eHow

I once again got out of bed early this morning and headed to work as usual, but just to clean out my office. Even after just one day, I felt much less attached to my work there and I was able to throw out some things that I'd decided to keep earlier in the week. I just realized that there was no way I would need them in my new life. I let it go and it felt good.

I went to a Weight Watchers meeting today. It feels so cultish sometimes, but it's the only thing that's ever worked for me (or anyone else I know for that matter) in terms of weight loss, so I'm back to counting points. Starting Saturday. I'm not starting today or tomorrow because I need to go to the grocery store and we don't get paid until tomorrow, plus, I'm going out to lunch tomorrow with a former co-worker at the zoo.

After Weight Watchers, I signed up to be a writer on eHow and submitted two articles:

How to Professionally Frost a Cake

How to Publicize a Charity Event

I'm going to try to write and submit one of these per day, although I'm not sure how many things I actually know how to do. I have a lot in mind for right now, though.

These are cool because although you don't get paid to write them, you get residual income from them. So, from now on, every time someone reads that article, I'll get paid. Cents. Maybe less than a cent. A tiny tiny amount.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to look into Associated Content. It's the same sort of deal, I think, only it's not "how to." It's just content. Which I have TONS of. Blah blah blah.

I didn't apply for any full time jobs today- couldn't find anything- but I did spend a good deal of time looking.

I also did more laundry and sold the coffee table in the den. That, combined with money I transferred out of my paypal account covers the sofa that I bought yesterday. Hopefully, I can sell some more stuff over the weekend so that I can finish decorating the living room. I'm so ready for one room in our house to look nice.

Tomorrow, I have several things that I need to do-

-Lunch with Sherry to discuss freelance opportunities at her job
-Send Duane an email about writing for The Tribune (he left me a voicemail today)
-Set up a meeting with Shena from the Damian Wilkins Foundation about writing a grant for her
-Set up a meeting with Liz about writing for a local parenting magazine
-Send Whitney at Newcomer the writing clips she asked for
-Talk to Susan and Carole about AARF grant
-Pitch story to pet magazine
-Take pictures of items for Etsy Store
- Children's Books
- Ashtray
- Tea pot
- Kitten
- Cup and saucer
- Two blouses
-Take picures of items for craigslist and post for sale
- rug
- white shelf

First Day

Wow. Today was a really good day.

One of my worries is that I would slide into a depression during this transitional period and not maximize the opportunities that this period is affording me. You know, I was worried that I'd sleep all day and watch tv and putz around on the internet.

Well, I'm proud to say that I did not do that today. I was up bright and early and took the dogs for a nice long walk. Then I checked email and had a response to an inquiry I'd sent about a sofa on craigslist. I ended up deciding to purchase it (funded by craigslist sales of my old junk), so I made the arrangements, went to Home Depot and rented a truck for $20, went to Decatur and me and the women selling it loaded it onto the truck, I drove it home, unloaded it off the truck by myself (I almost had to bust out a physics book to look up "leverage" and "balance"), then returned the truck, all before noon.

This afternoon was spent making a daily plan to keep me on track and listing some more stuff for sale on craigslist. I also washed dishes, cleaned the kitchen and took out the trash.

A pretty good first day.

Last Day

I am very emotional today and feeling a bit unsure of myself, but trying to ignore those feelings. I applied for several full-time jobs today, including one that I actually think that I would really enjoy, so we'll see if anything comes of that. I've also applied for lots of freelance work.

Tomorrow is my first day without a job, however, I am going to go into the old job to clean out my office. I had to leave today before I could get to it. I am leaving more loose ends than I intended to leave, but if will have to suffice. I did all I could and they should be pretty much on auto pilot for the next several weeks and I've done some work to help prepare them for the more distant future. I also closed a sponsorship today, so I'm leaving on a good note.

Tomorrow will mostly be a day of planning.

I am not liking how blogger automatically logs you in based on your gmail address, because I have a "professional" address that I am logged into most of the day and then I have one that I use for comments, blogging, etc, so I always have to change gmail accounts. Annoying.

Tomorrow is my last day with a real job. So strange. I sent out a farewell email to my contacts today and got several offers of freelance work, so that's encouraging.

I'm starting to think about how my days will go. I know that I need to establish some sort of housekeeping routine so I can kind of put the house on auto-pilot and not get caught up in tedious housecleaning projects. I've used flylady in the past and I'm probably going to go back to that. It worked pretty well for me, but I always thought that it would be better if I wasn't trapped at work all day. Also, of course, I'm going to have to make time to 1)look for work and 2)do work. I'm thinking of doing a quick morning routine for housekeeping and then focusing on work until lunch and then spending the afternoon doing miscellaneous and assorted meetings and projects that I need to do, like write a novel and learn to sew.

And there's also health stuff. I'm definitely going to go back to Weight Watchers and COUNT MY POINTS and I have to work exercise into my routine as well. Plus, I want to get back into yoga and I want to start cooking dinner regularly. Healthy dinners. For me and my husband.

Tomorrow will be slammed at work trying to get everything caught up and ready to transfer over to the poor girl who will be taking over my responsibilities in the interim. Plus, I really want to get through all my emails and wrap up some stuff that's still hanging.

I'm going to go in early, because I'm not sure what time they'll cut off my access tomorrow. I'm thinking 5 since that's my official quitting time.

My work friends are taking me out to lunch tomorrow, which is nice and appreciated. I wish that I'd gotten to know them better, but I'm planning on serving on the planning board for Tour de Cure, so I'll still be in touch with them.

All is well and I'm very excited about the future. I can't wait until Wednesday!