I look at job ads all the time because I am still trying to figure out what one can do with a library degree. There are all kinds of jobs out there and they are all over the place. Berkeley, Middletown, CT, Maryland, everywhere. I just saw a posting the other day that made me say, "Cool!" Associate Archivist at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. Of course, the job may not really be cool when you discover what it actually involves, but if I read the posting with my Antiques Roadshow goggles and think about being in Asheville, then I become very excited and I wish I had stayed in the archives program at Simmons so that I could have had a job like this. Wishes and regrets about my professional life I have plenty.
The job, you'll note, is in NC, which is not within commuting distance of my current home in Dedham, MA. The vast majority of the jobs that I see posted that make me go, "Hmmm...." are not within commuting distance of Dedham. This is a bit of a problem, since we own a home in Dedham and the market right now is pretty poor for house-selling. And, as I have said time and time again on this blog, we really like our house and we've grown used to Dedham. But this doesn't change the fact that our house ties us down. Weighs us down and keeps us in one place. Makes our backpacks very heavy.
What do we do about that? Not quite sure. We go back and forth on this topic each day. Sell or not to sell. Move or not to move. It's the same old, same old. Blah, blah. But Doug and I are in the process of lightening the load in our backpacks in other ways. Like going through our bookshelves and pulling books that we won't read or don't have any attachment to.
Doug's going through all of his pedals and is selling some. I have started a bag for clothes and shoes give-away. We are donating two chairs to Uncle Jimmy's house in New Hampshire for when the construction on his addition is completed. We have started a tag sale pile and have several things in it already, including some pots and pans that we haven't used once since we moved into this house. Things like that.
Our "Lightening the Load," our "Great Leap Forward," was side-tracked a bit while we were dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. A microburst went through our neighborhood and several extremely large and old trees met their maker because of it. Also because of it we spent four days with very limited power. No power to the main parts of our house meant that I spent a lot of time crafting. I finally made my new curtain for the kitchen:
Matching placemats:
A stupid sock creature:
What's ironic is that all of these things add weight to my backpack and so counteract what I am actually trying to do by getting rid of stuff. Because all of this is just more stuff. Now I have a spare set of curtains in storage, more placemats to store for use when the company I never invite over comes over, and a stuffed sock with button eyes that sits on the dining room table and collects cat hair. But all of it was fun to make, and I think the window looks much better with the new curtain. So maybe it's worth it to add to my backpack? Or maybe it's a balance. I can add to my backpack as long as I take more out than I am adding to it. Isn't that what life is about? Balancing the good with the bad? Yes, I think it is. And so the trial for me continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment