Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends & Family…
It has been a LONG time since I last checked in. A lot of THINGS have happened all over the world, like Covid19 and all the changes that we’ve all had to adapt to because of it. Of course, I’m no exception. There’s been some big changes.
In March, I moved across town, just the weekend before the Covid19 shut down (PHEW! Although, I still have a few things at the old place, and cleaning to complete, but Covid kinda made that difficult. Fortunately, the landlord is completely understanding, isn’t planning to rent the space out again, and is himself very cautious so until recently, he hasn’t wanted me to come back to finish). The weekend following moving, I had to go to southern Washington (USA) for a medieval THING. We were getting reports of possible border closure and quarantine before we’d left for home. Fortunately the border let us back through without issue, but shortly after that, everything shut down. I am SO glad I moved when I did, or I’d have been stuck at my old place, with most of my stuff either in storage, in boxes for moving, or GONE (I got rid of more than half my stuff as I downsized from a decent sized basement suite and storage to just ONE BEDROOM (and an offsite storage locker for camping gear, xmas stuff, my bike etc).
In other news, though I’m actually on Disability due to back issues (that I’m waiting for surgery for, still, Thanks again Covid19) and chronic PAIN issues (that’s never going away), I WAS working 2 part-time jobs, but both were furloughed due to COVID. The first was in the film industry (which is still furloughed until ??WHEN??) and the second as a nanny for someone who is a teacher, and who pregnant so she was NOT going into school during the lockdown at all, and who won’t be returning in Sept either. That job is essentially dried up, other than an occasional day here and there until she goes back to work in 2021, and then we’ll see.
Because I’m on disability, I was fortunate to not have to worry about how to pay rent etc. I certainly am not living high on the hog or anything, but I’m not starving and I have a roof over my head.
HOWEVER, I TECHNICALLY also started 2 jobs just before & during the Covid shutdown. The first is part-time with a place I USED to work for years ago, at a museum in the city where I live. I WAS the Media & PR Rep there at that time, but now will be one of the “Collections Assistants”, where I’ll be doing photography of their warehouse of museum collections, and putting all that artifacts up online. I was SUPPOSED to start that part-time in March, but then COVID put the brakes on, so I never did get started. We are hopeful that I can start that very soon since I’ll really be in isolation most of the time at the warehouse, just me and all the old STUFF, so even if we go into lock-down again, provided I’m all set-up there, I can just keep going. We just need to get all set up there so that I can…
The OTHER job is as the Regional Manager for the Fraser Valley Community Charitable Gaming Assoc (yes that is a mouthful, FVCCGA for short). My job there is to help Non-Profits groups apply for Gov’t grants, run workshops on how to apply etc. It’s a steep learning curve, and only very part-time, but it is better than nothing at all. Best of all though, I moved the office to the same place as the museum’s office (we’re office sharing) so I regularly get to see one of my favourite people on the regular, Christina Carlson-Reid, who I worked with there previously and who was also a member of Reik Felag (the Norse re-creation group) before. It’s a bit like coming home.
And eventually, the film industry will open up again… one day… and I’ll still do that part-time too, both as actor and crew (I prefer actor though) 😀
Which technically means I have 4 very part-time jobs. I guess that’s what people mean by “multiple streams of income”. Fortunately, I get to work my own hours on the 2 jobs, so I can juggle time, and NOT work if I don’t want to or can’t and when I eventually DO get my back surgery, I can work the FVCCGA job at home while I’m recuperating, and I can do the photoshopping and posting previously taken photos online, also from home.
Provided the entire planet doesn’t go to S**T in the next while, I’ll be doing just fine.