Pictures!

As promised-here are some pictures of what I've been up to.  Not huge changes but time consuming none the less!

Outside:

You can't tell...but there are cute little pink/salmon colored impatients planted all along the front flower bed and I put in a hydrangea bush on the left. 

We have little baby grass!  We killed all the weeds and are hoping to have a decent grass filled lawn soon!

Sadly they haven't torn down the terrible old gazebo thing.  I'm hoping that happens very soon.  It'll seem so much more open without that thing!  Oh-those are my herbs (and a couple veggies) in the cage in front!  Something destroyed our broccoli  so we had to put up chicken wire.

All of the brown is grass seed and fertilizer.  This was planted a bit later so hopefully we'll have baby grass back here in another week or so.

Inside (only half of the upstairs....we need to do a few more things before I post the rest):

As you walk in the door.

Living Room Before

Living Room After.  View from the kitchen doorway

 

Dining Area Before

Dining Area After

I love our new couches.  So much better than the ones we left in Madison.  Plus you get cute matching pillows! :)

Very Pink Bathroom Before

Our Still Very Pink Bathroom After.  I've tried to tone down the pink.  A major part of that was to get a basic shower curtain to hide the majority of the pink tile.

I found a nice non-pink shower curtain!

Considering this is how it looked when all of our stuff was delivered-I'm pretty happy with the progress (this was only about 75% of the boxes)!

I'll try and get pictures of the rest of the upstairs this week.

I'm off to the garden store.  The squirrels/gophers/chipmunks have discovered our tasty tomato plants!  Hopefully they have some good repellent stuff at the store!

A Bit Surprising

The event went well-I think!  It was a very different experience for me to be a volunteer at an event rather than the planner or staff.  It was kind of funny though, even with just being a volunteer I still somehow seemed to be the person everyone came to with questions.  There were some bumps in the road but nothing that was insurmountable.  Matt and I even came home with a couple of auction items! 

While the event went well the next day did not.  On Thursday (and I bit more everyday since) I was forced to come to grips with something I think I've been denying-I'm not happy here.  I'm extremely lonely and feel super isolated.  Plus to make things harder I think I made a mistake for my career coming here.  So that was a fun realization!  Before I get into where-at least I think-my issues are here's a quote that I thought was a good one: "It's not what isn't, it's what you wish was that makes unhappiness."-Janis Joplin.  I thought that was fitting for my current state of mind.

I think Gilda's Club was a great distraction for me for the last month or so.  Unfortunately that distraction is gone.  I'm hoping I can still help out there but I'll have to wait and see.  Without that distraction I just have a lot of time to my lonely self everyday.  I've tried to find groups that meet during the day or organizations to join and I'm just not having any luck.  Its really frustrating.  I think it's made more frustrating because as I sit here and struggle to find anyone to hang out with and a job I get to watch Matt go to work to a job he loves everyday and I  see how happy he is to be by his friends and family.  Its a tough mix of emotions.  I love seeing him so happy but at the same time I just don't know how to get there myself.

The other frustration I'm feeling is that I'm just not finding a lot for jobs.  I know it hasn't been a terribly long time to look but it's just a challenge to stay positive when there's maybe one job that I could do posted every two to three weeks.  It's especially frustrating since I was so close to the perfect entry level development job in Madison....that I just walked away from.  Being an adult and making adult, life changing decisions really kinda sucks!

So to sum up what I think my problem is at the moment-I keep wishing for things I don't have.  I wish I had some way of meeting people and making friends here.  I wish I had a decent lead on a job I wouldn't be afraid to drive to everyday.  I just wish I was happy.  I guess I just have to remind myself of the words of Janis Joplin.  I need to stop focusing on all the things I wish I had and just work slowly to get them and in the meantime focus on what I have.  Or at least that's what I'm telling myself I need to do!  As always-it's something that is easier said than done.  I sincerely hope I can start to find more of the good things about being here.  If I can't I don't know what I/we will do.

I don't like the idea of ending this post on a bad note.  So to cheer things up a bit-I finally got to go to the Detroit Zoo yesterday!  It was amazing.  It really is a great zoo.  It's much bigger than the Henry Vilas Zoo but it does have it's perks.  For instance there's a Penguinarium!  It was the first of it's kind in the U.S.  There are three types of penguins in one building and they can all inter-mingle.  It's so fun to just walk around the building and watch all the penguins.  It was definitely the only exhibit we went to twice yesterday.  To make it even better Matt and I bought a membership so now I can go during the week whenever I want!  I'm thinking I'll make a weekday trip sometime soon to take some pictures.  Oh!  Speaking of pictures-we've been making progress on our yard!  It's a pretty nice day out so I think I'll go take some pictures of the progress and post them either today or tomorrow!

There-happy ending.  Much better :)

The Big Day

The Gilda's Club event is today!  Which I'm pretty happy about only because I've been spending a lot of time volunteering and neglecting some house stuff I should be doing.  I've really enjoyed helping out and getting to know some of the people there (well really only one person but she's been great!).  It'll be nice to see the venue and how everything ends up working tonight.  It'll be a long day for me-I'm heading in in about an hour and won't be home until 10 or so.  Once again-how am I so busy and still unemployed!?!?

Which speaking about unemployed; I did have a job interview last week.  It seems like a good organization and the people I met were very nice.  The interview went well-they emailed me 45 minutes later to come in for a second and final interview.  The only issue was that it was in a pretty rough part of Detroit and serving a very at risk population.  There had been some incidents of violence and theft (cars broken into) on-site as well.  Matt and I talked about it and just decided that the location and goal of the organization just weren't right for me.  So back to waiting, looking, and more waiting.  At first I felt a little bad turning down the second interview but I think I would have felt trapped at work every day.  Hopefully something else will come along soon.  I knew finding something would be challenging especially since I'm being pretty particular about what I want but I am starting to get a little bit worried I won't find something.  Thankfully Matt has been super supportive and is completely fine with me being a bit picky about a job.  After all that was part of the deal we made with moving here.

Well I know this is a short post but I have to go get ready to head to Gilda's Club (and clearly there needs to be a starbucks stop on the way in :) ).  I did lots of work outside yesterday and will post pictures probably tomorrow.

Before I go though I just wanted to say a belated Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful women in my life.  Of course this includes my fantastic mother and grandma's but also all of the women who have been like surrogate mom's to me, friends, confidants and advisors.  I love all of you and wouldn't be who I am today without any of you.  Thank you!

Unemployed and Exhausted

The past week and a half has flown by!  I couldn't believe it had been so long since I posted last.  It feels like lots of things have happened but I'm not sure they really have.  I'm managing to keep myself fairly busy and I'm finding that I'm more exhausted than I ever thought possible while unemployed!

Before I get into a quick recap here's a quote I think is fairly appropriate for today and for my new location:  "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs"-Henry Ford.  I have to say, at this moment, I disagree with Mr. Ford.

I've been trying to take advantage of the relatively decent weather we've been having so I decided to start tackling the outside work.  Oh my goodness is there a lot of it!  I tried to divide up the work, you know, one flower bed or section a day.  That did not pan out quite like I thought.  It's taking so much longer to do everything than I thought it would.  This is why I disagree with Mr. Ford at the moment.  This whole divide it and it'll be easier is definitely not my experience this past week.  I do still have hope that once we get everything cleaned up a bit we'll have a nice yard to show for it but wow is it taking a lot of work to get there.  Thankfully Matt has been a trooper and is helping me out on the weekends and some weeknights.  It's nice to have him around for the heavy lifting :)  We've gotten quite a bit done but it just feels like there's crazy amounts left.  I'll post some pictures as soon as it's nice enough to go outside and take some.

Besides spending my time working on our front and back yards I've also been volunteering quite a bit at Gilda's Club.  I've gotten to be decent friends with the Development Director (it's nice to have someone local who will serve as a reference for me) and I've been reminded why I liked non-profit development so much.  I'm mostly helping her get an auction in order for an event coming up next week but its just nice to be back in a non-profit office again.

I've been applying for jobs as I find ones that seem like they'd be a good fit.  For some of them I need to figure out how much I'm willing to push my comfort zone.  There are some openings with organizations that have really great missions and are definitely needed in this area but it mostly comes down to how comfortable I am working in some rough areas of Detroit.  That's something I'm still mulling over.  I'll let you know what I decide!