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 :)
May 20, 2012
May 16, 2012
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!
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!
May 7, 2012
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!
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!
April 25, 2012
World Penguin Day
Today is world penguin day....one of the best days of the year! :) I absolutely love penguins. One of the great things about living in Royal Oak is the Detroit Zoo is actually in Royal Oak- and they have a penguinarium! I can't wait to visit the zoo. Which brings me to today's post (it actually isn't all about penguins believe it or not)-I need to start exploring.
I/We haven't had an opportunity to really explore what this area has to offer. We've been focusing so much on getting the house set that we just haven't been to any of the big attractions. After this weekend I think our new place will really start to feel like ours (hopefully). We're planning on hitting up some rummage sales this weekend to find some decent bargains on furniture and other random things and to tackle some of the yard work. I'm really hoping that after this weekend we can start using the weekends to explore some of the museums, towns, and sights this area has. I feel like I did a fairly good job of familiarizing myself with the layout of the town and some of the downtown area. Now I think it's time we start branching out more.
I have found one way to get out of the house-starting tomorrow I will be volunteering at the Metro Detroit Gilda's Club which is right here in Royal Oak. I met the Development Director at my first AFP meeting and then submitted my volunteer application. The Development Director gave me a call and she needs help with some event planning. So I'm starting tomorrow! I'm pretty excited to help an organization that I feel a real connection to and to start making some more solid connections and relationships with people in the nonprofit world here. I also think it'll be good for me to have a reason to get up and leave the house in the morning!
Well it's about time that I get outside and enjoy the beautiful sunshine. There is a wonderful lack of wind today so I think it's a great day for me to go out and start trimming back some of the overgrown plants/shrubs/weeds. I've posted some "before" pictures of the outside of the house. I'll post pictures occasionally to show the progress!
April 19, 2012
Progress!
We have finally seen some progress on things! Thank goodness!
We now have access to all of our house for the first time which is wonderful. All of the boxes (except 2 stragglers that I'm still figuring out what to do with) are now either unpacked or put in the basement. We have a nice newly redone laundry room-complete with a brand new washer and dryer! Best of all-we have a completely inhabitable master bedroom! The management company ended up having to completely rip out and replace the carpet and padding in the master bedroom. Its fantastic to not be crammed into the spare room with all of our stuff all over. We now have more space than we know what to do with.
There are definitely still some things that need to be attended to but we can really start making this place our home now. I feel much more comfortable. We even got cable and internet hooked up today! I can actually write this post from home!
On a slightly less positive note we had a crazy windy day this week and my car unfortunately took a bit of hit....literally. We now know that we shouldn't park our cars under the tree in our driveway during storms-the branches seem to snap off fairly easily. I guess we just had to learn that one the hard way.
Now that things have settled down with the house a bit I can start working on some projects, decorating, and finding a job. Oh the fun part of relocating! I'm hoping being able to search from home will help me be a bit more productive on the job search front.
This weekend we are heading back to Madison for the UW Varsity Band Spring Concert. I'm extremely excited to go to the concert and be back in Madison for a couple of days. I'm hoping I will come back ready to really get going on things here!
We now have access to all of our house for the first time which is wonderful. All of the boxes (except 2 stragglers that I'm still figuring out what to do with) are now either unpacked or put in the basement. We have a nice newly redone laundry room-complete with a brand new washer and dryer! Best of all-we have a completely inhabitable master bedroom! The management company ended up having to completely rip out and replace the carpet and padding in the master bedroom. Its fantastic to not be crammed into the spare room with all of our stuff all over. We now have more space than we know what to do with.
There are definitely still some things that need to be attended to but we can really start making this place our home now. I feel much more comfortable. We even got cable and internet hooked up today! I can actually write this post from home!
On a slightly less positive note we had a crazy windy day this week and my car unfortunately took a bit of hit....literally. We now know that we shouldn't park our cars under the tree in our driveway during storms-the branches seem to snap off fairly easily. I guess we just had to learn that one the hard way.
Now that things have settled down with the house a bit I can start working on some projects, decorating, and finding a job. Oh the fun part of relocating! I'm hoping being able to search from home will help me be a bit more productive on the job search front.
This weekend we are heading back to Madison for the UW Varsity Band Spring Concert. I'm extremely excited to go to the concert and be back in Madison for a couple of days. I'm hoping I will come back ready to really get going on things here!
April 12, 2012
A Few Firsts
Well I've officially been in Michigan for over a week now. The first week definitely went differently than I'd expected and more quickly than I thought it would. I think my biggest accomplishment thus far is that I haven't just isolated myself within our house! Matt and I have had a few outings together and I've made it a point to leave the house and go somewhere new each day on my own. I think this quote by Frederick Buechner sums up my attitude towards my little outings pretty well- "Faith is not being sure where you're going, but going anyway." I know no matter where I end up (which quite frankly sometimes I have no idea where the hell I am) I can always tell my GPS to take me home and everything will be fine. It's all about the journey not the destination, right?
So far my adventures have found me traveling to Starbucks (where I currently am because we still don't have internet at home), the post office, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, the hardware store and a grocery store. Who would have thought doing such basic things would make me so proud of myself! I even managed to find my way to and from the grocery store without my GPS (granted I ended up at a different grocery store than I originally intended but hey-at least I came home with some food!). I've also attended my first ever AFP meeting and have joined their mentorship program. All in all I think it's been a productive first week for my little solo adventures.
Matt and I have been able to do a few outings together too which is always fun. We found a decent restaurant last Friday. It's actually a brewery but just not quite like the ones back in Madison so until I get more used to it I'm choosing to just call it a restaurant. Although, I will give them credit-their Friday fish fry was not awful :) Then on Tuesday, Matt came home and surprised me with tickets to the Ingrid Michaelson concert which was last night right here in Royal Oak. Definitely a much appreciated distraction from trying to find a job, dealing with the continual construction workers at our house, and attempting to get some semblance of organization in the house. I'm pretty excited about the venue the concert was at. It was somewhat reminiscent of the Madison favorites The Barrymore and Majestic combined. All in all a great outing.
While things are still not quite how I would prefer/hope/like them to be-I'm at least getting better at handling things. I hope I can keep this trend going in the next couple of weeks-we'll see how much things test my patience!
So far my adventures have found me traveling to Starbucks (where I currently am because we still don't have internet at home), the post office, Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, the hardware store and a grocery store. Who would have thought doing such basic things would make me so proud of myself! I even managed to find my way to and from the grocery store without my GPS (granted I ended up at a different grocery store than I originally intended but hey-at least I came home with some food!). I've also attended my first ever AFP meeting and have joined their mentorship program. All in all I think it's been a productive first week for my little solo adventures.
Matt and I have been able to do a few outings together too which is always fun. We found a decent restaurant last Friday. It's actually a brewery but just not quite like the ones back in Madison so until I get more used to it I'm choosing to just call it a restaurant. Although, I will give them credit-their Friday fish fry was not awful :) Then on Tuesday, Matt came home and surprised me with tickets to the Ingrid Michaelson concert which was last night right here in Royal Oak. Definitely a much appreciated distraction from trying to find a job, dealing with the continual construction workers at our house, and attempting to get some semblance of organization in the house. I'm pretty excited about the venue the concert was at. It was somewhat reminiscent of the Madison favorites The Barrymore and Majestic combined. All in all a great outing.
While things are still not quite how I would prefer/hope/like them to be-I'm at least getting better at handling things. I hope I can keep this trend going in the next couple of weeks-we'll see how much things test my patience!
April 9, 2012
Blindly Wandering
Yet again I've gone a crazy amount of time with no post. Since my last post (almost a year ago now-yikes!) a LOT has changed. Since my life course has changed I thought it was about time to revisit this whole blog idea. This blog originally started as a New Year's resolution (clearly one that didn't pan out all that well). Now I am going to use it as more of a conversation space. Granted, this conversation may be extremely one sided as I talk myself through things but hopefully it will eventually be a two sided conversation. I get these Real Simple "Daily Thought" quote things. I'll occasionally be putting these in my posts (you'll find one below if you keep reading). There really are some great ones that show up in my inbox so I feel its only fair to share them :) It also will *hopefully* help focus my ramblings a bit.
So to fill people in on what this big change in my life is....I've moved. It doesn't sound like that huge of a thing but it's turning out to be. A few weeks ago Matt got a fantastic job offer in Michigan. We'd been talking about moving for a few months but the right opportunity hadn't presented itself-at least not until this offer came along. Now Michigan was never where I really wanted or thought I'd end up moving to but, things change. I can honestly say I've never made such a huge decision on a quicker timeline. Matt got the offer and we had to have a decision within the next four days. We chatted about it for a night or two and then decided to just go for it. From the time we made the decision we had 3 weeks to get everything set. It has been a crazy whirlwind of a month. Matt and I both gave our notice at work, subleased our Madison apartment, found a rental house in Michigan, packed up our lives, said goodbye to our friends and my family, and headed east towards Detroit. That about brings you up to speed.
Quote of the day- "The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way." I feel like I have been living this quote the last few weeks. I'm a planner by nature and I've never done something this big with this little planning. I feel as though I've been blindly feeling my way through all of the options and decisions I've been forced to navigate through.
We're now in our rental house in Royal Oak, Michigan. Things have not gone as planned since we've been here. There were a lot of things that needed to be fixed in the house and they are taking much longer to complete than they were supposed to. So we still have a general contractor going in and out of our place each day. The saving grace there is that he's a very nice guy and after talking a bit it turns out he is pretty connected and has offered to introduce me to some people here in town. I'll take any help I can get. It was a very hard for me to give up the network I had built in Madison and I'm hoping to be able to build a similar network here. The downside is that it is incredibly difficult to feel settled and "at home" in a house that is being worked on and that you can't use all of the rooms in. I just keep telling myself that eventually everything will be fixed. I'd just love it if eventually came sooner rather than later.
For now I'm trying to be more okay with taking baby steps each day/week/month. There are a lot of things I will have to get used to here (I'm sure future posts will illustrate some of the differences and the challenges I'm having with them). I'm going to try and see some of these challenges as opportunities, although I think sometimes this will be easier said than done. I'm also going to try and focus on the small accomplishments and milestones along this so far bumpy road to happiness here in Royal Oak. For now I am desperately missing my family, Madison and my second family there and I'm just trying to learn how to miss what I knew and grow to love what's in front of me now. I'm hoping this gets a little easier each day.
So to fill people in on what this big change in my life is....I've moved. It doesn't sound like that huge of a thing but it's turning out to be. A few weeks ago Matt got a fantastic job offer in Michigan. We'd been talking about moving for a few months but the right opportunity hadn't presented itself-at least not until this offer came along. Now Michigan was never where I really wanted or thought I'd end up moving to but, things change. I can honestly say I've never made such a huge decision on a quicker timeline. Matt got the offer and we had to have a decision within the next four days. We chatted about it for a night or two and then decided to just go for it. From the time we made the decision we had 3 weeks to get everything set. It has been a crazy whirlwind of a month. Matt and I both gave our notice at work, subleased our Madison apartment, found a rental house in Michigan, packed up our lives, said goodbye to our friends and my family, and headed east towards Detroit. That about brings you up to speed.
Quote of the day- "The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way." I feel like I have been living this quote the last few weeks. I'm a planner by nature and I've never done something this big with this little planning. I feel as though I've been blindly feeling my way through all of the options and decisions I've been forced to navigate through.
We're now in our rental house in Royal Oak, Michigan. Things have not gone as planned since we've been here. There were a lot of things that needed to be fixed in the house and they are taking much longer to complete than they were supposed to. So we still have a general contractor going in and out of our place each day. The saving grace there is that he's a very nice guy and after talking a bit it turns out he is pretty connected and has offered to introduce me to some people here in town. I'll take any help I can get. It was a very hard for me to give up the network I had built in Madison and I'm hoping to be able to build a similar network here. The downside is that it is incredibly difficult to feel settled and "at home" in a house that is being worked on and that you can't use all of the rooms in. I just keep telling myself that eventually everything will be fixed. I'd just love it if eventually came sooner rather than later.
For now I'm trying to be more okay with taking baby steps each day/week/month. There are a lot of things I will have to get used to here (I'm sure future posts will illustrate some of the differences and the challenges I'm having with them). I'm going to try and see some of these challenges as opportunities, although I think sometimes this will be easier said than done. I'm also going to try and focus on the small accomplishments and milestones along this so far bumpy road to happiness here in Royal Oak. For now I am desperately missing my family, Madison and my second family there and I'm just trying to learn how to miss what I knew and grow to love what's in front of me now. I'm hoping this gets a little easier each day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)