Labor Day Lullaby

How many Dar Williams songs have I posted on this blog? Not so many that I can't post another! For it is Labor Day weekend, which always makes me anticipate the end of summer, like a lot of people probably. And this song just captures it perfectly - the sadness of things ending, the excitement and fear of things to come, and the overall sense of longing. For what? I dunno, but it seems to be the quintessential human condition.

End Of The Summer
by Dar Williams
The summer ends and we wonder where we are
And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car
And you both look so young
And last night was hard, you said
You packed up every room
And then you cried and went to bed
But today you closed the door and said
"We have to get a move on.
It's just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead,
We push ourselves ahead."

And it was cloudy in the morning
And it rained as you drove away
And the same things looked different
It's the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer,
When you move to another place

And I feel like the neighbor's girl who will never be the same
She walked alone all spring,
She had a boyfriend when the summer came
And he gave her flowers in a lightning storm
They disappeared at night in green fields of silver corn
And sometime in July she just forgot that he was leaving
So when the fields were dying, she held on to his sleeves
She held on to his sleeves

And she doesn't want to let go
'Cause she won't know what she's up against
The classrooms and the smart girls
It's the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer
When you hang your flowers up to dry

And I had a dream it blows the autumn through my head
It felt like the first day of school
But I was going to the moon instead
And I walked down the hall
With the notebooks they got for me
My dad led me through the house
My mom drank instant coffee
And I knew that I would crash
But I didn't want to tell them
There are just some moments when your family makes sense
They just make sense

So I raised up my arms and my mother put the sweater on
We walked out on the dark and frozen grass
The end of the summer
It's the end of the summer
When you send your children to the moon

The summer ends and we wonder who we are
And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car
And today I passed the high school, the river, the maple tree
I passed the farms that made it
Through the last days of the century
And I knew that I was going to learn again
Again, in this less hazy light
I saw the fields beyond the fields
The fields beyond the fields

And the colors are much brighter now
It's like they really want to tell the truth
We give our testimony to the end of the summer
It's the end of the summer,
You can spin the light to gold.
*****************************************************************
In particular, this Labor Day weekend I'm remembering how at this-time-last-year (the type of reflection I often undertake, the luxury - or curse - of one who keeps journals and has that historical record), we were newly arrived in Florida after two and 1/2 long days driving from Milwaukee, in our two cars when we meant to make it with one. At the last minute we decided that we had no choice but to rent a car for the journey and all our stupid stuff. We bought walkie-talkies on the way out of town, so that we could stay in touch during our road-trip.

And what an adventure it was. After enduring the ridiculous Chicago-area traffic, we stopped over the first night in Lowell, IN, at a Super 8 motel that was barely more than a trucker rest-stop. Superrrr I said...upon viewing a room so scummy that I'm surprised there weren't cockroaches in the too-small bed we shared for too few hours of rest (and if they were there, we were too exhausted to notice them).

Up at dawn painfully, I remember thinking, and probably voicing to David, over horrible in-room coffee with powdered creamer: I'm not sure I'm gonna make it.

But make it I did, to Chattanooga, TN with enough time to go out for Mexican dinner, and a much nicer hotel in which to slumber that evening. The extra night on the road that we hadn't planned for meant an extra day on the car rental, which turned out to be not quite the big expensive deal I feared. But as I wrote in my journal "...it was a long, hard day's drive because I only got about 4 hours sleep and was worried about my longevity. Eating only coffee, walnuts, and beef/bison jerky the whole way and so constipated that it's painful and feels like giving birth or something. Hoping to make it to FL without needing medical attention. :)"

And yet, magically, the following night at about 11pm (Wednesday Sept. 2nd) we arrived safely in Sarasota, thankfully without needing to stop en route at an emergency room. Once we got to David's friend Ed's comfortable 2 bedroom house, where he said we could stay "as long as we liked" or however long it took us to find a situation that was right for us, I felt like I could finally
start breathing again. And then there was a Thursday and a Friday and by the weekend (Sunday Sept 6th) I was writing in my journal "it already feels like we've sort of been here forever, but in a good way."















On Labor Day 2009, Monday Sept. 7th, what seemed so strange was just the experience of our first national holiday completely untethered from family and home. A holiday which meant much less to us because we were both still not-working and so it wasn't that big deal of having an extra day off. We went to Myakka State Park, slogged through trails of swamp and marvelled at the alligators. And felt all those Fall feelings, though it was still hot as any summer.

Home Sweet "Luxury Apartment" Home

Uncharacteristic days of rain that just happened to coincide with our move-in weekend (though fortunately the skies opened up only AFTER we'd finished lugging up three flights of stairs our few possessions, for a record breaking 1&1/2 hours start to finish time), prevented me from posting pretty pictures of our new apartment until now. But here they are, finally!

We are now happily ensconced into a 2 bedroom, 2 bath place that is closer to my great new job, with much more room to spread out and actually SEE what we still own. The goal being to continue getting rid of what we don't need or use on a daily basis. Meanwhile we're also able to make our living spaces much more Feng Shui - such as having a true "sleep sanctuary" in the bedroom where all we really have is well, a bed for sleeping and a couple night stands with a lamp. (I think we still need to get s 2nd lamp for true Feng Shui "balancing" but whatever...)

We are still sans most of the furniture that would have us qualify as nesting in this new home, and we are determined to avoid that trap, since the plan is to only stay here in Florida for another two years (at most), while we work and save money for the next venture. We call the living room our yoga studio since all we have there is our yoga mats and some other exercise equipment. Though precious little yoga has been done while we're settling in, I have to admit....

This past weekend I finally got to use the beautiful pool and it was woooonderful! I may never go to the beach again, at least during the summer months, as it was much cooler & more refreshing than the heated up Gulf of Mexico waters right now.

Views towards the North and Southeast, during sun-almost-setting evening hours -







































We have a pond! That all our windows and screened-in lanai look over -



















And for a body of water that's really just a hole in the ground, dug up when they built this place maybe 25 years ago, there's a fair bit of wildlife. The frogs go berserkus after sun-down, there's quite a few ducks that call it home, and the most adorable turtles, one of which I was able to get a snapshot tonight -







































As David commented "it seems like a really healthy pond."



















Though I still wouldn't want to go swimming in its murk, despite the absence of any alligator that we've heard of - too bad huh? (see my alligator video posted on FaceBook, tooo funny)

But not too bad for the reams of dogs that appear to inhabit this small apartment complex - it's very pet-accommodating and although we won't be getting any ourselves, we hope to meet and become friends with all the dogs we can.

Maybe even become pet grandparents to our favorite ones, like we sort of did with the big fluffy orange cat "Bob" at our first Florida apartment, who we still miss now we've moved away.














Sort of...he was an ornery unaffectionate fellow who had to be approached very gingerly from just the right angle to be petted without hissing :) But he filled up my cavern of cat-loneliness to some small degree, since we had to give Colby away, about a year ago (see at least one previous blog post).


And did I mention - screened-in lanai?! Gone are the days of being eaten up to bits by mosquitoes in the evening, and that alone makes the move worth it. Along with the shorter commute, his & her bathrooms, and all manner of other new benefits that have us feeling like we do live in a "luxury apartment." I never would have necessarily seen myself living in a more "bland" place like this, but now that I'm here, I am loving it.

Boring Blog Post

It recently occurred to me that I'd best NOT post all my attempts at witty remarks and life updates on FaceBook or else I'll never write another blog post again.

Because I'm back at work doing a professional IT job not that wildly different from what I did in Milwaukee and - let's face it - while I'm still enjoying it, the routine is boring. 9am-5pm (with lunch eaten at desk, invariably), Monday through Friday I'm expected to be a specific somewhere, doing a specific something. And, although I'm embracing the sense of purpose re-instilled in my life, the resurrection of structure I was sadly, sorely missing (and loving the resumption of regular, decent-sized paychecks, quite frankly), it is a little less exciting when you wake up in the morning knowing basically what shape the day will take. But, it's also largely reassuring. That not knowing can cause anxiety, especially for one as already-prone to it as me.

I had a realization on my 18.2-mile, mundane drive home from work this evening, somewhere between filling the car with gas and stopping to get a take-out pizza for dinner: I'm a full-blown suburban commuter now. I drive from a smaller community to a larger one for work, and back again. Just like a lot of people I used to mildly disdain, when we lived in the city and only drove 3 miles along the lovely Milwaukee lakeshore to get to the place where we made the money to support our lives.

I used to wonder what made it worth it to them. I genuinely wanted to know if these people who faced all kinds of ridiculous Interstate traffic on a daily basis, had ever really counted the cost of gas (and all that time! Quality of Life, for heaven's sake!) versus lower housing costs (real or perceived), increased safety (again, real or merely perceived), and more space for the kids. Or was it just habit, what they grew up with and were used to? Having been raised in an urban environment and choosing to live urban for most of my adult life so far, I had all kinds of opinions and judgments about this. To my mind at that time, a commute like that just wasn't worth it and I fundamentally couldn't relate to those who made that choice for themselves.

Granted I don't have to drive Interstate now (not like I did during my brief tenure at Fucking-ClickBooth - but that's another story, of bitterness, that I unfortunately don't have enough personal growth to let go of yet). I don't do the kind of drive that those nice suburban people at NM still undertake, on a daily basis. But, because I literally breathe a sigh of relief when leaving the densest part of the drive on Highway 41 and tonight while rounding the corner of Laurel onto Bayshore drive and seeing the greater expanses of green and palm trees, I felt myself relaxing further, I think that I may finally get it. It's this feeling of retreat from so much hectic-ness and the understanding that increased space really does have benefits, that I never would have been able to grasp if I wasn't in this position now.

But the best part of the realization is a reminder of the revolutionary thought I had ages ago, that I think I already blogged about, but which I'm not even sure where it came from - "maybe all my ideas are wrong?!" - in full, real-life illustration. That you can challenge even the most dearly-regarded assumptions or long-held beliefs about what's right or wrong, and thereby expand your thinking and perspective. It's a fantastic lesson, that jibes with the fantastic books I've been reading lately (and listening to on CD*, during my "long" commute). It's a lesson that I apparently have to keep learning, in new and ever more evocative ways.

Now, I'm not suddenly converted to commuter-ism and endorsing a lifestyle that involves burning even more fossil fuels than is necessary (hello BP oil spill!), really I'm not. I'm newly appreciating our original choice to live away from the city of Sarasota, even while I'm struggling with the distance and talking with David on a daily basis about moving closer to my work. Sometimes that simply involves me complaining about how much driving I'm doing these days (I figure if logic doesn't work, I'll just wear him down with whining).

I even looked at an apartment that's walking distance to my job, which would leave our one car for him, who admittedly still has a sort-of-kind-of-job just a couple miles away from where we currently live, which he's been green-biking to ever since I started. We're in that painful process of negotiation (shall I do the commute or should he? maybe he can soon arrange to tele-commute most days?) and who knows what will happen. But we know that it doesn't make sense to move until I'm past my 3-month "probationary period" at the new job (ends August 18th), even though it's going so well I'd be willing to risk it, especially if we found a great place.

And then today I tried an alternate route recommended by David's friend Ed, the guy who brought us down to this particular part of Florida, with whom we had dinner last Saturday. We took him to his favorite Thai restaurant in the southern part of Sarasota county (not Sarasota city proper, which is quite small, actually), to thank him again for housing us when we first arrived in FL - how much it meant to us, to have a safe place to land. He's very knowledgeable about all things Sarasota, including some neighborhoods closer to my work (sort of half way inbetween), of which I wasn't aware. And all the neighborhoods to avoid, of course.

The recommended shortcut was pure magic...gone were the endless billboards and fast-food establishments that scream at you to stop and buy something, gone were the masses of cars to contend with, and the non-stop concrete and traffic lights. Instead it was houses on either side of the still 45-mile an hour two-lane road, and lots of green space, including palm trees! Genius, as I told my husband upon returning home. It just might save my soul, until we move to Sarasota.

My final thought about my newly employed status, what I miss most about not-working, or even the Census job I did for two or three whole weeks, is the flexibility. Now I have to figure out where in my schedule I can fit a yoga class, or meditation, and I'm still pondering when in the hell I can start back up with jogging, given the near-constant heat. And dinner is always a challenge (witness the take-out dinner mentioned above). But it's worth it, and I'm grateful. We'll save money and get to Panama eventually, and in the meantime we'll see what else I can make of it.

*For a great read that's all about "seeing things anew" read (or listen to) Emotional Alchemy by Tara Bennett-Goleman. I just sent a copy to my older brother for his birthday, pray God he reads it, cuz it's good!

Memorial Day Weekend Retrospective

So, we were in Fort Lauderdale this long holiday weekend, just getting away from the usual surroundings and enjoying a nice hotel with a pool ("my kingdom for a pool!" I've exclaimed ever since we arrived in Florida, and if my new job continues to go well & we end up moving closer to it, I may eventually get my wish). It's kind of funny, because what do you do for vacation when you live in "Paradise"? Well, you take a road trip across this skinny state to visit a different paradise, I guess...but the Atlantic side of Florida is much more crowded, developed and expensive than where we live, and it made us quite happy to get home safely to our sweet, quiet little community on the Gulf side.

I'm very conscious this weekend of the fact that May 29th marked one year since I left my job at Northwestern Mutual. I can't believe it's been a whole year but, to risk a platitude, they do go faster as we get older, don't they? This anniversary has given me much needed pause to reflect on that choice and all that has happened to me and to us since.

Looking back I can see that yes, it was a big deal to leave that job and embark on this new chapter of our lives, but maybe not as big a deal as I made it. I admit that between being suddenly free from the Monday through Friday 8-5 grind, starting this blog and going through the arduous process of saying goodbye to an animal, material objects, and people that were important to me, I may have become a bit self-involved. OK, probably more than just a bit but, in my defense, I'd really never done anything like that before. Moving to Milwaukee at the age of 23 for the clearly defined goal of attending graduate school was plenty scary, but nothing like what it felt like to be untethered that way.

I think I also went a little crazy (even more than my usual insanity), from the change, the anxiety and pressure of such a big move, and lost whatever perspective I had. And that may have had something to do with the big blow-up with Christie, my one really close friend in Milwaukee, right before our August trip to Seattle and subsequent leaving Milwaukee, with nothing but what we could fit into two cars, in early Sept. Those of you with whom I spoke about this incident know what a devastating and horrible experience it was for me, but I never did publish much on this blog about it. The whole thing just felt too vulnerable and anguished, I guess.

I actually ended up losing another close friend during the course of my big life-transition and I still don't have either of these two friends back, maybe never will, but I'd like to think that the situation isn't hopeless and life is long. If at some point either of them are interested in reconciliation, maybe I can try to repair the damage. I've learned a lot of things in the interim about how to listen better and exercise more patience and compassion (see The Art of Happiness, a wonderful book I've been reading lately), and maybe that would help.
http://www.theartofhappiness.com/

My temporary taking-leave of my senses probably also had something to do with how hard it was once we'd moved down here and the first flush of being in a new, surprisingly gorgeous environment had subsided. That's when the lack of income started to really worry me and - more than anything - I just didn't know what the hell to do with myself, ultimately. I had too much time on my hands, was uncertain and guilty because I wasn't using that valuable time to be productive, in any sense of the word, and as it turned out I didn't know what to do with the freedom I'd always coveted.

I felt paralyzed, like I couldn't make decisions about my own life as an adult, in my untethered state, and that seemed pathetic. Above all, I wanted the transition to FL and the next step to Panama to happen easily and instantly and when it didn't, when there was plenty of difficulty and depression, I felt like I had failed somehow.

But the good news is that things have been steadily improving and so, despite these well-documented rough patches, I can honestly say that we made the right decision to leave Milwaukee and move here. This has been a beautiful choice for us, despite all the misery, fear, doubt, regret etc. along the way. David has reminded me that when (not if, but when), we move to Panama it's bound to be hard at first also. But hopefully having gone through this experience I will be able to approach that next challenge with more strength and confidence and faith.

We've learned what it was like to reduce our possessions and start a whole new life, and I've realized how important it is to try different things in order to discover your limitations and what you really want. Like how the horrible experience at FCB (Fucking ClickBooth!) made me appreciate work cultures and processes that are sane, and being an Executive Recruiter taught me that I will never ever be able to successfully do a sales job. I'm pleased to say that, uncharacteristically, I don't feel the slightest bit bad about that. :)

There's still a lot of exciting possibilities for us, so this is not just an exchange of IT jobs in Milwaukee for same in Florida, at least not in the long-term. For instance, I recently met a woman who wants to do sustainable farming with small crops, a few animals and water/solar energy. We hit it off and she mentioned that she might need a live-in couple to help her with the project. This same woman also has a friend with property in Panama, who may need a caretaker - exactly the kind of situation we'd been hoping for.

But for now, we're content to be here in Paradise, enjoying the glorious weather, trying not to worry about the house we still own, or the oil spewing into the Gulf, or the coming (more active this year, I hear) hurricane season. Just doing what needs to be done at the moment, while we continue to figure out what's next. I've got an IT job that I'm enjoying, at what seems like a good stable company. Which frees David to continue doing less well-paid but ultimately hopefully more profitable entrepreneurial things with a couple of business partners locally. One of which is creating and administering penny auction sites, the latest phenomenon on the internet. Check it out, if you haven't heard of them yet:
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Bit-The-Penny-Auctions-Sites---A-Mathemitcal-anaylsis-for-the-novice
http://www.squidoo.com/pennyauction

David's been working like a dog on his penny auction site project and, whether or not it turns out to be profitable, he's learned a lot and I'm so proud of him. One way or another we're going to save money and see what develops for our next step. It doesn't all have to happen easily and in an instant, and I think I'm finally learning how to be more patient. And, OK I'm still a little bit self-involved but then, who isn't?

Word-Girl (Where Have U Been?)

I was Word-Girl at my old job. This meant that, among the techy-geeks and businessy-folks with whom I worked at Northwestern Mutual (NM), I was at least sometimes acknowledged as the resident, self-appointed language expert. Or, to put it more realistically, I was known to my friends and co-workers as a person who cared deeply about things like spelling, grammar, literature and just generally finding the right word for any particular situation. The kind of person who would stop the conversation to say "oooh that's a good word" as they came up, and who relished the chance to spell a word for someone or - better yet - edit an email or entire document.

My husband still routinely asks me for help with spelling words, and I was tacit Word-Girl again for a milli-second at my last job as an Executive Recruiter, where I was asked how to spell - no joke - words like "informational" and "situation." Not a lot of PhDs at the Executive Recruiting gig, god love 'em, those salesy people.

Not the longer, more complicated words that I learned to love, while studying for the GRE, during and after college, the words that roll off the tongue with so much pleasure and more precise meaning than the shorter, more general versions. Words like "recalcitrant," "languorous," "mitigate," "anomaly" or even "in toto" (for you Latin-lovers and mentioned in homage of my equally literate ex-boss Rich).
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/recalcitrant
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/languorous
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mitigate
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anomaly
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/in+toto

Words I used (use) not to puff myself up or put anyone else down, not to intimidate or act like I'm-so-much-smarter, but just because I enjoy them. Does anyone else out there who loves words like me understand?!? I admit to still having trouble with the word "occasional" (I always want to spell it with TWO Ss) and one other word with double consonants that I can't remember off-hand, and I'm sure there's more than one mis-spelling in my blog posts ("mea culpa" for the Latin-lovers among my readers).

And then there's those words that can be spelled two different ways, and both are correct, such as the word mis-spelling itself - is it misspelling or mis-spelling - to hyphen or to not?! Dictionary.com isn't conclusive. (And don't even get me started on the English versions of words, like "realised," "favourite, " and "colour" etc.).

But I love it all, and I know that this is what I should be doing with my life, because they say when you're doing something and you lose track of time, it is your calling, no longer just a job. Now if only someone would pay me to spell words for them or critique their emails, I'd be set....

I aspire to become Word-Girl again, at the job I will hopefully get, as a QA Analyst at Jackson Hewitt. A place that, as I wrote to an old co-worker, and after my traumatic experience at Fucking ClickBooth (the only way I can think of it, from now on, almost like its own acronym! FCB) - "reminded me so much of NM I could have wept."

Just because (as I went on to write her) "I felt like I could fit in there, the atmosphere was so familiar" and since I am resigned to the fact that I have to work in Florida for a while, I am seeking a place to call work-home again, and I so hope that place could be it.

My final thoughts on the subject, in the email to my dear old co-worker/friend: "I guess I miss the familiar, at least when it comes to having to go to work again. I love the Florida Flip-Flop lifestyle but in terms of working, it sucks and I miss NM. It sounds crazy, when I always wanted to leave that place, but does that make any kind of sense?! I don't really expect u to understand, I'm just venting, or something. I never knew how good I had it, is what it comes down to."

And ah, there's the lesson again. There are words and there are Words, but there is no word quite like Regret. Or Hindsight. And no one (usually) needs any help to spell them.

February: Facing The Ever-More Uncertain Future

On the Sunday afternoon after my first full week back at home not-working, what do I have to say for myself? First of all, that I'm extremely grateful to get out of that crazy place called Clickbooth, especially after the awful way it ended. Yes, they actually fired me just 24 hours after I naively, mistakenly let it be known to my ridiculous manager that I was struggling and unhappy and thinking of leaving.

This "manager" went from trying to convince me to stay on a Wednesday, saying it would get "less chaotic" soon and "this business is about to take off, it could end up being very lucrative if you stick it out," to pulling me into a conference room with the HR manager on Thursday, and asking me to sign a letter that stated I was being terminated for poor performance. What the hell?! Needless to say, I refused to sign their letter, and I had a few choice words for them before my desk was packed up for me and I was ushered out. (Still quite professional, mind you, just questioning how this was happening with no warning.)

I'm still trying to make sense of what exactly happened there, why it all went so bad so quickly. Was it really just a case of a totally disorganized young company, with shitty software, no requirements process to speak of, and completely incompetent leadership? (i.e. there was absolutely no definition of discreet projects, just one big blob of "work" that needed to get done asap, because the consensus there was to not "believe" in Project Management - wha-huh?!) Or was there something more I could have done to adjust to the chaos, deal with how vague & confusing everything remained even after three weeks, and get more requirements produced so they wouldn't scape-goat me? Is it possible I'm not a good BA, despite all past success?! (I hate that I allowed the situation to have produced that kind of self-doubt in me, btw.) Whatever, I'm just so relieved to not have to go back to a place that was literally driving me insane.

To be honest, I actually was doing more than "thinking" of leaving because I did have a job possibility in the pipeline when this all went down. And after three interviews, I decided to take it - Executive Recruiter, starting Monday March 8th, my first commissions job ever! But I'm still applying to Business Analyst jobs, just in case, knowing now how quickly things can go south. I'm doing this despite being a little gun-shy about BA-work and really rather wanting to try something new. David is trying to convince me to not give up on IT and to know that not every place is going to be the nightmare Clickbooth was. Besides, if I let them sway me from going after another well-paying IT job with benefits, then truly "the terrorists have won." :)

So now the future is more uncertain than ever, it seems. Because David's contract job is looking more and more tenuous (and becoming less tolerable by the day), so he's casting about for something else too. It's a beautiful sunny afternoon and we are both holed up in our apartment applying to IT jobs in Jacksonville (Atlantic side) and Tampa, which would probably require relocation, which wouldn't be a huge deal since we are so much more mobile now but still would be a change, a certain amount of life-disruption.

We've even discussed returning to Milwaukee but I don't know that there would be jobs for us there, the only real reason to go back, cuz it's certainly not the weather! I heard it was snowing again just the other day....who knows maybe we'll just say screw it and go to Panama, even with the little money we have. If only that damn house would sell - my mantra for 2009-2010, and I'm as tired of hearing myself say it as you probably are, dear readers.

I'm trying to take the lessons from the whole experience, to make it more than just useless suffering, and yet still move on from it, not dwell too much. I do feel like I got my life back somehow. And so the first thing I did post-firing, after crying in the car, calling David, and making my final commute from Sarasota back to Nokomis, was laundry. At 2pm on a Thursday afternoon - go figure!

January Adjustments

"I was looking for a job and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now"
~ The Smiths "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"

On the Sunday afternoon after my first full week back at work, what do I have to say for myself? First of all, that I'm extremely grateful I got a job, despite the lyrics I sort of tongue-in-cheek quoted above. Not just any job but a REAL job as a BA (Business Analyst) in the IT department of a mid-size company in Sarasota. It's what I did for most of the time at my old job and it pays less than what I was making "up north" but hey, at least it comes with benefits that will kick in just when we need them.

And with all the people currently out of work (one of them a dearly beloved family member), I'm well aware of how lucky I am. Not that I can't take some credit for the hard work that led to the resume which helped me land the job. (In fact, my new manager made a comment about how it was my years of experience as a BA that most impressed him and I immediately felt a ton of pressure, like I had to be a superstar right away - but that's just how my f-ed up mind works sometimes, unfortunately.)

Between that and the fact that I typically interview fairly well, I do feel like I earned this job. But there's a ton of qualified unemployed people out there with the same things, so I know it has at least something to do with being in the right place at the right time for the opportunity.

Actually, funny thing about getting this job: it was David who found it for me, on a techy job board called 37signals (ever heard of it? I hadn't either). And I was the one who found David his gig on Craig's List back in October. I love the strange symmetry of this part of our experience down here in Florida.

Secondly, all I can say is wow, what an adjustment. I went from feeling like I almost had too much time on my hands to feeling like I have no time at all. But what I do have now is a semi-monthly paycheck. What a relief! I'm just hoping it will be worth it. Only time will tell. Now I have to stop blogging and go do laundry since I can no longer do it at any old time like, say, 1pm on a Tuesday. :)

Summing Up 2009: Our Choices, Our Worries, Our Faith

Anyone who knows me very well at all knows that I've never been a religious person. Raised Catholic by a father who wielded church attendance like a weapon, I pretty much got out of the institutionalized religion business as soon as I could (college). But lately I've been coming around to this idea about God and trying to believe in something greater than us puny humans on this earth. If only to provide myself some solace as I sometimes wonder slightly if we made a mistake in changing our lives and coming here to Florida. We aren't making it financially and it's scaring the crap out of me.

This Fall we've realized our house is not sustaining itself, not like it was supposed to, due to all the money we put into it over the summer while still trying to sell and some unforeseen repairs since we moved out. So it's become clear that we have to somehow find a way to get rid of it. As early as feasible in the new year we'll put it back on the market and we really hafta hafta hafta sell it this time. If we don't, we face some grim choices. And since we need to get this all settled one way or another before we can go to Panama, it turns out that that damn house is the biggest obstacle to moving forward with our plans.

David keeps lamenting the 100k we lost in equity in just a few short years, but I know we are far from alone in that category. The only difference between us and these other unfortunates is that many of them are willing and able to hang onto their houses until the market will rebound (supposedly). For David and me, that's not an option, we just want to be free from what's become a huge burden. It's too bad because at one point we both loved that house, and it was pretty good to us over the years (minimal upkeep needed and the rents helped us pay for our wedding).

So that's basically the story of Why We Aren't In Panama Yet. And also explains why David got some (low-paid) IT contract work a while ago. I've been sporadically trying to get work also, here there and everywhere (for instance, today I'm applying to a little cafe in the sweet village of Venice Island to the south of us), but applying for "real" jobs in IT also. To that end, I recently had a phone interview for software tester job up in Tampa that went really well. Would mean moving again (otherwise it's over an hour commute from where we are) and delaying Panama, by at least a year probably, but might be worth it if we can meet our expenses and replenish our savings.

It feels like a let-down though, after all our grand plans, and I guess I also feel a little bit embarrassed. I often find myself wishing this was easier; I really thought we had possibly gone through the hardest parts of the transition to a new life, but I guess not. In fact, David said just today that we are going to be in transition for awhile yet, most likely and so my conclusion is that I need to accept it.

But along the way to acceptance, and in moments of weakness, I can't help but wonder...were we too stubborn? Plowing ahead with the move to Florida even when the house didn't sell? Should we have worked longer, stayed in Milwaukee another year, saved more money? But then a deep inner voice (God?) say no. It's good that we detached from our settled lives in Milwaukee (as detached as we can be while still owning the house), even better that we left the safe but soul-sucking jobs, and it's OK to do this in sort of spaced-apart-stages. It's OK to do this anyway that works best for us, actually.

We certainly have no regrets about trading up in terms of warmth and avoiding the Great Winter Storm of 2009 (reason for my hyper-focus on Milwaukee weather this winter - it makes me feel like we definitely made the right choice!). What we're not missing vs. what we are loving, below:




































I keep thinking that if I have enough faith and pay enough attention to where "the flow" is taking us, we will figure out the right choices, find the right path. Not that I think God is going to magically work everything out for us (God helps those that help themselves, remember?), but that really, everything is going to be all right ultimately. I don't need to panic or to make this into a disaster because there's no point to such self-inflicted suffering. It doesn't help anything. David keeps telling me we'll never be homeless (he can always get a job as a nurse) and I believe him. Besides - my loyal readers will be glad to know - things thankfully aren't quite that dire yet.

We are figuring it out, step by step, and will prevail, whatever that ends up looking like. In the meantime, we are very blessed to have each other, and to have the tenuous life we have created in Florida so far. And we hope that 2010 brings us all more joy and abundance, no matter what the bank account balance.

Happy New Year everyone!

Twenty Things to Be Thankful For in Florida

From the mystical to the more mundane, here's my list of what I'm grateful for, in this new life we are now living.

1) We got here safely and found a safe place to live.

2) We found an IT job for David in an area where there apparently are none AND reduced our commute by half (from the 3 miles it was in Milwaukee).

3) We reduced our utility bill by $230 - cheaper internet, no more cable, and no more huge gas bill for heating our home in frigid temperatures!

4) Walking on the beach in bikini and shorts on November 20th, nuff said.

5) Catching the gorgeous sunset over the Gulf on said beach walks.

6) Nice, small, cheap apartment that's easy to clean.

7) Laundry facilities in our apartment complex. It's so cute, tenants use the "honor system" to pay for using the washer and dryer. So far I've been honorable.

8) Lucky "black racer" snake in our front yard - don't worry, he's non-poisonous.
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080417081952AAiiEEp
Now we just need to name him.

9) Bob, the fluffy orange next-door-neighbor cat who is finally letting me pet him. Not sure if he's met the snake yet.

10) Nice state parks close by for hiking and alligator watching.

11) The possibility of spying Stephen King near his seasonal home on Casey Key, during one of my jogs.

12) David's finally not cold and NOT moving H20 (i.e. shoveling snow).

13) No corporate jobs and no pantyhose!

14) No more dry cleaning bills.

15) Key West is a mere 7 hours drive away, and we'll get there to see it eventually.

16) Palm trees, nuff said.

17) Closer to Panama (and we'll get there, eventually).

18) Cheap produce at Farmer's Markets.

19) My new friend Beth who promised to teach me how to cook some new dishes to keep dinner interesting, as I continue playing housewife.

20) The ability to not work and just play housewife! For only a bit longer till I get a job....

It's funny, I read in my journal where I wrote a long time ago that "if David would just let me quit this job and I could be his housewife, I'd gladly have dinner on the table everyday for him." Now, come to find that gig isn't all roses and circus ponies and sunshine like I thought it would be. But I'm taking the lesson, seeing how "grass is always greener" and "glass half-empty" I can be and how that's never served me.

I'm starting to really get that happiness and joy are much less our daily lives and what happens to us, and much more about how we react to everything. Therefore it's inside us, not outside of us. Eckhart Tolle says in his book The Power of Now that "...what is sometimes wrongly called joy is the usually short-lived pleasure side of the of the continuously alternating pain/pleasure cycle. Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within."

This is sort of the good news and the bad news rolled into one. It means that when we're unhappy we can do something about it, but it also means that if we don't there's no blaming the world or other people for our misery. Not to sermonize too much, but I truly believe that once you understand this kind of radical self-responsibility in a deep way it's hard to forget, even when you (I) fail to enact that knowledge on any particular day.

So I'm grateful for the challenges during this interim period of our adventure that give me the opportunity to try to get it right (corny as that may sound). And I hope that during this holiday season and always, we may all have more true joy in our lives.

Finding our Way in Florida...And to Panama

Serious writers block! All month now, unfortunately. Lack of motivation, depression, lethargy, whatever you want to call it, I've had it. Also guilt. For not being happy. This is what I wanted, wasn't it? One time out to dinner, David wrote on a napkin some statement like "I, Michele Hirning, when I finally get to quit my job will be completely happy" - he dated it and made me sign my name. I'll have to see if he still has it. Of course though it just doesn't work like that, for anyone, but I fear that I especially lack a talent for happiness.

It's making me so unhappy that now that we are officially settled in Florida, and I officially don't know what to do with my life (until we go to Panama or one of the other candidate locations), I feel like I have nothing much to say. Or that I am having a hard time figuring out how to say anything that feels important and interesting to more than myself and maybe David.

And now today, David started a new job and I'm officially alone at home, feeling like I should be more enthused about being his housewife. Shall I look up a recipe for chicken and go to the meat market? Shall I do yoga or meditation, go for a jog, go to the courts and hit a few tennis balls against a wall? How terrible to feel so useless at 37 years old; to not know what to do with myself or worse - to not feel like doing much of anything at all.

David over the weekend sez "Don't let me forget to go to work on Monday..." which is funny and true that it is such a jarring change for us. I'm so proud of him because there are apparently zero IT jobs in the Sarasota area, but we somehow managed to find one (god bless Craig's List). Even better is that one job may quickly turn into two - David reports that there's enough work at this mom-and-pop Macintosh software shop for plenty more people. When David told the owner that his wife is in IT also, the guy raised his eyebrows and said "Well, let's get her in here!"

The office is walking distance from our apartment, the atmosphere is casual (the owner shows up to work in sandals and shorts), and there's huge potential the business could grow, with our help. It pays about 1/3 of what we made up north but that's par for the course down here I've heard, and that could change if things go well.

But, one might ask, why are we working at all? Wasn't this all about going to Panama? Yes, that is still our ultimate goal. But we figure we should make some money while we are here in FL, replenish the savings account so we have more options once we get there. A whole summer of hanging around Milwaukee, not working and trying to sell the house was expensive (we may have sort of screwed up that way, but oh well).

Anyways there's still a lot to figure out before we take the next big step in this adventure. We know for sure we want to go to Panama by spring or summertime but whether that will just be a visit for more reconnaissance or an actual move depends on how this new job works out (perhaps we can do it remotely?), how much more we can reduce our possessions and what I can deal with, in terms of gritty, bare bones traveling. Cuz whether it's a trip or a move, there'll be no staying in expensive hotels and comfy B&Bs like the last time we went, we just can't afford it especially if we end up traveling for any length of time and it takes us a while to get settled.

David has always said that, left to his own devices, he'd have already been sleeping in a van down by the river for years now, and socking away the money saved. Probably stereotypically, I'm the one who's a bit of a wimp when it comes to availability of clean beds and bathrooms, who's more of a nester. I just don't know how much dislocation I can handle, how little of a home, how few possessions. Being so very mobile has always sounded great, in theory, but the practice may be a bit harder, I am realizing.

I have a vision of us leaving the states with just a backpack each and using Panama's excellent bus system to get around and find that magical small piece of land we want to buy. And in this idealized picture, if we end up having to sleep in a bus station because we get to a town and there's no where to stay, of course I don't mind it or at least don't freak out. I've seen other women do the hard-core travel on a shoe-string thing, so why couldn't that be me? It feels like it all depends on how brave I can be.

We made a huge leap from a house full of stuff to fitting everything we own into 2 cars, but can we now get it down to what can fit into 2 backpacks? Can I let go of "things" to that degree (my books and journals are most troubling), and even then can I deal with not having anything approximating a real home, and for how long? Another option we are entertaining is to ship down a truck with camper or a small SUV (or buy one when we get down there), and then use that to get around and to sleep in. Yet another idea is to try to find a caretaking gig that we can use as home base while we look for property.

It all feels like a bit of a pickle but I also sense that there are solutions if I could just open my mind to them, stop feeling so scared and stuck, and let some creativity flow through my brain. There's something very organic about this process, since there are many variables and lots of possibilities. What's difficult now is to strike the right balance between going after what we want and also stepping back and "trusting the flow" - waiting to see what develops, what emerges. For me ground zero though is figuring out what exactly I do want. You'd think it'd be easier.