For one year I will be living with five other young women in a house. We're keeping the walls company, and helping to pay the mortgage, while the house's family goes to Thailand for a year of missionary work. I don't need to move out of my parents' house, nor do I need to spend a few hundred dollars a month on rent, but they needed to rent out their house and I love to help meet needs! I also enjoy an adventure and living with other women, so I signed up! I'll be moving in next week. It will be the first time that I completely "move out" of my parents' home. When I was away at college or living overseas in Italy, I left many things behind. My bedroom was still "mine" even when used as a guest room during my absence. I think that room will always be mine, but it will no longer have any of my stuff in it! While the thought of gathering everything together and moving it out is overwhelming, I'm hoping it will be a good opportunity to organize and even purge excess "stuff".
This housing opportunity is one of the few solid commitments that I have in my life right now (outside of financial commitments like my car, school loan, and cell phone payments). I will be living on 88th Street on a beautiful, quiet wooded lot for exactly one year. So, what will happen in a year?
I have made no verbal or written time commitments for either of my part-time jobs. I would like to stay at each for at least a year. (My resume could certainly benefit from it.) That would put me at Starbucks until November 2008 and at College Park until February 2009. And since I will be definitely living in Indy until June 2009, it seems that I"ll stick with my jobs until then as well. Time will tell, of course. The random schedule that results from two jobs can be exhausting. It would be nice to work at church and then work somewhere else with set days and times, rather than Starbucks, which is different every week. Sometimes I open (5am), sometimes I close (12 or 1am), sometimes I work during the day....needless to say, it's hard work just keep up with when I work!
Okay, so the whole reason I started writing was to talk about somethings I would like to pursue during this season. I'm not going anywhere, so what I can do while I'm here?
1. Pursue Language Learning
a. Become fluent (or at least much more conversational) in French
b. Continue practicing Italian
c. Learn basic Spanish
d. Yes, 3 languages!
2. Pursue Photography
a. Continue practicing and re-learning exposure
b. Learn Photoshop
c. Begin discovering, developing, and refining my own style
d. Purchase my own super cool DSLR
3. Improve My Financial Situation
a. Pay off my credit card debt (Goal: Sept 2008)
b. Have at least $1000 in savings, then maintain and increase that amount (Goal: Dec 2008)
c. Increase my school loan payments
d. Save money for a vision trip in 2009 (AFRICA!!!)
