It seems like 4-6 weeks is an awful long time to wait for a decision on unemployment. What is in your favor is that the company will not fight you. As for blogging, I have set up both a wordpress and a blogger. The Wordpress offers many more options than the blogger/blogspot. However, I don't have the time to study all the bells and whistles, and I will eventually just have one blog, which is the easy to use but fewer options blogspot. You can see the difference in the exact same content: http://www.beyondthetears.com/bttblog of http://beyondthetears.blogspot.com
A Blog is an excellent idea for you. Since your passion lies in animals, imagine all the tips you can share related to a pet sitting business. By the way, I did get my current pet-sitter by calling on a card at the vet's office.