Nothing lights a fire under your butt like a signed lease on an apartment you can’t afford unless you are gainfully employed. 

I’ve been job searching earnestly for about a month now. Me and 400,000 other people.  Marketing jobs are notoriously hard to come by.  Add this crap economy into the mix and it is nearly impossible.  Still, chin up, campers - something will come through.  With my shining positive attitude, razor wit and intrepid personality, who WOULDN’T want to hire me?  Really.

I got my first rejection letter. A friend told me about the position.  She knows the CEO well; she wrote a letter of recommendation that made me blush.  I’ve known one of the business development people for years; she also went to bat for me. The interview went well, I thought - the job was nothing particularly difficult and everything they wanted were things I’ve done a million times over the past 12 years.  I was flexible on salary - I know the base I need to make - and was willing to take less in exchange for flexibility with days/hours.  I did not tell them that - I know you wait until you are offered the job to start negotiating.  Apparently there was someone better than me (I know, unbelievable), and it’s entirely possible they had experience in this industry whereas mine was in a parallel industry.  I have to keep going - I have no choice.

Thankfully I had another headhunter call me today for another position that pays WAY more than I actually need to make to survive, but will probably require way more out of me as well.  It’s hard to let go of being a part-time mom and part-time business person.  However, I must.  Unless the ideal part-time job that pays me well falls from the sky, I’ve got to be prepared to slog into work between 8 and 5 daily and be grateful I even HAVE a job.

I signed a lease on a 1 bedroom apartment about 1/3 mile from our house.  Actually, WE signed a lease.  Since I’m completely dependent on Mike for money, I couldn’t qualify for a lease even if I wanted to.  Oh wait, I do want to.  The apartment is directly across the street from Lily’s school.  In my worst case scenario, if I do not have a job by January, I will pull Arden out of daycare which will free up about half the cost of the apartment per month.  The other half will have to be squeezed (blood from a stone, really) from my business or from thin air.  I looked at our budget; it’s already cut to the bare bones minus some little things that don’t add much to the bottom line. 

Mike and I will share it.  Each of us will do one week and weekend on, living at the house.  The other will be in the apartment.  At the end of 7 days, we’ll switch.  Although it’s about $100 more than some places per month, its location makes up for it.  We haven’t told the kids yet.  I don’t think we’ll have to until right before it happens - preferably after Christmas.  While looking at apartments, the leasing agent kept trying to steer me to the more expensive “upgraded” apartments.  They had granite countertops, polished nickle track lighting and black appliances.  The “unrenovated” apartments are exactly the same, except they have Formica, no microwave and *gasp* WHITE appliances.  I laughed out loud and said, “I’ve had enough granite countertops to last me the rest of eternity.  Formica is FINE.  White is fine.  It’s all fine.” 

It will take approximately 15 minutes to clean the apartment, and that’s being generous on time.  It’s tiny and I’d be even more excited if I didn’t have to keep cleaning the monstrosity, which takes more than a day.  Mike and I are of one mind on the house - we both know it’s a huge anchor pulling us down and we need to cut the chain.  Unfortunately, until the market turns around or we stop paying the mortgage long enough for the bank to take us seriously (and therefore consider doing a short sale), we are stuck with it, and I have a very large bonfire under my butt crackling and spitting and saying, “GET A DAMN JOB, YOU!”

So I’m looking.  If I can cobble enough small projects together, and writing gigs, I can scrape by without selling my soul to The Man again.  My business friends have banded together and are trying to throw me enough scraps to keep me in Ramen noodles (or just a tiny apartment), and I’ve been applying for a ton of freelance project work through a couple of legitimate sites.  I wish I could channel Julie’s old neighbor in the Fan, who was always doing things with Chakras and clicking her fingers together.  Her favorite saying?  “The universe will provide, my friends.  The universe will provide.”

Hey, Universe?  Pay up. I need you now, buddy.