Hold onto your horses...
It's the first blogging post of the new year!
The end of 2014 kicked me a few times, as I came down with the flu, which led to me missing a day and a half of work, and because I was in bed, I didn't get my car out of the parking lot when it got plowed, so it got towed. That brought about some panic and freak outs and a $300 bill, but glorious_clio was amazing and gave me a ride to the lot, which was amazing of her to do. But the holidays were at least decent; Christmas on my dad's side was generally relaxing, but I didn't go to my mom's side on New Year's, as it was a 3 hour drive for me, I was tired from work and stressed with everything, and honestly mom's side stresses me out. I wasn't the only one who didn't make it.
2015 is starting out well enough. All us kids surprised the 'rents with a dinner of salad, chicken paramsaian and chocolate cake yesterday. As much as I wanted to be there to help make everything, the weather decided to be awful, and the two hour drive turned into a five hour drive. There was snow and high winds, so visability was terrible, and there were so many accidents on my way out of The Cities, traffic was packed for almost the first half of the trip. And even once it thinned out, I didn't go much above 50mph, because the wind felt like it was going to push me across the slightly slick road if I went faster than that. (Which is terrible, because we even weighed the car down so it wouldn't skid.)
Job wise, I have two main leads. One is for a grocery store close to me, in fact the one I shop at, looking for a full time position, paying $13/hour. The other is a barn in Wisconsin, about a hour and a half from me. My instructor recomended me and gave me the contact info. We did a quick phone interview on Wednesday, and things felt good, and I am going out on Monday to see the facilities and do a more indepth interview / discussion.
My issue is not exactly being nervous for the interview or the wait, but the actual decision making. The grocery store intially will pay better (the barn is salary at $350 a week to start with), but there probably isn't a lot of room for expansion; the barn owner said he's looking for someone to eventually take on a manager position. If I go to the barn, I would have to move, meaning breaking my housing contract here about 5 months early (and paying the fee there), finding housing near the barn and paying for that, and some how managing to pay bills and live off of $350 / wk, which comes out to $1,400 a month. Which isn't a lot, even for someone who just has a cat. But I'd be working with horses again, and hopefully someplace where I'd have a chance to grow professionally, and eventually become a manager, which is kind of the direction I wanted to go, if I don't do lessons. (This barn is focused on training and showing and not lessons, but I could deal with that.) The grocery store wouldn't get that for me.
So I am stuck in that terrible situation where I am terrified of being stuck but being comfortable, and the idea of moving forward and being more uncomfortable for a while to get to where I'd like to go and just keep growing in the direction I want. And it's a scary place, even if I've been here multiple times before at various levels of importance.
I need to sit down and work out a budget as much as I can with the numbers I have (I don't have an idea about housing costs), and figure out if it is going to be smart move, both short and long term. And it is not making me freak out as hard as I did when I moved out to Maryland, but I am also worried because I am settled here that I will decide to not risk it, and be stuck.
The plan it to take a few deep breaths, figure out a budget, get an idea about some housing, and then go to the interview and ask a lot of questions.
Admittedly, my time feels kind of limited, because of course my almost non existant social calander exploded. I work from 8:30am to 5:30 on Saturday (which is the longest shift I've worked at the Mall aside from double shifts), and then I've been invited to play Cards Against Humanity with A (who invited me to her Halloween party) that night. She has occasional parties like that, but this time she decided to be clever and invite a guy she knows that she thinks I'll like. We will see how that goes. (I mentioned it while I was at home yesterday, and my mom got a hint of her pissy dimples and told me to "be careful", which is similar to my dad telling me "don't get raped", but with more sincerity, since she doesn't say it as often. I almost came back with "I'll date girls if it would make you feel better", but I'm still not brave enough to broach that subject with my parents.) On Sunday, the barn is having a holiday party in the afternoon, so I will be going over there as well. THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS. I don't have anything happening, and then everything happens at once. Thus is life.
Looking forward into the rest of the year, without thinking about the new job and possible move, my sibs and I are planning to run a 5K (or my brother and I are planning it, my sis wants to do a 10K), I want to finish original writing projects, like at least one of my NaNo novels, brush up on Spanish (Duolingo, here I come!), get my 4H Judges card, get out and try new things (Meetup.com here I come!), meet new people... of course all this may shift and change a bit if I move and take the barn job. But until Monday happens, I am going to try and not freak out.
I hope you are all doing well in the new year!
The end of 2014 kicked me a few times, as I came down with the flu, which led to me missing a day and a half of work, and because I was in bed, I didn't get my car out of the parking lot when it got plowed, so it got towed. That brought about some panic and freak outs and a $300 bill, but glorious_clio was amazing and gave me a ride to the lot, which was amazing of her to do. But the holidays were at least decent; Christmas on my dad's side was generally relaxing, but I didn't go to my mom's side on New Year's, as it was a 3 hour drive for me, I was tired from work and stressed with everything, and honestly mom's side stresses me out. I wasn't the only one who didn't make it.
2015 is starting out well enough. All us kids surprised the 'rents with a dinner of salad, chicken paramsaian and chocolate cake yesterday. As much as I wanted to be there to help make everything, the weather decided to be awful, and the two hour drive turned into a five hour drive. There was snow and high winds, so visability was terrible, and there were so many accidents on my way out of The Cities, traffic was packed for almost the first half of the trip. And even once it thinned out, I didn't go much above 50mph, because the wind felt like it was going to push me across the slightly slick road if I went faster than that. (Which is terrible, because we even weighed the car down so it wouldn't skid.)
Job wise, I have two main leads. One is for a grocery store close to me, in fact the one I shop at, looking for a full time position, paying $13/hour. The other is a barn in Wisconsin, about a hour and a half from me. My instructor recomended me and gave me the contact info. We did a quick phone interview on Wednesday, and things felt good, and I am going out on Monday to see the facilities and do a more indepth interview / discussion.
My issue is not exactly being nervous for the interview or the wait, but the actual decision making. The grocery store intially will pay better (the barn is salary at $350 a week to start with), but there probably isn't a lot of room for expansion; the barn owner said he's looking for someone to eventually take on a manager position. If I go to the barn, I would have to move, meaning breaking my housing contract here about 5 months early (and paying the fee there), finding housing near the barn and paying for that, and some how managing to pay bills and live off of $350 / wk, which comes out to $1,400 a month. Which isn't a lot, even for someone who just has a cat. But I'd be working with horses again, and hopefully someplace where I'd have a chance to grow professionally, and eventually become a manager, which is kind of the direction I wanted to go, if I don't do lessons. (This barn is focused on training and showing and not lessons, but I could deal with that.) The grocery store wouldn't get that for me.
So I am stuck in that terrible situation where I am terrified of being stuck but being comfortable, and the idea of moving forward and being more uncomfortable for a while to get to where I'd like to go and just keep growing in the direction I want. And it's a scary place, even if I've been here multiple times before at various levels of importance.
I need to sit down and work out a budget as much as I can with the numbers I have (I don't have an idea about housing costs), and figure out if it is going to be smart move, both short and long term. And it is not making me freak out as hard as I did when I moved out to Maryland, but I am also worried because I am settled here that I will decide to not risk it, and be stuck.
The plan it to take a few deep breaths, figure out a budget, get an idea about some housing, and then go to the interview and ask a lot of questions.
Admittedly, my time feels kind of limited, because of course my almost non existant social calander exploded. I work from 8:30am to 5:30 on Saturday (which is the longest shift I've worked at the Mall aside from double shifts), and then I've been invited to play Cards Against Humanity with A (who invited me to her Halloween party) that night. She has occasional parties like that, but this time she decided to be clever and invite a guy she knows that she thinks I'll like. We will see how that goes. (I mentioned it while I was at home yesterday, and my mom got a hint of her pissy dimples and told me to "be careful", which is similar to my dad telling me "don't get raped", but with more sincerity, since she doesn't say it as often. I almost came back with "I'll date girls if it would make you feel better", but I'm still not brave enough to broach that subject with my parents.) On Sunday, the barn is having a holiday party in the afternoon, so I will be going over there as well. THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS. I don't have anything happening, and then everything happens at once. Thus is life.
Looking forward into the rest of the year, without thinking about the new job and possible move, my sibs and I are planning to run a 5K (or my brother and I are planning it, my sis wants to do a 10K), I want to finish original writing projects, like at least one of my NaNo novels, brush up on Spanish (Duolingo, here I come!), get my 4H Judges card, get out and try new things (Meetup.com here I come!), meet new people... of course all this may shift and change a bit if I move and take the barn job. But until Monday happens, I am going to try and not freak out.
I hope you are all doing well in the new year!