Flour & flowers
Okay, here's the nitty and/or gritty. Two weeks ago I signed on for a second part-time job. The position: weekend gardener at a local organic nursery. Now I'm working 36 hours a week, spread out over 7 days.
This is going fairly well so far, and more importantly it's going to help me accomplish some personal goals this summer.
My basic blueprint for summer '08 is to have a lot of fun and make some decent money at the same time. My philosophy is non-original but it's ridiculously effective: Get paid to do things that I'd gladly do for free. Mill all-organic grain into fantastic bread flour (and get paid for it). Water plants in quiet greenhouses while listening to podcasts (and get paid for it). And so on.
I'm going to give this another month or so, just to develop a solid routine and make sure everything's 100% cool & stable. If all goes well, I'm actually planning to add a third job to the mix. Something to bring my total weekly hours up to 50 or so. Haven't quite figured out what that might be yet, but it'd have to be an evening job, which limits my options a lot. (Bellingham is many things, but it's not a 24-hour city.) It'd also have to be fun & low-stress, of course. That goes without saying.
What do I plan to do with all this extra cash? Nothing terribly exciting. Get my own apartment downtown (I currently share a house w/ two other guys). Pay off debts. Take some more classes at the university. Leave some room in my monthly budget for a more-active social life. And so on.
Like I've said before, I'm having such a good time out here in Washington that nothing short of a total catastrophe could derail my dreams at this point. And having a safety net of cash on hand would make even that prospect less worrisome.
~ MWK/RP
p.s. And don't worry, E2-wise I'm not going anywhere. I'm still balancing out a new daily routine, but I'm going to leave time in my agenda for internet geekery, probably around 7pm (PST) every day.