Thursday, April 7, 2011

In which a lot of ideas come together

I kind of went on a queuing rampage on Ravelry. It was a very, very, very quiet day. Bruce and I both spent the day in and out of bed napping and being lazy on the computer. I kept meaning to do more work on my peace sign granny square, but it was such a lazy day! Lately we've both transformed from night loving vampires to being up at dawn and out and about doing stuff all day. I even have the sunburn to show for it. I think today was a much needed catch-our-breath day, although hopefully all the napping won't throw me off and make me nocturnal again. It's nearly 11 and I'm not yet sleepy.

Anyway, I just kept looking at different projects and adding new ones to my favorites and to my queue and now I have 101 projects in my queue! I used to have over 100 not that long ago, but I recently went through and purged all the ones I knew I would honestly never knit. Sometimes I think I use my queue as a favorites list, so in order to make the list more manageable, I moved things I wouldn't actually knit into my favorites and out of my queue. But now I have 101 things I honestly want to knit. Sounds like a quest in the making, no?

It's hard for me to start new projects right now because I have literally no spare money for new yarn or needles. Even though I've been knitting for 4 years, I've have gotten by with surprisingly few needles. It's worse for crochet, I only own one 5mm hook, but since I only just learned, only having one hook isn't a problem . . . yet.

So in order to make this epic queue list a reality, I'm going to need to get creative. I don't have a "real" job at the moment. I do odd jobs every now and then, the kind where someone says "Hey I'll give you $X if you help with with X", but that doesn't pay very well. Bruce's family is very kind to support both Bruce and I in basic ways such as food, a roof over our heads, gas in the car. The general expectation is that one or both of us will get a job (sooner rather than later) so we can transition to supporting ourselves. I've been doing a bit of freelance writing for content farms, which is easy pay but still not very much at all. I'd love to up my writing skills so that I might write for "real" publication one day. I also want to design patterns for sale (I have ideas but am slowed by limited resources to make said ideas come to life) and maybe open an Etsy store as well.

I'm also working on what I call my "honest resume". Instead writing a perfectly formatted, politically correct resume, I'm writing honestly what I'm good at. For example, I do mention my education and where I went to school, but I also honestly say that I have not graduated and prefer to get my education in the real world. I read somewhere that the best resumes are the ones that tell a story about a person. I figure if I do that, and I look in the right places, I'll end up with a job that I actually like and not one where I'm supposed to be a carbon-copy-slave. Some of the first places I plan to apply to once I finish this resume are some local yarn stores and a sweet little alternative bookshop. I don't really want a "normal" job, but all my ideas to work for myself need more creativity and energy to actually get them off the ground so a "normal" job would be a handy stop-gap, at least for a little while. And I do enjoy working as long as I enjoy what I'm doing. I loved all my previous jobs until the novelty wore off and the boring regime set in. I figure if I'm going to work for someone else, I need a job I love so much the novelty never wears off.

There are so many things I could do to get this quest to be able to support myself off the ground, but somehow I get caught up in all the little mundane things in life that stop us from doing what we really want to do. Everyday I do try to be a little productive, but I think I need to infuse some fresh energy into my life. This is one of those moments that I feel like the blurb up at the top of my blog is especially true. So now that I've written out, for all the world to see, my desire to become a fully self-sufficient adult who works for herself, now I have to follow through on it, right?

I think my first step shall be some more tea and some quiet time so I can get to sleep and be energized for tomorrow.

3 AM Edit: Gah, it's 3 AM! Why am I awake??? So much for my intentions to get lots of rest. Chamomile tea isn't working, not even with a lot of nutmeg (which has sedative qualities). I have been getting a bit of writing done, so that's a plus. I guess. Raaaarrrrrr.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like we're pretty much in the same place, only I'm waaaaay older than you are. Hang in there!

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  2. Wow, that's a big Rav queue! Good luck in sorting out what you want to do... I just quit my job as I was working too much, and have found a new job which will hopefully provide more of a life/work balance.

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  3. 3AM...welcome to my world. Go to the Goodwill for yarns, they have some good stuff sometimes and it's way affordable.

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