Breaking News

...I have the world's best husband.















After a long and draining Monday, what better thing to come home to than a husband who has made you a margarita as big as your head?

On the minus side, this might complicate tonight's crafty endeavor. Oh dear.

Making on Mondays: Myself

Yesterday, at the end of a hellaciously busy weekend which may or may not have included a pomeranian, a burrow, a tempramental chef, and a little-too-gropey politician, I was ready to have a break from my weekend. I put on my jammies, ordered a pizza, wearily folded some laundry, and eagerly anticipated an episode of lost with Himself.

And then my phone rang.

It was my sister, Thing One, and one of three people in the world that I would delight in talking to. So of course I picked up, only to be greeted with her anxious voice asking, "Are you alright?"

"Uh, yeah, Thing One. Why?"

"Because you haven't blogged in two days. I thought you might be dead."

And there you go. I had every intention of going through the blogging process on both Saturday and Sunday, but the schedule was literally packed from Friday night to Sunday night. Thing One says that blogging should be done for pleasure, not to be regarded as something I have to do, because therein lies the way of resentment. She's wise, Thing One is, so I'll try to take it to heart. So here's a promise: don't resent me for not posting, and I won't resent you for...well, anything.

Anyway, what am I making this Monday? Myself. But first, a little vignette to extrapolate:

It had been a fun, exciting day so far. Himself and Sassy Kitten weren't normally the guided tour type, but they made an exception for the Cancun Jungle Tour. And they were glad they did--they were in the vehicle with the guide, with one other car behind them, and that was it. They had made their way through the ruins, fed a dozen skittish iguanas, and had proceeded deep into the heart of the jungle. The small group of people finally got out of their vehicles, stretched, and reluctantly crept towards the edge of the cliff. Far, far below, glittering in the intense Yucatan heat and humidity, a cenote beckoned.

They were all sweating profusely, and it looked so tantalizing. One of the tourists asked, "How far below is it?"

"Thirty feet." The guide glanced around, a mischevious smile on his face. "Who wants to be the first Mayan sacrifice?"

Unyielding silence from the group. And then, Himself spoke up, in some confusion. "Where's Sassy?"

Everyone looked at each other, alarmed. And then, from far below, they heard a faint splash.

That's right. I jumped off a cliff, falling thirty feet (it was a lot farther down than it sounded) into a pool of cool, 120-feet-deep water. It hurt like the dickens. I did it because I wanted to, I did it because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. And I could do it, and I did do it--not very well, I have to add. I bruised my tailbone pretty badly.

And then I went and did it again, for good measure.

The moral of this story? I've proven to myself, time and again, that I am perfectly capable of doing things that end up being bad for me. So let's turn this around on its head, shall we? I am going to now prove to myself that I am capable of doing things that are good for me. I am going to make myself. Whatever that means. Each month, I will set a goal and try to meet that goal once a day, to prove to myself that I can, and to see how I benefit from it.

So! The first month (or, I should say, 30-day-stretch) will begin tomorrow and go until July 15. And the first month's goal is to use my exercise bike every day. It can be for five minutes, or fifteen minutes, or fifty. Any of it is good for me. So! As of tomorrow, I jump off the cliff of bad decisions and hopefully plummet into the waters of Better Things.

In the meantime, I leave you with this image:

I won't be cliff-jumping again any time soon!

Five on Friday: A Book Maven's List of Summer Reads

This week I can't really say "tgif" because it's my turn to work the Saturday shift. But that's okay, because I'm not stuck in a job where I'm counting down the minutes until the weekend.

And at least I have weekends, usually. In my last job--which was also my first official librarian gig--I didn't have weekends. I had days off: Sundays and Wednesdays. Absolutely brutal, and not exactly inducement for exploring the Southern California region.

But I digress.

It's been a fairly busy and productive week, all things considered, except in one very important area: reading. I didn't finish any books this week, nor did I make too much headway in Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in This House or The Dead Travel Fast. A cardinal offense for a librarian! So, to begin atonement, I present this week's Five on Friday: A Librarian's Summer Reading List

The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
It's non-fiction, which is a weak point of mine. I feel compelled to pause every 30 seconds and take notes, a most disturbing and lingering habit from college. But this has a certain memoir-feel to it; combine with that the distinct flavor of self-help and the fact that there's a rather intense blog about it and it's very orderly, and oh yes, the cover is a lovely shade of blue (librarians' collection development secret revealed!) and I give up, it's going to be the first book in the book group that I will establish this summer!
(Note to self: Establish book group this summer).

The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron
My eldest sister Thing One and I will both be reading this book and the accompanying workbook this summer. She's a frustrated artist, and I am a deeply intimidated artist-wannabe, and again, the self-help nature, combined with the planned lesson format (and did I mention there's a workbook?) make this a deeply appealing read for a very Gemini person.
We'll be starting it on the Summer Solstice.


Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay.
Okay, so this one actually is assigned reading. The Library's book group invited me to lead a discussion on Atonement last year, and I didn't suck! I didn't suck so much that they invited me back this year to lead the discussion group on this WWII historical. Um, yes, please? Book group is in August, so I've got a wee bit of time to read this and work up another not-sucking discussion.


The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Confession time: I never read this. Come on, High School English could only cover so many books! And anyway, how many of you have read Bleak House AND enjoyed it? So there. I kind of intensely dislike Salinger and suspect that he was a very wily sexual predator. But what the heck, I'll read his stinkin' book. I'm a librarian, after all. I'll rise above. And possibly grumble a little as I'm rising.


The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
We're all about the positive around this here blog, so this is a good one to hitch on to. Randy Pausch wrote this little gem--based on his final lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", delivered at Carnegie Mellon University as he was dying of pancreatic cancer. We're also all about the tear-jerking around this here blog, too, apparently. I've heard a lot about this book, and figure it's a nice way to round off the reading list.



Of course, I'll read other stuff, but these five are the primary goals for the summer.

What's on your list?

Random Thoughts on Thursday: What's in A Name?

There are many many blessings in my life, of this I am aware. But few are as fabulous, as envied, as rare as that coveted real estate phenomenon known as...

The Bonus Room.

Here at Eden (which is what I have decided to call this home), we actually have a Bonus Room. It opens up into the living area (thus making it delightfully central), and it separates the guest wing from the master bedroom. It's a den, really--instead of a closet, there's a little nook with shelves in it. It's not HUGE by any stretch, but it's certainly large enough to accommodate a variety of objects.

At first, we called it the office. Or, more specifically, "The room we never go iIN to." And sometimes "The Clutter Room." Then I got into scrapbooking, and all of my recently-acquired supplies were piled into the room, with no organization. I began to call it the Scrap Room.

Himself began to call it the Crap Room.

In short order, however, I fell down the rabbit hole of crafts that scrapbooking had opened up. More supplies began to trickle into the condo. I began to daydream about painting terra cotta, making beautiful necklaces, generating mixed-media collages, conducting research into my novel, planning meals for the week ahead, assembling a dollhouse...And then, "(s)craproom" was no longer really the right word for it.

After taking the whole room through a major cleaning (not a purge; I'm not that enlightened), the room has been broken down into areas: the desk and shelves where the bills are paid and the homemaking/crafting books and supplies are stored; the "work area" where projects, laptop, and more supplies are stored; the "library" consisting of two 6 foot bookshelves crammed with more books, the kitty's litter box, and then, tucked away in a corner, my "spirituality area." There's a lot going on in this room!

At present, I try to refer to it as "The Craft Room." But every now and then, I feel compelled to call it "the studio." Something--perhaps that nasty Fear Voice that still screams loud and true after all these years, or else that still, small voice of cold, literal logic--tells me that that's pretentious and misleading. After all, studios are for artists, and no artist am I. Sure, I dream big, but at present, all I have are two scrapbook page spreads, one 70% finished fanfic epic, and one heck of a lot of big dreams. This does not an artist make, nor does it make a "studio."

Or does it?

Work on Wednesday: An Explanation

I will go through my life a childless woman.

Please don't think "Oh, no! How awful!" It's by my own choice that my life has taken that path. I've never been fond of children...or at least children that I do not know. (Which is most children). As I so delicately phrased it once, "Someone forgot to wind up my biological clock." I wasn't going to let children be the "deal-breaker" of a relationship; if my life partner wanted one, fine, I'd pop out a couple and probably make a dang fine parent. Strict, no doubt, but affectionate and involved. However, if left to my own devices, if I had my druthers, I would choose not to bear children. Apart from the not-really-wanting them, there's the whole issue of rearing them. Rearing children is a brave act in the current world, and I admire every parent who turns out a good kid. I believe that a child benefits from a stay-at-home parent (not necessarily mother) and I would have liked to be that parent, at least until they started elementary school. Anything else would be not cool, as far as I'm concerned, but still--how do parents manage to make a single-income household happen? It boggles.

One of the many points of compatibility between me and Himself is our mutual goals with regards to children: not having them. Or, in his case, not having any more. He has two sons already, one fully-grown (Himself is ten years older than me, and got started with the baby-making very early, which means I was still playing with my Barbie dolls while he was...well...playing with his Barbie doll), and that's quite enough.

So, no children. I have an unofficial godchild in Wesley the Hoosier Dude, and a more handsome bairn there never was. And I have my stepsons. And that's it. And everyone is more than happy with this. I have other things, other interests, other desires; and more than that, I have my career.

A career and a child are not mutually exclusive. Nor are they particularly comparable (apples and oranges, actually). But my career is where a HUGE portion of my energy is focused, and so it only seems fair that my blog focuses on it, at least a little, in the same way that some of the blogs that I read focus at least some on their children. My career is not the only thing that defines me, but it is one of the things. And it's a major point within this blog to explore how I can successfully combine the identities of "career girl" and "home manager."

So, there's that.

Fortunately, I love my career. I'm an adult services librarian, which sounds much naughty than it is. Essentially, I'm an information mistress, a book maven, and a ditch-digging data dude. I work with the public, I get paid to be curious and research, I have a wide variety of duties, and I am constantly exposed to more, more, more information. I get to learn new stuff all the time. I love my bosses (and there are quite a few of them), and I love my colleagues.

In short, in choosing to be a librarian, I chose to spend a good deal of my life in Heaven on Earth--which should hopefully make for some interesting reading when it comes to Work on Wednesdays!

All Together on Tuesday: The Latest Version of the World's Best Planner

Hi! Welcome to the Very First All Together on Tuesday post! This Very First Post is going to take the form of an (initial) product review, and will include the obligatory and gratuitous self-deprecationg humor.

"Get It Together" Product: Mead OrganizHer Flexible Solutions Family Organizer


Available in Target Stores (not online, as far as I can tell) for roughly $14.99...I could not find it online.

Originally I came across this lovely, kinda teal thing back in May, when I was meandering through Target trying to find things that I absolutely had to have for the honeymoon. This planner caught my eye, and after we returned to Sunnydale, I ventured out to Target to see if it was still there.

It was.

After perusing it for a few moments, I decided I quite liked it. Between Himself and me, as well as all of our little well-intended goals and social obligations and independent projects and in his case, speaking engagements, we've got a pretty whacky schedule. And we're constantly asking eachother "What are the plans for the eighteenth?" "I think we've got the Museum fundraiser." "No, that's on the twentieth. I think the eighteenth is free...we need to have so-and-so over." "No, wait, you have a program at..."

You get the picture. And so I dropped the money on this organizer, which will most assuredly help me get my life in order, and keep track of Himself's, as well. Of course, it replaces the previous planner which I thought would be the answer to all of my life goals, concerns, and issues; and that planner had replaced the calendars I had before that...Yeah. I am hoping someone out there knows what I am talking about.

Anyone? Other than the crickets chirping?

So. Moving along. Here's some basic stuff about it: It's about 9 inches wide, 11.5 inches tall, so it's not a compact little thing you can easily haul around. That's both a pro and a con in my book--portability is nice, but too small and it's danged tricky to write in without having three-inch claws for hands.

There are two little pouches inside, kinda zip-loc style. Right now I am keeping our gift cards and our post-wedding registry coupons in there. And then there's a whole bunch of undated pages, with the days of the week arranged in column format with a notes column at the farthest right. You write in the dates yourself. Within the columns are several sections: "All Me", "All Them", "Lunch", "Dinner", "Notes". Then, at the very back is a menu planning section and an "important phone numbers" section. The idea is that I will keep the hard copy and make a photocopy for Himself each week, to be updated as we need it. Here are some pictures of the first week "in action":

Two-Page Spread (Click for Larger)

Individual Views of Spread (Mon-Thurs on Left, Fri-Sun + Notes on Right)
(Click for Larger)

Observations Thus Far:

Cons:

• It's not portable for most folks unless they walk around with a briefcase or a backpack.
• The paper is slick, and feels a little weird to write on.
• There's an "All Me" Section and an "All Them" Section, but not an "All Us" Section (I just wrote it in)
• Writing can be a little awkward, but it's easily remedied, detailed in the pros below (Because I am positive and like to end on a happy note)
  

Pros:

• There's lots of leeway for customization (if you don't like it, design and print up your own pages!
  
• Just found this out: there are free templates for additional organizational helpers listed on Mead's Website, which you can download for free
• It's a pretty teal color
• It's easily expandable (kind of like a chintzy three-ring binder)
  
  

The family planner has been in use 12 hours, so this is just an initial review. Perhaps in a month or two I will revisit it, to see if it has truly solved all my issues, or if it has been exiled to a pile of papers, in which all the other life-changing planners reside.

Will this be the answer to my organizational woes? Will this help me to achieve the life that I've always wanted? (Because apparently my ideal life cannot begin until it's scheduled in the perfect organizer between picking up the dry cleaning and working the late shift at the Library). Most likely not, but at least you can learn about a product that might help you"all together!"

There are other products in this line, namely, the Expense Tracker. I won't be buying this because A.) I don't need the "complete set" to be happy, B.) Sheesh, I haven't even used the pretty reciept organizer I bought in the New Year. And C.) I have no desire just yet to see how much money I am wasting on stuff and nonsense, particularly organizing crap.

But that's another post, perhaps for Thoughts on Thursday.

Have a good night!

Theming it Up

One thing I am trying to decide on is how to theme and format my blog's content. A lot of the fabulous blogs I am currently reading have "day of the week" recurrent themes, and that very much appeals to my love of order. Of course, given my excessive self-absorption, I will probably post more than once a day, but it would be nice to have a theme that I HAVE to stick with. Accountability, and all that. So, here's what I am thinking at present...please provide input.

Making on Monday (in which I focus on things that I am making, have made, or wish to make)(Nice and broad and noncommital, huh?)

Together on Tuesday (in which every Tuesday I try to have a "perfectly together" day, or else ruminate on ways in which I can get my life more together

Working on Wednesday (in which I ruminate on my workplace, profession, or else professional aspirations)(after all, that's the other part to my duality of career girl/homemaker)

Thinking on Thursday-(In which I wax pseudo-philosophical, nostaligic, or brainstormy)

Five on Friday-(In which I feature the Top 5 of something on some random subject)

? on Saturday-(Help me out here. I'm going for alliteration, but am not sure what to go for in terms of Saturday's subject content. What would you like to read more about?)

Sybarite on Sunday-(In which I take a moment and extrapolate on something lovely and indulgey)

So. What do you think? What's your input?