Cha, cha, change...

Change,  I know it's necessary, but I've never been one to really like it, I tend to like things to stay the same, somewhat predictable, I have a bit of a loyalty streak that runs pretty deep inside of me, so that when I get a job and I like, I tend to stick with it for a long time. I know that is not the way of things today, but it's who I am and what I do. With that being said, I just made a major change in my life, I changed for the better, nothing bad, but still a major change...

Those of you who have followed me for any length of time know I was in merchandising, I did it for 10 years for Best Buy before moving to my off grid life. After moving to west Texas, I worked at a couple of jobs, one was a job at our (very) local country store, it wasn't a regular paying job, I worked for barter, how ever many hours I worked, I could trade that in for food, fuel and the such. I did that for a few years, then I became a paid home healthcare caretaker for a good friend, I did that for about 5 years. Then a friend, the then current pastor's wife asked me to work with her as a merchandiser, I jumped at that chance, I knew that job well, eventually she moved away and I took the job fully, even going to work for multiple merchandising companies.

That had me travelling a lot, I was putting on 300-500 miles a week on my truck, I didn't mind except for the fuel costs, which fortunately for the most part were reasonable, until this year. When gas hit $4 a gallon, I quit going to my farthest store (Van Horn) every week, actually I quit it altogether but since it is near impossible to find someone to cover my store there, I agreed to go monthly, and that turned out to be every other week instead.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, a good friend, who happens to be the COO of one company, and CEO of another, both green technology companies, asked me to take over the duties of personal assistant and admin for him, the lady who had been doing that job was about to have a baby and go on maternity leave, my friend has a very busy schedule and really needs someone to help manage that for him. I heartly agreed, it was becoming well past time to move on from merchandising. I enjoyed the job, but the traveling was becoming tiresome, risky and expensive. I had hoped to give 2 weeks notice, but ended up only being able to give 1 week, that gave me a chance to tie up some loose ends and let my stores know that I wouldn't be servicing them anymore.  I'll miss the actual job and the people.

I have been doing this new job for a week now, the first few days were a bit nerve wracking, I have so much to learn, fortunately my "boss" is understanding, I was given some homework to get to know the job and the people involved in the various associated companies. Unfortunately about that same time, my internet started having troubles, it's our rainy season and we have been having lots of storms with the accompanying heavy rains, wind and lightening. It has been really messing with our local internet, I just spent the weekend without internet, I've been using my cell phone with a cell phone booster, it makes it possible for me to do limited internet things, checking email, setting up online meetings and the such. But since I only have a 15 GB data plan service, I need to be careful not to burn through all of my data.

The internet went out late in the evening Friday, and just got turned back on late in the day Monday. I'm thankful it's back on, but honestly I'm seriously considering jumping over to StarLink (anyone using that? Leave me a comment and tell me what you think about it so far), as soon as I have the funds, I'm going to sign up for them. I really hate leaving our local provider, I have been a very vocal advocate for them since day one. With the prices they charge, and the slow internet they provide (I'm on the 6 MB - yes that's megabyte!) tier, for just a little more each month, I can get much MUCH faster speeds and no worries about interruptions if the local power goes out for whatever reason.

Back to my job situation, the last week I worked for the merchandising companies, I thought I'd be much more sad about leaving, but as each day passed, I felt freer and freer, it felt like weights were dropping off of me. The last store I worked in with my work partner, it was a major mess, it was a very difficult medicine reset, about an hour into the job, the lights went out in the store, they stayed out for a couple of hours, we ended up working by flashlights, we couldn't leave the job partially done because I wasn't going to be coming back, we had to get the job completed before we left. The lights finally came back on, and we finished the job, I was happy to be done with that and out of the store. 

It's been really nice to be able to stay home and work, I miss the people I used to see every week, the store employees and the regular customers, I'll also miss the deals I would get from time to time, being in the right place at the right time...

This is also good timing, with our heavy rains, there would have been days where I couldn't get out of my neighborhood, and worse than that, there would have been days I could get out, but wouldn't have been able to get back in due to flooding and muddy road conditions. This has just been a blessing all the way around. Oh and I can't believe how much money I'm saving on fuel, it was costing me $50-$100 a week and it wasn't getting any cheaper no matter where I bought gas, and that wasn't even filling up my truck completely! How are fuel prices where you live? 

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Wretha,

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