Adventures in Unemployment

I have said it before, and I'll say it again - I don't know what I'm doing. Now, in my defense, I don't think many people really do, but when I look back at my actions over the past 24-48 hours, there is no trend. I had an interview today, applied to a different job, and took a virtual webinar about applying to Civil Service jobs. I am trying to absorb information from an online course about the algorithm. I took a nap. I've walked the dogs three times (and I think they are exhausted from it). I went to a Zumba class and looked like an absolute fool because I don't usually take classes from this instructor. I looked at our budget and told my husband to pick up Moe's on the way home. All the actions of a very sane person. Individually, some of them are fine. Collectively, they make absolutely no sense. Today, I'm mostly feeling anxiety about the impending government shutdown. My husband and I have been pricing out health insurance on the marketplace, and ...

If I'm not employed, am I still allowed to have the Sunday Scaries? I'm dreading facing another week of being unemployed. That's what it really boils down to. I am going to need to spend more time on my resume this week when I apply for jobs. Except for the part-time job interview I have, I'm not hearing back about positions I've applied to. I've applied to 30 jobs, been rejected from 6, and still waiting on 24. I thought I had more to say today, but it isn't anything new, really. I'm feeling unsure and vulnerable. My former gifted-and-talented 90s kid self is feeling unsettled that I haven't been successful at finding a job immediately. But I'm also feeling hungry, so at least I can do something about that.

My husband is desperate for me to show you all the vegetables I accidentally grew because I just put seeds in the ground and hoped for the best. Here are pictures from just today!

Like the past couple of days, I've spent most of my day on the computer. I've got about 48,039 tabs open, a new one each time a new thought pops up, or I'm reminded of a task I need to complete. I'm out here opening tabs and muttering to myself like "COBRA costs how much ???" I spent the day researching health insurance plans so tonight my husband and I can discuss our budget. The budget - a fan favorite conversation topic among married couples. I can't even complain - if I'm honest, most of our adult lives, we've had to do very few adjustments to our spending and saving habits to be able to live like we want to, but trying to fit in health insurance on a single salary is going to challenge those skills a little bit. Our comfort, wiped away in a single last-minute meeting scheduled in the middle of August to let me know I was one of 58 people being impacted by lay-offs. But whatever. I'm trying not to have a pity party today. I just got off a Z...

I probably won't publish this post far and wide. I said on the day I started this blog that it was really for me to figure out how I was feeling about being laid off and the subsequent job search, to try and figure some things out, and that's what I'm doing with today's post. It isn't particularly pleasant. When I was a kid, I was pretty optimistic. I don't just mean when I was 5 and I assumed we would get recess every day, but the optimism continued all the way through high school. I guess I just thought everything would eventually work out. Even as a kid, life wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. I struggled with friends in both middle school and high school, like you expect from teenage girls. My mom's dad died when I was young, maybe first grade, and by the time I left high school, she had also lost her mom and 2 brothers. My parents owned their own business until they couldn't. September 11th happened when I was in middle school, and my dad being a...

If you don't spend as much time online as I do these days (and hopefully you don't), you may not have heard, but 'The Rapture' was supposed to be today. At this point in my life, I've survived Y2K, the end of the Mayan calendar, and maybe 1 or 2 other raptures, so I didn't really expect it to happen, but I was disappointed it didn't happen this time. I figured if at least some of the population was raptured, there would be some immediate job openings that would need to be filled. But here we are. I spent about an hour with my old ladies today. A lot of you liked them, so I think I'm going to have to tell them they're internet famous, which I suspect they'll think is hilarious. I was trying to tell them tonight that they can watch the late night shows on YouTube the next day, and they were like "eh, I don't know how to do that stuff." And I said to them "Oh my god, just call me, I'm free during the days now." They laugh...

Here I am, writing a blog post with nothing coherent to say. This morning, a friend stopped by to have coffee with me. She brought us lattes and cake pops from a local coffee/chocolate/ice cream shop. We talked for about an hour and a half, and when she left, I sent her with tomatoes from my garden. It was very 90s coded, and we both loved it. While I'm certainly hoping to find a job rather quickly, I hope this can happen again before I'm back to work. Speaking of that coffee (etc) shop, I applied to work there over the weekend, and I have an interview next week! Let's not get too excited - I'm applying to work there part-time so I can supplement my unemployment benefits while I keep looking for a big girl job, but I love the place, and it is less than 10 minutes from my house. I haven't applied for any jobs yet today, but I am working on my Fiverr profile. I needed to prove to them that I'm an actual person who needs to pay taxes, and then I'll be able to a...