Where does the time go?

Have you ever been busy while not being busy?

That's how this seems. I have a list of things to do every day and lots of time to do them and then I look at the clock and it's time to pick the girls up from school.

I am still pursuing two similar but starkly different work paths. One is taking up a lot of my time with various hoops to jump through before a job offer. The other is moving along about as fast as I push it.

Each day I wake up thinking, "man, it would be cool to do .... for a living."

Then the next day I think the exact opposite.

Of course, I still don't have official offers from either and until I do it's really a waste of brain power.

I have put everything else on hold while these play out and I'm not sure that's a good idea. I also don't want to waste anyone's time setting up meetings that I may not need. Perhaps that's being too polite. I don't know the best policy here. In my head, I'm thinking if one of the two falls through then I need to start pushing again. There are a couple of "people of influence" I haven't seen yet and I don't feel like I'm to the point of just sending resumes out.

Unemployment came through so I should be good financially through the end of October. If this extends far into November I'll A) start to get really nervous and B) have to dip into some savings again.

I'll admit also I'm thinking a little about my dad. He's gone now so I can't ask him how he handled these situations. He got his degree from Rockford College when I was around 5 and went up and up and up in his career.

Then my parents got divorced.

He did OK here in Illinois for a few years and then kind of went south. He went from being the general manager of large manufacturing operations to selling insurance, along the way burning through a bunch of cash on a couple of restaurants. He made a lot of money in his life and ended up with nothing other than Social Security.

This past weekend I had the girls and at the store I was looking for some medication for acne. It sucks being 45 and having to deal with that. I've learned over the years it's the surest sign of stress. And I admitted to my oldest daughter that I'm stressed. She said I don't seem stressed. And I told her the goal is not to appear to be stressed -- but sometimes your body gives it away.