Christmas Around Here

The holidays are a bit more mellow for us this year than in the past.  No place of our own, not much money for gifts, and dinner is being postponed a few days due to family travel.  But the timing of job interviews and so on has allowed us to relax a bit, which is all I can ask for.

Ashley over at The Accidental Olympian posted some (AWESOME) photos of what Christmas looks like to her, and set up a little linky doo-dad for folks to share their images too.  The apartment doesn't look like Christmas at all (right now, it looks like a pharmacy exploded in here what with all the cold remedies and kleenex boxes laying around).  

A bowl of Clementines and holiday beer caps is about as festive as it gets up here!

But downstairs in the main house the holiday spirit is in full swing.

And outside is the winter wonderland usually seen in NE Ohio this time of year.

Personalize a greeting

Positive Outlooks

I think it's a sign that we're doing the right thing when:

On the first day of our drive back to Ohio, I get a call to set up an interview...
On the last day, B gets a call to set up an interview too...
The sun shines, the roads are mostly clear, and we only encounter bad weather in the last 20 minutes of the whole trip...
And the cats are absolute angels in the car for the entire four days.

It's true!  My interview was last Tuesday (I know, I'm way behind with the updates) and it went really well.  B's was Friday, and it went really well too.  We probably won't hear anything else until after the holidays - I do know that I'll have a second interview then, and the job B applied for would start in January, so he'll hear a definite answer soon.  The catch is, B's is in Toledo, and mine is here in the Cleveland area - for those who don't know Ohio geography, they're two hours apart.  So we'll have to make a decision, but for now we're just going to enjoy the holidays.  

***

Driving around town, running errands or Christmas shopping, I keep seeing empty storefronts in really great areas.  It keeps reminding me of an idea I've had in the back of my mind for many years now - I want to have a little shop.  At first it was a little gift shop, with custom framing and local artists mixed in with collectibles and cards, located in a little cottage in the tourist district of a beach town.  I still think that'd be fun, but switch it to a craft shop with beads and yarn instead of the custom framing, and offering classes and perhaps a club of some sort, a sort of local co-op for crafters and artists to interact.  My friend Julie is a crafty bitch (or witch... literally!) like me, and she made a comment to me once about "subversive crafting" which I thought might be a fun name for a shop.  Then today I commented back on something she'd written, saying I was a "fickle crafter," which I think is a good one too.  I think with that one, I would have the opportunity to offer a wider variety of things - "when you can't decide what to create" or something like that. My heart was always set on a beach town, like Seaside, or even Port Townsend, but seeing some of the places around here that are open made me realize that I could do this anywhere, any time.

For right now, I've got my little Etsy shop up and running.  An idea like this takes capital, which I absolutely do not have.  So it'll sit on the back burner, simmering away, while I add new ideas and start saving some money.  

There and Back Again

In case you missed it on Twitter or Facebook, B and I are heading back to Ohio this week.  It wasn't a simple decision - a lot of things were taken into consideration.  But it all boils down to finding work, and unfortunately we're not finding it here.  It's easiest to explain it this way:

1. Yes, we have a free place to stay here, which is awesome.  However...
2. ... it's over an hour outside the city, so getting a temporary job is impossible.
3. And no, we don't want to get a rental while we work temp jobs, that'd be pretty pointless.
4. Between the two of us, we've applied for over 40 jobs out here...  
5. ...and between the two of us, we've had THREE interviews, two for jobs that we didn't take for our own reasons, and the third, well, B got hosed.  It's been more than just frustrating, let me tell you.
6. My unemployment benefits run out at the end of January, so it's sh*t-or-get-off-the-pot time.
7. On top of all this, our free place to stay is COLD.  I don't mind the snow, but when it's below zero outside and we can't keep it warmer than 50 degrees inside... something's gotta give.

Now, back in Ohio:

1. We also have a free place to stay, which is also awesome.
2. This free place to stay is actually WARM, with a gas fireplace even!
3. It's also located right in the heart of the suburbs, surrounded on all sides by places to get temp jobs.
4. B already has a temp job lined up out there, at the ski resort he used to work at.
5. All of our stuff is still out there, so we'd actually be able to use our winter coats and snow boots, among other things.

But the kicker is this: the government is currently handing out millions of dollars in grants toward the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which means there are more watershed-type projects being started there, which means more jobs in B's field.  He's put in applications for a few already, including one with the group he did his internship with.  So the chances of B starting his career are pretty darn good out there.  And we've gotten the impression that the Northwest won't be hiring any transplanted Midwesterners anytime soon.

So we're loading back up, cats and dog and suitcases (plus a few more things that my aunt was storing for me), and heading back east.  I never would have thought it was possible to feel disappointed and excited all at the same time.

On and on

Not much new to report.  Mom headed to Arizona a couple weeks ago so we've moved into her little house, much to the joy of the pets.  Jake has the couch, the cats can play race-cars up and down the long hallway, and we have a real bed to share with all three of them.  It's staying warm enough inside (surprising, since we're relying solely on portable electric heaters) and there's snow on the mountains across the river today.

We're both still applying for jobs like crazy - the job interview in Bend went well, but afterwards I realized that I really wouldn't fit in at the company (six people, all hard-core liberal hippies, and me, an only slightly left-leaning Republican... kinda hard to hide your differences in an office so small), and that B would have to take a job completely outside his realm.  It would have been miserable for me and unfair to him, so we decided to keep looking.  So, here we are, still looking.  I have a handful of applications out that I'm really hopeful about, and B has a couple to apply for this week that would be awesome too.  We have days where we just ignore the fact that we're unemployed and essentially homeless and just sit with a book and a crochet project and veg out.  Then we have days where we just want to scream and give up.  Mix in a couple completely productive get-shit-done days and that's where we are.  It's draining.

But we've been spending time with my long-lost friends and family, getting reacquainted with my hometown, and enjoying the scenery, if not the inconveniences of living in the sticks.  We drove past the house I grew up in a few days ago, which I was incredibly nervous about.  Mom had to sell the house a few years ago when she realized she couldn't take care of it by herself anymore, and the impression I'd gotten was that the people that bought it we're taking very good care of it.  In reality, it was just a matter of different taste - they painted it a dark pine-green-gray color with white trim, as opposed to the light gray with blue trim that Mom and Dad had liked, and they fenced a portion of the side yard for their dog and to keep the deer out of their sizeable vegetable garden.  I was surprised to find how much I liked what they'd done to it.  

I drove though my college campus too, which has grown tremendously since I was a student nine years ago.  I haven't visited my old high school yet, and I kind of want to catch a football game there to try and catch up with the coaches and teachers that are still there that I knew and loved.  It's been quite a trip down memory lane, and exciting to see how much the city has changed.  To think, all those years ago I couldn't wait to leave, and now I'm actually glad to be here.