The Dog Ate My Wallet

Article

Sunday Evening Post #94

Class of 94 in the house! Yes, I’m dating myself.

Slowly getting ourselves into a new routine, but I think that routine will mean that the Sunday evening post will now go up at almost, or just after, midnight, east coast time, as we spend Sunday evenings doing “family” stuff, so I won’t be on my computer until after SP is in bed.

Blogging

The purpose of these two goals is, yes, to grow my blogs, but also to support and highlight blogs and bloggers I enjoy. Just like I will be posting 2 new to me blogs every week in my round ups, the point here is to draw attention to blogs that others might not be familiar with. (Blog swaps will not count toward either of these goals.)

Write one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- yes

March- no

April- no

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

March- no

April- no

April turned out to be not any better than March when it came to getting guest blogging done or posted. With my certification out of the way hopefully I’ll get my act together in May.

I do have a request in with one blogging friend to write a guest post for me, so hopefully I’ll get that up this month.

Writing

Writing fiction is my side hustle, though I have yet to make any money from it. I’ve found that I devote much more time to the blogs than I do my fiction, though, because I am on a schedule. I feel accountable to my readers to get posts up when I say I will. And because I am a procrastinator, deadlines are a must for me. I get the energy I need to work on something from an impending deadline.

I am hoping to transfer the power of those two things- accountability and deadlines, to my fiction this year.

Submit at least one piece to a paying venue per month.

December: Yes (rejected)

January: Yes (rejected)

February: Yes x4 (2 rejections)

March: No

April: Yes

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits. I actually got some writing in this last week. I’ll try and repeat that this coming week.

Finances

A lot of financial goals will actually end up as floating goals- ie they will be things I expect to complete well before the year is out. But I do have some long term financial goals that I think will work for year-long tracking.

Create and track a practice stock portfolio. The Dow hit a new high again, so I’m looking forward to the May report.

End the year “on budget” in the categories I’m tracking.

May Numbers

Category	On Budget
Category	Month	Year
Groceries	Yes	No
House	No	No
Eating Out	Yes	No
Allowance – E	Yes	No
Allowance – C	Yes	Yes

Grocery spending will be up this month as we get used to having another mouth to feed and need to stock up on things like school snacks. And because eating out is one month delayed (paying on the credit card and all) we will likely be back on budget by next month, as we have yet to eat out this month and aren’t likely to do so soon.

Floating Goals

Find a new job. Interview on Tuesday. Meeting with an agency on Wednesday. Sit down with my career coach on Friday. I’m feeling good.

Replace all the windows in the house. We decided to go with the vendor we met with on Wednesday, mostly because they are the only vendor in the area who can actually retrofit vinyl windows to our house (currently we have old aluminum windows). This means now cutting away of the siding, and no framing of the windows, which we would then have to paint.

Fix the plumbing issues. We have a number of little plumbing issues all of which we really need to get fixed.

Get an Exterminator. Ant season seems to have passed. I still want to get someone out, but it’s less urgent at the moment. And since the ants always come in at the windows, it’s possible replacing the windows will end the ants.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. One of my goals for my “down time” is to start working on this project. Sadly, my down time hasn’t been very down.

Refinance the house. DONE.

Earn my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. DONE.

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. We’re up to $8,075. I’m calling this DONE. (Though savings will actually grow considerably over the next 24 weeks as I get severance and hopefully a new regular paycheck.

Date: 12/05/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Category: Sunday Evening Post, Uncategorized Bookmark: Permalink

Article

My Big News

I cannot show you a picture of SP,but this is from the rhododendron species garden where we took her last weekend.

Shocker #1 – This post is going up ON TIME.

Shocker #2 – The reason my posts have been late for the last week (and why my life is suddenly very crazy) is that there is now a small person living in my house.

I cannot tell you much about Small Person (SP) other than that she is a girl and is about 9.5 years old, and is a foster child. There are legal limits, you see. I can also tell you that she is sweet, loves the dogs, and has more winter coats than you would want to shake a stick at. (You could shake a stick at all of them, but you would get tired doing so.) And this is for a child who lives in the Seattle area. It doesn’t even get all that cold here.

So, yes, my finances will be changing even more than I was expecting them to. I will soon be getting severance, unemployment, and a small stipend from the state. However, we will also have another (albeit small) mouth to feed, and perhaps some summer expenses- like camp. (Though we may be able to get that reimbursed). I expect we will also be getting a family membership to the local Y and buying a family membership to the Aquarium, possibly the zoo, too.

Luckily, we don’t need to spend a lot of money on stuff for her because the child came with a ridiculous amount of stuff. She’s been in foster care for a few years and has had generous foster families. She has been described as a fashionista, and looking at all of her clothes (and there are a LOT of them), I can believe it.

SP has been with us only a little over a week, and because of the circumstances under which she came into our care, we are not yet talking permanency with her, though C and I are both hoping that is where we go, as are all the social workers involved. But, it will take time, so time is what we will give her.

In the meantime, my life appears to be laundry and dishes, meetings with social workers and reading aloud at bedtime. I need to work in some time to apply for jobs (okay, I am already doing that), and get myself on a writing schedule for both blogs and fiction.

But life is good, crazy good, but good. Please forgive me if I am not the best blogging friend for a while, as we all figure out our new normal.

Date: 09/05/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Category: Everyday Finances Bookmark: Permalink

Article

Time Management Fail

You may have noticed that I appear to have lost all of my time management skills. It certainly feels that way to me, even though I know exactly how crazy life has been here, and that I am, in fact, managing to get a lot of things done every day, including all the actually necessary and important items. I love blogging, but truth be told, since it is not how I pay my bills, nor how I intend to pay my bills, posts can go up late by a few hours or a few days.

And so while I feel good about everything I am getting done, I do feel a little bad that I am letting my blogs, well, this blog in particular, pay the price. Last night, I wrote a post for Life by Pets, but chose not to write one for this blog, on the theory that I would write one during the day. The thing is, I knew, even as I was making that decision, it would not happen. How did I know that? Because I knew what my schedule today looked like.

Right now, I am trying to figure out a new routine. Because of the crazy that is our current life, it may take a week or two to settle, but our morning routine is coming together, so I hope the rest will fall into place soon.

One of the things I am realizing is that I, like children and dogs, do best when I have a routine. I don’t mind the occasional vacation where I do not have to punch a clock, but as a long term plan, it just won’t work for me. And given that, I cannot work a “work from home” job. I just can’t. I am not good enough at managing my time when there are a hundred little things (like putting away laundry) that I could be doing instead of working. Well, that and Bejeweled Blitz.

Going to an office makes it easier for me to put aside everything else and focus on work, or other tasks I set myself. Being at home makes it easier for me to decide that I can do something else instead.

So, please bear with me as I figure out the new “normal”, and adapt my time management skills to my new world.

Date: 07/05/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Category: On the Job, Writing Bookmark: Permalink

Article

Sunday Evening Post #93

It has been a crazy, crazy week. I am glad to officially no longer be employed so that I can be pretty lazy this next week and not feel guilty about it. Not that I’m going to get to be that lazy, but I’m going to try.

Blogging

Write one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- yes

March- no

April- no

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

March- no

April- no

April turned out to be not any better than March when it came to getting guest blogging done or posted. With my certification out of the way hopefully I’ll get my act together in May.

Writing

I am hoping to transfer the power of those two things- accountability and deadlines, to my fiction this year.

Submit at least one piece to a paying venue per month.

December: Yes (rejected)

January: Yes (rejected)

February: Yes x4 (2 rejections)

March: No

April: Yes

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits.

Finances

Create and track a practice stock portfolio. The Dow hit a new high again, so I’m looking forward to the May report.

End the year “on budget” in the categories I’m tracking.

May Numbers

Category	On Budget
Category	Month	Year
Groceries	Yes	Yes
House	Yes	No
Eating Out	Yes	No
Allowance – E	No	No
Allowance – C	Yes	Yes

Right now, my new laptop is being charged against my allowance, without any money from the bonus offsetting it. I may change that. We may also make some changes to our monthly amounts coming up due to severance and unemployment.

Floating Goals

Find a new job. Thanks to my career coach, I have a really strong resume. I liked it before, but now I’m really happy with it.

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. We’re up to $5,375.

Replace all the windows in the house. We got the information for the vendor Direct Buy contracts with for window replacement. Next step will be to get someone out to give us a quote. Wednesday, we will have a competing company give us a quote, so that we’ll know if we’re really saving money by going through Direct Buy.

Fix the plumbing issues. We have a number of little plumbing issues all of which we really need to get fixed.

Get an Exterminator. I have ants in my kitchen and my bedroom. They need to go.

Publish new photography/flash fiction book. My artist is in. Now we just need to start working out the logistics. I will be back in contact with her this week and hopefully we’ll start working on it.

Refinance the house. DONE.

Earn my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. Passed.

Date: 05/05/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink

Article

Random Saturday Networking

One of the main points of the training I went through this last week was networking with a purpose. You would think I would be good at this, and I am, but only half way. I love meeting new people. I love making new connections that could become friends. And I enjoy talking to people about what they do and what they want to do.

What I am not good at is the “with a purpose” part. I do not like asking people I know and am friends with, if they know of a job that might be right for me. With really close friends, I can have conversations kind of like that, but generally they volunteer the information first (you know, because they’re my friends). But asking people I know and am friendly with, but who aren’t really close friends- I don’t want to do that, because it feels like I am trying to take advantage of the relationship.

In a sense, I am a “typical” female in that I am perfectly willing and able to ask for other people, just not myself. (This goes back to the research on women and negotiating. Women are actually better negotiators than men when we are negotiating for someone else, but when it comes to asking for ourselves, we’d just rather not.)

My career coach gave me some suggestions for getting over this- mostly to focus on asking people about their companies and the work they do, not actually asking them if they know of a job for me. There’s still a bit of a mental block for me because I know my intent, even if it’s not made explicit to them, but we’ll see what I can do.

On the other hand, I know I need to start going to some APICS events in the Seattle area. That’s the professional organization for operations managers that I joined and that grants the certification I just received. Obviously this is networking I should be doing, and I don’t really have the mental block talking to people I have just met about jobs that I do talking to my friends and my friends’ friends.

But just to practice, since most of my readers are my friends in one way or another, (and since I also know that most of you don’t live in the Seattle area, and therefore won’t be able to be much help anyway), here’s my summary statement from my resume-

APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional with extensive operations and administrative experience– including financial reporting, strategic analysis, process improvement and IT project management -capped with a technology and innovation focused education in business administration, research and communication.

Know of any companies that might be hiring for what I do?

Date: 04/05/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Tags: career coach, job search, networking Category: Networking, On the Job Bookmark: Permalink

Article

Crazy

Life has gone crazy on us (in a good way). With luck, I’ll be able to get a real post up late tonight.

Date: 02/05/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Category: Uncategorized Bookmark: Permalink

Article

My Last Week of Work

This is officially my last week of work. I will be “at work” more often this week than I was last week (when I showed up for a pot luck), but not much more. Today I met with my boss to go over the final transition plan, and Friday morning I’ll be going in for bagels and to turn in my badge, keys, credit card and remote access key fob. Plus, I’ll officially say goodbye to everyone that day.

Goodbyes will be hard. Any time I have left a job, the hardest part has always been leaving the people. I have been blessed to work with a great group of people, and I will miss them.

At the same time I am looking forward to the official end of my position, of not feeling like I should be checking my email and being held in the past while I am trying to work on my future. I have accepted that this is the path I am on and I am ready to fully embrace it.

In addition to the actual work items this week, I spent this morning in a training session with the career counseling company that is part of my severance package. I have to work on my resume this evening and go back for another full day session tomorrow. Then on Friday, I go in again to meet with my assigned career coach.

I am not exactly certain how much I am going to get out of the training sessions, but I figure it never hurts to have a professional help me with my resume and job search. I am being picky about where I apply for jobs, so perhaps some training on how to really target companies that I want to work for will be really useful for me.

I considered not going through the transition counseling, but I might as well take advantage of all the benefits my (former) company is offering. It certainly is not going to hurt my chances of getting a new job to go through this training and coaching, and it may very well help tremendously.

On some level, I have felt busier last week and this week than I’ve felt at work in a long time. I think that’s because right now, I am working specifically on my future, being active about what I want to do and seeking new challenges, instead of going into the office and dong the same old same old every day. I love being challenged, and the routine nature my job had gotten into would have had me actively looking for new work this summer regardless.

At least this way, I get unemployment, severance, and career counseling while I make looking for the right new job my primary goal, instead of having to fit it in around doing other work.

So yeah, it’s my last week of work for now. And I am ready for the new adventure to begin.

Date: 30/04/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Tags: career counseling, career transitioning, job search, lay offs Category: On the Job Bookmark: Permalink

Article

Sunday Evening Post #92

Once again this is going up late, though not as late as last week. I had meant for it to go up earlier, but Junebug had to stay overnight at the vet’s, and we weren’t able to go pick her up until after 3pm today. But as always, it took us over an hour to go, hear from the vet that she still can’t really be diagnosed (because she remains a medical mystery).

During the day, I spent most of my time working on my resume and trying to craft a cover letter for Valve, a very unique game/entertainment company here in the Seattle area. It has a totally flat structure, with no managers. It is an intriguing setup, one I would love to get a chance to work in, but it does not really call for the standard cover letter.

Blogging

Write one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- yes

March- no

April- no

Publish one guest post per month.

January- yes

February- no

March- no

April- no

April turned out to be not any better than March when it came to getting guest blogging done or posted. With my certification out of the way hopefully I’ll get my act together in May.

Writing

I am hoping to transfer the power of those two things- accountability and deadlines, to my fiction this year.

Submit at least one piece to a paying venue per month.

December: Yes (rejected)

January: Yes (rejected)

February: Yes x4 (2 rejections)

March: No

April: Yes

Complete the first draft of my novella and start edits.

Finances

Create and track a practice stock portfolio. I am still up in April, though not as much as I was in March.

End the year “on budget” in the categories I’m tracking.

April Numbers

Category	On Budget
Category	Month	Year
Groceries	No	No
House	Yes	No
Eating Out	No	No
Allowance – E	No	No
Allowance – C	Yes	Yes

The credit cards have been paid, and we are over budget for the month. A good part of that comes from buying my laptop and all the eating out I mentioned last week.

Floating Goals

Find a new job. I have not heard anything from either position, which makes me think there may be something going on at the school of medicine that is holding things up. I have an email in to the recruiter for one of the positions and hope to hear something this week. I also have training set up with the career transitioning service my current company is paying for as part of my severance package.

Rebuild savings to $5-10k. We’re up to $5,375.

Replace all the windows in the house. We got the information for the vendor Direct Buy contracts with for window replacement. Next step will be to get someone out to give us a quote.

Fix the plumbing issues. We have a number of little plumbing issues all of which we really need to get fixed.

Get an Exterminator. I have ants in my kitchen and my bedroom. They need to go.

Refinance the house. DONE.

Earn my Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. Passed.

Date: 28/04/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Category: Sunday Evening Post Bookmark: Permalink

Article

What I Am Reading: Not Keeping My Promises Edition

View from the dog park on a cloudy day

I know that I promised that I would start reading blogs more and commenting more while on administrative leave. I lied. I did not mean to lie, but I lied. I spent a full week barely looking up from my books while studying for my certification test. And next week, I have a 2 day training with the career counseling service my former company is paying for as part of my severance. And then after the training, I have a meeting with my career coach. So what I am saying is- over the last two weeks, I did not read more blogs or comment more. And do not expect me to do more reading or commenting at least for another week. On some level, I feel busier than when I was working.

However, just because I am not reading more blogs or commenting more, that doesn’t mean I’m not reading any blogs at all. I am. I am, I am, I am. And here is the proof- your now bi-weekly roundup from ErinShanendoah.com.

View from the dog park on a clear day

Reading takes mental energy, and I haven’t always had that over the last couple of weeks. But that is okay, because some of my favorite blogs have posted videos to make us smile. At The Chronicles of Cardigan, Elizabeth shares with us tips for getting cute videos of your pets- make you kid send you the ones she took with her phone. The other pun loving blogger I visit frequently is Pup Fan at I Still Want More Puppies, and she brings us No Frown Friday – You put the lime on the pup-o-nut…

Two other blogs have really made me smile in the last couple of weeks, but for different reasons. Over at Life with Beagle, Christie writes about June’s Doggy Day Out Orlando, which is going to be dedicated to helping seniors live with their pets. How awesome is that.

And after taking a short break during which she was very much missed, Kristine from Rescued Insanity came back with a great post about Ways to Show Kindness in the Blogging World. Whether it is in the blogging world or the real world, the entire world is so much better when we can remember to show kindness to one another.

Also making me smile is the new to me blog, Beagles and Bargains (which, while being featured in my pet blogs section here, really is a cross-over blog with personal finance, as her tag line is “Surviving pet parenthood without going broke”). Her Feature Friday is about a lucky Bulldog who has finally found his forever home. And she was surprised to find out that she actually knew the people who rescued him. It’s a just a reminder that we all know people who are doing amazing things every day, even if we don’t know about it.

Also making me feel better about the world we live in is Len Penzo’s daughter, who shares her financial

Cloudy day

fears. She is only 13 and already thinking about the future. Smart kids make me feel better about all of our futures.

Always making me smile is the title of Daisy’s blog- When Life Give You Lemons…Add Vodka. Like me, she is currently on a weight loss journey, both trying to eat right and exercise. And like me, she has found that dieting really is like being on a budget, and both can have the same danger – Deprivation Leads to Excess. The answer is always moderation, and to make sure you give yourself some wiggle room.

I have no good segue for moving on to Frugal Portland. But I did love her recent post on Frugal Tips for the Real World and for Television. I very much agree with her. The second set certainly makes for better TV, but the first step can make for a better life.

In my last roundup, I mentioned my blogging friend Pamela’s new site, Hands On Home Buyer, and now it’s up and running, so I’m super excited to be able to link to some of her posts. It’s also a blog to which I am going to be referring a lot as I help some friends look for a new home. Neither they nor I are first time homebuyers, but here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter if you’ve done this before or not, getting expert advice when making a purchase as big as a home is a good idea. And one thing you don’t think about as a buyer- what a seller things about when pricing their house.

And finally, we have the new to me and new Yakezie challenger blog, Mom and Dad Money. And since we just discussed home buying, I figured it would only make sense to link to their post on why they don’t own a house (yet). I love being a home owner, but it’s definitely something that you should not jump into before you are ready. So I say more power to them for waiting for the right time in their lives.

clear day

Date: 27/04/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Category: Round Ups Bookmark: Permalink

Article

The Day Got Away From Me

1) I passed my test yesterday. I am now an APICS Certified Supply Chain Professionl (CSCP). Thank you everyone for your good wishes.

2) I had meant to have a post up today. I really did. But this was my first non-studying day in over a week, and it somehow got filled with productive things like grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, and laundry.

3) I don’t mind doing laundry- the washing and the drying part because I have machines for that. But the putting away part- drives me crazy, and it seems never-ending.

4) I am a procrastinator and do my best work on a tight deadline, but even I would sometimes like a little more 17 hours advance notice for things that make me feel as if the house needs to be CLEAN -as in steam cleaning the carpets clean. Especially when I should be sleeping some of those 17 hours.

5) Spring has finally sprung in Seattle, and the weather means long dog parks, and two truly tired doggies, for which I am exceedingly grateful at the moment.

6) The washing machine is beeping that the load is unbalanced, so now I must go fix that and return to putting away clothes.

Date: 25/04/2013 Author: Erin Shanendoah Category: Home Improvement Bookmark: Permalink

Personal Finance in a World of Excuses

Sunday Evening Post #94

My Big News

Time Management Fail

Sunday Evening Post #93

Random Saturday Networking

Crazy

My Last Week of Work

Sunday Evening Post #92

What I Am Reading: Not Keeping My Promises Edition

The Day Got Away From Me

Find Out More

1. My Sites

Amazon

2. Blogroll

Yakezie