I blame my inability to keep conversations going on the fact that we rarely talk before midnight. Stupid 4.5 hour time difference

*sob*

Rough synopsis of our conversation:
Me: Haven’t seen you around. It’s the holidays, I bet you’ve been traveling.
Ophelie: Yeah! I was in Montreal!
Me: That sounds fun, what was that like?
Ophelie: I got to see old friends. **** says hi! I played lots of PS3.
*short conversation about how Civ is awesome on PS3, followed by long silence because she was busy being reabsorbed into overworking herself*

Insider Hint: She actually is at least as funny and witty as she is in her posts. You just have to get her talking, and it’ll come out like a fountain.

for example, if you like knitting – knit useful clothes, then you are having fun AND making something useful. same for sewing, cooking, various crafts, even painting can be justified by claiming that you’re doing it to prettify your living space. reading, naturally, expands your mind and knowledge base, even if all you read is fiction.

Cooking, well – if you experiment with various cuisines, means you’re not buying takeout, means you’re saving money, and saving money is almost as good as making it.

This is the longest I’ve been unemployed (only partly by choice – At the moment, the only jobs I could safely take are the “part time, close to home minimum wage” kind and after discussing it extensively hubby and I decided that we’re better off waiting it out for now), so I had a long time to develop coping mechanisms.

sorry about the online fights I see how that could happen, given enough free time…

By simple life, I meant more like not going to college, getting married young and working a minimum wage job. To the nerdy city girl that I am, country life does not sound simple at all!

incidentally, from a perspective of a professional slacker – the key to not going insane while unemployed (temporarily or permanently – it still applies) is hobbies. lots and lots of hobbies. video games and books especially tend to take up a lot of time that you might have difficulty tracking. some creative hobbies do as well, depending on how into one you are (I once found myself painting for something like 4 hours, didn’t realize, until natural light really started to go)

however, word of caution – once you do go back to working, you will have to put a tight reign on your hobbies again, as far as time consumption is concerned. that can be somewhat challenging at first, especially if one of your hobbies is an MMO (much easier to adjust with single player game, though still will take some effort)

also, simple life (country life at least) doesn’t always mean not busy life some of the things you might take for granted, like takeout, preserves, fruits, veggies and meat, laundry, cleaning – they do it the hard way, otherwise known as time consuming way, so they are still busy. just different busy

P.S. then again, I suppose some people are happy doing nothing at all :/