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!

The Secret

Ooops. Missed a few days...

Tuesday is my last official day with a job. It's nerve-wracking, but also exciting. I feel like I'm on the verge of some really great life discoveries.

I wrote several chapters in one of my novels on Wednesday night. It's not the memiors one that I planned to focus on, but inspiration stuck and I'm hoping to be more discliplined about completing it. It would be my first completed novel, so I'm trying not to be hopeful of getting it published, etc, but then again, I kind of want to "secret" it. If you don't know, this is the "secret." http://www.thesecret.tv/ Actually, I'm not all that sure how "the secret" works, so I guess I should rent the dvd or something. Basically, my understanding is that by the power of positive thinking, you create your own reality, or something, but like I said, I haven't read the book or seen the movie.

So, plans for this weekend, my last weekend, because I envision all the days just running together after Tuesday-

Tonight- wash the dogs, do laundry
Tomorrow- go yard saling with Sarah, rent The Secret
Sunday- come into work to organize all my files, get everything in order, etc, make plans for the person taking over my responsibilites to help her out cause I like her and don't want to leave her in a bad place.

History is happening. This is the kind of thing that our grandkids will ask us about- either a black president or a woman vice president. Either one is a good thing, but if this term doesn't go well, and it won't, no matter who wins, either cause will probably be set back by this election. If Obama wins and things go south, people will blame his misfortune of inheriting a disaster on his being black and it will be a long long time until we see another black president. And God knows, that Sarah Palin is going to make all women look bad no matter what she says or does because of how she presents herself and a bad term for McCain will result in Palin's gender taking a hit. It's too bad, but bound to happen. Just my thoughts. I hope that I'm wrong.

Local Pubs

Picked up three intesting local publications today- a pet magazine, a women's magazine and a local neighborhood magazine. Going to contact all three of them in coming days to see if they accept unsolicited submissions, etc. A magazine editor that I know and have worked with in the past also sent me an email expressing interest in having me write some pieces for her publication, which is a magazine that is for people who are new to Atlanta.

I also got fitAtlanta to agree to publish me, but they don't pay. I've been writing a regular column for them for a while on behalf of my job, but now I'm going to start doing that independently. At least that will give me some clips. They only publish quarterly, so it's not a huge commitment. I know I just talked about undervaluing yourself, but since I have an existing relationship with them, I'm making an exception in this case.

I cannot wait until my two weeks notice is up. November 12 I am a free woman.

Oh, I'm also going to contact the television station that I used to work for and see if they want me on a freelance basis... Writing this time, not doing the horrible soul-crushing stuff I was doing before...

Home from Greenville! I'm going to write a weekend getaway article and try to sell it.