We got 15 inches of snow on Thanksgiving Eve!
Holiday Greetings! I hope that you and your peeps are well and enjoying the season, and haven’t been experiencing too much winter yet, unless you like winter—then have at it!
It’s difficult to believe that over a year has passed since I started out on my “Big Adventure.” I sure couldn’t have predicted that I would have ended up in Maine! But then, there have been many, many things about this year that were not what I expected.
If you had told me a year ago, after all my planning to move to Portland, Oregon, that I would have had to leave, completely stressed out, broke and jobless, and had to live in my brother’s spare room in Nowhere Maine with no TV or car or friends or money or job…I doubt that I would have been willing to give up my life in Holland. In fact, I'm sure of it.
Over the past year I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve tried to pick and choose the more interesting and amusing incidents to write about, and have I’ve left out the long, repeated vents of anger and frustration, of fear and desperation. There has been a lot of that. But there has also been a lot of growth. A lot of learning. A lot of good things and changes. And I have no regrets. So I'm glad I didn't know what was in store for me this past year, or I would have missed out on so much!
It’s difficult to believe that over a year has passed since I started out on my “Big Adventure.” I sure couldn’t have predicted that I would have ended up in Maine! But then, there have been many, many things about this year that were not what I expected.
If you had told me a year ago, after all my planning to move to Portland, Oregon, that I would have had to leave, completely stressed out, broke and jobless, and had to live in my brother’s spare room in Nowhere Maine with no TV or car or friends or money or job…I doubt that I would have been willing to give up my life in Holland. In fact, I'm sure of it.
Over the past year I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve tried to pick and choose the more interesting and amusing incidents to write about, and have I’ve left out the long, repeated vents of anger and frustration, of fear and desperation. There has been a lot of that. But there has also been a lot of growth. A lot of learning. A lot of good things and changes. And I have no regrets. So I'm glad I didn't know what was in store for me this past year, or I would have missed out on so much!
And now it's 2015! Who knows what this coming year will hold? About the only thing that I'm sure of is that none of us ever really knows where things are going from one moment to the next. Sometimes we think we know and other times we know we don’t.
So what I think is going on is this:
I have finished my three-month stint at Craft Mania (but will still sub from time to time). I really enjoyed working there more than I could have ever thought, and find myself stopping in to chat with my "Craft Posse" whenever I'm passing by. However, it's probably a good thing that I'm not there regularly anymore, because I was about to strangle someone with a plastic bag. (Seriously, people: you do NOT need an entire bag to carry your ball of yarn or two bottles of paint or your resource-wasting-made-in-China-do-dad that no one in the world needs and you aren’t even going to want in a year! Oh, and did you happen to notice that that pack of pipe cleaners or bag of ribbon is, ahem, already encased in plastic? Do you really need another layer of plastic on it? Really??? Or do you enjoy contributing to the billions upon billions of tons of plastic in our landfills and oceans???
I’m heartened by the number of other bag-avoiders I’ve met—people who may or may not carry their own bags with them, but will handle a sometimes awkward pile of items to avoid the plastic. Yay! But it’s still a minority.)
And starting next week, I have a new gig lined up, another seasonal job, actually: receptionist for H&R Block for the tax season. For a number of reasons, I'm not looking forward to this
job--but I'm not worrying about it too much. It is what it is; it will be interesting to see what lessons follow.
For now, it's good to be getting paychecks and starting to get my finances under control (I don't even want to know what my credit score is, but really, I don't care...it all works out somehow!). I'm still trying on various ideas for what comes after April 15th, my last day at this latest job. Currently, I have absolutely no idea what could be coming next.
So what I think is going on is this:
I have finished my three-month stint at Craft Mania (but will still sub from time to time). I really enjoyed working there more than I could have ever thought, and find myself stopping in to chat with my "Craft Posse" whenever I'm passing by. However, it's probably a good thing that I'm not there regularly anymore, because I was about to strangle someone with a plastic bag. (Seriously, people: you do NOT need an entire bag to carry your ball of yarn or two bottles of paint or your resource-wasting-made-in-China-do-dad that no one in the world needs and you aren’t even going to want in a year! Oh, and did you happen to notice that that pack of pipe cleaners or bag of ribbon is, ahem, already encased in plastic? Do you really need another layer of plastic on it? Really??? Or do you enjoy contributing to the billions upon billions of tons of plastic in our landfills and oceans???
I’m heartened by the number of other bag-avoiders I’ve met—people who may or may not carry their own bags with them, but will handle a sometimes awkward pile of items to avoid the plastic. Yay! But it’s still a minority.)
And starting next week, I have a new gig lined up, another seasonal job, actually: receptionist for H&R Block for the tax season. For a number of reasons, I'm not looking forward to this
job--but I'm not worrying about it too much. It is what it is; it will be interesting to see what lessons follow.
For now, it's good to be getting paychecks and starting to get my finances under control (I don't even want to know what my credit score is, but really, I don't care...it all works out somehow!). I'm still trying on various ideas for what comes after April 15th, my last day at this latest job. Currently, I have absolutely no idea what could be coming next.
But it will all work out. It will be fine.
And for all of you, for this New Year, and beyond:
May you find peace in the storm, trust in the dark, and joy in the moment.
(And just say no to bags! Carry your own damn stuff!!!!!)
Blessings—Ivy
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