Worky head!!!! And odd post about not working

When I was 14 my family went to England for 5 months, while my dad worked on his first book (buy a copy here!). That was my first introduction to the sabbatical. For those of you outside academia, it goes like this: You work 6 years, then you get a year off to improve yourself professionally. Imagine my surprise when I started working and I realized that it didn't apply to the business world. (although I think it should, but we can talk about that later)

I've been working for the bank now for 7.5 years, and while I can say that the people I work with are great, I never have had much of a love for banking. The job has always been challenging enough, and it provided me lots of freedoms. But the time had come to make a change to that.

So I'm on Sabbatical. I resigned in June. My last day was July 2nd. And to make things more interesting my laptop crashed on June 22nd, leaving me with almost nothing to pass on besides my thoughts.

Not working has been a little strange. First there's the depression. Ya, that surprised me too. I was thinking about all the things that I would catch up on, books, movies, friends, new hobbies, finish a screenplay, write a novel, learn to play the guitar (because down deep, every guy wants to learn guitar). But the reality involves daytime TV watching, and fighting with people about stock options and 401k transferring.

Second there's the fact that days just fade away. I was amazed how many times that I saw days fad away. I would look up and it's 4:30. I'd been up since 9, but I couldn't put my finger on what I had done that day.

Third are the excuses. As Dani pointed out, if she decided to stay home, it would have been perfectly normal for a woman to stay home while the man worked; but flip that around and you mess with the fabric of the universe. It runs counter to society. The looks from people are odd, and I find myself saying that aren't exactly true, to tell them why I left my job. I explain that Dani took off 4 months prior to moving to Houston, so we decided that now it's my turn. Or, that I took off the time to flip a house in Oklahoma. Or that. . . something to make it seem socially acceptable for a man to cook, and clean while his wife works in an office. It kind of surprised me how much that kind of effects me.

I'm in the rhythm of it now. I know how to pass my days. I have lists of things that need to get done, I get up and walk the dog, I still haven't gotten in the habit of working out. Think baby steps.

There's a great part of the book "About a Boy" where the narrator talks about how he fills his days. He lives on the royalties from a Christmas song his dad wrote, so he doesn't work. He fills his day with units. Getting a haircut: 2 units. Breakfast 1 unit; with Sunday paper: 3 units.

I'm loosing focus on this blog entry. I'm out of practice, and I feel like I have to many ideas bouncing around my head. I'm going to post this one as is. choppy, stream of mind, and frankly bad.

Short list:

I quite my job.
I have been sailing more.
Lori is a blog monster!
I have an amazing wife, who takes no credit for the ways she has improved my life.