This is going to be a short weekly update because I have my mom in town, but it’s definitely been a busy week! A week that included some productive job interviews and cheap wine.
Job Interviews
Turns out, that when you have legit experience in the real world, you hear back on job applications. When I was a senior in college, I submitted my resume about 200 times…I got a handful of interviews, and in the end I received 3 offers (none of which were all that great). This time, I’ve already had three phone interviews and one online assessment. This week. And they’re all for jobs that I am excited about. I’m not applying for things that I don’t think would make me happy. That’s the other difference between now and four years ago. Now, I have a job I love; I just want a change. So I have the privilege of only applying for jobs that give me purpose and make me excited about change.
So far, so good! I’m definitely out of practice for job interviews, but I’m also much more confident now that I have something worthwhile to offer to these new positions. The idea of starting new somewhere has me really excited!
So I’m Packing!
Which is hilarious because it could take months for me to get a job offer and move. But because of my panic attack at the thought of staying where I am, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be leaving the area. And I like the idea of packing slowly and purposefully so that I’m only bringing things I really want and need. Rather than wait for a moving date, I’ve decided to start packing things now and sorting through things. I can pack up some of my books, and my winter clothes, and my wall decorations and heirloom china. And it was exciting to go to Home Depot and buy boxes!
Wine With Friends
I didn’t devote the whole week to job interviews. On Thursday, Erin from Reaching for FI came to my neighborhood. On Thursdays during the summer, they put on live music and wine tastings about half a mile away from my apartment. So I joined Erin there (and of course StarDog came along because I know he’s the real reason she drove to Virginia on a weeknight). We bought cheese and crackers from Harris Teeter and enjoyed some lovely wine. It was the first day in quite awhile that it hadn’t rained, and the weather was great. It was a fun evening!
Time With Family
My mom is visiting me this week, which has been lovely. She’s the only stable parent I have, and we’ve always been close. I can talk to her when I’m worried or stressed, and she helps me put things in perspective. She’s also been helping me experiment with my Instant Pot that I impulsively purchased during Amazon’s Prime Day…we all fall off the frugal bandwagon occasionally!
This has been a great week because I feel like I’m getting back on track. I have a vision for what I want in the coming months, and more broadly in the coming years. And more importantly, I feel like I have a clear path to get there. TBD on what that path looks like, but at least the path exists in my mind now versus me feeling lost (which is how I felt after getting rejected from my internal job application).
In the meantime, I’m still working on building up some side revenue streams and finding ways to flex my creative muscles (which have been largely ignored since high school, when I was very proud about winning multiple poetry competitions…and then promptly studied economics in college). If you’re interested, I’ve posted several motivation tools on my Etsy shop, but I’ve also started a Zazzle shop that features items with text from The Little Prince (aka my favorite children’s book and inspiration for random philosophical blog posts).