Saturday, September 24, 2011

World Rocked

So on May 16 of this year I was laid off from the company I had worked at for nearly 22 years. My income was most certainly necessary to our family. And now we stand to lose our house; we're going to try to negotiate a short sale but the whole thing is fraught with "ifs" so who knows? We don't even have an interested buyer at this point. This after having our house on the market for over 3 years--we kind of anticipated some potential trouble coming and started trying to sell at fair market value in 2008.

Exactly one week after The Lay-off Day I was offered what sounded like a great opportunity to do contract work. And for the first part of the summer I stayed somewhat busy, and by the hour it pays exceptionally well. However after cancelling our first vacation of the summer because of the layoff and new opportunity, my new colleague / boss absolutely encouraged me to go on our second vacation planned for late July through mid-August. Sami had been so disappointed by not going on the first that we went ahead and went and visited family while staying at our little Iowa acreage. It was a wonderful vacation. Just what we all needed.

However, upon my return it would seem most of my contract work had dried up. I had hoped and expected more of a 40 hour week level of work. And instead it came in sporadically in hour or two here or there increments. And we had tons of unexpected expenses at the acreage during our stay, so my measly (half what it should have been) severance pay was used up. And unemployment hasn't yet kicked in. Scary stuff.

I've sent out dozens and dozens of resumes and applications and the most I've gotten was one phone interview. And trust me, these are jobs perfectly suited to my skill set. I think as a 49 year old woman I'm not even being considered since there are probably so many youthful candidates for the same jobs.

Anyway, for now we still have a roof over our heads and I'm a master at making up meals out of what's in the freezer and pantry. But our financial future is very uncertain. I'll elaborate more on the layoff, and keep this updated now that I (winkety, wink) have a little more time on my hands.