It dropped Friday.

The other shoe, that is. For weeks now I've suspected that my employment time was limited. There simply wasn't enough billable work coming in to be able to cover my salary and my CAD skills are essentially non-existent after 14 years away from it. My boss, a friend for more than 20 years, had the uncomfortable task of letting me go. He did offer to let me keep my health insurance as long as I pay the premiums. And he wants me to do contract work on an hourly basis. So all in all I'm better off than I was when this happened in 2007.

My friends rallied around me to keep me busy over the weekend and came complete with offers to take me out, feed me, cheer me up etc. I have to admit that emotionally I'm in much better shape than I was the last time. And I know that this really is survivable, so it's not quite as scary.

I applied for unemployment over the weekend. And answered a bunch of silly questions from them today. (Why wasn't I available for work last week? Duh I had a job until Friday. Why didn't I contact 2 potential employers in the last week. Same answer. And the one I truly loved, Why were you fired? And your only options were all "for cause" reasons. Agree to any of those and your claim will be completely denied. And this after I had told them I was let go due to a lack of work.) And the government wonders why the unemployed are frustrated...

Yesterday I polished my resume and started the hunt in earnest. In all honesty I had a couple of small freelance graphic projects to finish, so I've been concentrating on that, and will grab the contract work while I can. I know that I can get by on the benefits, but that there will be nothing left "to stimulate the economy."

This morning I was surprised to get a call from a former employer at a landscape company wanting me to come back to work for him in a couple of weeks. With the same deal as last year, work while I'm looking for a job in my licensed and trained profession. Time off when I need it for interviews and as much work as I want to handle for them at an hourly rate otherwise. The work will start almost 7 weeks sooner than it did last year and it pays OT something that I'm not used to but kind of enjoy. And I am not as in shape as I was last April. This should be interesting and probably painful. But it is a job, something I like doing and something I'm relatively good at, just really over qualified. We're talking truly getting my hands dirty as a working foreman in the landscape business. And this is a boot camp method of getting in shape in hurry.

And yes knitting does continue I'm making progress on the Inside Out scarf. And this arrived via UPS this afternoon. I wasn't expecting it for another month and was pleasantly surprised. Now I want to play with my wheel again.