I’ve been spending time looking for interim positions and seeing if there any permanent positions that interest me. It’s an up-and-down process, I feel very fortunate that I’m not in a financial position where I have to find something right away. I’m ready to get back to regular paid work. While I am still working on my gap year guide and gratitude project, I want to take on new challenges, make connections with new people, have more structure in my day and build up my retirement savings.
This is Annemarie‘s last week at home. On Thursday we went to visit my sister and 2 of her 3 kids. It was great spending a few hours hanging out with them, most of the time outside on their shady deck. My nephew is working as an EMT while he applies for paramedic school. He’s also in the army reserves so has a very busy active life. My niece was visiting from Southern California, it’s so nice to spend time with her since we don’t get to see her regularly.
On Friday, Annemarie and I went shopping for food for our family get together and spent some time looking at photo albums from when the kids were little. It was such a treat. I went for a walk to Tennessee Valley Beach in the afternoon, it was very, very windy. I just love wild weather like that. Many people got to the beach, looked out at the ocean for a few minutes, then turned around and headed back because of the wind. That meant I got the beach to myself four most of the time that I was there. There were lots of butterflies out in the more sheltered parts of the trail. That night Annemarie made a delicious salmon dinner and we watched Jeopardy with Mom. Having three generations answering questions made us about half as good as any one of the contestants, lol.
On Saturday morning, I drove to the local community center where they were doing a free shred and debris cleanup day. I got there just a couple of minutes before it was scheduled to open and luckily the shredding service was already open. I was the third person in line and quickly got rid of my tub of material to be shredded. It had been beautifully sunny all week, but on Saturday it was absolutely pouring, I was so grateful for the workers in their yellow slickers cheerfully helping everybody out.
We had a fantastic day with the family. It felt like Christmas since almost everybody was able to be together. Annemarie got to spend a little one on one time with everyone, and we all got caught up on the different things going on in our lives. Emmy brought the stocking stuffers she had ordered for everyone for Christmas, which did not arrive until December 26. The gift was a huge hit – a car air freshener that was a picture of my mom on my brother-in-law‘s motorcycle! I am so so grateful for my family. I feel so lucky to have been born into this weird and wonderful tribe.
