For two distinct periods in my career which includes the present day, I became a self-employed project manager so as to be able to manage both work and illness (bipolar illness).  During these times, I dedicated / have dedicated myself mostly to environmentally based volunteer work in my community.  In later years this often has translated to work in new measures for the environment and new measures in health.  Work also includes a period of service on the mayor’s environmental board in the town where I live.  In earlier years, I submitted grants for environmental development on behalf of my community.  In later years, I began to write papers that were accepted for presentation at the US government and at academic institutions in the US and abroad, including two acceptances from overseas groups.  This work includes being published by one overseas organization dedicated to sustainable development.

During both of these periods, I was able to put my health first and manage whatever bipolar symptoms or needs presented such as therapy appointments, psyche doctor appointments, meds management, or lab tests.  I also did not experience stigma in the workplace as I was working for myself. The first period was 1998 to 2001 and the second period was 2005 to the present with 5 plus jobs in the marketplace scattered among the second volunteer period and duration.  (I will recount the stories of these jobs at a later date.)  The downside of these two periods is that I was not able to make any income associated with these many accomplishments.  Work was volunteer in the community or involved publishing/posting papers that I developed on my own time. 

During this first juncture as a volunteer in my neighborhood, I was able to make important contributions to my community.  One effort resulted in a near million-dollar creek clean-up and naturalization effort about ten minutes from my house.  Another effort resulted in a survey-based community development plan for an in-town neighborhood including such priorities as walkability and economic development. I also developed three community-based sustainability grant applications to the United States Department of Agriculture recommending an environmental approach for managing agricultural waste and converting it into biofuels. 

During my later juncture of self-employment as a member of a city sustainability board, I worked on a variety of environmental agendae items including climate change.  I chaired one of the four subcommittees for a time.  This subcommittee worked on recommendations for the local tree ordinance, storm water management, and reforestation and trails development at a near-by park that was newly acquired by the city. 

Papers that I wrote and presented during the second timeframe focused on systems-based orientations to and measurements of environmental development.  The idea of much of the work at this time was that proposed adoption of systems-based measures in the Health, Energy and Food industries would correlate with simultaneous advances in all three industries.  Aligning measures for Health, Energy and Food advances means we can promote Energy work that allows for climate change concerns and we can promote Health work that allows for citizen well-being in the face of extreme weather events and the like.  This work and related work was presented and/or posted at a US government website in 2009, presented at a well-known public health university in the US in 2011, presented at a US academic non-profit geared to values in higher education (several submissions/presentations from 2010 forward), and submitted/presented/posted at two overseas non-profits dedicated to health economics and/or sustainability. 

Overall, my accomplishments during these two periods of self-employment are/were notable.  I am proud of these accomplishments, but I would not have been able to pursue this work if it had not been for support both financial and otherwise from my husband and my husband’s family.  Basically all this work in environmental development and new measures for the economy in terms of health economics and the like was financed by my family at that time.  This self-financing continues today with my blog writing and other work with which I am involved.