Adventures in Unemployment

Ha! I said I would blog everyday of unemployment... and here it is, Day 3 and not a peep out of me... ooops. 


This post is a pre-unemployment list of the things I want to do while I am unemployed.  The best advice I got about unemployment was to enjoy the time off, because sometimes we forget to see the blessings in the hardships we face, and to stay busy! Stay busy for your own sanity and stay busy because when I (inevitably, right?) go back to work, I will be remorseful if I wasted the opportunity to do some fun things and get some things accomplished.

So, first I made a list of things I want to do, in general:

1. Make homemade yogurt. 
Thanks to our Iowegian friends for giving me the skinny on how to successfully make my own yogurt.  I am pretty excited to try this out!


2. Homemade bread. 
So many people I know make their own bread, and yet every time I look online for a recipe I get totally daunted.  Also, how do you keep a giant lump of dough away from a very curious cat while it rises? I can just imagine all the floury cat prints... My parents have a breadmaker in their basement. Maybe that will be the route to homemade bread I take.

3. Crochet slippers.
I crocheted one. Not sure how I feel about it. So I made a scarf instead.  Now I have a blister from crocheting. I am not sure how much leverage this little goal is going to get.

4. Open Courseware.
There are a bunch of schools (Yale, MIT, Johns Hopkins, etc.) that offer open courseware.  There is no credit, no classroom, no assignments, no grades.  But you do get to see the lectures and sometimes read the course material online, sort of as if you were taking the class. I totally love to learn and this is right up my alley.

5. Design and order Christmas cards.
Done! And they are darling, I think.

6. Paintings.
I have several requests for paintings-- thanks, friends, for liking my stuff!


7. Free museums.
I love a good museum.  I even sometimes love a mediocre museum.  In the Cities, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is free every day (yay! art as a public good! love love love), the Walker Art Center is free on Thursday nights, and there are a handful of museums that are free or only like $2 admission.  Love.

Unfortunately, lots of places are only open during business hours and then the weekends are filled with sticky-fingered children and women (poorly) driving strollers into my shins or the backs of my knees. It might be very nice and relaxing to take in a museum on a Tuesday afternoon, you know?


8. Actually sleep 7-10 hours per night.
Who can remember the last time they got that much sleep for, say, 3 days in a row? Other than times I have been sick (in which I slept around 19 hours a day), I don't know that I have gotten a good 8 hour night's sleep in a long time.  I look forward to meeting with you, deep sleep and REM cycle.  I hear you guys are wonderful.

9. Volunteer.
Having just moved to my community, I have been actually wanting to find a volunteer opportunity for a while. Now is the perfect time to put some more effort into finding a place that can use me.

10. Get a library card.
Can you believe I don't have a library card in my county? And I drive by TWO public libraries all the time. Ridiculous.


In addition to some of the bigger things I want to do, I am also trying to take this opportunity to start some good habits. So there is a list of things to do every day.

1. Make the bed.
My dad's cousin always had the best excuse for not making the bed: "It was so comfortable when I got out of bed, why would I want to mess that all up by making it?!"

2. Do all the dishes.
One of my favorite household tasks to neglect. Well, I am sick of running out of forks.

3. Spend no less than 90 minutes doing something that contributes to securing employment.
This isn't vacation, after all.

4. One-woman dance party.
What's better than grooving any way you want, to any music you want? Nothing.

5. Spend no less than 20 minutes contributing to the organization and cleanliness of the house. Sweep, dust, rearrange, whatever.
I love to make a mess and then just leave it. My house is a petri dish of unfinished projects.  Even cleaning projects get halted before they are done.  Just ask my why my vacuum has been in the dining room for 2 days.

6. Go outside.
I love my apartment, I really do, but if I don't go outside I will go crazy. Even if I just hobble down the street and back in, I am going outside every day.

Okay everyone, wish me luck. Luck that this is not a very long stretch of unemployment and luck that I survive it with all my mental faculties in tact.