I’m tickled this domain wasn’t taken. I need a name outside of my business website for random posting and updates, but it’s always hard to choose a name or personality when moving forward on this type of endeavor. I’m bad at naming things, though somehow anytime there’s a naming-things brainstorm, whatever joke-name I come up with invariably becomes the best option (maybe because I’m perceived as the “creative”). In retrospect, I should have checked to see if “Don’t Feed the Ambear” was available, though, I’d prefer that I do get fed.
Please excuse the lack of awesomeness as far as the current theme goes…it’s a work in process, and I always need a few working design examples when it comes to looking for work. I get to be experimental and stuff. A lot of the ideas I had for some fun blogging experiments that also involved me learning new technologies were not possible to accomplish while having my blog hosted by WordPress.com (though, they are a great service). I have a lot more coding and artistic freedom hosting the blog myself.
Goals
Find Employment
Self-explanatory, really. I have to apply at 5 jobs a week for unemployment (which of course is going swimmingly during the holiday season *massive eyeroll*) but hopefully companies start to get a bit more serious about finding new employees. Granted, I’ve now applied to over 50 different companies…but there’s still hope, right?
Exercise
So, in all honesty, there’s not really much point to working out with any serious goals in mind so long as I am unemployed. My diet is completely different because of the lack of structure in my day (time-wise) and not having the same amount of money to budget towards food. I’ve put on a bunch of weight (ok…maybe 10 pounds), and that’s just going to be a reality until I can afford something other than carb-heavy meals for most of my lunches and dinners.
Also a job-contingent goal: getting a car
Food
So far I plan to start prepping a few meals a week…right now I basically have dinner plans and then a bunch of food lying around for breakfast and lunch. I’m finding myself to be much happier throughout the day if I have a hot breakfast (instead of the usual cottage cheese and edamame or yoghurt and granola). I’m going to start making breakfast foods that both Evan and I can grab on the go, and eventually starting to make somewhat better lunches (I started building bento boxes shortly before being laid off). Tomorrow I’m going to make this, and we’ll see how it goes from there.
I feel like I need another food-related goal, but this is all I can think of at the moment. If anyone is doing anything cool, let me know.
Guitar
I’m learning guitar (which I’ll post more about later). It’s going pretty well so far, but I definitely need an electric guitar again. Worst case scenario, I should be able to afford one by the end of February.
Blog once, maybe twice a week
Even if that means I need to spend a day a month getting all the blogs ready to go for the following month.
Routine, Ritual
I have a number of things I (normally) try to do regularly, but I certainly haven’t been keeping up with them. Everything from doing laundry on a regular schedule, to washing my face every day (I’ve definitely skipped a few days this week) to making sure I don’t just sloppily toss all my clothes in the closet or forget to paint my nails (I’m looking at you, toes).
Time Management
This is much less of a problem when I’m employed, but I feel like I haven’t been getting anything done…primarily because I have a relatively open-ended amount of time in which to do things, both in a yearly sense (I have at least three more months of unemployment currently, but I’ll probably end up with one or two more months on top of that), but also in a daily sense: I don’t have a schedule for when to stop or start my day and have been less conscious about how long certain activities take. Do I have time to do dishes? Practice guitar? Cook dinner? How long do I need to plan for that? I need to start scheduling out my days, regardless of how much or little I have to accomplish.
Style?
I also feel like I’m missing a fashion-related goal. One year it was getting to a point where I could wear lipstick without freaking out…last year I got rid of a bunch of old clothes, solidified my style, and tried to make better clothing purchases (guided by Eccentric Glamour, a marvelous, fun, quick read). I’m pondering taking pictures of outfits as a means of cataloging and sorting out what I like and don’t like from what I own…sometimes I forget I didn’t like wearing something until the next time I leave the house in the same outfit.
