A year ago today I got fired from a part-time job at a small local company. The company owner fired me before I could quit. I had taken on that 8-hour/week gig to cover (most) of the rent, starting in mid-May. My job at the law firm had ended at the end of April, since the firm wanted a full-time employee and I wasn't interested in working that many hours (I was already doing freelance work).

All went well for a while, then the company owner had what was a major personality change, brought on at least in part by a medication change. After that, I could do nothing right.

Things I had been praised for when I first started working there were suddenly no longer right. It got to a point that every day when I went there I felt as though I were being given a bushel of oranges and told to make apple pies from them.

I was so glad to be getting out of there I didn't even remember to feel bad about getting fired. I'm not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination. But if I were as inadequate as the owner made me feel, I should have been being watered and fed plant food.

It took a while for me to figure out what to do after I lost that job. I added some clients, and I started looking into doing more and more craft work, which is something I truly enjoy.

And here I am, with some really nice clients, some future plans, some budding new skills, and some hope. Along the way, I've received a lot of support and encouragement.

And I have the pleasure of having an online journal that people are actually reading (I'm not sure which part of that blows my mind more: me doing it or that it has readers).

So even in the midst of all the sadness that has come along this summer, there has been a lot of joy. The writer of Ecclesiastes was right: for everything there is a season.

I think for me, this is New Year's Day.