This has been quite the Summer for me. I’ve had a lot of life changes. Bob and I were married in May, we bought and moved into our first house, I turned 40…and if all that weren’t enough, I was layed off.
You know about the marriage from my last blog. Onto…the house.
We found a lovely, older colonial in a wonderful neighborhood in Leominster. We bought it from a woman who turned 80 the day before I turned 40. She’d lived in the house for almost 48 years and raised a family of 4 children in it. They took such good care of the house…you can tell that it was very lovingly cared for. We’re thrilled! Our big move was on July 30th, though we’d been taking care of stuff in the house and bringing loads up before then. We adore it. The cats adore it. I’m not sure the fact that I’m a home owner has completely sunk in yet but I’m sure it will as soon as we make the first mortgage payment. We also have some great neighbors. We knew some of them before we even bought here, which is so nice! And, I have plenty of time to make it completely ours, which is a nice segue to…
The Layoff. Monster layed off 15% of it’s global work force due to a “restructuring” in order to increase growth, blah blah blah. I was on vacation the week that they did the layoffs and since I didn’t receive a call from home AND I had access to everything, I assumed that I was okay. You know what they say about assuming. Yep. After 8.4 years. I’d barely gotten my butt into my office chair when the SVP was at my desk asking me to come to his office. “Due to restructuring blah blah blah”. I barely paid attention to what he had to say and concentrated on the HR rep explaining my package. Which, honestly, is very good. I can’t complain about it, though I’d prefer to have a job. I walked out of that building with my head held high and without a backward glance. I know that I didn’t do anything to deserve being layed off except make the salary that I made. I’m going to be okay for several months if I can’t find a job and if I do find one while I’m still collecting my severance, we’ll be in very good shape. I’m not even sure if it’s sunk in yet. I’ll miss the people the most. That really is the hardest thing about this. I know that there are some that I’ll stay in touch with. Of course, it’s sunk in that I went to the beach last week and am already planning a beach day this week. And not having to get up to an alarm every day is very nice. But I keep counting how many days I have left, like I used to when I was on vacation. I’m sure that will stop at some point. I look at it like this; I have the time to put my house together and hey, wouldn’t this be a good time to add a dog to the family?
It’s still Summer…and I have people to play with. My bro wants to go to the movies. One of my SILs is a stay-at-home mom. She and her son LOVE to go to the beach and do so at least once a week. Her son will be starting school in September and we’ve talked about a few childless beach days. One of my BFFs is on vacation for the last two weeks of August. She’s going camping during the first week, but she’ll be home and ready to play during the second. My other SIL has Fridays off during the Summer and she suggested a possible Crane’s Beach day. The world is my oyster. Okay, it’s more like the greater Boston area…but that’s still quite an oyster! I’m also thinking about getting a part-time gig somewhere like Petco if I get bored before I can find a good full-time job. It’s right down the street and I’d get to play with all of the guinea pigs and rats, etc. I’d like to have one or two of my own, but I’m not sure that Bob is ready for that. Someday. After all, he’s quite aware of who he married.
So, while being layed off was not my first choice for fun things to do this Summer, especially after buying a house, it’s not the end of the world for me. My husband can add me to his health insurance and I’m in a lot better shape then several of the others that were layed off. I am very lucky and continue to count my blessings, which have been abundant this Summer. I’m very thankful and am very much looking forward to the next chapters.
Just life 