Friday, November 30, 2012

Living in the present ...

... doesn't have to happen right now. And that's OK.

I've spent a good portion of today doing 3 things:

  • Reading Ben Hewitt's blog archives
  • Checking my Yahoo accounts to see if
    • a) my brokerage account has updated and
    • b) I've received any correspondence from either my leasing agent in NC or my freelance employer in same state.
  • Checking my eTrade account in case it updated ahead of its email confirmation. This happened last time.
I loathe going into the weekend with things not solidified, but it may not be helped. If the money's not there, I can't put a security deposit on our place yet. Luckily, I spoke with the leasing agent and she mentioned another unit in the same buildings coming available next week, so if for some reason we lose our chance on the unit we're trying for, all would not necessarily be lost. Still...

We're so close to YES on this. And with that realization comes the subject line, because reading Ben Hewitt's blog has me dreaming big time, realizing that I'm a pansy for not wanting to build a home from scratch, that we haven't even scratched the surface on living lighter, that we're (mainly me) still so very, VERY tied to the conveniences of city life. I look at my eating habits in an average work day and can easily see areas for improvement, how with just a bit more effort and planning, I could bring more drinks, more snacks, how when I'm working from home 2 months from now, I'm certainly not going to want to waste the gas and dough for Starbucks when I could make a cuppa at home. And it has me dreaming for both near and distant future...near future includes possibilities like a clothesline even though we'll be living in an apartment building, maybe some cold frames or a portable greenhouse, which would have to be locked down somehow since we won't have any kind of porch in the new place; a compost bin...more distant future dreams have me wondering if 5 acres for our farm is too small, how I'd love access to our own trees for fuel, how rotating pastures for pigs and sheep requires more than a little patch of land.......these ideas belong on my infrequently visited Dark Meadow farm blog.......

My mood about independent contracting has been changing this week. Hells, yes, the first priority practically before we've opened the first box in the new place, will be finding temp-to-perm work somewhere with some sort of medical benefits. I checked COBRA and the rates are laughable, once you get your breath back from the shock of the numbers. So there's that. But there's also the realization that while things are going to be painfully thin at first, that we're also entering a phase where the world's basically wide-open to us...if I can pull off enough dough via contracting to get us by, then my real "job" doesn't have to be a career-builder, just something to get us bennies...and that means new possibilities. I already have a "career" as an editor, and hopefully it will drive my opportunities in the future.....but it doesn't have to define me.

Image from here.

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