Looking for Work

Lately I've been looking on the internet for a new job. I've been successfully self employed for 13 years up until I suffered the loss of my retail store in 2004. I've spent the last 3 years working with the insurance company and lawyers, and working on two outstanding Interior Design projects. I've recently completed a commercial project and am now wrapping up my last large residential project.

Rather than start all over, get out and network, take on lots of small projects to rebuild a business, I think I'd prefer to go to work for someone else.

I know that I am a really good designer, I know that I'm a good mentor for other designers, I work really well with clients and have a strong business background. Yet, while I'm searching the classifieds, I feel inadequate, out of date, and insignificant.

I find myself applying for work that I'm overqualified for and, although I'm applying, feeling intimidated by the positions that I'm interested in. I recognize that my computer skills are out of date, and that there are many new computer programs that Interior Designers are using that I'm not familiar with. I recognize that employers are wanting experience in Auto Cad, and my only experience is self taught. I know enough CAD to put together my clients drawings, and do presentations, but am not familiar with the complete program as it could be used.

Additionally, I lost my portfolio in the store flood and didn't bother to replace it. I would need to return to clients that I haven't worked with in years to get some photographs. I stopped taking on new clients after the flood, primarily because I was overwhelmed by the incredible amounts of information required by the insurance company, having to relocate and downsize my company, and, by the fact that I was anemic and unable to perform my job at full capacity.

Anyway, it feels depressing and discouraged. I don't know whether I should start my business all over again, or seek employment that I don't feel equipped to do, or secure employment that I'm overqualified for. I'm very uncomfortable being in a position of not knowing what to do next. I'm certainly an action oriented person, but, when I don't know what action to take I feel stuck.

In the meantime, I've updated my resume and am submitting it those companies I feel intimidated by. I've also updated my business cards and will purchase the products I'm needing to have them printed. And, since some action is better than no action, I will begin by handing a stack of my cards to each of the clients that I am in the process of completing, letting them know that I am looking for new clients. Finally, I am going to act as if I am rebuilding my business and if God sees otherwise for me, I will be happy to take whatever path he shows me.

A Whirlwind of Activity

Its been three weeks now since my husband and I signed on with a realtor to either sell or lease our home. Fortunately, we were able to find a tenant within ten days and they were prepared to move in by the first of December. This gave us two weeks to pack, reduce our belongings from 4,000 square feet to 1,000, move, and prepare the house for rental.

We've began packing our bags, scheduled an estate sale, and moved into our (much!) smaller home. We scheduled inspections with the city, contacted an organization to remove most of the items which didn't sell at our estate sale, packed items we decided to keep after they didn't sell at the estate sale, and moved them into our (much!) smaller home.

We had decided that if the living room furnishings didn't sell we would keep it and put it in our new home. Its larger scale than I prefer, but, it saves us the cost of buying new. Even as I write this last statement, I realize how absurd that can sound. I'm a designer, and, thus, an absolute perfectionist about my home, its layout, color, proportions, etc. This furniture is extremely high end, and, I would not be able to purchase anything even remotely as nice (see photo). Anyway, the living room furniture didn't sell, so, I hired two men and a truck to help us move it.

Finally, the inspector didn't show up for his meeting on Wednesday, but showed up Thursday afternoon, creating a lot of drama and stress for today. He determined that all of the gfi's need to be replaced, and all of the outlets need to be changed over to 2 wire because we don't have a ground wire for the 3 prong. That's 44 outlets needing to be changed over! Additionally, we don't have a ground for the gfi in the master bathroom and will need to remove some tiles in order to tie it in with the cold water pipe. This project requires an electrical permit to be pulled and everything replaced - by today! We called our electrician and he immediately came over to help, he pulled the permit this morning and the inspector agreed to come back by the end of today and approve the electrical work if it was done. Hopefully, and incredibly, it appears that we are going to be able to make the deadline in order for the tenants to move in tomorrow morning. Whew!

While my husband oversees the remaining cleaning, painting, and electrical work today, I am at our new home unpacking, organizing, and locating furniture.

This past week our unexpected expenses included auto repairs of $500, electrical work of $500 plus, furnace repairs of $700 plus, and moving company expenses of $350. Amazingly we had this money available due to the estate sale!

As I sit here writing this post I wonder if others can see how quickly God helped us to (literally) move in our lives. When we became entirely ready to whatever it took to help us get out of debt, and took the first step, God supported our decision. One month ago neither my husband nor I had any intention of moving to our condo, yet, the moment we became ready to take action, and opened our minds to the changes we were shown to take, God immediately supported us in our decision and made sure that we had everything available to make the changes, and meet the demands that came up along the way. Thank you God!

Getting Settled

My husband and I are still in the process of moving our things to our condo. We began sleeping at our condo on Wednesday evening and have been unpacking boxes daily.

We held the estate sale this weekend, Saturday and Sunday and were able to sell most of the large furnishings and a lot of the smaller miscellaneous items. The sale grossed $8500. After paying the estate company we made $5300.

Earlier this week a client of mine decided to purchase a piece of artwork for $5600. I don't want to get my hopes up too high though until I see the check.

Additionally my husband has been booked to do a lot more performances than he would normally do, so he is bringing in additional acting income.

It seems like all avenues have been opened up for our prosperity. Our plan is to get ourselves financially prepared for me to have my surgery and take six to eight weeks off of work, and to reduce our debts.

Our move won't be complete until the end of this week when we've moved the remaining furnishings out of of home, donated the smaller items still in the house, prepared the home for the renters, and moved a few pieces of furniture to our new condo.

Our renters are moving in this coming Saturday. Fortunately, they attended the estate sale and purchased our bedroom furniture, office furniture and one of our twin beds. In other words, these items won't need to be moved.

I'm really looking forward for things to start calming down a bit and getting settled into our new home, and beginning to collect rent to help us reduce our bills.

Ch. . .ch.... ch. . . ch. . . Changes!

Wow, there are a lot of things happening for us right now. . . . .

1. We've scheduled an Estate Sale for this coming weekend and what an incredible amount of work this requires. I realize that the company I hired is supposed to take care of everything, but, we still have to go through everything to make sure we want to sell it. There are several thing that we had overlooked thinking that we had searched through everything. Yesterday the people were here to begin setup of the sale, while they were unpacking they pulled out boxes and boxes of basketball cards that my kids have saved from when they were little. My husband and I went online to see what a couple of them were worth we came across one that was valued at $300! The problem is that there are thousands of these cards and they aren't priced, they aren't our cards to sell, and neither of my kids has the ability to research prices right now. We've decided to just pack them back up and take them to someone we know who deals in cards to see what their value is.

2. We're still packing to move down to our condo downtown. This has been fairly difficult only because both my husband and I are sick right now. Packing is not my favorite thing to do, I have a tendency to under pack and my husband over packs. Hopefully we'll be able to balance this out. I've recently learned that the small storage unit we have at the condo is not accessible right now due to asbestos in the area of the unit.

3. We've found a renter for our home and will be meeting with the realtor this evening to review the contract. This has been incredibly fast, yet, we had three families a day coming through our home to look at it. This renter will be moving in on the first of December so we need to make sure the house is in top shape for that to happen.

4. Our furnace needs to be repaired. We knew this was coming, but, my husband and I have been tolerating the furnace problems. Today they came out and quoted a minimum of $500+ to replace a few parts and bleed the lines. I'm crossing my fingers on this project because I know it could go into a lot more expenses than what is being quoted. We'll have to wait and see. Thank goodness we have that $1000 emergency fund though.

5. We'll be having Thanksgiving at our new home. I hadn't been planning on it until one of my sisters called to find out where we were meeting. I'm aware she has nowhere to go so I invited her to join us for dinner. After inviting her though I realized I needed to invite my other sisters also. It ends up that we'll be having two of my sisters, my brother in law, one of my sons, and possibly my granddaughter for dinner. I only have place settings for 4 at the condo so we'll be using paper plates (at least my husband and I will), and some plastic silverware. Fortunately we do have enough seating for everyone and we have an amazing view to look out at while we eat. (Photo on post is the view from our front window)

Both my husband and I are starting to get a bit excited about moving, and we're very tired at the same time. Of course there remains to be a lot of things to do, not just in the packing, but in the unpacking and furnishing of the condo. Our furniture from the large house doesn't translate into this smaller space and we're short one bed, some living room furnishings, and an area rug on a concrete floor. Additionally, there's a bit of construction work remaining to be done and we'll need to put up some window treatments for the neighbors across the way.

I'm most especially looking forward to reducing our monthly overhead expenses! Fortunately the cost for heat is included in our association fees and we are only responsible for our electrical expenses.

Packing Our Bags

Last week my husband and I met with a realtor, again, and signed a contract to put our home on the market for lease with option. He looked at both of our homes, let us know which he felt he could rent the soonest, and gave us rental prices for both homes.

If I haven't mentioned it before, our largest home has been on and off the market for the past three years. Our price went from $390,000 down to $330,000 with no offers. Recently, we were told our home would sell for approximately $260,000. Unfortunately our mortgage is for $318,000 and we're not in a financial position to take any losses, let alone that size of a loss.

Our second home is an 1100 square foot loft on the river in Downtown Detroit. It is in a high rise building with valet and amazing water views all around. I've wanted to move down there, but, we were thinking we would rent it on an executive rental program. The condo is already partially furnished, has all the needs for kitchen and bath, and is only in need of a few pieces of furniture.

I've been packing what we plan to take with us and my husband's been cleaning the home top to bottom. Tomorrow we have 2 couples scheduled to view our home at the rental price of $1595 per month, $100 of which would go to our rental company for management fees. Our current payment with taxes and insurance is $3000.

With the renting out of our home we will not only have an additional $1495 coming in monthly, but, we'll be eliminating our monthly utilities. In the winter, these utilities can total up to $500 - $700.

We will be responsible for any maintenance situations that come up, and, I already know they will be coming up. There are also some repairs that will need to be taken care of right away, our furnace isn't working on the upper level, some areas of the house need repainting, window repairs, etc.

We'll be moving from approximately 3000 square feet down to 1100 square feet so we need to get rid of a lot of things. I've scheduled a meeting with an estate sale company to see about selling all of our furnishings, kitchen items, linens, toys, etc. Hopefully, they will be interested and available to make something happen quickly.

Whoops, spoke too soon when I said quickly! I met with the Estate Sale company and they're going to hold the sale November 24th and 25th! They'll be coming over on Monday morning to begin setting up the sale. I'll be spending the weekend packing those items I plan on taking to my loft.

I've called my kids to see if they're wanting anything before I sell it all. They'll be coming over tomorrow evening to celebrate my husband's birthday and hopefully take whatever they are wanting.

I've delayed my surgery that was originally scheduled for November 21st, primarily because I wouldn't be able to pay my house payments if I was off work. I haven't set aside enough money to be able to take off six to eight weeks to recuperate, and I don't want to feel afraid while I'm trying to recover.

I feel certain that with all the changes my husband and I have been making that we are well on our way to becoming debt free. I'm in a place where I feel willing to do whatever it takes to pay off all this debt.

While all this is going on, I've decided to return to my doctor and ask for help (again) with my eating disorder. I struggle with my eating constantly. I'm neither anorexic or bulimic, but I do have a problem that I need to deal with. I've committed to my doctor that I would attend Overeaters Anonymous (again) and make additional efforts to deal with this problem.

Does it sound like I'm taking on too much? It does to me, but, I'm not doing anything that doesn't need to be done. I need money and I need to take better care of myself.