Good morning, all. I haven’t forgotten you. I check my friends page daily, but I just haven’t been posting here. I have, however, been jotting notes to myself on paper, keeping up with my email, posting to Facebook, puttering around the house, and applying for jobs.

Too much time on my hands…
Job openings are few and far between, but you know that already. Add to that equation the fact that I have 20 years of hands-on creative and project management experience as a marketing and public relations writer/editor, but limited direct departmental and people management experience, and the options narrow even further. Basically, I have too much experience for the available hands-on roles, and not enough experience for the available management roles. Looks like I’ll be out here a while.

My goal is to make at least five new relevant job applications or contacts per week.

There’s no place like home….
We finalized the purchase of the house in September after living here for over nine years. Now it’s ours. Prior to closing, the landlord sent in a crew to make repairs. They did a fabulous job of it and went above and beyond the call of duty, but everything was topsy-turvy and covered in plaster dust in the rooms they worked in. So we deep cleaned it.

After the closing, we had new windows installed throughout the house, which meant we had to pack up and move everything that was within three feet of a window – including furniture, window treatments, and many, many books — and then move it back. I’m still working on putting things back, decluttering as I go. I also need to make the house as toddler-friendly (and as toddler-proof) as possible before Thanksgiving.

Our house is a very, very fine house, with two cats ….
I’ve also started planning our first three remodeling projects – first the bathrooms, then the kitchen. I’m having trouble with selecting paint for the downstairs bathroom, which has entirely too many different colors of tile – cream, green, lavender, black, and two shades of white. If I can find a shade of green and a shade of warm white that work in there, I’ll consider it a win.

… in the yard…
And I raked the yard. Twice. The result was fourteen over-stuffed bags full of leaves — and that’s just the front yard. It needed to be done, and the weather was nice. Don’t expect it to happen very often.

I have several other projects in progress, so I’d better get too it.