Sabbat

I took a sabbatical in 2010, for which I had become eligible on Aug 14, 2009. I'm eligible for my next one on Aug 14, 2016. The policy is you get eight weeks off every seven years.

On January 1, 2015, the company decided to offer a split sabbatical option, by which you are eligible for a four-week sabbatical every four years. I never considered it because four weeks really isn't long enough. My eight-week one is coming up -- I'll just wait for that.

Last summer my work group was disbanded. I found a temporary job that ran up through Q1. Last Friday was my last day. Now I'm back in the redeployment pool, a seven-week period of job-search. I used up one week before taking the temp position, so I have six weeks left. I can stop the clock by taking vacation or, as it happens, sabbatical. I'm long-since eligible for the four-week version.

My life is chock full of unfinished business. I have piles and stacks of items of strong sentimental value and some have intrinsic value as well. I have a garage that's too full to be a workshop and an office too cluttered for writing (though it's okay for engineering, which tends to be more tightly focused). I have a budget that's too negative and a house and a set of cars in need of repairs. I have a house full of children whose mother is working super hard to establish a career that actually works for her. Her teaching career was rendered fairly impossible by back injuries, and she's shown great talent in the many aspects of public art and her commissions are indeed increasing in frequency and quality, and so that is the direction she should go. All that was distracting enough, and then she spent a week in the hospital.

Now she is at home adjusting to the lifestyle changes her condition requires. I am in need of another job, whether at the corporation or elsewhere. I'm going on 58 and am tired of not doing the work I really want to do. I will take an in-company gig anyway, but to get something close to my desire I will need some training. I need to take the time to refresh on the skills I was exposed to as a graduate student and never fully developed or used. I also have to make personal changes so as to do the writing I keep not making time for. In short, there is a lo-o-ot going on.

So last week I suddenly realized that this was the perfect time to take that four-week sabbatical. It officially starts now and lasts through the end of April.

I have a lot of work to do. I'm going to have to use that time really, really well. Combinations of major personal business, house repair, car repair, writing, engineering training, job-search networking, budget-cutting, item-selling, you name it, I gotta do it. Last time I kept a record, one post per day with a picture. I'm glad I did, but I'm not sure I'm going to manage that this time. So, for now, I'm just saying, from here, what's next.