Unpaid Vacations Aren't as Much Fun.

Finding a job is my primary job right now. It is a job that doesn't pay much, but given I have so little experience at it, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. In his book, Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are, Dr. Suess describes a time in your life when you are in "The Waiting Place." That's where I feel I am right now. Waiting for job applications to be seen by the right people. Waiting for that shiny, new job. It sort of feels a bit like hanging around.

Still, we have some cushion time to look for a job without totally ending up on the street, so I feel blessed in many ways. Here is what my typical day is like.

5:00 Wake up.
5:25 Get in the car and drive to Racquetball.
6:00 Play racquetball.
8:00 Drive home.
8:35 Eat a quick breakfast with the younger kids before they go to school.
8:45 Talon time while Jeralynn brings the other kids to school.
9:00 When Jeralynn gets back and takes Talon to get dressed, I finally get a shower and get dressed.
9:20 Clean and dressed, I sit down at my laptop in my office and start reading messages.
10:30 I realize that reading messages as devolved into wasting time on Facebook and I start checking job boards and sending messages to people via email, LinkedIn, or Facebook to find out more about potential jobs.
10:40 Having contacted everyone in my network within the past week, I decide to apply for that one job. The one I'm not sure I'm qualified for but it could be an "opportunity." Or perhaps that job at that place I don't really want to move to, but figure I may as well apply just to get my name out there.
11:45 After spending an hour making a targeted resume and/or cover letter, I take a break when Talon comes to get me for lunch.
12:30 Talon goes to school and I go back to my office.
1:30 After reading news and boring stuff for nearly an hour, I realize I can barely keep my eyes open and go take a nap.
3:00 I wake up when the door slams and Cale is home from Jr. High. I realize I never finished that job application and go send in my application.
4:00 The rest of the kids get home and I'm too distracted to work as I listen to what happened at school or engage in an afternoon snack with them.
5:00 I rush out the door with Cale to basketball practice.
6:15 Getting home late from practice, I eat a quick dinner and get ready for whatever meeting I have that day.
7:00 There's always something. A scout meeting, mutual, round table, etc.
8:15 Get home and call the kids for scripture study.
8:45 Finally have scripture study.
9:00 It's bed time, but we promised we'd read to the kids, so they get to stay up another half hour.
10:00 The kids are finally in bed (if we are lucky) and I go to check my computer one more time to make sure no important messages have arrived since the afternoon.
11:45 Realize I never actually checked my email and have been surfing the news or Facebooking all this time.
Midnight: Crawl into bed and fall asleep almost instantly, exhausted.

So there you have it. A day in the life of the tragically unemployed.

The hard part will be keeping up with life once I start working 40 hours a week again.

Okay, my kid sister always asks a question at the end of her blog posts, to generate feedback. So, what do you do with your free time?