Losing your job is about much more than losing your paycheck and losing that place where you go for 40+ hours per week. It’s figuring out what you do in the interim, both financially and to keep busy. It’s figuring out what your next steps are. It’s figuring out who you are–and not letting yourself be defined by your career. It’s about figuring out what you absolutely need to survive and what are luxuries you can put aside temporarily, and it’s different for everyone.
This past week has been an emotional rollercoaster. For every promising job or freelance lead, there’s another difficult decision that has to be made or a difficult situation that has to be figured out. So one day at a time.
But at least it’s forcing me to spend more time making food for myself. (I wouldn’t quite call this cooking.)
For dinner last night, I warmed up one of my chicken burgers from the Market Basket, picked up when I was home this weekend, and put it over some spinach. (Not quite a salad, but I’m trying to try more salad-like things, per my summer body experiment.) I topped it with some pineapple salsa from Trader Joe’s. Do you see those sweet potato fries? Trader Joe’s is amazing. They came pre-sliced like that, and all I had to do was season them with some sea salt and pepper, mist them with olive oil and pop them in the oven for a half hour at 400 degrees.
This morning when I woke up, I was craving the bagel thin French toast I saw on Monica’s blog yesterday, but by the time I ran a few errands, I had zero desire to cook, much less something hot, so I made some cookie dough oatmeal.
Stay cool out there. It’s a scorcher.