I'm not actually unemployed right now since I'm still officially an employee of my contracting company and I am teaching a class for them next week. But I am taking a some enforced vacation while I wait for another long-term contract to come along. This is really wierd for me. I haven't had dog days of summer like this since college where I had nothing to do. In fact, I haven't had a summer off since summer 1983 immediately before I left for Bolivia. I was called for 18 months, but while I was out they gave us the "opportunity" to extend our missions by 6 months so I compromised and extended my mission by 4 months so I could make it back in time for fall semester 1985 at BYU. I returned home and my dad and I caught an Air Force C5 to Madrid and spent a week sight seeing in Spain. After that I only had a couple of weeks before my sister and I headed back to BYU. I didn't slow down after that until a sabbatical in 2004 and now again.
So what have I been doing?
Updating my resume and checking up on job opportunities. I'm teaching a class next week in Boston and it sounds like I may be going to New Delhi, India at the end of August. Several other things also look promising.
Sleeping in late every chance I get. I don't really want to and know that it is bad, but it just feels so good.
Helping clear land at the ranch so our new horse has a place to live.
Watching my daughters at their horse riding lessons. Pretty impressive, actually. My 13 year old daughter looks pretty good on her new mare Ashley, a thoroughbred/quarter horse cross. For being a green youngster, the horse looks really good and my daughter is controlling her well. It kind of blows me away to see a 50 pound 7 year old girl kicking a horse in the sides to force it into a canter and looking perfectly comfortable and in control. A horse, mind you, not a pony. You know what, I grew up in suburban Iowa and was never around large animals much. So I've had to learn how to get comfortable with these big beasts and I'm actually starting to like them. Ashley is a beautiful bay with a rich reddish brown coat, black mane and tail, and a splash on her face and white boots on her legs.
Installing software and ramping up to teach some new classes for work.
Half-heartedly working on ideas for a new business. This scares me more than a little. It is easy to do something, but who wants to spend a lot of effort on something and then have it flop? I'm having trouble pulling the trigger, partly because I'm not exactly sure what to do (too many choices), and partly because I'm afraid that once I dive in it will consume me. I have a tough time starting something new, but once I get going I have trouble stopping.
Watching lots of old TV that had backed up on the Tivo.
Spending more time with the family. It's been fun having lunch with my youngest and doing some domestic stuff. Not much, mind you, but enough so I don't feel completely useless.
Breaking stuff worse than it was before. The dishwasher started leaking and in the process of trying to figure out if it could be repaired I'm afraid I may have done more harm than good. Now I'll have to wait for the GE repairman tomorrow.
Avoiding stuff I don't really want to do, like clean my room or look at finances.
Running and working out at the gym.
Listening to some pretty groovy Erykah Bahdu.
Posting on Blogger.
5 comments:
If I didn't know better I would have thought "suburban Iowa" was an oxymoron, but there is Des Moines right? Actually, Iowa and the upper Midwest are great places to raise families. I grew-up in Minnesota, you know the Gophers oh fear the Gopher.
Yes, I grew up in the misnamed suburb of Des Moines called Urbandale. We lived on 68th St. and we thought that was pretty far from downtown.
Way to use your time! And who the fuck cares if you sleep in a bit... You know it won't last, so enjoy it while you can.
Horses are cool.
"Not much" domestic stuff? Hmph. Well I guess breaking things worse than they originally were is a little bit domestic-y too.
Sounds like a nice life, actually. Enjoy the teaching next week!
Sounds like an OK life to me. I am looking forward to my time off which will be partly unpaid (unless I can convince my employer that adoptive mothers should get the same paid time off as biological mothers).
Enjoy the time with the family and stop breaking stuff!
Employers are required by law to give the same benefits to adoptive parents as other new parents. Of course, the law simply requires them to give time off, not paid time off.
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