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)

Trying to stay positive

Today he was told that previously, job postings that would attract about 150-200 resumes – in this economy, are currently attracting in the range of 2000 resumes.

Ugh.

I can’t even begin to express my frustration and worry right now. I honestly have no idea what’s coming next, and I’m becoming more and more afraid to find out. I’m desperately trying to hang on to that little glimmer of hope that “something good is going to come from this” but when faced with a statistic like that… I don’t even want to tell you what’s going through my head right now…

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.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go! – eBook for the iPhone/iPad

IOh! The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss, then it’s no surprise. The story is great for children as well as adults – an inspiring view of life’s various adventures. The advice and encouragement the book gives is timeless. Released in time for Graduation, the ebook has three options: read the book yourself, have the book read to you (and you manually turn the pages), or put the whole thing on autoplay and have the book read to you and pages turn automatically.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go!: $3.99*

*price at time of this writing

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish – eBook for the iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad

OOne Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is no exception. This certainly is one my son’s favorite books and despite the fact that we’ve read it enough times that we could probalby recite it back by heart, my son requests this book very often. Now that we have the eBook on the iPhone, he can read it (or rather have it read to him, since he’s not at reading age just yet) as often as he likes (or at least as often as he gets his hands on my phone) 😉

As with all the Dr. Seuss books we’ve gotten from Oceanhouse media, you can read the book yourself, have the book read to you (and have you manually turn the pages), or you can put it on auto-play which will read the story and turn the pages for you. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish has been released to honor World Oceans Day (June 8th) and the book’s 50th anniversary.

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish eBook: $3.99*

*price at time of this writing