The next step.

We're back from our annual trip to Maine. If you want a review of our fabulous trip, please see the wonderfully concise post from Summer Sweater, or the introspective post from Cotton. I'll blog about the trip soon, but I have other things on my mind (doesn't take long for my mind to start to work (or overwork) again, let me tell you).

Other Thing on My Mind #1: The house.

The house is now painted! Yay! Remember when I asked you to vote for your preferred color? Well, I received no votes, which is just as well, since Doug and I picked out our preferred color and would have gone with that one regardless. We went with the light greenish/gray color, called Roycroft Mist Gray, with Roycroft Bottle Green for the accents and Creamy for the trim.



Doug and I really like it and can't wait to get a new, dark green awning to really show off the green accent color. I also can't wait to plant flowers in my window boxes, which thankfully I did not have to paint myself.



Coming back to our newly painted house was very satisfying. We pulled up to the little place and I was glad to be there. I was reflecting on all of the work that we have put into the place - the painting on the inside, the landscaping, and now the repainting on the outside. While in Maine, Doug and I were dreaming of living there, in some kind of old farmhouse not too far from the rocky coast. But when I came home to our little house with its fresh coat of paint, those dreams fade a little. (A little.)

Other Things on My Mind #2: Career Change.

This next topic will thrill my mother, who I fear is convinced that I am wandering aimlessly and unhappily through life (which is not true, really not true at all). Vacation always gets me to thinking about how I am living my life when I am not on vacation (if you have read Cotton's post mentioned above, you'll get a glimpse of why), and now that I'm back from it and we are basically back to our old routine (though not fully, since we are down one cat (still at Grandma's Meg is) and I'm still allowing myself to eat as many sweets as I want) I'm dreaming of ways to prolong those vacation feelings. Those feelings of freedom, of light-heartedness, of possibility and excitement. I do believe that finding the right career path is key to having that kind of satisfying vacation-feeling even when I'm not on vacation.

Let's just face it - I'm not a librarian at heart. I love books. Love, love, love books. Love their covers, their smell, their contents. There's not much about them that I do not like, and even confess to loving electronic books and their electronic devices. But that doesn't mean that I love librarianship, or am meant to be a librarian. The minute details of librarianship I find trying. What difference does it make if I stamp the due-date in the back of the book before I de-sensitize it? Why does everyone have to do these tasks in a particular order, and why do we have to have meetings to discuss what the best order is? To quote myself when I was talking to Doug today, I'm just not jazzed about librarianship. I know some very good, very passionate librarians and I am so glad, so glad, that they exist. But I don't consider myself one of them and I may very well never be. I thought things would be different when I left corporate librarianship for academic librarianship, and believe me, they are, but I still haven't found my "thing."

For me, more than moving to a new location or finding a new hobby, I need to start down that journey of changing my career. I need to start doing that thing that I can feel better about, or at least more interested in, each morning when I wake up. I've narrowed it down to a few options, and now I just have to take that plunge. I feel a lot of pressure to make the right choice. I feel that the time is now, and that the spotlight is on this decision. I feel like I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I also am encouraged by the possibilities and the bright light of the future. These are good things, and I thank vacation for this.

I also thank vacation for another week of my life spend with three of my favorite people. Ruby is such a little delight, and her parents are just about the best people to go on vacation with. Ever. Doug and I are always so relaxed and comfortable on our trips to Liberty. We thank you, C, C, and R, for your hands in that!

Just call me Odor Eaters.

Tonight I got home early enough to make us dinner (please let this trend of getting home in the daylight last all summer...), so I threw together a Boboli pizza. My half has the peppers, but with a pesto base the pizza was pretty good. What did we ever do without Boboli wheat crusts? Anyway, to celebrate our early and homemade dinner, Wyatt treated us to a little humping action while we ate. Doug and I are on the couch eating our pizza when we hear Wyatt make his little needy cry. We turn around to see him getting on top of the blanket that was resting on the back of the couch. He's biting it, and making biscuits on it, and purring to beat the band. And then his little hips start to thrust. I took a video of it with the intention of posting it here so that everyone would be able to see the torture that we endure from Wyatt and his randiness, but why would anyone want to sit through a minute of watching the cat hump a blanket? I'll spare you the evidence of Wyatt's love, but search for it on YouTube if you really are in need of some base humor.

In other news, I was thinking of what kind of careers women can have as mothers that are flexible and would still pay you decent money if you did them part-time. I was thinking about this on the way home from Maine on Sunday, as Chris had been talking about her job and day care and making it all work. I did some Internet investigating, and some possibilities are freelancer (freelancing with anything, I guess, since you can dictate your own hours), nurse, dental hygienist, pharmacist (pretty much anything in the health professions), teacher, cosmetologist... the usual. So I asked Doug what he would think if I ever decided to work part time as a cosmetologist, or a dental hygienist (which would require another degree. Actually, all of these things would require more schooling, so unless one was smart and planned ahead one would be faced with getting some sort of certificate or degree in order to pursue as a new mother one of these paths). He couldn't picture me as a cosmetologist, and while he could more easily picture me flossing people's teeth and handing the dentist the Novocaine needles, he decided that he had the perfect part-time job for me. One that he could totally picture me doing, with enthusiasm that he's never seen me bring to any other job. He thinks that a career as a bowling alley assistant would be ideal for me. Taking the money, activating the lanes, giving people the bowling shoes, but especially spraying down the hot and sweaty worn shoes with antibacterial spray. I'm looking for a real conversation, real advice from my husband and he tells me that I should make a career out of using an aerosol can. Thanks!

However, I did get very enthusiastic today about libraries. Every once in a while I get on a libraries kick. I get tired of trying to think of what else I could do with my life when I am in a fine profession already, but just maybe not in the right specialization. I've always said that I'd be great in a public library, and today I agreed with myself. I had renewed vigor for public library work and started to imagine myself working in reference at a mid- to large-sized urban library, helping patrons with their reference questions, providing reader advisory services, designing community outreach programs, fixing the copy machine, giving directions, whatever - just out with people and working in a community. That's what I want to do. Eventually I might want to move into management again, maybe to the assistant director or director level, but I'd be very content for a while to work as a librarian, to work on the front lines. The economy isn't helping me reach my goals, though. Towns are not hiring new librarians or adding new positions. Towns are cutting back library funding and are cutting back hours of existing staff, many cutting staff altogether. Until the economy gets better and more librarians retire, I will just have to be content reading Library Journal and belonging to the PLA.