Back! Zahirah 2.0

Hey all! I had such a productive trip that I don’t even know where to start. I bought a notebook before I left and wrote over 37 pages of notes during the trip. Little by little, I’ll be sharing here.

The highlights: we’re selling A’s apartment and moving out of the country! The selling the apartment was part of the plan before I left, but now the plan is on turbo. The listing was first posted online today, and already two people came to see it early this afternoon! And there’s another person set to come tomorrow.

As for moving out of the country, that was also in the plans, but with no real date set, and now we’ve sped up things in this area as well. Which means: I want to find an additional source of income before we take off. I’m translating the first chapter of a friend’s book to see how it goes, and if she’s happy with it, I’ll be doing the rest of the book. And it’s a long book. And a very well written one. So I’m very excited about that!

But I may need to find a second project as well, so I’ve been browsing jobs online for telecommuting jobs in writing. I just discovered that my CV is in Spanish (it’s been a long time since I looked at it), so I need to get that both translated and updated. And I need to make up a resume, since I’m looking for jobs in the US, so I’ll need to condense my CV into one page, which shouldn’t be hard. While I’m at it, I will need to update my LinkedIn profile as well.

Needless to say, I’m working on a whole list of things to do to get ready for this move.

And…I made the decision to concentrate on translating, finding a job, and organizing our lives so we can move. So I canceled knitting class, the writers workshop I joined just two weeks before my trip, and painting class. The last was the hardest to let go of, but I will have to quit at some point, when we’re ready to leave.

So today was the first Thursday in over a year where I was in Argentina, but didn’t go into the city for painting. Letting go is an issue for me, but I know it’s something I need to work on, so I just need to relax with this. Sometimes, I have to let go of old things so I can receive new ones. I’m old enough to have learned that change is always for the best, even if there are growing pains in the process.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering…we have no idea where we’re moving to just yet. We’re thinking Europe, and at this point it looks like Barcelona is best for A’s line of work (he’s studying to be an opera singer). But we’re still open to just about anything. We’ve both lived in Spain (me in Granada and A in Madrid), so it won’t be a huge surprise to us. Except that neither of us speaks Catalán.

I’m going to get back to translating for now, but I couldn’t resist posting here. I truly feel like a new and refreshed person after my trip and I wanted to share! Hugs to all!!