Friday, June 8, 2012

Changes, mostly good ones

A few of the things that have changed between today and 3 months ago. Now:

- I paint my own toe nails.

- My blackberry's battery is almost always dead.

- On Sunday, I only prepare dinner for Sunday.

- I no longer wince when checking my email or answering my work phone.

- I don't worry about, think about, or do work outside of work. It is astonishing what a difference this has made in my personal life.

- My insomnia is better and I no longer buy mega sized bottles of excedrin.

- We failed to pay off a monthly credit card bill for the first time ever.

- I am stressed the f- out about the above, though it was a crazy combination of expensive events that caused it to happen and we have a short repayment plan. I'm trying to find comfort in the fact that the number of things that are left to break keeps getting smaller.

- I live in an old house.

- I plan to take days off and then I do not work on those days.

- We no longer eat out twice a week.

- When I leave work at 4:00 on a day when I arrived at 7:30, I don't feel any need to tell people I see on my way out that I worked my 8.0 hours, nor does anyone seem to want to know.

- I wake up before the sun.

- No one talks about how many hours they billed in the last day, month, year.

- I read far fewer blogs and have terrible delays on personal email replies.

- I take far fewer breaks at work.

- I share my bathtub with bugs.

- I mop our floors.

- I no longer bookmark vacation websites.

- I don't know how to get anywhere except for the places I know exactly how to get to.

- I live in "north" Texas.

- I have to buy a diet coke at lunch.

- Everyone here has 3 kids. Everyone.

- I keep obsessive track of my hours of accumulated annual leave (i.e., earned days off).

- I no longer find joy and comfort in checking our savings account balance.

- At my check-up today my blood pressure was back to the 102/56 it was when I was in high school and college.

- I spend at least 2x the amount of weekday time with my kids and enjoy the hell out that whole extra x of time.

6 comments:

  1. Sounds pretty dang good to me. Some of these (blood pressure, insomnia improvement, leaving work at work) are really indicative of positive change. I don't know you, but I'm happy for you! So glad you get to see your sweet kids more!

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  2. On the whole, you sound so happy with this change!

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  3. 3 is definitely the new 2 here in N. Texas!

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  4. I remember having to buy my sodas at lunch really made an impression on me when I left my big firm. I didn't realize how spoiled I had become!

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  5. Sounds like it was been a good quality-of-life choice moving to Fort Worth, but I would definitely prefer my life without buggies in the bathtub. Gives me the shivers.

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  6. On the whole, some great changes. And many of the same ones that I fully expect if/when I make a job change myself! Really enjoy reading about the comparisons between life at the firm and the SEC. Good stuff, LL.

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