Sweet summer

Sigh. So this is summer.

It feels like a long time coming, after the tumultuous last few months. This is my first summer not working, which is a pretty odd feeling considering I've been working/volunteering over my summers since the 7TH GRADE. I didn't know what was happening to me next year, so I didn't job search. Oh, well. (I sound pretty bummed out, right?) Last week, we went to the beach with my parents and brother, and we threw a little 4th of July BBQ yesterday.

I have clean up ahead of me (unpacking and de-partying our house) but it's the first real day of nothing important to do, so instead I'm sitting in bed, at (gasp) 10:30 am, listening to Oscar snore and thinking over my "to-do" list of things to accomplish before September rolls around.

Here's what my summer looks like so far:

1. Clean/organize/sort the unbelievable amount of crap we've accumulated since moving into the house,some of which was accumulated and left by the previous owners. The general plan is a garage sale sooner than later, and renting a dumpster as a last step for finally getting rid of some of the nonsense that we just don't know what to do with. We currently have 4, count 'em, 4 extra couches (one  is currently on our curb if anyone is interested), chairs galore, knickknacks beyond measure, and tchotchkes beyond your wildest dreams. If I can clean out the garage/attic/basement this summer, it will be a success.Which leads me to....

2. Hire a contractor to fix up our monstrous basement. We were flooded earlier this spring, thrice, and now we are the proud owners of warped, nasty, rotten paneling. So, we've gotta get that taken care of, stat. We fixed up the non-flooded side of the basement just this weekend, with some new Berber rugs (which, by the way, were a total steal at $300 for two 12 x 15 bound rugs from Warehouse Carpet). Doug also set up his new music room/ man cave/jam space. I was feeling a little grumpy about giving up the space that used to house a card table and some other odds and ends, but I have to admit, it looks pretty snazzy.

3. Go through all of our papers and file them. We started this process, but haven't finished yet. Since moving in together and getting married, we sort of just kept shoving any papers that seemed mildly important into various drawers in the office....which made doing our taxes and my FAFSA (I started classes to earn my second Masters in Ed Admin) this year a total, all encompassing nightmare. So, we've started filing, and I'd really like to get that under control asap.

4. Tackle the ugly green on green on green front landscaping. I've been saying this since we moved in. I hate, hate, hate the front of our house. There's the grass, which is fine, but that melts into this awful tangly ground cover vine thing, which borders an equally unattractive line of hedge. I'm not sure if I have it in me to rip out the hedges, but those vines are going, going, gone if it's the last thing I do...and given how many of them there are, it just might be. I did some work in the back garden, and I'm really, really happy with how it came out. I'm hoping the front will be as successful.

5. Take my statistics course that I am not loving, but am happy to be starting. 1 course started, 11 more to go!

6. Keep baking.

7. Work on the novel Doug and I started over two years ago. Like, really work on it. I don't even care about it being published, I'd just like to say I did it and it's done.

8. Sleep.

9. Possibly do something with our pink and gray bathroom of ultimate heinousness. Maybe. Doug thinks it's better left alone. I totally disagree. I mean, look at it. Gross.

10. Fix the scrapes in the wood floors that came from moving furniture without pads. Oops.

11. Break Oscar's will to bark at everything, all the time, to the point of ridiculousness.

12. Exercise. A lot, to make up for #6.

OK, maybe I'm over-planning. I do have the tendency to do that. But, that's the plan for now. I might be singing a different tune in a week or two.

For now, I think I'll start cleaning...but then again, maybe I'll just go back to bed. It's summer, after all.

Secrets Kept Secret.

I am writing this post almost a full month before I can share it. It was hard to keep it a secret for so long.

On Friday, May 13, I got a visit from my Superintendent. He sat down in front of me, and told me he was recommending my job be reinstated at the June 9th Board Meeting. I almost passed out.

He told me that they recognized everything I've done this year and the past three years I've worked there. He told me they value me as an employee, and that I'm an integral part of the goals of the district. He told me they may be moving me. He told me I was employed if the Board passes the vote on June 9th.

Let me say that again: HE TOLD ME I'M EMPLOYED.

He also told me I needed to keep it quiet for now. Out of the 22 teachers still being laid off, there is only myself and one other person being saved. We are the very, very lucky ones. It's simply not fair that so many talented, smart, amazing teachers will still be facing what I was facing. It's not right that they could only save a handful of us when every single teacher being let go deserves their job. I am blessed in a way that I can't fathom to have been given my job back.

I had to close my eyes when he was talking to me so I didn't throw up on his shoes or start crying. I am so relieved, so grateful, so happy I have my job. I had hit my worst just a few days before. I was in despair. I was lost, directionless, hopeless, worried. At that moment, when he told me that I could work there again, I felt...sure. I was back to where I thought I was before this all started. My life was on track. I knew what I was supposed to be doing. I am meant to be in a school--this school.

After he left, I had to sit down on the floor and take it in. I told my clerk and we celebrated together. My principal came in and hugged me. I ran into the computer lab and called my husband and my mom as the weight of the past three months lifted off my shoulders.

You know what's strange? I'm happy this happened to me. It was good for me. It woke me up and made me realize that I'm content to live in my small hometown. It made me realize I'm ready for a new challenge, so bring on the middle school if that's what's supposed to happen next. It certainly made me more resilient, so if (and when, because there's a good shot that it will) it happens again next year, I think I'll be better off than I was this time. It brought out my creative side, started a new business in baking, renewed my need to write, and made me take stock of my life.

At the same time, I'm a little melancholy. I was geared up to go do something wild and reckless. I had a vision of staying home with babies, or working at a college, or becoming a full time writer, or moving to a new place. There's a huge part of me that wants to always be on the move, trying new things, seeing new places. I am endlessly restless. I have to balance that desire for change with the realization that when I was being forced into a drastic situation I wanted to stay where I already am. I need to remember to value what I've got instead of always wanting something else. This is enough, more than enough.

So, here comes another year....and who knows what the next few weeks will bring. Who knows what the next year will bring? I'll keep blogging, though the original theme of the blog will change. Life keeps moving, and shifting, and changing. Though I may not be totally starting over anymore, I am starting something new. I can't wait to see what happens.

Sunshine and pastry

Today has shaped up to be such a fabulous day.
It started with a trip to our favorite diner and then the farmer's market, which is my all-time favorite Saturday morning activity. Doug and I bought some new herbs for the garden (lemon basil and parsley, to join the sweet basil, sage, lavender, and mint), some amazing raw milk cheddar, and eggs. After coming back home to laze around in the sunshine, putz in the garden, and plant our new goodies, we came inside to cool off. Too keyed up to take a nap, I decided to bake something new while Doug snoozed.

This is what I came up with: Homemade. Pop. Tarts.
I saw the recipe a few months ago on Smitten Kitchen, and have been itching to try them since. I followed the recipe fairly closely, subbing out 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour for part of the white, and I used Sarabeth's Strawberry Raspberry jam for the filling. I'm toying with whipping up a quick glaze to finish them off, though I think that might defeat the purpose of making a healthier pop tart. They are soooo fabulous, and I don't have a total guilt trip about shoving them in my mouth because the ingredients are 1. recognizable 2. pronounceable 3. as healthy as you can get with a pop tart (flour, sugar, salt, eggs, milk, butter, jam) Yum.

I hate to waste, so with the leftover dough and jam mixture, I decided to make some pies on a stick, another venture I've been dying to try. They were so easy! I just rolled out the dough, cut it out with some sweet little cookie cutters, brushed it with some egg, placed the stick, and put a little dollop of filling in the center. Then, I covered the bottom portion with another cutout, sealed and pressed with a fork...baked for about 20 minutes and...voila! I think next time I might sprinkle with a little sugar or try a different filling (like, oh, I don't know...an actual pie filling?). I like my pie to be sweet, and these ended up tasting a little understated using the pop tart ingredients. Still, they were super tasty!

I was so pleased with how they came out, and I'm dying to make another batch soon.
At this point, I just can't wait for summer so I can bake my little heart out. This is the first summer I have no plans to work (I'm usually holding down about 3 jobs a summer) so the game plan is to bliss out with Sarah doing DIY projects, remodeling the bathroom, and cooking up a storm...while figuring out what next year will bring. Sigh. It's so close I can taste it.

This makes my heart hurt

Please read this heart-wrenching post from Mizz Murphy at The Library is Not a Fruit.

While you're at it, read this one, too, from one of my all-time favorites, Joyce Valenza at her blog NeverEnding Search.

And this news article, by Hector Tobar at the L.A. Times, details the situation even further.

What's happening in LA a complete and total mockery of logical decision making, and it makes me fear for the future. It seems the LAUSD is subjecting their teacher-librarians to trials in order to prevent them from transitioning back into a classroom. TRIALS. What the heck is this about? Does this sound totally insane to anyone else?

From my understanding, the LAUSD is cutting their librarians. According to the system of senority and tenure, those with the most seniority are allowed to stay. Librarians are required to hold teaching certificates in addition to their librarian certificate, so they are, by right, qualified to be placed in a classroom, and should have seniority over some of their colleagues if they have several years in the system. And yet, they are being told they are not qualified to teach, and interrogated in the most disrespectful of ways to try to prove they are not qualified. Hence the trials.

It gets more complex. According to their current system in place, if a teacher has been out of the classroom for more than 5 years, they aren't allowed to return, despite seniority. According to Mizz Murphy's blog, the original intent for this was to prevent near-retirement, long removed teachers from returning to a school environment that had become foreign in their absence.

She says it much better than I am able...

"The logic behind the recency rule seems to be based on poor decision making from last year. LAUSD sent scores of people into classrooms who had been sitting in cubicles for ages. These were people with dusty old teaching credentials, waiting for retirement in the cool, air-conditioned Beaudry building in downtown LA...When layoffs began, these educators were saved because of their time served, but their office positions were cut and they went back to school for the first time in who knows how long. This did not go well.... So this year, LAUSD got wise. Make a rule that says that if you haven’t been in a classroom for five years, you can’t be in one ever again. No more problem, right?"

Except, well...BIG problem, as she goes on to elaborate. This has swiftly mutated to something very much other than the original reasoning: In the eyes of the LAUSD, the library is not technically a classroom, and librarians are not technically teachers (although according to Mizz Murphy, their contracts say otherwise). What a disgrace. This is a perfect case of how standardizing a rule to the extreme can swiftly spiral out of control when we stop thinking about what the rule was intended for in the first place.

To make things worse, the questions they are asking the librarians to answer are unbelievably asinine. To assert that the Dewey Decimal System is numerical, so librarians couldn't possibly have adequate knowledge of ELA is laughable. To imply that librarians do not teach is grossly disturbing.

It seems that they are creating a bunch of B.S. to reach an end goal of getting rid of librarians. They're hiding behind this crazy process of discrediting a whole group of people, forcing them to defend their competency, so they don't have to come right out and reveal their motives. Haven't they been observed by administrators? Haven't they been doing their job, and doing it well? If this is a question of meeting a bottom line, or balancing a budget, then please, do them a favor and be honest. To do otherwise is scary, and in the words of my husband, "dangerous thinking". I'm inclined to agree.

It seems the plight of the library media specialist is growing exponentially...almost as quickly as new technology explodes on the scene. When will those in charge realize that library media specialists hold the key to harnessing the power of new technology? When will it become clear that we are discrediting these invaluable resources of information literacy when we need them more than ever? I was devastated over my job, but at least I didn't have to endure this.

My heart goes out to you, colleagues. Chins up, stay strong. My thoughts are with you.

Life off track.

I am at a total, complete, all-encompassing crossroads in my life.

This weekend, we went to Boston to celebrate Allie's graduation from Northeastern. It felt so good to get away. I think I'm a lot in love with that city, mostly because it reminded me a little of Europe and how I felt when I was there, full of promise. Boston is clean, and historic, and exciting.

It feels like opportunity, vibrancy, potential. Seeing those new graduates, fresh-faced and ready to take on the world, felt like that, too.

It made where I'm at right now even more poignant.

In the past few weeks, I've come to realize that I'm teetering on a very precarious edge. There are days when I come home from work and simply cannot stop crying. There's also days when I can pretend that June isn't imminent, and I'm OK. I think if I wasn't an innately positive person, I would be in a full-blown depression. That's pretty scary for me to put out there. When I say I'm worried about the future, that's true, but I think it's more than that. I'm afraid that I'm not living up to my potential. I'm afraid that I've sold myself short by opting for safe, predictable routes all my life and now the universe is figuratively shaking me, urging me to wake up. I opted to take the route of school librarianship because it seemed interesting and I like children, and it was supposed to be stable, afford me a great schedule, and let me proceed in a nice orderly fashion possibly to a job in administration someday. It was easy. It was non-threatening. There were no big risks involved. And what the hell did it get me? Certainly not stability. Certainly not predictability. Please don't mistake, I LOVE my job right now. But is it what I'm meant for? Could I seek it out to do all over again somewhere new? I just don't know anymore.

In short, I have absolutely no clue what I'm supposed to do with my life. I've completely lost my purpose.

Sometimes I think I should try to write for a living. Sometimes I think I should bake, or paint, or run away and backpack across Europe and do odd jobs for money. At this weekend's graduation, the president of the college said something to the effect of, "You're young. Now is the time to take risks. What is there to lose?" What is there to lose? Doug and I have no children. We are 27 years old. We have a house, sure, but it can be sold. We have possessions that can be stored. We have nothing tethering us except our families and our friends. Maybe we should move away, live in a city, scrape by for awhile but do something we're passionate about and have some fun. Maybe we should drive across the country. Maybe we should join the Peace Corps. Maybe we should do something, anything, that we can look back on and say, "Now that was a grand adventure. That was living."

No matter what I do, I don't think I can work another school, at least not right away. The thought of setting up a new library, meeting new students, working and trying and building relationships with an entire school of children breaks my heart. I just know that I will see the faces of the little ones I've come to adore in every new face. I know I cannot replicate the  lessons I've worked on with a whole new environment. It's almost like I have to put my time in the elementary library into a sort of shrine, to look back and admire and reminisce but not to try to duplicate. I applied for a school library job, but I don't think I want it, even if it's the smart thing to do. I just don't have it in me.

For now, my safe, smart, predictable side is at war with my desire to run away for awhile and do something crazy. I'm so afraid of living in regret. For now, I've made the decision to stop applying for jobs. I need to step away. I need to take some time to reassess my life goals, to realign my inner compass that's currently spinning wildly out of control. No matter where it lands, it will be a change...and a change is what I need.

Holy whirlwind, Batman!

Wow. The past two weeks have been n.u.t.s! What started as a whim as quickly evolved into a non-stop cake baking frenzy. On April 19th (I can't believe it's only been since then!) Sarah and I got together to play around with some cake pops. We baked, we crumbled, we mixed, we frosted, we dipped.

The first few were just....okay. We worked from 4-11pm, and made 110 pops. Talk about diving in headfirst!

So, I brought a few in to work, and my sweet, supportive co-workers immediately jumped on board. I had orders for Easter bunny pops due the following day:

Then came a birthday party for that Saturday:

We could barely catch our breath. Our life became consumed by cake...but it felt good. Over the next few days, we booked a wedding for Memorial Day, two baby showers in May, and made a three layer "farewell party" cake. We create a new round of samples...

 

...that looked and tasted a heck of a lot better than our first attempt...and started to think that maybe this is something we could really do. Last night, we got together and made cupcakes for a first communion, and talked business. We figured out how much each item was costing us...and what we need to try to find online to save on supplies. We talked about new options, testing out new recipes, trying our hand at bread and muffins and brittle and fudge and booking craft shows and dreaming big. 

In the meantime, between and during all of that, our basement flooded...

...twice. Which was awful. We have to call the insurance company next week because a LOT of things are ruined. I also had the health inspector approve our kitchen (but only for non-chocolate, non-dairy goods, which is a long story for another post...if we want to be truly legal we need a commercial kitchen), I stopped sleeping so I could cook and clean and fret... and I totally stopped paying attention to job applications...which I need to remedy, right away. I don't harbor any illusions that I'm going to not have to work ever again and can just bake my life away...although that would be a dream, because I love it so much.

So, that was my whirlwind two-ish weeks. Today, I'm trying to recover and become a human being again, instead of a walking zombie. Tomorrow will be dedicated to the very-important task of job applications...and maybe, thought I should really be taking a break from it, some baking. I just can't seem to stay away.

On resumes and new beginnings

Today was a day of contrasts.

To start, I called about a job I had really, really been hoping would come through...and was told interviews had already been conducted. I opened my e-mail...and saw that I had been rejected for yet another job that I really thought I had a chance at getting. It was a big time blow, one that I should probably get used to after hearing some serious horror stories about extended unemployment in the current economic climate. But oh my, it hurts. I've never had trouble finding employment in my whole life. I've always gotten the job I wanted, nailed the interview, got the callback. Now, I can't even get my foot in the door. To date, I've applied for 5 jobs and been rejected 5 times. It seems like a very small number in comparison to people who have been unemployed for weeks, months, years even. At the same time, I have a sneaking suspicion that that number isn't going to stay small for long. Things are rough and getting rougher, and it's high time I start thinking of some new tactics, because what I've always relied on doesn't seem to be working anymore. It's time for a new game plan--and the name of the game is being aggressive.

I'm going to start by seriously tearing apart my resume and cover letter. I'm not applying for K-12 jobs, because frankly, they don't exist. So, I'm planning to downplay the "elementary" portion of my resume and highlight the "media" angle. I am technologically savvy, and I know I have transferable skills, but something about the image of a primary-grade librarian isn't doing it for the private companies and higher ed positions I'm targeting.
Probably because they're thinking of this:

Storytime, anyone?

As opposed to this:

Hello, Web 2.0!

Not that there's anything wrong with storytime...it's just that it seems to be conspicuously missing from job openings of late, and I've got many other skills to offer. The second thing I'm going to tackle is my reluctance to follow up. I waited almost a month to call on one of the jobs I applied for...and when I finally did, I didn't like the answer I got. I think I was afraid to call because I was afraid I would be told exactly what I ended up hearing today--I didn't get chosen for an interview. But really, what would the harm have been in hearing that a heck of a lot sooner? And even worse, maybe the answer would have been different had I stepped up and been a little pushier than I've been in the past. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?

Tonight feels particularly sad because I know as of this evening's board meeting, I'm officially unemployed next year. My position has been abolished. Gone. No more K-3 library media specialist. Sigh.

On a happier note, Sarah and I got together on Saturday and decided the best way to solve our problems is to make cake. What problems doesn't cake solve? (Well, maybe weight problems. Anyway...) We're really interested in exploring making some baked goods as our livelihood. It started as sort of a joking "wouldn't-this-be-fun" idea, but the next thing you know, there's a few people interested in the possibility of our services, I'm calling the Department of Health about approving one of our kitchens, and we're meeting tomorrow to practice making cake. I promise to post pictures of our adventure tomorrow.

There's something very exciting about the idea of self-sufficiency, especially in light of the seemingly never ending stream of discouraging news. The mental image of a cozy kitchen filled with baked goods lifts my spirits in what has otherwise been a pretty dismal stretch. I'm not delusional enough to think it will replace the income I'm going to be losing, but it's a start....and I'm in control of the decisions I make regarding it. Right now, that seems to be the best feeling of all, when so many things that affect my life, my future, have been largely taken out of my hands...maybe for now, it's exactly what I need to feel okay.

Photo Credit here and here.