A Day Without Work

Today I am working through the second day of "not working" as some people are calling it. I don't know if I would call it "not working" so much as "changing jobs". As some might know, I quit working with the state of Texas so that I can do some of the things that we've had a hard time doing both working full time jobs. Although I had much better health insurance costs, I did not have better pay, so Matt won the "stay at your job" game. I am now working 16-20 hours a week at the martial arts school I attend, and the rest of my time is spent working on that ever growing, probably never ending list that I've started. Here's a run down of my first day away from the state, which was yesterday.

I woke up at 7am (my goal for wake up time)...then really got out of bed at 7:30am. Okay, not too bad a time to wake up given that I could have probably slept until about noon. I then took Bane for his routine morning walk. My step mom has this uncanny way of spoiling our dog. A few years ago when she came to visit she took Bane for a walk every morning. After she left he expected it, so that led to our daily walks to the mailbox. We have a community mailbox; I'm not so lame that I just walk him down to the end of the driveway! Anyway, when she came this time she took him for these incredibly long walks above and beyond the old distance! Needless to say, Bane and I could both use it. Therefore, I'm now walking him a little further than I was.

After the walk I got ready as if it was a normal work day. I cleaned up, changed, and put on make-up. I figure I could get in the habit of staying in my pajamas all day, but that would probably lead to some bad habits. After getting ready, I had some quiet time before starting the rest of the day. After that, I started the to do list on the iPod. So far it consists of:

finish visa application

get Bane ready

call possible financial partners for an update

change our bank

iron a stack of clothes the size of Rhode Island

clean out our family filing cabinet

put up Christmas decorations

do my scrap book

get overseas bank accounts sorted out (not Swiss, don't worry)

rake up the leaves and clean out the flower bed

clean out the front closet

Besides the things on this list, I've tried to make a commitment to keeping the kitchen clean, keeping up with the clothes washing, etc. It's amazing how far you get behind in life when you and your spouse both work full time jobs, and you don't have older kids to enslave to house chores.

Okay, so after making the list I got my visa application and Matt's citizenship stuff in order. Matt received his citizenship last year, but we just kind of threw papers together when they all came in instead of organizing them. I got all that and my application better organized so that I can finish my application before the end of the month. Sometime during the course of the day I cooked a few small meals for Matt and me (we eat five meals a day on our eating plan). I also cleaned up a few emails and folded a little laundry.

After that I got ready to go to my other job (see, I'm not sitting around eating bon bons). I taught classes and helped out around the martial arts school from 3-8pm, then ran to the grocery store to pick up a few things. I don't know what happened from there, but between getting groceries, putting them up, enjoying a little ice cream snack (don't tell anyone), and taking a shower, I didn't get into bed until after 11pm! It's not exactly my plan to be up late every night, because I tend to get rather grumpy late at night. I'll have to work on that.

I have a few kinks to work out on the daily schedule. One is multi-tasking. I hate to brag, but at my state job I was awesome at doing seventeen things at once. I might have been working on what I needed to be doing, but then I'd be asked by many people to do random things at any given time. I think I'm still in that mode, and I need to focus on one thing at a time. I'm sure there will be many more changes to the new work plan as I go, and I look forward to figuring out the best way to spend my time. I also look forward to continuing to enjoy sleeping until at least 7am every morning. :)