The first day of the rest of your life!

I’m back, and feeling thoroughly refreshed and re-energized after five days of immersion weaving!  And have an open slate before me, at least until I find a job.  Truly, I feel lucky.  Even though I’m unemployed.

So what do I want to do, with this vast vista opening up before me?

Well, practical matters first.  I’ve revamped my resume and am networking for job leads, scanning job boards, etc.  The job market is pretty bleak right now – Silicon Valley unemployment stands at 12%, significantly higher than the national average – but nobody ever got anywhere by despairing, so I’m continuing to hit the metaphoric pavement.  This will be the first part of every day.

Second, I want to continue working on my wedding dress project.  I just heard back from the Convergence organizers that I can, in fact, blog about my wedding dress AND enter it for the fashion show at Convergence…deadline February 2010 to enter…so I am seriously considering entering it.  As far as I know you don’t have to ship off the garment, only photos of the garment, until Convergence actually rolls around, at which point it will travel in my chained-to-my-wrist carryon luggage, so no worries about it getting lost.  The challenge will be to finish the whole thing by February.

Third, I want to learn couture sewing.  Mily only charges $25/hr, so I can still afford some of her time even though I’m unemployed.  I have also found another seamstress who knows flat pattern drafting and is willing to help me out with it, and she charges only $10/hr (!!!).  Between the two of them, I’d very much like to learn the “proper” way to sew up this dress.

Fourth, I want to investigate the possibility of changing careers to textile design.  I don’t expect it to pan out, but would be delighted if it did.  So I will follow up on that.

Fifth, I want to lose weight and get back in shape.  So I will start going to the gym or getting on the bike on a daily basis, and watching what I eat.

Sixth, I want to clean up the house and organize my studio.  Things have been getting pretty messy, and now that I have some free time, I want to clear away the clutter and finish unpacking.

Seventh, I want to work on publishing some articles on weaving.  I have some ideas for articles (for WeaveZine and/or Complex Weavers) that I want to work out, if it’s compatible with weaving the fabric for the dress.

And finally, and possibly most importantly, I want to spend more “quality time” with Mike.  This is a stressful time for both of us, between my unemployment and our upcoming wedding, and I want to make sure that we deepen our relationship, rather than straining it.  Besides which, spending time together is fun.  🙂

Meanwhile, there are a lot of minor things I need to take care of:

• various paperwork related to unemployment
• re-weaving a set of samples for a Complex Weavers article due in 10 days
• making that fruitcake (at last!)
• figuring out how to use a warping wheel to wind a warp to be beamed back to front on a plain beam

So I will be pretty busy for the next few days/weeks/months, but hopefully in a good way!