can get very stressful and at sometimes downright annoying – but I know I love what I do, and I choose to do it because this is where my passion is.

Sam is a different case. He’s been driven more by the desire to “provide for his family” – and I’m not sure if he even knows where his passion is career-wise. He’s never had the luxury of taking a few months off to see what he would gravitate towards. I find this incredibly sad. Unfortunately, we still don’t have the luxury of allowing him to take that time off. Without his job, our income gets slashed by 3/4 and our insurance premiums more than double for as long as we can stay on COBRA (and then we have NO insurance. …Yes, I will need to find out what options there are for small businesses but from what I’ve heard they’re not great). It’s certainly not an environment conducive to creative personal introspection.

More than just finding another job – I’m hoping he can find something he can be passionate about. (I just hope he can do it quickly)

Laid Off

Not me obviously – being that I work for myself. Unfortunately, no, I’m referring to my husband, who, even though I make a fair living doing what I do – he was the main “breadwinner.” His job will be no more in just a few weeks – blamed on a “reduction in force due to contractual obligations” – which is a nice way of saying the company is looking to save money by doubling the workload of the people left behind and letting go the rest of the team that is required to actually get everything done.

We saw the writing on the wall as people have been let go at a rate of almost one or two every week. The situation there is not good – and I don’t envy the people that still have their jobs. If anything, I’m glad Sam isn’t one of them! If any good can come out of it, I’m hoping that this will spur him on to find another job where he’ll be happier. For too long he’s been tolerating a lot of nonsense there and it’s been a long time since he enjoyed what he was doing.

The other good that can come out of it is that this is the signal to me that it’s time to move on – as it’s been a long time since I enjoyed living where are, in case my recent posts weren’t clear enough about that.

Nothing is ever simple though: Life is what happens while you’re making plans. (The alternate saying is: People make plans, and God laughs) We had plans for Rachel to attend a different school this year, we had made arrangements in the fall to take our first vacation alone, just me and Sam, since our Honeymoon 13 years ago. (That was to be my 40th birthday present) At the moment we’re still planning on going, but we have no idea where we’ll be living (I have no idea how all that will work – we’ll have to change all our flight info if we move before then), and I have no idea what our money situation will be.

I have a great deal of hope that something better is on the other side of this current mess. Sam is freaking out as you can imagine – and I feel like I’m keeping everyone’s sanity together. That is quite a task. Mainly because when I feel like my sanity is falling apart, and I start to freak out – there is no one to support me and help me keep it together (except for my parents – but I hate feeling like a burden to them).

So that is the fun that is going on in our house at the moment. Life is certainly an adventure.

Needed a good laugh too

Things are a wee bit rocky at the moment. Got a series of not so great news and am kinda bummed out right now. We were watching TV and saw one of those “Ally.com” ads. Those are so awesome. Just the laugh I was needing. Have you seen these? The kids in them are AWESOME. I love their expression. We were wondering if they thought it was real – some of their expressions look so awesome, it’s almost hard to believe they’re that good at acting . But at the same time, if I pulled one of these stunts in my house, we wouldn’t get confused, frustrated expressions, we’d get an all-out tantrum. In fact, I’m pretty sure if it were my kids in the commercial, it would have an ending with that guy getting a black eye. LOL!

13 Years and Counting

H

Welcome to Utah

It’s kind of funny that we ended up moving to Utah 5 years ago. Ironic, because the entire state has been the punchline of a joke that’s been in my family for years, even before I was born. As the story goes – when my parents were young and crazy (well, they’re still crazy – but when they were young enough to act on their craziness) they made a number of trips camping across the country. In one of these earlier trips, somewhere along the way they got very very lost. They were convinced they were heading in one particular direction, when a sign appeared on the side of the road that let them know they were going in a completely opposite direction of where they were supposed to be. Here is what the sign said:

Welcome to Utah

Since then, the phrase “Welcome to Utah” has been synonmous with the understanding of “You are now officially and completely lost.”

I wouldn’t say our move here was a mistake. From day one – when anyone would ask me how I liked living here my standard answer was always: It works for us… for now. I never had any intention of spending the rest of my life here. And the thought of doing so frightened me. The last year or so, I’d say it’s not been working so much for us anymore, and I’m getting ready to leave. I still don’t know when – it could be as much as another year off – but I’m really feeling like it’s time to go. It’s feeling like it’s time to turn around and find which direction I’m supposed to be going in.

(I had been planning on writing this post today – and it’s pretty funny that I saw this article on the news today about how they’re putting up new/more “Welcome to Utah” signs – supposedly in a bid to increase tourism. Heh)

Utah – land of the never ending winter

If there was ever a day I wanted to move away from Utah more than today, I can’t think of it. It’s May 24th. This is what the morning looked like today:

I’d also like you to remember that the first snow of the season came at the end of September. If you mark that as the beginning of winter and the last snowfall as the end – that make it about 9 months of winter so far. If this year will be the same as last – and we start getting snow in September, that means we only have 3 months to squeeze a spring and summer into. Not cool. At all. I am so done.