I am in a state of limbo. Off vacation, I'm still awaiting my next sentence. I've requested short assignments, but I'm realistic enough to know that the possibilities of that are slim. I've done my part to be home at least through the end of this month - if only to be able to medicate the cats until they're done with pills (antibiotics for the two most recent victims of tooth cleaning and extraction) - but it cannot last forever. I must make a decision soon - to stay or to leave. And leaving scares me. It wouldn't be so bad if I knew that there was no hope at all, but this is not the case. There is this hint of possibility for a position that would be so truly ideal that it is almost painful to think of leaving when this chance hovers so gloriously out of reach. I wish for resolution, one way or another. I'd rather know that door was permanently closed than be left in this constant hope.

In the meantime I continue to job search. I spent several hours yesterday filling out the application and cover letter, and modifying my resume for exactly one job - one that sounds exactly like what I'd like to move towards. There are other positions similar to this one that I need to apply for, but I find myself almost reluctant to put in the effort. There's this little childish voice in the back of my head that keeps whining that it's not supposed to be this hard. I know better than that, but knowing and feeling are two different things.

So today I procrastinated. To my credit I did skim through the ever-growing list of job boards and want ads looking for new things to fling a resume at in the hopes that perhaps I'll finally get lucky, but for whatever reason I had the itch to search for other things, and so on returning from the grocery store, I fired up a search engine and was lost in blissful abandon the rest of the afternoon going through recipes. I printed out a thick stack of likely candidates which will grace our menu over the next few weeks.

This is, of course, the last thing I should be doing. I already mentioned that little job-hunting thing, and now that the fabric I ordered several weeks ago is in, I've got no excuse not to get cracking on the curtains. 12 yards of pale yellow with a green vine pattern and 12 yards of cream sheer are sitting in patient rolls and pleats waiting for me to open up the sewing machine, spread the pattern pieces on the floor, and get sewing. After all these years I finally have a sewing room (no matter that it is also the guest room and partial library) that will forever be cat-free. I can lay out pattern pieces without fear of a cat deciding to take a running slide into the thin tissue. I can leave the pin box open without having to check it every few seconds to make sure that same cat isn't trying to grab a mouthful of those temptingly shiny objects. I can run the sewing machine without (yes, you guessed it - same cat) feline assistance which mainly involves sitting and patting at the thread as it spins down to the needle, or making exaggerated gagging faces to let me know how much he hates the sound of the machine itself.

Tomorrow I'll buckle down and fire off a few more of the more complicated applications which each require their own version of my resume. And tomorrow I'll lay the stack of tempting new recipes aside and open out the fabric. Tomorrow is soon enough for now.