Changes

Turns out that 2012 will be the year for big changes in my life and the life of my immediate family!

I recently found out that my job would not be extended as of September 21st. So as of then, I will no longer be working for Corporate Canada. What a relief it is, to be honest. I'm sure that a few people in my life will be upset that I'm "giving up an awesome job and chance at a secure future" but honestly, I'm tired of the bureaucratic bullsh*t.

This will give me a chance to follow my dream of being a writer, actually set myself out there and maybe even get published in print. As a novelist, or an opinionist, maybe both. Being able to relax and spend time focusing on myself and what I want to do will be a nice change.

The only issue comes from the inherent lack of immediate revenue that comes from starting to be self-employed. There will be a huge loss of income, which I'm hoping to start boosting starting now. Thankfully I have a few months to get myself on track so that at the very least the bills and necessities will be covered as of October.

Number one thing we (me and WonderWife) are working on is building up a huge emergency fund. That way, if the income isn't up where we need it we have some money to fall back on. This is (surprisingly) turning out to be more challenging than I thought it would be, but I'm also waiting on some insurance refunds to come in. Once those go into the account, it should definitely help.

Another big change that I'm going through is painting. I am actually putting paintbrush to canvas and doing some art. I may consider selling some of it, if I think there's any interest, but for now it's mostly therapeutic. Deciding (thanks to WW and my therapist) that the final product doesn't have to be perfect, and to put the effort into the process, has set me free of a few personally imposed limits and allowed me to just try. (photo of one painting to come, when I'm at my home computer)

I would really like to get my own domain name at some point to expand on this site, but for now it is far too much complication for the limited access to the internet that I get, so it is put on the backburner for now.

How do you cope with huge changes in your life? Have you ever experienced job loss, if so, what did you do with the opportunity?