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Archive for November, 2015

One Year at the New Job

November 19th, 2015 at 01:35 am

Yesterday was my one year anniversary at my new job. So far, so good! Absolutely loving what I do--which is not to say that it is a low-stress job. In fact, we are coming up on the highest-stress time of year for me. I am now the tax planner at a financial advisory firm and year-end is when you can do the most (and most good, hopefully), so it will be a busy few weeks for me. Then things continue busy until after April 15, but not nearly as busy as in a CPA firm!

Since I knew year end would be stressful, I took a weekend in October and went to a bed and breakfast again. Very enjoyable. (Patientsaver, if you read this, this is the one that I had mentioned to you via email.) I was really in the mood to mostly sit and read and write (and take a few walks), but I did force myself out on one sight-seeing expedition: to the Museum at Bethel Woods, which commemorates the Woodstock Festival (which was actually held in Bethel, NY, not Woodstock). I bought a mood ring as a memento--had one back in the 60s, too.

In other happenings: I've now been going to the gym regularly for 5 months. I definitely feel better and look a *little* better, but weight loss progress is slow--about a pound a month. And it's not something I'm going to stress myself out going into busy season. The gym has a holiday deal, which I will go in on: give them an extra $25 next week and weigh in, then weigh in again the first week of January. Maintain your weight or lose over the holidays and you get your $25 back. But gain and your money goes into the pot to be split between the top male and the top female loser (in terms of body fat percent). Who couldn't use a little extra incentive to keep on track over the holidays?

And I took out a HELOC (home equity line of credit) last month on my 10 month anniversary of buying my home. I had some work done on my roof, and in the spring, I need some professional landscaping to restore the area damaged by digging to repair a broken sewer pipe a couple of years ago and to repaint my house, but mostly I am using it to pay down the personal loan I took out earlier this year, since the HELOC is at a better rate. I still will have about 23K in debt to get rid of in the next year & a half before I do any interior cosmetic changes (the kitchen and bath both really could use a refresh), but it's nice to have a bit more liquidity there should I need it.

I'm hoping to feel enough ahead of the game next week to be able to take off the day before and after Thanksgiving (as well as Thanksgiving itself, of course) to give myself some uninterupted time at home to work on decluttering and home organization. That is the goal for the year that I have made the least progress on, and I'd like to keep the needle moving on all five fronts. After that, I'll be working through to year end, with Christmas and New Year's Days off, and half-days on the eves of those two holidays.

In 2015, virtually all my time off was in the second half of the year--I had one sick day in February, and I took off the day after Memorial Day, but all the rest of my time off was July or after. Next year, I'll try to balance it a bit more evenly throughout the year, leaving time again for a one-week vacation in the summer. Next year will probably be to Los Angeles, my hometown, as it is four years ago on Thanksgiving since I saw my sister, who has been having a bit of a rough time herself, so she has not been traveling either.