Well I am officially back in employment starting December so I can now stop my resignation diary as I get ready to move on to my next job. This means that I will be unemployed for five days (after my holiday pay is used up). It is only a two month contract as I am still undecided what I really want to do career wise and didn’t want to jump straight back into the rat race. I haven’t had any amazing life revelations yet regarding my career path – watch this space! On the household front we are continuing to try to trim our finances – our goal is to keep under what we spent in the corresponding month the previous year and so far we are managing to meet that challenge. It will be a little more difficult of course in the following months until I get back into a permanent career. Yesterday and today was a day of Xmas and birthday shopping with a list after a session of budgeting and planning – I even have some of the birthday gifts for next year sorted out. We had a great Xmas last year sticking to our budget and planning ahead and it was the Xmas that people most talked about and used our gifts in the months following. Hopefully we can pull it of again this year.
55 days after my resignation
I am officially unemployed! My last pay went in last night along with my holiday pay which will keep me going until the end of November. I find out about my short term contract job tomorrow which will help pay the bills over some of the holiday season if I get it. If not back to the drawing board! I’m in that exhausted phase at the moment – insomnia, not really wanting to eat – hopefully it will pass soon, I just need a few days relaxing in the sunshine. I have been trying to go out and walk for at least 40 mins a day – it’s a cheap way of exercising and a good way to keep away the blues and stay positive and focused. Have to avoid the shops while walking though!
46 days after my resignation
Not long now – I have five days of work left. I think I could be at the office for 24 hours a day and still not get everything completed by Friday. I have managed to find a short term contract for Dec/January while I think about what I want to do long term – I have an interview tomorrow with the recruiter. I did my 300 question aptitude test today on line today – I wonder what all my answers will tell them about me – that I should have stayed in my current job instead of resigning maybe?!! I hope not. My recipe for the month is homemade soft tortillas Flour tortillas . I made these last week and they were absolutely gorgeous. We had warm soft tortillas with chicken (not home grown!) and salad, mmm.
Texas Flour Tortillas (adapted from The Border Cookbook by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison)
Ingredients: Two cups of all-purpose flour (can make them whole wheat by substituting one cup of whole-wheat flour for white flour) , 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil, 3/4 cups of warm milk
Method: Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and oil. Slowly add the warm milk. Stir until a loose, sticky ball is formed. Knead for two minutes on a floured surface. Dough should be firm and soft. Place dough in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap for 20 minutes. After the dough has rested, break off eight sections, roll them into balls in your hands, place on a plate (make sure they aren’t touching) and then cover balls with damp cloth or plastic wrap for 10 minutes. (It’s very important to let the dough rest, otherwise it will be like elastic and won’t roll out to a proper thickness and shape.) After dough has rested, one at a time place a dough ball on a floured surface, pat it out into a four-inch circle, and then roll with a rolling pin from the center until it’s thin and about eight inches in diameter. (If you roll out pie crusts you’ll have no problem with this.) Don’t over work the dough, or it’ll be stiff. Keep rolled-out tortillas covered until ready to cook. In a dry iron skillet or comal heated on high, cook the tortilla about thirty seconds on each side. It should start to puff a bit when it’s done. Keep cooked tortillas covered wrapped in a napkin until ready to eat. Can be reheated in a dry iron skillet, over your gas-burner flame or in the oven wrapped in foil. While you probably won’t have any leftovers, you can store in the fridge tightly wrapped in foil or plastic for a day or so. Makes eight tortillas.
36 days after my resignation
I’ve been so busy getting all my tasks at work finished off before I leave that I’ve only just realised over a week has flown by. I never thought resigning would be so much hard work – I have just finished at least a 70 hour week and still have more hours to do at the weekend. To fit everything in I am writing this at ten past midnight! My poor plants have been slightly neglected but I have managed to water them every few days while racing out in the morning to work. My seeds are continuing to germinate away quite happily. Despite being absolutely exhausted each day we have stuck to our budget and resisted takeaways on the way home from work. Hubby who is absolutely anti-gardening admitted tonight while we were making dinner that he loves having home grown lettuce that he can get whenever he wants. He is eagerly awaiting the spring onions to have their spurt of growth – probably two weeks off if we can get some good sunshine. Of course he just wants to eat the food, he doesnt want to help grow it. I found a possible job today for December and January so have to get my CV organized this weekend also and send it off – fingers crossed. Also have to get hubby’s GST return done tomorrow. How many hours are there in a weekend?
28 days after my resignation – Drunken Woman
Well it is four weeks ago today that I gave in my resignation. It feels great until you realise there is only one more pay check and then the money stops coming in. It is getting a little scary now as reality gets closer. Came home today to find my Drunken Woman Fringed Head lettuce seeds had germinated after five days. This frilly red tinged lettuce made it into the NZ Gardener Sept 2010 for their 100 best vege picks for growing in Kiwi gardens. It seemingly likes hot summers and cold winters and is happy to reproduce when left to seed – my kind of lettuce. Given that a lettuce was $3.97 in our Countdown today my growing efforts in the garden are saving us a fair amount of money each week. Not quite saving me a weekly salary though! Hubby is starting to put in growing requests now – he would like some Cos lettuce in the garden so will have to round up some seeds and get planting.
24 days after my resignation
Today I came across the old label from my prolific self-seeding lettuce that I have been writing about for the last few weeks – Green Salad Bowl – I finally know what I have been eating most nights. This is a great loose leaf variety which grows happily in any container. We have about eight lettuces on the go so we don’t over pick one particular lettuce. My mixed lettuce seedlings (grown from seed) I transplanted into their ‘pots’ today and I also started sowing Drunken Woman , Biscia Rossa, Buttercrunch and Little Gem lettuces in newspaper pots. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW4t_6dTAvA&feature=related My seeds seem to like our warm laundry and all my seeds over the last year and a half have happily sprouted without any effort. I just grow them in toilet rolls or newspaper pots with potting mix and cover with a piece of newspaper. My last lot of lettuce seeds I sowed straight outside in an ice cream container and they seemed to like it so I will see how my inside seeds go in terms of germinating and compare the two methods. I might need to move my pots soon to some other spot on the site as it is starting to become hazardous to enter by the front door and I imagine the number of pots will continue to grow once I am unemployed in four weeks time. I wonder if hubby will be happy to live on lettuce if I don’t find a new job?
18 days after my resignation
So now after 18 days the question everyone keeps asking me is “Have you found a new job yet?” I have been casually looking but part of the reason I gave up my job was that it wasn’t good for me so I don’t really want to go back to a similar job. I want to see if it is possible to alter my career somehow without losing everything I have worked for including the house that I built with hubby. Today hubby and I did garden maintenance on my mum’s property – it was lovely to be outside in the fresh air gardening and cleaning up. You get a real sense of satisfaction getting a job completed and being able to see something completed. I have found a new love over the last year – growing food for almost no cost. Today I planted out some of my pea seedlings into my mum’s garden Growing peas. I have found they tend to be quite happy being transplanted if you just plant them toilet roll and all.
The two parsley plants I gave my mum earlier on in the year have grown into almost a giant shrub – I think I might need to find her a few recipes that use a lot of parsley!
15 Days after my resignation
The end of a very long week has finally come and with it my birthday has arrived. All my gifts have been money – I guess people figure I am going to need it soon! Every day at the moment is full of uncertainty over resigning but also full of evidence that I have made the correct decision – it can get very confusing at times. With $26 of my birthday money I have treated myself to fifteen different types of seeds (bought online). They haven’t arrived yet but in the meantime this weekend I will get started on making my newspaper pots. Hopefully that should have all my Xmas presents sorted out as well. My first lot of Green Feast pea seedlings in their toilet rolls are ready to be planted out – will take some of them over to family as well. I have a scrunched up piece of paper in the bottom of each toilet roll that I gently take out as peas don’t like being transplanted. I also cut down one side of the toilet roll as the cardboard will take a while to break down and I don’t want my peas to be constrained. Having things growing gives one a nice feeling of achievement to ward off the resignation blues – it also provides food on the table and can make for relatively cheap gifts.
10 Days after my resignation
It’s hard to believe we have ended up with such a beautiful weekend after all the horrible weather predictions. My peas that I planted on Day 1 after my resignation are thriving in the sunny laundry and their leaves are about to open out flat. It will be time in a few days to plant some more (every fortnight) so that I have a constant supply. Hubby was looking for lettuce yesterday in the fridge and asked in an upset voice why we hadn’t bought any. I told him that from now on his lettuce comes from outside the front door. Hopefully we can keep up with our demand. We went to a school fundraiser last night and won quite a few prizes including a $350 warrant of fitness and car service package – couldn’t be more perfect timing as our vehicle is due a warrant next week and also needs tyre balancing and a service. Our team also won the quiz night which was a nice end to the evening! Hubby was convinced that it was our lucky evening and we would win Lotto also but alas it was not to be. Most of ‘my world’ now knows that I have resigned so I will soon be able to stop having to explain it all the time which will be nice. The weekend has been lovely – I have just relaxed and avoided thinking about my job. However I will need to get some office work done tonight as Monday is looming fast – it is going to be a long week I fear.
8 Days after my resignation
I had a blue day today. Didn’t get much sleep due to the howling wind the night before and while I was lying there I started thinking about work which got me even more wound up until I couldn’t sleep at all. It didn’t make for a great start to the day! It’s hard being at work at the moment being a middle management boss with severe budget cuts – I encouraged my staff this week to think of our team as a family on a strict household budget trying to make the best of the situation rather than letting the financial situation win over us. It’s what hubby and I have done at home over the last few years. By the time I get home each night I am pretty exhausted by the stressful work situation I am presently in. Hubby was there to pick my spirits up at the end of the day – I had no motivation even to eat but he sorted out dinner and cooked Bolognese mince and nachos. Having staple ingredients in the pantry/freezer is essential for blue times – it means you can make a meal to cheer yourself up without getting tempted by takeaways. Watched a $1 rental DVD (hired during the week when they are cheaper), made a shopping list for the morning and went to bed happy to be facing a weekend and a few days break from work.