I feel the same, but I don’t think work is the primary source of my stress. I need to figure out how to carve out some regular time for creativity in my life.
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Nope. Find something that you like doing and pays well. Then do that.
The problem IMO is that most people find a career, park into a job, then sit there for 35 years. That’s motivation killing. Gotta pack your bags every once in a while when things get stale.
I love my job. I loved my last job too until I didn’t, at which point I started doing what I’m doing now. And before that I was doing actuarial work which I really liked until I didn’t.
I have, and I do. The whole “love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life” mantra is bullshit for so many people, me included. I love quilting, but if I had to quilt to earn a living, I would soon resent it.
I love the work I do, but it is still work, and there is nothing, literally nothing, I would want to do 40+ hours a week or else lose my entire livelihood. Some people are happy doing nothing productive.
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I would say like, not love, but yeah. The one thing I would love to do for 40 hours a week is read books and talk about books. But other people are better at that than I am. I might do that in retirement though.
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yup.
also the time to take those big risks for something you love sometimes doesn’t line up with life events too. I had a stay at home spouse and a child when i was entry level. i am glad I like my job and pretty much have liked all of them. but love the jobs…is a stretch. the stuff i enjoy a lot isn’t something i can make a career out of at my age unless i want to get paid peanuts for somewhere between many years and forever.
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The shower I had at our last house was 32"x40", and it was workable but I wanted a little more elbow room. It took me a lot of planning to squeeze a 35"x40" into the new bathroom. The extra 3" of width is a real game changer, it’s still not a huge shower but for a century home it’s about as good as it gets.
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We have to take trainings for fostering, 45 hours minimum every two years (used to be 60). Since we started, it was $10 per hour, so each month’s training session would get us $60. We used to have to find a sitter, and if not pay them (it was family, so payment not expected) then at least buy a pizza for dinner, so we would only net maybe $20. Not that we do it for the money, but it’s nice to get a little extra cash for the inconvenience. For the last three years, they’ve been virtual, so that was nice.
They must have increased the rates, because January’s training checks just arrived, and we got $90. $15/hr to sit on a zoom call and multitask isn’t bad!
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Is your century home certified, or are you using the term more loosely to mean your house is over a hundred years old?
The official records for our home on our auditor’s website say our home was built in 1925. But I pulled up the official historical parcel sheet, and it was actually built in 1919, and completed not later than 1920 (had residents), so I can start calling mine a century home also now!
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I don’t know who might certify it, and yes, records for many old homes are questionable.
In my case, I have the abstract that documents the history of the land (going back to the mid 1800s iirc), and when the house was built. Mine was built in 1912, I think it was finished in August. So I’m quite sure mine is about to turn 111 years old. I’ve not been able to find a Sanborn fire map of my block, need to make a trip to the library and historical museum some time to see if they know anything.
It was built by George Esterly, who was a dentist. His dental office was a mile north, the building is still there and it’s currently an Italian restaurant.
Fun fact, my house was built with clipped nails, which would generally make me think it’s older. By 1912 wire nails were probably used in 80-90% of construction. It’s also one of not very many stucco homes in the city. Not what I’d call rare but maybe 2-4% of homes are stucco here.
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Was your home purchased from a catalog? Ours was, but I’ve noticed that in our neighborhood, there are only 2 other homes that look like ours, not sure why it’s less common than others. Comparatively, there are 5 or 6 homes that are the same as all our neighbors’ homes, on our street alone!
Wait, do you have a Sears home???
Ours was not from a catalog, though we do have some of those in town. My neighborhood is a mixed bag. Craftsman, Dutch colonial revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, foursquare, we have it all.
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Also, how many times has your home changed ownership? We are the 19th owners of our home. There used to be an older man who was slipping into dementia whose wife would drive home around his old neighborhood, and once we gave them a tour of the house, which was pretty cool for him. He lives in our three bedroom home in the 40’s with his seven brothers and his widowed mother, his father died in the war. I can’t fathom what that must have been like, our house is only 1450 square feet!
My husband’s home with his ex wife, in the same neighborhood, same approximate age, only had 8 owners including them, and the woman who lived there before them was in the home from 1964 until her death in 2008. It’s super interesting to consider all the history these homes have, all the life they’ve carried.
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I have a list of all owners but it’s not handy. I think we are the sixth owners. Maybe fifth.
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Yep, it’s a sears and roebuck kit. We also have a lot of other catalog homes in our neighborhood, like Radford and Montgomery Ward.
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This is our house back in the day. I’d have to check to see when this was taken, I think it’s labeled.
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That’s charming! They don’t make them like that anymore.
It’s a neat old house. The porch was removed in 1968 and they replaced it with an uncovered porch, which still stands.
I will be replicating the old porch soon-ish, the porch really made the facade and it needs to come back.
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After being in our house for two years, I finally got the stairwell between the first and second floors repainted. This morning, I dug through the attic to find boxes of pictures, and I’m unpacking them now and hanging dozens of them.
I’m normally not a fan of clutter and don’t like too much stuff in a room. But we are going nuts in the stairwell. It’s like the Sistine Chapel in here. Vacation pics, lots of old family pics, it’s a good time.
My kids call that “gallery wall”. We had one before the painting binge, but Mrs G. has been slow to want to put holes in her beautiful work. At least a couple of the kids have been agitating to replace it.
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I’m just happy that I finally made banana bread (low sodium) last night and the kids left me some for breakfast.
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