It is Monday, May 4, which means it is the first Monday of my unemployed life. This was expected, of course, because my interim pastor contract ended on April 30 and I won't be going to Scotland for another month or so. Still, there is something odd about thinking the word unemployed. Perhaps "on hiatus from working" would be more appropriate, since I know that this has an ending soon.
While my contract ended on Thursday, I had promised one of our young people that I would help ferry things to the church for her yard sale -- which I did on Friday and Saturday. She has been selected for an international soccer tournament team in Sweden this summer and has to raise money for it. I think it is a great thing and want to support her however I can.
Yesterday was the first day that I had not been to the church -- the first Sunday that I had no responsibilities anywhere for a long time. So, my first official act was to sleep in and stay in my jammies all day. Yesterday, like today, was rainy and quiet -- an excellent kind of day for napping and such. That makes today the first Monday of my official hiatus from working and I have spent it much the same way so far. Okay, I have done some laundry. It isn't much, but it is a start! The animals in my household think this is a grand new way of life. Petting on demand, napping on the furniture, and the potential for treats at any given trip to the kitchen. Yes, life is good for them.
I have plans for this hiatus. I really do. And I plan to do them...as soon as I wake up sufficiently. There are loads of boxes to be packed after all the stuff that could go into them is sorted. There are files to be thinned. There is writing to be done -- not only on this blog but also on some children's books I want to rewrite. There are visits to be made to friends before I leave. So much to do and suddenly what seemed to be a long stretch of time out ahead of me seems not so long at all. I now understand what my parents were saying to me when I was young. They had told me that time would pass faster when I was grown up. I pooh-poohed them when I was a child. They were right.
