Erin Miller

Having a few weeks off, 6 specifically, allows one time to do some things that she may not have gotten to otherwise. This is especially true, because for the first time in years, I am not using this long period off to skip out of the country. In speaking to friends who have also taken furloughs, I have determined that perhaps because Americans scoff at the idea of short workdays and five weeks of vacation common in other developed countries, it becomes necessary to take prolonged periods of time off, not every year mind you, but perhaps every few years. On top of all of those things I mentioned doing in a previous post such as selling things on both craigslist and amazon.com and submitting a link on reddit to drive people to my blog, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Denver Post, and what do you know, it got published:) The letter is on the proposed redesign plans for DIA (you need to scroll to the second letter). The biggest tasks, besides finding a good job, that I want to get done before my entrance back into the real working world, are to clean out my gmail inbox and update the look on my blog. I have made progress on both, but neither are done and I am beginning to feel the pressure of the end of my furlough approaching. However, I have spoken with others who have taken similar amounts of time off, who had similar small tasks they hoped to accomplish, and failed to, and still haven’t. However, those people still smile thinking about the things they didn’t get done and the time off they enjoyed sitting by a pool. So, while I hope to get a few more things done, I am trying to remember to occasionally enjoy a margarita on a sunny roof, which I got a chance to do yesterday, to celebrate my little brother’s 23rd birthday.