Tic... Tic... Tic...

For the last 18 months or so, I've been fortunate to have a job.  One where I have insurance and a regular paycheck and some other nice benefits.   While it's not what I ultimately want to do with my life, I'm quite grateful for the job and it's helping me pay off bills and generally improve the quality of life.  Unfortunately, I got a huge wake up call today, something that I knew was coming, but it has really hit me today.  Technically I'm not a permanent full time employee.  My position is payed by for by a grant and that grant funding ends at the end of June 2013.  Hopefully I'll be able to stay on, I like being able to eat and sleep with a roof over my head.

But it's a double edged sword.  

My job takes up so much time and mental energy that it's hard for me to do the other things that I want to do.  Yes, I know that I waste a lot of time, and I feel like I'm making excuses (which I am), but the brain can only run at full capacity for so long.  Then there are my kids who demand time and attention and I already suck at that.  There are a million and one excuses that I've made for myself.

Now, I have a clock that is ticking down and I have about 8 months to come up with a game plan in case this job ends.  

I'm actually in an interesting place.  I know that it is coming, as opposed to being caught completely off guard.  I've been in the process of paying off lots of debt and while far from being debt free, it's almost down to nothing but student loans.  I have several months to save up some money and work on my food storage.  I'm not completely depressed like I was last year, when there were days that I could barely get out of bed or off the couch, and while there are days that I don't feel like doing much, in general, I'm functioning closer to 100% than I have in a long time.  

I work best with a hard deadline as opposed to some random date in the future, so it's time for me to get my act together and finally actually pursue my dreams and stop making excuses.  The incubation period is over, I'm no longer in a cocoon.  

Time to break out and spread my wings.