Growing Some Soil

I just recently started composting. Uh, well…. Since I haven’t been doing it long enough yet to have produced any actual compost, I guess it’s more like I’m just saving discarded food in a box in the yard, adding dirt or water or yard clippings to it every once in a while, and stirring it around.

But anyway.

But there’s something strangely satisfying about putting kale spines and orange peels into the compost pail under the sink. Knowing that they’re destined to become food for the plants in my yard. It’s all very circle-of-lifey. I’ve even started bringing my banana peels and tea bags home from work to add to the bin.

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Minus One Income

D is getting laid off at the end of May. The family-owned company he works for has been bought by a large corporation based in France, and D’s department will be absorbed by facilities in other cities. His job isn’t one with any long-term potential – he’s working on a degree right now – but still, it was a decent job with a pretty good paycheck considering the type of work. It’s a little daunting to think about being down to a single income – mine.

It’s not all bad, though. In some ways, the timing couldn’t be better. Now D can focus on finishing his program in the fall ’09 and spring ’10 semesters, whereas with a job it would have taken him 3 semesters to get through it. And once he’s finished his degree, I hope he’ll be able to get into a job with more potential and maybe more money than his current one. I know the market’s ugly right now, but his new career will be in health care, so fingers crossed, there will be something for him when he graduates. So that part’s good. He can plow through school and get it done.

Also on the plus side, D is taking 1 summer class, but aside from that he will have loads of free time this summer. Know what that means? PROJECTS!! I have a mental list of about 10 projects for him to work on, and you can bet your bippy  there’s more where those came from. Everything from installing some blinds and valances to painting a couple rooms to putting up some fencing. AND, he will be able to take over many of my duties – cleaning, grocery shopping, miscellaneous errands, tending to Oscar, and the like. Which will make me very, very happy.

Then of course there’s the money part. Money is always kind of nervous-making. More so when you know there’s going to be less of it. But as long as I don’t lose my income, I think we’ll be okay. D expects some severance money, and combined with unemployment we should be able to manage. He’s already on my insurance, so he’s not really losing anything but his wages. Unless things get really, really bad, I don’t expect I’ll lose my job. A pay cut in the next year is a very real possibility, but we’ll deal with that when or if it comes.

So, amazingly, D losing his job could be… a really good thing. Who would have thought? In the worst market in my lifetime (or that I can remember, anyway), for us this may be for the best.

I’m a little envious he’s going to have the summer off, but he’s worked like a dog – full-time job and full class load this semester – for long enough. I didn’t have to worry about working to make rent when I was an undergrad, and I think it’s great that he’ll get a year of the same. Plus, I’m SUPER-STOKED about writing out a list of projects for him to do this summer!

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Career 2.0

A couple of short years ago, I switched careers. Before, I worked in science. Now, I’m a writer. I work for a good company and make an okay wage. Don’t get me wrong – I’m sincerely grateful for my job, given the state of things these days. But I’d really like to try some freelancing – I’m craving variety and opportunities to write for different media and publications.

And frankly, I’d like to be making more money. There, I said it. A career change at 30 meant I started over again at the bottom, making even less money (adjusted for inflation) than I did fresh out of college 8 years before.

Happy about getting the job, not as excited about the size of the paycheck.

I’ve made up quite a bit of ground in the past couple of years, but I don’t think I’ll have opportunities for big jumps in pay anytime soon, especially with my current employer and the current market.

So (I think) this is what it boils down to.  Essentially, I want 2 things:

• More variety in my work with more flexibility overall.
• Higher income.

My tentative plan is to start pursuing some freelance opportunities in the early summer. I’d like to start now, but my slow plod through a graduate degree means that during the fall and spring semesters I don’t have much time  or intellectual capacity for additional projects. But I know I need to set more specific goals, so I can work on those between now and then.

***

Okay, so the BIG dream is to win 20 mil in the lottery. Then I’d just freelance and do my own writing projects, purely for the joy of the pursuits. 🙂

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