Three Month Report Card

I realized last night that I've been "gainfully unemployed" for about 3 months now, a quarter of a year. An interesting quality of this period in my life is my sense of time. I feel like I've been much more present-focused recently. In some ways this is great. I like having and taking advantage of the freedom to just do whatever the heck I feel like at any given time (well, most given times). It has its downsides too, though, such as the fact that I couldn't focus at all on planning for my Romania trip. (Luckily it worked out anyway.)

But it's not completely a goldfish's life -- I still have goals and to-dos and things like that, and I still like to look back and see how I've been using my time. I had originally posted a list of stuff I wanted to do, so let's see how I've been doing on that:

• Music. For a while I was practicing harmony singing a lot, which was really good. I should get that habit going again. I haven't been playing much, but I did at least write a couple tunes.
• Art. Not much yet, though I have a few little things that need to be put up on the wall project.
• Writing. Again, not much. I still have various blog posts that have been meaning to get written for a while. I started a story at one point, until my conscious mind realized where my subconscious had stolen the main idea from and called it quits.
• Volunteering. I'm recording fairly regularly for Books Aloud now, and still giving a few hours to Project Read each week. Fewer HOBA events right now, but I'll keep an eye on them, too.
• Travel. Romania wasn't quite the trip I'd imagined, but it was interesting in its own way. It did at least sooth the travel bug for the time being.
• Meditation. The meditation retreat has to be one of the best things I've done in a long time, and it was a good time in my life for it. (Not that I don't wish I'd done it 5 years ago when Eric first told me about it.) I'm still managing the recommended two hours most days, which sounds like a lot at first, but is absolutely worth it.
• Cooking. Haha.
  
• Outdoorsiness. Some, though I'd still like to explore more state parks and maybe go camping or something.
• Dancing. Plenty so far. Mostly the usual suspects, though I've been meaning to get out and learn some hustle at some point.
• Reading. Interestingly, for a month or two I was hardly reading at all, which is weird for me, especially when I'm unemployed. It's picking up again, though, and I'm working on speed reading a bit, too.
• Redesign my blog. Nah, haven't really felt the motivation for it yet.

In addition to all that, there have also been things that weren't on the original list:

• Music editing. I've started learning to do some basic editing, since there's a lot of good music around that I want to dance to but is too long, or the wrong tempo, or whatever. It's kind of fun and can have some interesting challenges sometimes.
• More blogging. Over on the Social Dance Music blog.
  
• Exercising. The running and workout habits got a bit screwed up by my two trips, but are starting to come back together again.
  
• Investing. Well, I do this anyway, just not super actively most of the time. Right now, though, CNBC is running their Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge (an investing contest with fake money), and I'm playing along with that, just for fun and education.
• Love life. Um, yeah... there is one now. It's nice. :-)

And some new things to add to the "coming up" part of the list:

• Stuff-purging. Not as drastically as Lacey, but she has been inspiring me to get rid of a bunch of possessions that I really don't need to keep around.
• Mini road trip. In about a month I'm going up to Oregon to drive back down with Lacey. Small, as trips go, but sister-visits are good.
• Stanford Dance Weekend. The web site doesn't say it's sold out yet, so sign up if you want to join me.
• Family history projects. I still have a few boxes of various family artifacts (e.g. old photos, journals, letters, etc.) that need processing. I've been remiss in my role as junior family historian (apprentice to uncle Jim), but I've been meaning to work on it.
• Another job? It'll happen eventually, I'm sure, I just don't know when or what. Part of me does kind of want to find something interesting for new "real" work, but it's still decidedly in the minority. I think unemployment suits me. :-)

So anyway, that's how things are now. Maybe in another three months I'll do another update and see where we are then.