Yesterday was the best day yet

I can't believe it's been only a little over a week since I have "retired" but the time has both gone quickly and slowly.  I do believe yesterday was the best day yet.  I started out the day by meeting with my career counselor, Kathleen. She is the president and owner of Career Investments here in downtown Indy.  We have been meeting for several months now as I have been trying to figure out what I want to do with my career.  I have to tell you that though it is not inexpensive, she and her company have been the best investment I have made in a long time (aside from my beautiful wedding and all that comes along with that big day  :) )  Every time I leave her office I feel like I am skipping out the door with new insight on myself and what path I should be heading.  She has done everything from coaching me in my past position as I tried to decide if I wanted to stay to helping me write a kick ass resume when I knew that I did not want to stay.  She looked at my accolades in my career and truthfully and honestly lets me know if I am selling myself short or if I need to look at a prospective career option in a new light. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my time with her.  Yesterday was no exception to this.  My visit went a little longer than usual.  In trying to figure out what what I am looking for, she pointed out that I am a builder.  I have never thought of that before.  In my career I have come into an organization at a time of great growth or change and helped it turn into something different.  At the IMA, I was there during the years of great change and transition and created the event sales system they still use including prices and contracts, etc.  At Ai, they were just opening their doors and I developed right along with the school until I was running the department.  She is right, I am a builder and I love the excitement of that transition phase.  It's no coincidence I'm sure that my dad has always been a builder and owns his own building supply company and that my brother is graduating tomorrow with a degree in construction management.  Building is in my blood! 

Then the meeting took an interesting turn.  She said that she and her partners have been thinking of branching out into a new direction in their career counseling and think I could be a good fit to help them do this.  She invited me in for a meeting later today to talk to the three of them about the possibility of coming to work for them.  It may be a freelance kind of thing or it may work out to be more but I am am excited as career counseling has been something I have been very interested in doing for quite awhile but I was not sure how to break into that industry.  What I love even more is that she approached me about it.  We will see how the meeting goes but I am thrilled just to be invited into the discussion.  It is a good first step.

Another avenue I am looking into is working for the ICVA.  I have a deep love for the city of Indianapolis and everything it has to offer.  Hopefully we will have plenty to boast about with the super bowl this winter but we will see how that pans out!  I have had the good fortune to have a well connected friend in the community and that friend has opened a door for me with one of the VPs at the ICVA and she has offered to have coffee with me to talk about career oportunitues.  So there is that too.

Since I was downtown and by the time my meeting was over it was lunch time, I dropped into one of my favorite breakfast/lunch restaurants in the city, City Cafe.  It is owned and operated by friends and neighbors of ours here in Irvington, Nancy and Brad Royal.  John and I love EVERYTHING on the menu.  It's like Nancy and Brad have connected with us on another level as we look at the menu.  There is a little bit of everything we love on the menu and you cannot go wrong from the soups to the salads to the French Toast covered in corn flakes for an extra crunch.  It's all to die for but my favorite is whatever the soup of the day is (yesterday was cream of chive!) and the Vietnamese Chicken Salad.  It's so good.  For anyone that loves Vietnamese (and I am a bit of a freak for it) it is very similar to bun salad.  It's a cold noodle dish with chicken and vegetables and a dressing that is to die for.  I am so thankful to be able to go there for lunch yesterday because it's always been very difficult for me to be able to get there since they are open for breakfast and lunch but closed Sunday and Monday.  Working in the Pyramids and never taking a lunch break is not very conducive to me being able to go their often in my past life.  But in THIS life,  Heck yes I'm there!

On the home front, we are coming right along on the sale of our little bungalow.  We had some hiccups from the buyer's mortgage company finding that the house was in the flood zone though my two mortgage companies did not require that we pay flood insurance.  We are working through that issue though and I am so thankful for our awesome realtor, Tom Mattingly at Remax for helping us through.  I have done the majority of the repairs they have requested on the house myself and that feels great.  See the siding repairs below.  I will soon add the pictures of the brick repairs I did as well.  

Yes, I do believe Kathleen hit the nail on the head (ha) when she described me as a builder. 

What's on today's list?  My meeting with Career Investments, planting in the garden, preparing dinner for my husband and two French men visiting Conner Prairie from the French company that created their giant helium balloon.  I will be baking some bread, grilling steaks, making quinuoa salad and we shall see what the Frenchies have to say about my culinary prowess.  I will keep you posted!