Running Total: Omaha Bucket List

Omaha Bucket List:

1.  Give notice at work.


Office, consider yourselves served.   ;-)   I gave notice today and decided to designate Sept. 7 as my last day.  I was afraid if I waited until Sept. 14 as originally planned, I wouldn't be giving myself enough time to sort through and organize my crap, and that I wouldn't have as much time to spend with friends and family as I wished.

So, one item down. (Many  more to go.)

Next up:

2.  Put in notice at the apartment complex.

(The office manager is a friend of ours and already knows what's going on. We just need to make it official and fill out their little form.) Mañana, my friends.

And I promise there are more fun things on the Omaha Bucket List than these "honey-do's." Case in point:

3.  Put on my dancing shoes and go dancing one last time with The Jade Dog. Also mañana. Can't wait!

Preparing to Purge

We had a moving company provide an estimate for our move last week.  Less than we budgeted for (hooray!) but still more than I was thinking it would be, based on my parents' recent move (we have much less stuff than them and we are moving it a shorter distance).  But it's a good estimate and we'll probably go with it.

Before they came, we went through each room of our small apartment and tagged the things we knew we would not be taking:  dining room table and chairs (we never really liked these and want a different set); wine rack; four pleather storage cubes that have been thoroughly "cattened" (i.e. marked and/or destroyed by cats who crawl, leap, scratch and bite objects and/or people with complete disregard for the object's value or the victim's well-being); a fold-down sofa and fold-down chair that made a great guest bed, also cattened (and while we're on the subject, Boy Cat and Girl Cat thoroughly cattened the carpet here, too.  We'll be shelling out big bucks to have it replaced when we leave.  Sigh.).

For example, the fold-down sofa (and this is a leather [albeit, cheap bonded leather] sofa we purchased new in 2011):

Culprit #2 confesses but is defiant and says he'd do it all again

Culprit #1 denies all involvement

Not tagged but also not being moved: assorted books; clothing; shoes; small appliances; dishes; cookware; non-perishable foodstuffs; cleaning supplies; possibly some jewelry, handbags and perfume; possibly the opened contents of the liquor cabinet unless we manage to drink it up before we move. (And we're workin' on it, trust me!)

We've promised some things to our niece and her husband already, and anything that's really trashed or not useful is going to be thrown away, of course.  (I will not be donating any 50-lb. broken TV's to the local homeless shelter or Goodwill.   Ask Bobbi or Chad how they feel about those.)

I plan to start putting up the other items for my friends' consideration on Facebook or this blog.  Let me know if you see something you want--first come, first served.    :-)

And don't feel obligated to take anything.  Mr. 42 and I have worked hard over the years to de-clutter our lives and I certainly don't want to create more clutter for anyone else.

Thoughts on Work

This is probably better suited to a longer post, but as I'm starting to job hunt in Philly, I'm reminded of how much I wish I had chosen more wisely when it comes to a career.

(That probably would have started with choosing differently in education, too, though I'm still a believer in education for education's sake, and not just to prepare you for a job.  Most people I know don't end up working in their field of study, or else they didn't study in the field they truly wanted to because they worried they wouldn't be able to make a living at it.  It's six of one, half a dozen of the other for most of us.)

I had a double major in college.  First, Women's Studies.  Then, in my junior year, when I had to designate a minor, I chose instead to designate a second major in English.

From my Paris trip: the Women in Art exhibit at Le Centre Pompidou, 2010.  (Go, Guerilla Girls!)

They are equally valuable, or should I say, have equally little value in my workplace, for the most part.  When people I casually meet ask me about my major, I generally say it was Women's Studies.  When potential employers ask me to list my major, I generally say English.

I really don't know what I thought I wanted to do with those majors.

(No, that's not true.  I do.  I wanted to write.  I still do.

That's one of those careers that many people can't make a living at, although I am actually getting paid for my writing and editing skills on the perfume website.  It just doesn't pay enough to live on at this point.  Someday it might.  A girl can dream.)

I ended up with my current employer kind of by accident.  I had no job to go to after graduation, and took a temp job just to start earning some money in the meantime.  The job market at that time was kind of like it is now--a shortage of jobs and too many candidates, and young college grads were having a tough time of it.  I secured a temp job (and my one and only temp assignment) at an insurance company that was experiencing tremendous growth.

My starting wage:  $5.17 an hour.  But there was a chance the job would lead to a permanent position, which it did just three months later. (Then, my starting wage as a permanent employee went up to $7.17 an hour.  Who can live on that?  I sure couldn't back in 1993, and minimum wage in 2012 isn't much more than that.)

The rest, as they say, is history.  After I was there for a bit, I started wanting (or thinking I should want) more money and more responsibility.  I wanted benefits and financial security for myself and Mr. 42.  I thought I wanted a career in the industry, a house and lots of other stuff that turned out to be NOT what I really wanted, upon further reflection (over a period of 19 years).

Until a few months ago, I even thought I wanted to take my current job with me when I move.  Now that I know I can't, I'm actually glad and looking forward to a fresh start, though I'm dismayed to find the jobs I'm researching and/or getting contacted by recruiters for are . . .

. . . in the same industry as I am now.

I tell myself it's just to get established in Philly.  It won't have to be permanent if I don't like it.  I can make a change.  (I just hope I remember that in a few months/years.)