"Are You Over-Committed Again?"

Dear blogging friends, despite popular belief, I did not freeze to death on that last backpacking trip. Nor did I fall into an open manhole, get eaten by the mess in my room or sink into a Downton Abbey-induced coma. I simply got busy. (In the literal sense, not the colloquial... anyway...)

In the last two months, I've started job hunting. I've decided it is not the time to be safe but rather the time to kick myself out of the nest of my current position and pursue my real interests. On top of that, I've started moonlighting an internship with a tech marketing firm in the hopes of learning more about marketing strategy and growing my writing portfolio. All very time consuming!

Last month I also started fencing again (I was on the club team in college). Yes, that's right, +2 nerd factor! On top of that, I dance twice a week, Bible study on Wednesdays, Friday is Friday and the weekends are yard work, house work, adventure trips and family. Hence a good friend asking me last night, "Are you over-committed again?".

Do any of you have this same tendency? There are just so many things that I love doing and not nearly enough hours in the day or days in the week for me to fit them all in! And I miss blogging. I want to come back here and read all your great stuff, comment like a fiend and get up from my computer inspired. Trouble is inspired often leads to more stuff. How do you keep yourself from over-committing? What are the tools you use to keep it all straight?

Preparing For The End of The World - 12.21.12

Because being prepared for anything never hurts, I've put together a Pinterest board for you entitled Survival Gear with some of what I consider to be essential skills in a post-apocalyptic (or just post-EMP attack) America. The planets are about to line up and the Mayan calendar is running out... who knows what will happen??

If the sun is sheered in half by gravitational forces and we all go up in a fireball, I won't be offended if you don't bother to check out the board, but I did go to some trouble to help you prepare, so read up now before the power grid goes dead. See you in the Rockies!


Board Preview:

• Food/non food items to stockpile
• Building shelter
• Medicinal plants and trees
• Knots to know
• Fire starting
• Water gathering/purification
• Emergency kits
• DIY survival gear
• Staying warm and dry

Time to Be Bold... Or Safe?

I have a deeper question for the blogsphere.

To offer some personal stats on myself, I'm 26 years old and unmarried. I'm debt free though savings-poor and driving a car that threatens to demand expensive repairs and/or early retirement. I have been in my in-between job for just over 2 years and am not entirely sure what to do about it. There's the picture, here's my question:

For those of us who graduated from well respected universities and colleges at the beginning of this recession, should we stick with our current jobs that pay the bills or should we branch out boldly, chasing our dreams with companies that may fold, fire us in the sweet name of 'downsizing' or offer lousy benefit packages because of a lousy economy?

In short, I am afraid to leave my current job for a future and hypothetical job because things are uncertain. I may be bored silly at my current job some days, but at least I know where I stand. I know my skills are valued even if I don't find my tasks especially challenging. It's a classic question of stepping into the unknown or playing it safe for a season.

I came into the work force at a scary time... though there have been scary times before me and I know there will be more to come. So is this just a season to play it safe? Or is it time to be bold?

I Think Human Beings Were Meant To Be Farmers

So the post title may be an exaggeration... or is it? I never mentioned this, but I just started a new job in the past month. (yay!!) It's office work, something I've never done full time before, and I've caught myself thinking very grand-scheme-of-life type thoughts as I make copies. I never really saw that coming, but its true. And it all started with a paper cut.

There I was, learning how the fancy copier works, and suddenly, slice. I yelped like I'd just sawed into my finger with a steak knife and immediately felt foolish when I saw the tiny little paper cut on my finger. Why are they always so disproportionately painful anyway? Wow, I thought, my work hazards include paper cuts. What if I was chopping wood as part of my day? I'd probably take off my foot. My brain sort of took off from there.

Remember Little House on the Prairie? HALT. You aren't allowed to think of Michael Landon Jr. or anything related to the TV show. NOTHING! I'm talking about Little House in the Big Woods, On the Shores of Silver Lake and These Happy Golden Years. The books. Remember in Little House in the Big Woods how they basically spent all their time growing food, hunting, preserving their produce, smoking their meat, storing up for the winter, keeping the house snug, making bullets by the fire and chasing away the wolves? I've started thinking about how awesome it would be to work for my living, not for money. As in, in order to live. To eat. To have a roof over my head.

I love Pa's crazy hair! :)

We work to make money so we can buy our food and pay someone else to put/keep a roof over us. I would love to have a go at growing my own food, even raising my own animals to eat them. (gulp...i understand this involves killing them myself...) Living in a house you built has always been enticing for me too. Living in a society where everybody works like that and they trade for what they need amongst themselves sounds pretty great to me. It sounds hard and dead-tiring and messy, but it just seems so much more REAL than getting paper cuts at a copier. (poor copier, I'm not trying to diss you, but you just don't measure up)

Most people will admit they are happiest when they are doing something meaningful. I guess my statement of "human beings were meant to be farmers" is just to say that I think we were all meant to labor in a way that is worthwhile and tests our endurance, character and creativity.