Future projects

Going to make these when the next one comes along!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/babyhopes/sets/72157594274454468/

It’s been awhile

I haven’t written a post in ages, mostly because my internet time is taken up with reading the blogs of other great ladies.  But also because when I write, it tends to be in the intimate, journaling style that when read a week later, seems to take the tone of whiny or overly… I don’t know how to describe it.  Standoffish or too perfect?  I’ve got it – too far removed from my real thoughts or feelings or the actual tone of my every day life.  Like I’m speaking with my Sunday-best-behaviour voice. 

I know that it isn’t just my imagination.  The reading I’ve done has shown a marked difference in tone in different blogs.  I’ve found honest, true, voice-from-your-head blogs and I’ve found those “Sunday best” voices.  I haven’t been able to put my finger on what the difference is.  Maybe it is to do with overly editing your writing?

Another thing that occurs to me – I need a new picture.  I’m thinking a Paintshop creation with pictures of Logan now.  Lots of people haven’t seen him as big as he is now.

I have noticed that there aren’t many, or any, blogs about Christmas all year round.  There is probably a reason for this as I haven’t found too many people in person who are as into Christmas as I am.  I would list the things I’m doing but most of the projects are for gifts.  I’ve decided to make alot of the gifts I’m giving.  It is an extensive list and Chris tells me that I am going a little nuts with it.  The list makes me alittle anxious due to its length and it is only September.

On another note, I am trying to track down why I am having more migraines than usual or ever before.  I saw the doctor about it who change one of my prescriptions and gave me another to try.  So far in the last week, I haven’t had any.  I have had a small headache daily but even that has petered off.  I am focusing on aromatherapy, relaxation via yoga, and lots of hydration as the steps I can take myself to stop these annoyances. 

Wow…long post!

Love ya!
smooch

Getting settled

Well, it looks like we are moving out of the city.  We’ve signed the lease on an apartment and are moving tomorrow, we have a daycare possibility for Logan, and I have two job opportunities.  The first is with a marketing company, officially for 30 hours a week, for a month.  Unofficially, there is the possibility for more after I prove myself.  The pay is where I want it, so that’s good.  I would get to work with a new program, add that to my resume and there is the possibility of them taking me on after the month is over.  The guy interviewing me mentioned that they are a growing company, there is alot to do, great growth potential.

The second oppurtunity is a temp to permenant position with a company that engineers the machine to deal with waste solids after they are seperated.  I would be very embaressed to explain what I do, but the job would be a great oppurtunity in the long run.  I was have alot of responsibility.  It is also paying right where I need and when it would go permenant, it would pay above what I need.  However, when I was told about this position, I was told that I shouldn’t move just because I was getting a job, that no job with this staffing firm was a guarantee.

So, I’m at a loss…again…what else is new?

Moving home, part 2

Well, this first week back in civilization I’ve been trying to find employment. So far, I have two solid leads lined up. One was an inside tip from a family member which looks really promising, but has a few questionable aspects (dedicated workspace, abnormal work hours.) The other I am much more comfortable with, however, I haven’t had a real interview yet. I should hear about the time early next week, so it could still not happen. There is a lingering third option but the company lost an account and are reorganizing. I’ll know about that one on Monday too.

More updates to come…

Home and staying with friends

We are going home.  Fearfully leaning on our parents and friends to get us home.  We’ve started letting people know that we are returning but I was struck with a small amount of embarressment because I don’t want anyone to get the impression that we are slinking home with our tail between our legs.  That we weren’t able to make it.  The only cure for that is to live successfully where we are.

Because a cross country move was not on our radar, we found that we weren’t prepared monetarily.  That is why I contacted my best friend, Kendal, to take her up on her frequent offer to stay with her family until we can recover slightly from the moving expenses. I was looking for a situation that would allow me to focus on getting a job without a looming paralysis regarding the new, more costly, rent payment.  This new town is very expensive.

It didn’t look like we were going to reach any agreement between her husband, myself and Chris.  He seemed to be seeing our visit as an opportunity to make a buck off of us.  And knowing that things cannot be fair, I tried to come up with a system for keeping everyone sane for the brief 2 months we’ve discussed, we’ve come to a decision and for keeping Kendal’s and my relationship in tact.  There will be 10 people in a 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom house for between 2 and 6 weeks and the top question is if someone will start to feel cramped.

Does anyone have any suggestions about a semi-formal written agreement with your best friend and her husband that you don’t know well?   

Unapologetic hatred

Yes – the internet does serve as a place for anonymous, honest (supposedly) reactions to the outside world, with access to people, places and things beyond your own environment.  

But when I read things that people write on the internet, website posts or comments to weblogs containing a complete and unfettered hatred for the person they direct it to, I wonder where it came from.  Was it bottled up inside of people before the internet was there to loose it upon?  The average person walked around with a maelstrom of putrid thoughts just needing an outlet? 

Or I have heard the case that the internet is turning into a stage for the minority of hate mongers in our society, that previously had outlet in only subversion and perhaps late night animal torture. 

I put forth that the hatred was always there, but the access to a medium of relation to the outside world exempt from the rule of  social response has given people an avenue of barbarianism, safe from the social consequences. 

Loneliness

There is a large man that we see at the library frequently.  The first time, we rode the elevator up with him, having a babystroller for Logan.  He struck up a conversation immediately, as if we were the type of friends that had late night dinners under the stars, with great food and wine and long conversations into the night.  We had never seen him before but that did not stop him from commenting about the weight he had lost nor, unexpectedly, from my husband wishing him luck in his new diet.  I didn’t say much to him just shook my head.  The other day we saw him again as we were getting into the car after a library visit, and he commented that he had lost another 5 pounds since we’d last seen him.  I did not immediately think about his open personality to be so without artifice, but rather that he was kind of lonely.  But I think that this interaction that we have has become an integral part of a trip to the library, that it makes at least me feel like a part of a more interwoven community.

Career changes late in life

A dear man, close to me, has just lost his job five years from retirement.  He is the epitome of the older professional who will now have great difficulty finding another position without compromising something.  He had a plan for his life.  His retirement was within reach, but no longer.  I cannot help but relate that to myself.  This is a constant fear I have.  No matter what, things can always change and fall apart. 

This thought interrupts my life completely.  For instance, how can I buy a house with the thought forever swirling around the bowl of my brain, that no matter how secure my job is, things could change tomorrow, within the next hour.  I could lose my job, my life, the life of my spouse.  It amounts to a fear of the committment required for making any decision when the consequences would last longer than a day. 

The upside of this same fear is when I buy something mundane and simple, say a jar of peanut butter.  Upon finishing the jar, I look back and remember where I was when I bought something so meaningless and how far I’ve come and how I would have never guessed that was the direction I was headed.  

 

On the way home…

I was listening to the public radio station on the way home from work today and heard a show on the just released movie, The Linguists. It is about the journey that to academics take to record endangered languages. Much of the show centered around one of the causes of a language being lost: oppression.

I began to think about the conversations I had heard around the issue of our country’s borders. One of the arguments against immigrants receiving aid from our government was that there are examples of families who hold onto their native culture and tongue too ferociously; sometimes having members of an entire family who refuse to speak English. I will not go into the truth or fallacy of this argument against this family’s patriotism to America or to their native country. There are certainly instances in this country’s history where we have practiced oppression against another people’s culture to the extreme, such as boarding schools for native American children where to speak their mother language at any time was a punishable offense.

My next Christmas present to me…

Here lately, I have been coveting the Amazon Kindle.  I have read the reviews and thought about the hang ups and have determined that I am going to get the next version.  Hopefully by that time they will have cleaned out the problems, like where the content can come from.  I do alot of reading from my local library and would like something along those lines with my Kindle.   Another great thing about this Kindle is the it’s very nature.  I am a bibliophile.  I somehow cannot function in life without having a book with me at all times.  It is very inconvinient to be at the end of a book and have to bring another with me as I leave the house, in case I finish the first before returning.  That gets heavy.  With the Kindle, I have my entire library with me and if I finish one, oh! another is just a click away! 

I don’t need to tell you that my book addiction is a problem.  I have tried to reason out my anxiety about being away from something to read.  But I’ve gotten nowhere. And my husband is knowingly an enabler.  If for some reason the stars are not aligned and I get out of the house without a book, he will stop for a magazine.  But I’ve been dealing with this my whole life and it doesn’t effect my life in any negative way; other than for the fact that I tend to read crap rather than nothing, if given that option.