Returning to normal

February 10th, 2010

Things are definitely looking up

When the Great Recession fell upon us in December 2007, I made some basic changes in order to continue enjoying life as I was accustomed. As my writing clients dropped off, I stopped various activities.

The symphony concert

The first to go was our renewal of the subscription to the symphony concert. For about 7 months of the year there is a concert every month. The tickets are expensive but the orchestra is great and we love about sixty percent of the music. The rest of the music is either modern or we simply don’t enjoy it. The non-renewal of the subscription was an easy decision.

The gym

I stopped going and decided that in these times of Great Recession I would simply walk in the streets each morning. As a writer I spend many hours scrunched in front of the computer in a question mark. I took to the gym in an effort to prevent my back giving out. Walking in the street is just as good, I decided. But I didn’t. I hated the exhaust fumes, the traffic, the noise, the summer heat and the winter rain.

The art school

Last on my list of luxury cut-backs was to stop my once-a-week session of the painting group at the art school. This was an expensive luxury, but I loved it. I had always dabbled with a brush and paints and never managed to produce anything worth looking at, let alone keeping. In my later years I decided to ‘just do it’. I registered at the local art school and joined the painting group. My life took on another dimension – I was creating properly and under supervision. I painted great pictures. I gave some to my children and hung others on the walls at home.

The work situation

As the Great Recession stumbled along I made further cuts in places like the supermarket, the movies houses, gifts; in fact I cut anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. My moves paid off. My writing clientele all but disappeared and my income dropped dramatically – so I tailored the spending accordingly, always leaving a small margin between the two so as to keep the bank manager from banging on my door.

Bottoming out

The situation reached bottom some months ago and my first ‘remedial’ action was to rejoin the gym. I found that I was missing the exercise and once back to my routine I felt better immediately. More work trickled in and I weighed the options of returning to the symphony concert but so far I have done nothing about it, despite the many phone calls from the concert office to please come back. I guess they are feeling the pinch too…

The latest step.

I went back to the registration office at the art school this morning. They were pleased to see me and I can’t wait to get back into the painting group tomorrow morning. I hope things  ar e ba ck  to normal.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 9:42 am and is filed under Economy, Personal / Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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