Quick Takes: Vol 5

1.
I turned down a job interview yesterday. Well, to be honest, I accepted it last week and canceled it yesterday. Although it is probably a rockin' cool job (which in my book means it directly serves the underserved and in turn makes zero monies ... haha), I had a terribly heavy heart about the whole thing from the moment I agreed to the interview. I also have another job, you see, working with high school kids. I love that job (even though it also pays something similar to zero monies ... ) in 100 different ways, and I had a conversation with the boss this week wherein he explained some really amazing expansion efforts that we will embark on in the fall. That = rockin'. This job that I love has a wacky schedule, though, one that is entirely contrary to having a regular 9-5 kind of place of employment. Every Monday and Wednesday, for example, I have to be at the high school from 3-530pm. Almost every weekend from September to February I have to leave with the kids for their weekend program at 10 or 11am. It's not impossible to make the schedules work, and it's what I did when I worked at the free clinic as well as had this high school job, but it nearly so. And then there's the guilt ... guilt about leaving one job for another, guilt about not giving the kids my full attention, guilt when my house falls apart because I'm gone 12 hours a day. Ugh.

So, I thought about it, I talked about it, and I spent a good deal of time in silence about it. The decision: Step out in faith that we will make things work some other way. I am absolutely called to work with these amazing kids, and who am I to stand in the way with my silly ideas that we have more income? Ha. Yeeeaaaa.

(ps, immediately after I cancelled, my brother whom I was unaware had applied for this position, nor did he realize it was the one I was interviewing for, got an email back from the boss indicating they would have an opening for him to interview ... niiiiiice.)

2.
We are gardening this weekend! I am stoked. Be's dad is coming over to rototill (hooray sharing resources!), and then we're heading to the greenhouse to peruse the plant selection. I know, starting seeds indoors from last year's crop would be oh-so-sustainable and frugal, but ... well ... we didn't get around to that so much this winter. Oops. The plants will come out of a mini-windfall we didn't remember was on the horizon. Usually, I take them out of the grocery budget.

3.
My father had open heart surgery a couple weeks ago, and as part of his recovery had to meet with a dietician yesterday to better plan his meals. While he was staying with us, we implemented a meal program per the instructions given by the doctor, and to keep track of all of it, I made him a handful of charts and exchange lists to make planning easier. Apparently, he took this to the dietician and she told him I "missed my calling". While I appreciate the compliment, I think my 'future dietary consulting' business would likely have to be completely by phone because I'm hardpressed to believe people take dietary advice from the ... uh ... not so svelte (fluffy? husky? squishy? well-insulated?). I'm still laughing about it.

4.
I am off school for a whole week! The classes I'm in right now run Monday and Wednesday (mornings! boooo!). The campus is closed for Memorial Day on Monday, which means we last had class on Wednesday and won't have it again until Wednesday. This also marks the halfway point in the semester. Yes!

In other school news, my project group landed a solidly good grade in a field of otherwise not-so-good grades. I'm pretty stoked about it.

5.
I don't like being undercover. Soon, very soon, I want to be able to scream from the rooftops about who I am. That time is not yet, I don't think, but any day now would be nice.

(ps, I am not a secret agent, nor delusional about being one, luckily. The vague quality is intentional ... hence, the 'undercover'. I wish to share with you soon, lovelies. Very soon.)

6.
I am kind of mad at our compost pile. It didn't do anything wrong. I mean, it's a pile of composting food ... what can it really do wrong? I'm just irritated with the method we're using (the patented 'throw all your crap in a big ole pile in a corner in your yard and ... wait'), and that as the composting endeavor has grown, so too has the gigantic pile of decomposing goodness tucked in the corner of our backyard. I also don't like the turning in order to get to the good stuff nor the winged onslaught that you have to fight through to take care of it. I would really like to shift to a tumbler system, and I have some ideas for making it pretty inexpensive. Now, to fit a 50 gallon plastic drum into the backseat of a '96 Chrysler Concorde ...

7.
I absolutely adore Be this week ... well, the last two days of it at least. I will spare you the mushy details.


What's going on in your neck of the woods?


Simply,

Em.

PS, More Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.