My war on perfectionism

I am a perfectionist.

I will start a project, and then tweak, and tweak, and tweak.

And more often than I care to admit, by the time I'm done tweaking, the optimal time for presenting said project to the world has passed, and all that effort comes to nothing.

This career counseling/job searching/resume building process is a prime example. Levi has said right out loud that he's concerned that I will get so bogged down in creating the perfect resume, etc., that I'll never get around to actually sending any out. And he's right -that is a potential pitfall for me. Instead of settling for a "good enough" summary section on my resume and banging out a "good enough" cover letter,and getting the damn resume sent off for this job I'm "so" excited about, I spent most of last night - until the wee hours - tweaking. Trying different fonts and spacings. Revising a word here or there. Googling cover letter samples, looking for the "perfect" template for my "perfect" cover letter. I found this job posting almost a week ago, and it's been active for 12 days. Mine is going to be just one in a sea of resumes, if they haven't already closed it to new submissions. I need to stop picking at it and - like Nike says - just do it.

Could it be better? Could my summary statement be stronger, my cover letter more compelling?

(oh God, I'm sorry for the alliteration. It was an accident.)

Of course it could. But I'll never forgive myself if I miss out on this opportunity because I was unable to settle for good enough.

Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have a cover letter to plagiarize write.

Brain Dead, a.k.a. job search update

Tuesday I had a meeting with Cindy; we spent the entire hour turning the list of my job responsibilities for the past 10 years into "resume speak." I was feeling pretty good about the changes, and thought I only had a few little bits left to finish up - the summary and technical skills sections, mainly.

That same afternoon, I was browsing the job postings on LinkedIn and found one that I was really interested in (and it's local, in case you're wondering). So instead of kicking back and waiting for next week's meeting with Cindy to put on the finishing touches, I've spent pretty much every spare minute of the last three days picking apart the job listing and inserting as many of the keywords as possible into the resume bullets I had already written (luckily for me, the listing was quite comprehensive).

If I had thought my resume was looking sharp before, it's freaking amazing now.

I was hoping to get that all done and a cover letter written in time to submit before the end of business on Friday, but alas, I didn't quite pull it off. So instead, I took advantage of the weekend to dive into a project that's been in the back of my mind, a little something I think of as "the whole package": I decided to whip up a basic "resume website" (www.fionapayne.info) and set up separate Facebook and Twitter accounts to associate with it. Oh, and I updated my LinkedIn profile with my new and improved resume info, of course.

I'm very pleased that everything is coming together as quickly as it has, and now all that I have left (on MY list, that is - I still have Cindy's "job search action plan" ahead of me) is to get Cindy to sign off on my resume, and to write my cover letter. I sent my new website live earlier this afternoon, and decided to completely put this process out of my mind for a couple hours (serendipitously, Levi's mom offered to take me and the kids to see Toy Story 3. For the record: it's awesome).

Tonight or tomorrow I HAVE TO compose my cover letter, as my goal is to have my resume waiting in that HR inbox first thing Monday morning.

Job searching is hard work.

Crossroads

So, today at my career counseling meeting, Cindy and I put a huge dent in the overhaul of my resume from generic blah administrative all-over-the-map-ness to laser-focused marketing guru-ness. There is still a bit of polishing to do, but the foundation is there, and I'm actually eager to start sending it out (who'd've thunk it?).

And therein lies the next challenge...Levi and I have to decide whether I should keep my job search local, or if we want to take the plunge and relocate out of Minnesota.

It's an idea we've been kicking around off and on for a while - we're both really, really tired of winter. California sounds lovely, even if the COL difference is intimidating. Neither of us have ever lived outside the state except for college, and how many people really take the chance to start over in a new place once they've got families, mortgages, etc.?

On the one hand, the timing couldn't be better for us...I'm actively looking for a new job, Levi also wants to explore other options and - well - we're going to have to move out of our house before the end of the year anyway (both of our families know that we're allowing our house to go into foreclosure, so I feel like I can finally talk about it "in public"). If we're going to have to move, why not go big, right?

On the other hand, we have to move out of our house in 6 months. Which means we need to start figuring out ASAP where we're going to live instead. Can I really squeeze a nationwide hunt for the perfect job, and a cross-country family relocation, into that time frame? Never having done it before, I just don't know.

Also in the back of my mind is the what-to-do about the horses. I'm extremely blessed that horseback riding has been a nearly expense-free hobby for all of my life, thanks to the fact that my parents are in the business. But if we moved out of state, either we'd have to increase our household income by an insane (and probably unrealistic) percentage in order to start paying all the bills for two horses - after all, I couldn't keep Twinks but tell Brianna that Merle has to go! - or we'd have to make arrangements for the horses to stay at home for an indefinite period of time, which, in addition to being its own kind of challenge, also makes me sad. (Selling them is not an option I'm willing to consider, but fortunately I don't think I would have to. I've told my mom that when her farm sells and my horses are finally homeless, I don't want a cash payout, I need a horse-maintenance trust fund - ha!)

Decisions, decisions...

Shame on me

Two months...TWO months...without an update?

There's just no excuse for that.

Here's some stuff that has happened in the past two months:

1. My new halfchaps fit like a glove.

2. The second time I wore them, my horse bucked me off before I was even properly on, and I broke my ankle in three places, not to mention had a nasty dislocation.


So yeah, I've been sitting on my butt 16 hours a day (and sleeping the other 8) for the past seven weeks. And haven't blogged a single letter in all that time. Shame on me. So what, you may ask yourself, have I been doing to fill that time instead?


Decorating my cast, of course. (more pics of my x-rays and my cast-turned-art-project can be seen here).

In truth, that's not ALL I've been doing; I also go to work once in a while. And shortly before I cracked my ankle into a million pieces, I made contact with a career counselor named Cindy (our first face to face meeting was a week after the accident!) and we've spent the past two months identifying a new career path for me and building a new and improved resume. I wish I had been blogging about this along the way, too, because it's been a really interesting process. But the homework has been intense! In fact, I should probably wrap this up and get back to it, since I have a meeting with Cindy in the morning...

Leather Leg Warmers, Take 2

(helllooooo? Anybody still out there? Sorry I've been neglectful. I'll try to do better.)

ANYWAY...you may recall that a few months back, I was crazy-excited about my new half chaps, although I was going to have to exchange them for a different size. After THREE months of back-and-forth with the retailer, I still did not have my replacement chaps, so yesterday I said screw it and demanded my money back. And today, I ordered NEW half chaps from a large, well-known equestrian company, and according to my confirmation, they should ship today and be here next week!

(Mine are smooth leather, not suede, but I didn't like the picture of the leather ones. Even though it'd probably be a more accurate representation of my elephant-like calves.)

You may be wondering why I went with the fly-by-night, nobody's ever heard of them company in the first place, and the answer is simple: Big Name Retailer didn't carry these chaps 4 months ago. Can't wait for them to get here!

You like me! You really like me!

Bwahahahahaha! My friend Heather @ 365 Days of Awesome passed on this award to me:

Do I deserve an award for my awesome blog? Probably not. ;o) My blogging is sporadic at best and probably boring as hell, but thanks anyway!! The award comes with an assignment: share 10 things about yourself. So here goes...

1. I'm the oldest of three kids; my brother and sister are twins.

2. I have an entrepreneurial streak a mile wide. I come by it naturally - my mom and her dad both started and ran successful businesses for many years. So far I've been a Mary Kay consultant (5 years) and a real estate agent (4 years), and I have yet to come to terms with the fact that I'm probably not cut out for self-employment - I'll be launching home business #3 in a little bit, and I also dabble in freelance graphic design.

3. I used to be thin. Proof:


That's from my grad party in 1998. I still have the dress in my closet...I might even try and wear it again someday.

4. I'm addicted to the written word. Books, magazines, the internet. Fiction, nonfiction. I admit I love romance novels and mass market trash way more than I enjoy "the classics."

5. My favorite movies are Demolition Man, Legally Blonde, Miss Congeniality, Empire Records and 50 First Dates.

6. I love to draw and doodle, although I'm far from what I consider an artist. (If you'd grown up with my brother, who IS an artist, you'd understand why.) I'm pretty good at drawing what I see, but not so much with stuff I visualize in my head, and the finer points of shading and the like continue to elude me.

7. I'm horribly shy in social situations - this probably contributes a lot to my struggle with #2 on this list, since it's really hard to be successful if you hate promoting yourself. I have no problem with speaking in front of a crowd, though.

8. uhhhh....I'm 5' 2" but petite-length pants are always a hair too short on me.

9. I won the district spelling bee in 8th grade. (In 7th grade I got eliminated on "discussion," in 6th grade, "fiery" and in 5th grade, "pigeon.")

10. I've had three horses in my life: Allspice, from when I was 8 til about 14, Frolic, 14-24, And Twinks, 25-present.

WHEW!! That was harder than I expected. I'm passing this gem onto Jill at My Corner of the World.

My Vision

...I envision a home that is warm and inviting.

...I envision a home where everything within it has a purpose.

...I envision a home where everything has a place.

...I envision a kitchen that is stocked with healthy staple ingredients.

...I envision a space all my own - my computer, my books, my papers. With a door, so that if it gets messy, no one else has to look at it. ;)

...I envision a job that is enjoyable and fulfilling (most of the time, anyway).

...I envision a daily routine that balances leisure and responsibility.

...I envision living by a budget that balances leisure and responsibility.

...I envision feeling financially secure.