What a Dump!
I sort of have new job news!
A couple of weeks ago our friend and realtor Suzy was over and we started talking about my current state of unemployment. And while talking, she asked me if I like organizing.
Clearly we aren’t that close of friends yet since she had to ask.
Obviously I said yes and she then asked me if I would like to organize her home office for her.
Obviously I said yes.
And then she asked me how much. To sum up, she was offering me my first PAID professional organizing job!
I wish I took a before and after because I did an awesome job. And Suzy also connected me with her friend Karen – a bona fide professional organizer that just happens to be looking for organizers for her new DALLAS branch!
Karen has been a professional organizer in San Antonio for the better part of 15 years. She moved to Dallas in 2019 to get a fresh start after her divorce (sound familiar?) and is now wanting to expand her business to Dallas.
Karen and I talked on the phone and we immediately hit it off. Like we have been friends all our lives. We even have the same birthday! I’ve already traveled to San Antonio to help her on a job and I’m going again at the end of the month for another one!
Here’s the catch though – it isn’t full time work. Yet. The pay is decent for a side gig – but it’s per hour, per job. So it isn’t even a regular part time job. Hopefully we can ramp up the Dallas business quickly and I can make it a full time job.
If you have a sec, go check out her website and tell all your friends please.
And if any of my friends (or friends of friends) want help putting their things in order, I’m available for a lesser fee.
Other than that, I still haven’t found anything. I’ve applied for almost 100 jobs since I started tracking for TWC purposes. Of those I have received 23 rejections – which while it sucks, at least they told me instead of leaving me hanging.
And ZERO interviews.
As if that’s not bad enough, there is a job for a venue manager for Marriott that I am more than qualified for. I wrote a fantastic cover letter explaining why I’m prefect for the job. I received an immediate rejection.
And then they reposted the job.
Applied again. Another quick rejection.
I’m still mostly applying for mortgage jobs even though that isn’t really where I want to be right now – and especially because the pay isn’t what it used to be. But it’s what I know and have the most experience with so it feels like my best shot.
I do apply for other jobs, and I’m still applying like a man. I try to include great cover letters whenever possible to explain WHY my 35+ years of professional experience can be applied to the open position but they don’t seem to be getting me anywhere.
I hate this.
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I’ve/we’ve have been making some changes in our daily routine. I’ve been on blood pressure medicine for several months now and after my recent hospital stay I am now also taking medicine to lower my cholesterol.
Also I’m having to put off the gallstone surgery because our insurance deductible is $6500 per person and my hospital visit hasn’t shown up yet so my surgeon wants $3500 up front for the surgery. And the hospital will want their money up front too. And presumably the anesthesiologist too.
I’m trying to wait until everything hits insurance because I have to assume with all the tests and everything that I have hit or at least come close to my deductible. Then I will only have to pay 20% up front.
Which will still be a daunting amount based on my current unemployment situation but I guess that’s what credit cards are for?
I just hope I don’t have another attack before I can get it taken care of.
Anyway, back to our daily routine.
For the last 3 weeks, we have been getting up at 6am to go for a walk. It sucks ass every time because I still haven’t managed to get to bed earlier so I can have a full night’s sleep.
But on the bright side, it is getting me out of bed before noon.
We walk for at least 30 minutes which equates to almost 1.5 miles. We’ve been varying our route but the last few days we’ve been walking over to and around the park.
Mister Manfred still sucks at leash walking.
We have a harness that is supposed to prevent him from pulling. It doesn’t. And he’s so strong that I can’t walk him – not with all the bunnies we see on our walks. He pulls Rob too.
We’ve been trying to teach him heel and enough. Heel to get him to stop pulling like he’s pulling a frelling dog sled. And enough is to get him to keep going when he stops to smell the roses so to speak.
Which he does about every 30 seconds.
And I know it is important for him to be able to smell all the things but good gravy I’m just trying to go for a walk!
But I know it is good for all of us.
The other day I told Rob maybe we should have eased into it more – like going for a walk every other day instead of every day. Give our muscles time to heal in between.
His response? It’s not really exercise so I’m not sure it would make a difference.
Excuse me? I have gone from probably less than 1000 steps a day (it’s hard to get steps in when you are too depressed to get out of bed or leave your house) to 2500 steps in the first 30 minutes of your day.
This is exercise for me. I get that it’s not much for probably a lot of you reading this. And I’m hoping to increase our pace so we go farther and maybe even increase our time eventually but for me, right now, this is a big deal.
And currently my longest, consistent streak of exercise in years.
I try to either make the bed before we leave or once we get home so I’m not tempted to crawl back in. Then I spend an hour or so going through hundreds of job postings on multiple sites.
After that, I’m usually not motivated to do much else.
Also we are trying to transition to more of a Mediterranean diet. It's funny because my PCP has been urging me to do this for a while - but it isn't easy. And my surgeon has recommended a Keto diet to help with the gallbladder.
Those two cancel each other out - Mediterranean is mostly fruits and veggies and Keto is little to no fruits and veggies.
We are trying to find a balance. Baby steps.
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I have been making more felted wool animals. I recently made a camel for Elliot as a sort of moving out gift. Except I haven’t seen him since before I started making it. I even added a little brooch for some Elliot flair.
And then I made my biggest one yet – I made an Apollo for Savreet’s birthday. That’s her and Xander’s cat. I made it bigger because I wanted to use different eyes than what I’ve been using. It was a lot of work but I’m pretty pleased with the final result. And I think she loved it.
I’ve made one other animal but I’m gifting it so I can’t say what it is. But it’s pretty cute and I’ll post a pic once the recipient has received it.
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Is anyone else excited about the upcoming Barbie movie?
I can’t wait. I loved playing Barbie’s growing up. She never gave me unrealistic beauty issues…media did that.
Barbie allowed me to live out my dreams. She was usually a model turned actress/singer turned fashion designer turned interior designer that was also a paleontologist and astronaut. She almost always won Miss America and was the first female President.
Occasionally she would also do a stint as a cruise director – I really loved the Love Boat.
I didn’t need the career Barbies that came out in the mid ‘80s. My Barbie had been getting shit done since the ‘70s!
Now if I could just be more like Barbie...
#stilllucky #infinitelybetter #unemployed #professionalorganizer #barbiemovie #needlefelting #feltedwool #gettinghealthy #Mediterraneandiet #walking