115 days

I didn't count them all along.  I didn't even count them correctly in the beginning.  I suppose John Kennedy would have done more in 100+ days than I did while laid off, but then I sir, am no John Kennedy.  But what I did do was turn around unemployment within 3 months, with an entire holiday season thrown in.  Made a gross of cookies.  Ate a LOT of lunch. Took a vacation and turned 46.

What have you been up to?

I am not really here to toot my own horn (though, ya know.... Toot).  This production number comes with some credits, and they are these:
- The team down-the-Mill who packaged a painless layoff and made it possible to leave them laughing.  (Well, I was, anyway.) 
- Financial Dan - the first person I called
- Smurph, who hooked me up with Outlook before I went into the DTs
- The at-home moms, dads, and self-employed contractors who make Facebook the best malt shoppe to hang out in
- The unemployed Emersonians network, including those who are re-employed, and came forward with a lot of advice and encouragement
- The People's Republic of Massachusetts.  If this is what a Nanny state feels like, well tuck me in.
- All your kids.  Everything seems possible with a little Lego.
- Everyone who made time.  Fuh li'l ole me.
- Memphis.  Still.  I can't tell you enough how right place/right time that trip was.
- NaBloPoMo, for somewhere to put all the brain energy.
- Miss Read, for the project
- The dear dear Readership.  You know who you are.

It hardly felt like a hardship.  Just the leave of absence I needed that might have forgiven a host of sins.  But that is not how we do, is it?  Instead we work 1900 days at full throttle until we are too flooded to keep in the garage.  I rounded up, because there were a damn lot of Saturdays.

Signing on to the New Mill on Monday.  Please flip your calendars.



*Ouija Lunchbox by Paul van Scott, available at etsy.com