jobhunt

More Stress Than I Realized

Being at home with Aaron for a week — and during *this* week in particular, biologically speaking — has made for some interesting dynamics.

Left to my own devices, I’ll sleep for at least 10 hours and stay awake for between 12 and 14 hours. This, as I have already learned in the past, is not good for my mood. I start to feel lazy and depressed, and become less productive, since my normally productive and creative afternoon hours are suddenly my sleepy morning hours. Rolling out of bed at the crack of noon needs to stop.

At least I’ve been making myself to-do lists to keep myself busy. Follow-ups, hitting job-search websites, and driving to BG for outplacement workshops have been on my agenda.

Still… after a decent amount of job rejection, or getting no response and counting that as rejection (and fielding website restructuring requests that feel like rejection, but shouldn’t), I’m starting to feel a little stressed. I hadn’t realized it until I had a little mini-breakdown today, for no good reason. I’m still chalking most of it up to hormones.

My diabolical plan is to add more structure to my days, and to get up earlier. Instead of going to aikido this evening, for instance, I’m going to attend tomorrow’s (and Thursday’s, and Saturday’s) 10am session. I’m also going to meditate daily, like I’d mentioned before that I wanted to do.

I need to not take everything so personally. I also need to eat better, exercise more, and get out of the house every day. Otherwise, I’ll sink into a funk from which I’ll never escape. And that’s not a good way to find a job.

Update, 12:45am: It’s amazing what a difference just ten minutes of meditation can make. That 8pm session of zazen, plus a solid and genuinely excited decision to attend aikido tomorrow morning, along with a shitload of job leads from one of Aaron’s friends, have all acted to calm me considerably.

Lights out in fifteen minutes.

randomness

Girlie Time

Today was Heather’s last day working for our mutual former employer. Today was also the day that many stores opened in The Shops At Fallen Timbers. Including Lane Bryant. So, after she was done having her exit interview and packing up her desk, we got together and went out for an evening of shopping and general girl-time.

First, we did a round of the mall, going into stores I wouldn’t usually even give a second (or first) glance. American Eagle, Pac Sun, the Gap, places like that. We spent an inordinately long time in Bath and Body Works, where I got assaulted by the nice lotion lady — my hand *still* smells like Pomegranate lotion — but where I still purchased two body splash samples, two lotion samples, and a candle with the greatest fresh apple scent (which cost almost as much as all my samples put together).

After B&BW, we hit Lane Bryant, which was our main target of the evening. After standing in the soul-sucking dressing room line twice, I ended up buying one pant suit (brown), one suit jacket (black), one camisole (cream), and a pair of brown trouser socks. Yaye! I have a new interview suit! Two, actually, since the black jacket goes well over a black knee-length dress I bought online recently.

We took our haul out to the car, and went back for more malling. Our next and final stop was Payless, which was having a buy-one-get-one-half-off sale. I bought a pair of patent-leather flats and a pair of brown moccasins with a polka-dot accent bow. Super cute, both. I almost bought my first pair of heels since high school, but they only had it in size 11, and I needed a size smaller. I would have relearned to walk in heels for these shoes, totally.

Our evening had started around 4:30pm. By this time, it was well after 9pm — time for dinner. We drove back toward my house and went to Lone Star for a massive and yummy late dinner.

This really needs to be a monthly occurrence. We both enjoyed ourselves, had fun girlie time, and bought stuff. Maybe next time I needn’t spend $200 on clothes and shoes and lotion and dinner… but I sure had a fun time doing it.

webdesign

Mixed Feelings

Some of you may remember the drum corps website I worked on back in ’05. Well, it seems that the corps is “streamlining” their communications, and they’d like to retool the site. That’s fine. I can dig that. I can even use the design they’d like me to use, although I insist on trying a few different variations on it first.

The only thing that really makes me sad is that I worked SO HARD on getting the content management system to be robust enough to serve their needs, and now the site is pretty much going to be a static electronic brochure. No individual member logins, no real need for members-only news items… they’ll keep the news feed around, and they’ll keep the schedule up-to-date, and I think they’ll keep the file upload feature for staff, but it’s not the same. The site will mainly be used as a recruiting tool, rather than the multifaceted communications tool I’d wanted it to be.

Maybe I wasn’t proactive enough. Maybe I didn’t keep up with it as well as I should have. But I did what I was told, when I was told, and I was so proud of what I’d achieved. I learned so much by programming all that, and I was actually pretty proud of my design. (I went through lots of thumbnails and comps to get to that final.)

Maybe this is my chance to make something that really pops, though. I can take the site and streamline it all to hell. I won’t be depressed about this — I’ll be grateful for the chance to update this two-year-old design.

Really, I will.