-Career Development
Ok, so here's the thing...unfortunately, the job market is tough. Whoa, way for me to blow your mind. However, I've still been job hunting. Well, I was job hunting until I got to be about 4.5 months pregnant and there was no way to ignore the fact that i'm, well, preggo. I mean, I tried, but unfortunately, while they may not come out and out and tell you they aren't hiring you because they don't want to lose you in 4 - 5 months to maternity leave, THEY DON'T WANT TO HIRE YOU BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT TO LOSE YOU IN 4-5 MONTHS TO MATERNITY LEAVE. Blah! It sucks. I have lots of skills. I made a list of them for goodness sakes. But, you can't make someone hire you, I still fully believe that with all my heart. I have plans though. I sent my resume to the local chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation to volunteer with office work and event planning, because that is one good way to get some good experience, even if I can't convince people to hire me right now, maybe 6 months down the line they will. It can't hurt to try. I'll try to work on improving this after my son arrives.
-Financial Stability
Surprisingly, in spite of the fact that my job stinks and the pay stinks, I am on financially better ground than I was a year ago. Crazy, i know. But, our bills are being paid, on time. My credit card is going to be paid off hopefully before I go on maternity leave, and by tax time next year, we should only be paying two bills..cell phone and car insurance. Holy crap! The one thing I've sucked at is still savings. However, if we can continue down the path of paying off bills, i'm hoping that we will be able to start adding to our savings account when I get back to work. At least, that's my goal.
-Health and Wellness
Health and Wellness took on a mind of its own. Along with pregnancy, came my sudden addiction to fruits, vegetables, wheat bread, peanut butter and milk and water. Caffeine has not been in my system in over 7 months. (Imagine what I'm going to be like when I get it back, yikes!) I've cut a lot of unnecessary crap from my diet. I do yoga five days a week. (Not the most flexible gal still, but it helps with certain wellness aspects.) And, with Gestational Diabetes, i'm extremely picky about what I put in my mouth and how much. I'm not going to lie, i'm not perfect. I still like a little bit of sweets every once in a while, but it's quite different from a year ago, where I just kinda put whatever I felt like in my mouth and was done with it.
The one thing I didn't think about wellness wise, was stress. Stress is actually still quite a big thing in my life, and I really have got to find some constructive ways to deal with besides eating, or yoga...or crying, blech. I'll have to do some research on this and go from there.
-Education
There's a tie in I didn't talk about up in career development. But, its education too. Its considering taking tax preparation classes and becoming a tax preparer during tax season. Earlier this year, I ended up doing 4 different people's taxes, including my own. I mean, I got paid for it a little, but if i'm gonna do it, why not get really paid for it. I need to find a good program though. H&R Block has one, but its $300!! Aaaah, how do I pay for that? I'm researching that plan. (And looking into it for my mom, who needs a part time job.)
In other education aspects, I've had a lot of education on stuff I didn't plan on, especially the whole becoming a mommy thing. I'm taking a Lamaze class at the end of the month, a breastfeeding class, oh, I also took a nutrition class about having Gestational diabetes too. I don't know, my genius plan of getting a book to learn about my car failed miserably when my car died and we haven't been able to get the car fixed yet. I basically want to try to get a "Mrs. Fix-it" kind of book and learn how to fix basic things around the house, toilets, this, that and the other. And the boy and I have been discussing taking a cooking class together as something fun to do after I have the baby, though it might have to wait until next year depending upon the cost. Yes, i am in fact a nerd.
-Minimalization/Organization
Ok, here's my opinion. After the last 8 months, I really think minimalization/organization is a LIFETIME process. You can get rid of as much stuff as you want, and still end up with more stuff. Now, this may have to do with the fact that I keep accumulating so much stuff for the jellybean, but seriously, the amount of clothes I've donated, the things from college that i've gone through and decided what I did or didn't want once and for all, and then minimizing my parents house down some, its been unreal. We've gotten rid of so much stuff. But, it feels like we have so much more stuff!! I was really proud of myself for getting rid of quite a bit of our DVD collection, which was craziness, and in actuality, we only got rid of about half of what we actually had, but we still got a good chunk of change from it, which was pretty cool.
I think that's the best summary of my self-improvement, at least at this point...Things are about to get seriously crazy, especially with my jellybean coming. We'll see how things progress from there!
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