This is big.

Breaking news as of 5:26PM: Cuomo and the Legislature have agreed to a tentative budget.



When I saw this, my stomach went into an immediate knot. I started to read the (very short and not very informative) article. When I came to this sentence, my heart sunk: "But the 2011-2012 budget that Cuomo, Senate leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver stood behind Sunday would be nearly identical to the proposal Cuomo presented Feb. 1".

Pardon my french, but this is the truth. My instant reaction: Oh, shit.  Shit, shit, shit.
Literally, out loud. Very loud.

What I would have preferred to read is something like this: "This tentative budget addresses the public outcry to restore some of the proposed cuts to education, and redistributes the disproportionate percentage of cuts to Upstate school districts".
Yep, that sounds much nicer if I do say so myself. Not being one to rely on a single source (hello, librarian here!) I went farther, straight to the mouthpiece. I found this article on NY.gov. I took a deep breath. Okay, I thought, this seems a little better:
"Recent changes to the budget include an additional $272 million in education which includes restoration of funding for schools for the blind and deaf (4201) and summer school special education. Human services funding of $91 million was added and $86 million for higher education including SUNY hospitals, SUNY and CUNY community colleges".

So, restoring funding is good. But what will the funding be used for in education? Are there restrictions? How much will each district get? Is it weighted differently for Upstate versus Downstate? CAN YOU PLEASE JUST TELL ME IF I HAVE JOB NEXT YEAR FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!?

Whew. That helped a little. 

But then, there's also this from the same article:

"The approximately $132.5 billion budget will reduce spending overall by over 2 percent from the current year, eliminate 3,700 prison beds, establish regional economic development councils, bring performance funding to education, redesign Medicaid, and cap next year's education and Medicaid spending."

So, are we a little safer now? Are we safer just for this year? Or what?

Once again, what appears to be a step toward clarity leaves me more mystified than ever. I think the big answer is still "we don't know for sure"...so the waiting, and hoping, and praying continues, and the big questions are left to be answered another day.

Photo credit here.

Nothing soothes the soul like beer.

Well, technically, beer bread. I'm not nursing a solo beer at 11 am. Promise.

It's another March snow day today, this time with a little less panic and a lot more ho-hum. We'll be going to school over two days of our spring break now, to make up for an excess of snowy days. I really should be using this time to do all manner of things, like sleep, or catch up on laundry, or clean my bathroom, but instead...
I'm baking. So far, cheesy beer bread to go with seafood chowder tonight, and more grahams (I am obsessed. Omg, with cream cheese slathered all over them--magic). I'm thinking I might attempt another batch of homemade crackers (those are crazy easy).

I love to bake. This small fact is completely and utterly surprising to myself and to those that knew me when I was younger. "Domestic" and my name did NOT belong in the same sentence...probably not even the same paragraph. I was the girl that could not boil water and regularly created small fires in the kitchen. I almost burnt down my dorm one year trying to make my roommate birthday fried dough. (Turns out plastic utensils do NOT work well in lava-hot oil. Who knew?)

Then pagach happened.

My grandmother has always made pagach--this dense, chewy, buttery,crispy potato-filled bread. It is our quintessential family heirloom food, thoroughly Slovak, served with the Polacheck specialty--sugar on top. Yum. I have so many fond memories of my mom excitedly announcing, "Grandma made pagach!" and off we'd go for tea and sugary butter potato bread, fried in a pan and eaten hot.
Then one year, Grandma didn't make it. The arthritis had gotten the best of her hands, and the intense labor required to roll out that dough paper-thin with just the right amount of potato just wasn't in the cards for her any longer.

Another year. No pagach. No one stepped up to the plate. I was heartbroken. It felt like a family tradition was being left behind, and I'm strangely attached to tradition. So I decided to take it on.
After several lengthy phone conversations and step-by-step directions, (maybe I'll post a pagach-making post on here as Easter gets closer) I tackled it. Holy crap, you guys, it was almost a disaster. But then, it wasn't. It was good! The next year got better...last year was perfect. The baking bug had bitten.

So now, I bake. My love for all things anal-retentive matches beautifully with the precision needed to bake, and my total overestimation of my ability to try new things and succeed has allowed me to dive in head-first to layer cakes, advanced decorations like from-scratch sugar leaves, nut brittles, quick and "slow" breads, cookies, crackers, whatever I feel like making....and pagach. Always pagach, twice a year. Sometimes it's a tragedy, but surprisingly often, it's not. There's just something soothing about dough on your hands and the smell of a hot oven. Bliss.

So, what's the point of all this? Firstly, it makes me happy to share what makes me happy. But also, maybe that's how I should look at the year coming up. Dive right in, and keep overestimating that everything will work out for the best. What's the worst that can happen?

Letting go

Ever since finding out about my job for next year, I've been dealing with quite a few issues of control: control over my future, control over decisions that affect me, control over my emotions. I've been realizing with greater certainty that I'm not someone that deals well with change unless the change is enacted by me, myself, and I. I do not easily relinquish control and let things flow.

In the same vein, I've started taking yoga. Tonight's class struck a particular chord with me. At "the church of St. Anne", as I like to call my class, our instructor spoke to us about letting go. "This is life," she said, "This is waking up on Monday morning. This is the second day of spring, and it's snowing." Her message tonight was that we cannot control very much, really, when it comes down to it. We can control our bodies and the way we treat them, we can control our reactions to the external, we can control the way we treat one another. And in the end, shouldn't that be enough? The universe holds us in its hands, and we are alive for a reason. We should welcome change in its myriad forms, live in the moment, and face each day with the knowledge that although we may not be able to control, we can accept. You can call this God, or the light of the universe, or a life force, but there is a bigger power at work than our small, human plans.



Tonight,surrounded by candles and the faint smell of essential oil, in the darkening room of an old local Church, I felt more spiritual, more connected, than I ever have before. I grew up Catholic, and have always struggled with my personal beliefs. Church has often been more about the routine and the tradition than a living spirituality. Tonight, feeling my breath and listening to the breathing around me, hearing the words of our instructor, letting go of all the worry and fear, I knew that there is more to this life than the small daily stresses that have been getting me down. The universe will unfold the way it will unfold. I cannot control it,but I can accept it, and welcome the exciting change that is coming my way.

And that brought me peace.

Photo Credit Here

Not so much, Gov.

This made me scream in my car on the way to work today:
Cuomo: School aid advocates making bogus threats (from the AP)

Is he serious?
Um, Governor Cuomo? Is it politics that I have a letter saying I don't have a job next year? Is that a game to you? Because to me, it's very, very serious, and very, very worrying. By all means, if you think it's a big joke, could you let my school in on the punchline? Because they showed us our budget, and we have to make up a 3.5 million dollar deficit under your budget....and while it's nice to think that reducing administrative salaries would fix that, sadly, they do not make in the millions here in Upstate, NY. This is not Westchester. This is not LI. This is Binghamton, NY, and these are the cuts we're facing:

Chenango Forks: 41 positions
Owego: 45 positions
Binghamton: 47 positions
Johnson City: 48 possible positions
Whitney Point: Rumored 15 positions (no documentation available)

...and the hits keep coming. If only our silly, politically-motivated schools would stop "playing games".

All I Need

Homemade graham crackers (thank you Smitten Kitchen!), ugly and tasty:

(This is pre-oven. Post-oven, they were gone.)

A good book:

(I have this weird habit where I always take off book jackets. I also fold down page corners...and I'm a librarian! For shame.)










Some Kindergarten compliments: "You look exspecially beeeutiful, today! I love you and your the very bestest liberry teacher in the whole world!"

The people who love me...
PS: Happy early birthday, Pops...thanks for always taking care of me. 

...and everything will be OK.

Get it together, girl

I have a confession:

I have a complete and total mental breakdown every time I submit an application.

I'm talking blubbery, messy, blotchy, crying mess...and I'm not sure why.
I'm good-to-go looking at job postings. I even get a little excited when I find one that I think might fit. I get immersed in the cover letter, and the crazy "I like my folders and notebooks and pens to match" part of me relishes the look of neatly stacked papers with matching headers. I call up my mom, gush about how this job looks like it might be a good one, this job is something I can do, this job sounds like fun. I ask Doug things like, "Can you picture yourself living here? This place might not be so bad! It's kind of cute!"

Papers in hand, protected by a laminated folder or a neatly addressed envelope, or maybe just in a perfectly-saved PDF, I take the final step, whether it be dropping the letter in the mailbox, hitting send on the fax or sending an e-mail....and then it starts.


First, I start to snap at my husband, who is doing nothing more than standing in the general vicinity and probably being more patient and supportive than I deserve with the way I've been acting. Then, my voice starts to catch. There's no stopping it now: I'm driving in my car/standing in the parking lot/sitting at my desk full-on blubbering, wallowing in self-pity and despair.

Life stinks, guys.

My husband asked me today, "What makes you so upset? I thought you said it would make you feel better if you were applying for jobs...but it seems like it makes you feel worse."

This is what he got:
There's a part of me that wants to do this. I want to be proactive. I want to feel like I'm in control of my own destiny. And the really crappy thing is, I'm not. At least, not right now. There's a whole bunch of other people that have more information than me, that are working toward making the decisions that will affect my livelihood...and they're not telling me what is going on. Maybe they couldn't tell me, even if they wanted to. They might not even know themselves. Is it Albany? Is it a bargaining ploy for our contract? Is it hard times and sacrifice? Is it even going to happen? The not knowing is brutal.
I mean...I had plans! Plans to be a librarian, go back to school and get my administrative degree, seek out a job as a school library system director or a director of technology. And now they're ruined! I just got accepted to go back to school. What was the point of all that work and time and money to apply? I'm smart and capable. I'm good at what I do...and now I can't do it anymore. I feel like my future is derailed, and it's making me crazy. So, do I sit and wait it out? What happens if I let the universe unfold and it turns out badly?  I don't want to look back and say, I should have taken that opportunity when it presented itself. At the same time, I don't want to do something rash, and look back and say, I should have waited.

And then I cry until I'm cried out and done feeling sorry for myself and my temper tantrum is over.

That's really what it is. I am acting like a small child that isn't getting her way...and I want to get my way! But, there are much, much worse things in the world...and life is a lot longer than what happens next year. I know it will be OK and that I'm being a big baby and I need to (as my friend Kaycee would say) "Put on my big girl pants and deal with it".

So, this is my new mantra: Life isn't fair. Grow up. I hope I can listen to my own advice.

Photo credit here

Why cancelling cable made me a better person.

*Title courtesy of my lovely husband. Isn't he clever?

About a month ago, my husband and I decided we should cancel cable. We rarely watched anything on the 9 million channels we had (just flip-flip-flip-flip), we were spending hours zoned out in front of the TV, and it was getting progressively more and more expensive.

So, after much debate, we called up Time Warner, and did the deed. On Monday, we had an incredibly epic snowstorm, so I braved steep hills to turn in the cable box. Doug was out of town for work. I came home and automatically turned on the TV for comfort. Static. Instantaneous cancellation, like ripping off a band-aid. It was too quiet and I felt a little creeped out. And then I thought about that: I was totally uncomfortable without electronic noise filling the house. That's probably not a good thing.

So, for the first few days, it was no TV at all. I got comfortable with the natural soundtrack of my home--the groan of the stairs, the click of the washer, the echo of the pipes. It was much, much quieter...and more peaceful.

Then, we went out and bought antenna to catch some basic channels. They were dirt cheap--I think the "good one" set us back about $20--and the "old-timey-ness" of adjusting the rabbit ears appealed to my nostalgic sympathies. We can catch a few of the major stations (CBS, NBC, Fox only upstairs, PBS channels, and a very fuzzy but highly entertaining religious channel).

Our media deprivation didn't last forever. We have Netflix and our TV has a computer input option, so our gaming systems and an old refurbished laptop became our new "cable boxes" for when we want to watch something specific on Hulu or streaming video.

So, did anything change? Yes and no. We still watch TV with dinner most nights (shame, I know) and watch a lot of movies. We have a few select shows we try to catch (Bob's Burgers,The Office, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). I miss Food Network sometimes. We watch a TON of PBS(and secretly love it: Create channel, you complete me!)...but most importantly, we watch less. We talk more, read more, think more. Our house is quieter, slower, more relaxed. We broke free of the cable chains...and best of all, our wallets are thanking us.

Jon Stewart is my personal hero.

This just about sums it up:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Crisis in Dairyland - Message for Teachers
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

This, too:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Crisis in Dairyland - Angry Curds
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

And while we're at it...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Crisis in Dairyland - Apocalypse Cow
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

How dare we.

Rainy days and Mondays

There's so much in the world right now that just makes me want to bury my head under my pillow.

There's small things, like the fact that my cat puked on my comforter this morning. I could just punch that stupid, jerk cat. Look at his dumb face:

There's close to home things, like this article. 
OK, fair warning...here comes a mini-rant. I have nothing against Catholic schools in general. However, I went to one until I was in 8th grade, and let me tell you, they are cost-effective in part because teachers do NOT need to have a certification to teach. I went to college for 6 years to be a teacher and I'm better for it. It was valuable. On-the-job experience is valuable, too...but that mindset, that teachers are nothing more than glorified babysitters and don't need to have a degree or state certification, is (in my humble opinion) one of the MAJOR problems of society's perception of education. There's a huge disconnect between what we are really doing, and what people think we're doing. That's not to say I didn't have great, inspiring teachers in Catholic school--what's up, Mrs. Weston, Mr. Weston, Mr. Lurenz--but I also had some teachers that had NO business having even a small hand in the education of children because they were incompetent and mean, and no amount of being a good Catholic made them a good teacher. End of rant.

There's also big, national things...like this. 
What the heck is going on? Since when did the lowest levels of state and public workers become the enemy? Especially with crap like this still happening, even in light of the dire financial straits we're in. Really, guys?

I mean, I get it. State workers and teachers have really, really amazing pensions. Our health care is unheard of these days. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, and I'm in it for the kids, but I would be lying if I said those things, that reliability for the future, didn't play a role in my career choice. But isn't that the point? I opted to choose a job that didn't pay a dramatically high salary so I could raise a family with a steady income, great schedule, and security. Some people opt to be in riskier careers to make more money, or travel, or rise up the corporate ladder. Others may not have the schooling, or opportunity, to even have those choices, and that's terrible, but should I be punished for that? I remember being in college, and friends giving me such a hard time about being a teacher. "Oh, you won't get rich doing that!" and on and on. Now, everyone is up in arms about how teachers are these "fat cats" living off the public dime. What changed, besides perception?

Sure, maybe the system isn't realistic, and very likely, it's unsustainable. We might have to re-think, consider the greater good, give back. But why the vilification? Why can't we all act like grownups here? And why are the wealthy getting tax breaks and raises? Am I crazy?

So anyway, burying my head under the pillow seems like a good option these days. Wake me up when it's over, when the world stops being mad in both senses of the word.

When it rains....

...it snows so much that we have a state of emergency.
...on the day we have an author scheduled to visit.
...and we have no more snow days, so we're going to school over spring break.

This is what I woke up to:

So, our poor visiting author is holed up in the Red Roof Inn. He drove up from Maryland, and is booked the remainder of the week at other schools. Thank God we had him booked for two days, so I can re-schedule everyone into a single day. I've been up since 5am calling people, creating new presentation schedules, sending e-mails, and trying to stop hyperventilating.
Maybe one of these will help:

Yum. Adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe, the last time I made these I substituted greek yogurt for almost all of the oil in the recipe (I put in about 2 tablespoons before I changed my mind), dropped the temperature to 350, and cooked until they were tall and gorgeous. They were less sweet, and very moist.

This time, I used melted butter in place of the oil, and added peanut butter chips. (Sidenote: one of my new "frugal" initiatives is to cook with what I have, instead of running out to the store whenever the fancy to make something strikes. Triple points for saving on gas, being resourceful, and learning more about baking in one fell swoop. I digress...)
These were not nearly as healthy, or gorgeous...more flat and crunchy, but very, very tasty. Double yum.

I'm thinking of trying other add-ins, like coconut, cranberries, pecans...maybe even frozen blueberries. The options are endless with chocolate...and it always makes you feel better, even when it seems to be the year when nothing goes right.

Sunday Morning Bliss

Rain against the windows, coffee in my (disposable) cup, a warm house, a sleepy dog, and my favorite Sunday morning activity:

I even had a coupon for the coffee!

Later today, I'm planning to put together and send out another application, this time to a downstate college. There's two open positions, so I hope that doubles my odds of getting an interview. Hopefully, since it's an electronic submission, the process will be a little faster than my last attempt, when I burned through about 5 envelopes due to extreme anal-retentiveness (I just could not get that address to be centered correctly!) I  should also be seriously thinking about finishing the SLJ book reviews I neglected since the due date just so happened to be the day after THE news. Oops.

Have a lovely Sunday morning!

Life Revamp

One of the toughest parts of this whole "job loss" thing is being in limbo. Nothing's set in stone yet, so I sort of feel like this:



At this point, I'm not really sure if I'm going to be plummeting into an unemployed abyss, or if I'll make it across to the other side...aka, another year of employment.

Regardless, I've had to really start evaluating my spending. My husband Doug and I have been living a free-wheelin' lifestyle the past few years. We have no kids, our bills were comfortably within our means to spend, and we were saving, but not with the kind of fervor that we probably should have been. It was classic "this will never happen to us" behavior. New DVD out? Let's go buy it. Don't feel like cooking? How about dinner out tonight. New clothes, new shoes, random crap we didn't need....there wasn't much purposeful thought behind our spending. I didn't use coupons--what was the point of a few extra cents off? I'm a bargain hunter for clothes and love a good clearance rack, but I would never have called myself "frugal". My, how things have changed.

Now, I am in panic mode. I think long and hard about every little thing before spending. Is there a cheaper option? Do I really need this? Can I go without? Not to sound like a spoiled little baby, but I think the hardest thing has been trying to cut down on my clothes shopping. Darn it if I don't love a new outfit. Sigh. However, I just keep chanting "mortgage, loans, electricity, heat" and the moment passes. Plus, it's forced me to use what I've got and try to put together new looks with old stuff.

To be fair, we had already started to seriously think about making some changes to our spending habits before the bomb dropped. I signed up for an account on Mint.com per my friend Sarah's recommendation...it tracks your spending, helps you set goals, etc. I highly, highly recommend checking it out.

I also signed up for the Sunday paper, and subscribed to CouponMom.com. This might be a huge "duh" moment, but you can actually save money with coupons! I'm being sliiiiightly sarcastic, but the point is, I never realized what a difference coupons can really make. Plus, Wegman's (my all time favorite grocery store) doubles coupons to up to dollar. My new favorite activity is to pour over the Sunday paper, clip coupons, and strategize a grocery list. It's funny how your perspective changes. Some other great coupon sites are RedPlum.com, Coupons.com, and SmartSource.com. Again, kudos to Sarah...as I clutch my little plastic coupon holder, I remember when we had a conversation about coupons a year ago. I was telling her that I didn't bother with them, and she pulled out her own plastic holder. She shook it at me, and said, "This is MONEY in here!" Amen, sista.

So, what are your favorite ways to save?

Photo Credit Here

Social media, I love you.

As a librarian, I hear a lot of social media horror stories. Like this one.

Oh, girl.

But maybe instead of costing me a job, facebook might just get me a job.



Love this:
I Need a Library Job.

The search continues.

Photo Credit Here

The job hunt begins...

So, I've started looking for a job. To sum it up, the market is slim pickins, chickens.

So far, most positions have been waaaaaay far away. Kentucky. Texas. Connecticut. Yeeesh.
In an ideal world...well, in an ideal world I wouldn't be job searching. But, in an ideal world in which I have to job hunt, I would be able to find something nearby. It's funny, prior to this whole business, my husband and I used to look up exotic sounding places and dream of moving away from where we grew up. "Oooh, how about Vermont? That sounds lovely," and so on.  I'd play on Sperling's Best Places and look at real estate. Now that things are getting real, the idea doesn't seem so fun anymore. I'm doing the mental equivalent of laying down in front of traffic and crying, "Puhlease let me staaaaaaay!"

The fam is here. The husband's fam is here. Friends are here. House is here. The life we built is here. Stupidly, just a week or so before this happened, I made an offhand comment to my husband,"Maybe a job cut wouldn't be bad. It would force us to have an adventure," and then I laughed a flighty little laugh. Oh, what a lark being unemployed would be! Until you're unemployed. Man, be careful what you wish for. Seriously. 

I applied for a few positions already, didn't make the cut for a few already, too. I'm really going to have to think about my cover letter, and how to apply for jobs that I don't quite fit into on paper but I know I'm capable of doing. I'm tech-saavy but something about "K-3 Librarian" doesn't exactly inspire confidence for an academic position labeled "Instructional Materials Design Specialist". And yet, I think the skills could be transferable. The trick is making the hiring committee think so, too...and beat out the qualified competition. Tall order.

So, as I write, I keep Googling and Monster-ing and CareerBuilder-ing and praying for some miracle job to appear...preferably in a school. Preferably in a commutable distance. Again, tall order.

However, to be fair..I have to chill out. And remind myself...it hasn't even been a week yet. Yes, yes, I know, I'm being a little hyper-paranoid. I like to have a plan...and when I don't, overdrive kicks in--my omg-its-3am-I-have-to-change-the-wording-on-my-resume-right-NOW-and-then-since-I'm-up-I-might-as-well-search-for-anything-new-that-could-have-been-posted-between-11pm-and-now-I-hope-its-OK-that-my-resume-paper-is-ivory-and-the-envelope-is-white-should-I-have-handwritten-the-address-I-should-have-typed-it-oh-god-the-world-is-ending and on and on and on. But, in my defense, it feels like forever since that bomb dropped, even if in reality it's only been about 6 days.

The kids at school know something is wrong...or I'm extra-sensitive to their sweetness knowing it might be gone next year. They've been really huggy and clingy lately...not that my little ones don't love a good snuggle on the regular...it just feels different.
Today, a little guy in 2nd hugged me supertight and said, "You're the bestest library teacher in the whole world." True story. If that's not a punch to the heart when you know it might be the end, well, I don't know what is.

The grownups are acting strange, too. There's a weird combo of shock, hurt, anger...denial. BIG time denial. Many people keep assuring me: This won't stick. Things will work out. There's no way you're really gone next year. Others are mad as hell. Others are feeling hopeless. There's lots of talk about the future...and it doesn't look bright.

One of the best, and nicest parts of all this (hey, I'm trying to catch that silver lining) is the crazy outpouring of love. So many coworkers and parents have stopped me and told me how much they appreciate what I do...how they'll miss me...how it's not right...how I'm the best. All these nice words could go to a girl's head, you know what I mean? Maybe things will change. Maybe the community will rally and all this love and support will turn the tide. Maybe not.

Either way, everything is so up in the air. That is just not a nice place to be,especially for Little Miss Type A like myself. So, I'm sending out another application tomorrow....and looking at new towns and real estate...and hoping I don't really need to go any farther than that, in the end.