update #1

it's been such a long time since i've written i've decided to update everyone in installments rather than boring you with a painfully long blog that goes on for years and years (without pictuers even).

life has been quite up and down with mountains like k9 and valleys like cache where the smog falls down into the basin and has no way to lift out. that said, i'd much rather focus on the ups because they are so much more noteworthy.

i have a new job and i absolutely love it. if someone had told me, even two months ago, that i would be at the front desk as a regional administrator for a regional insurance sales office i would have utterly scoffed. a recruiter? moi? never. yet i find, every day, that it is increasingly more and more difficult to leave because i adore it so much. i realized the other day that i would love to find a man who likes me as much as my office likes me.

that's a lot of like.

i've also had the fortune of spending more time with very good friends and less time with very lame people (always a good thing). and i realize my good friends are exactly that - good. i've decided i like goodness more than i may have been willing to admit in the past.

to venture f0rth just a wee bit into a valley (don't worry i've got a great rapelling system and this will only lead to something more positive), i've had a difficult time with my testimony lately. religion has always been something that made me feel like an outsider looking in, eternally, and it's been easier than i'd like to admit to stray. today, though, as i was filling in for yet another person who got married (jerk) at church choir practice, and i was playing music set to words so poignant, i couldn't help but be moved. and as much as i've been wanting to hold onto my tough exterior and not let anything soft in, this would not take no for an answer. i want to be where the music is. always.

so i guess church is back in the mix.

i'm okay with that.

hide and seek

i recently lost myself entirely. i'd dug myself into a hole and then, odd as it sounds, simply couldn't find where i'd misplaced myself. a search party was called in and - here's the good part - i was exactly where i should have been all along.

i was heartened to know that i knew where i belonged and that i'd been timidly hiding, hoping that someone would find me - pull me out to the light. in the end it was ultimately me who got myself out (all the usage of personal pronouns is getting confusing...)

but i cannot forget those who were there in the front lines with me, waiting.

mom
dad
kaitlin
heather
sam

i might get lost again, just as we all can from time to time. and - here's the best part - they will help find me every time.

i'm afraid i've given myself an eye infection.

among...other things.

sometimes i fear that i am not myself but rather a disappointing version of the best person i could be.

that's a lot to handle.

plus i don't deal with disappointment well at all - makes me all cringy inside and just generally sad all over.

maybe i should stop.

insomnia

i've found myself an insomniac lately, usually awoken by something legitimate (left the light on, the computer on, my eye is burning because i've worn my contacts for more than 24 hours, the way i've been sleeping has led me to feel as though my jaw is broken, and yes all of the above apply to tonight). the problem is getting back to sleep which is generally impossible.

so i bead.

the desire to make jewelry was instigated by the extremely cataclysmic thought of "hey that could be cool." a fellow jewelry artist taught me how to make earrings and from there i improved upon my necklace making skills and have been experimenting since.

there's something very comforting in how methodical everything is. choosing the beads is the best part; hundreds of small, beautiful options that, when placed together in the right order create something expressively individual. i find myself caught up in the feeling of the head pins in between my fingers, crimping the twists shut, prying the jump rings/earring posts/necklace findings open to slide everything together.

i prefer making jewelry in quiet, which is a rarity for me as i hate the quiet but it allows me to focus and think and focus and think and focus and think.

of course i think of more than jewelry when i'm beading, though that is always at the forefront of my mind. what outfit i want to wear and rationalizing why i need yet another pair of earrings and heck why not a necklace (as an aside, i am just a few pairs shy of having one for every day of the month). but once i hit my stride i find my mind wandering to other things of import that i have forced myself to ignore during the rest of the day.

and in those brief moments, i cherish the quiet that is only punctuated by the sound of clipped metal.

why not have three blogs

for those of you who have just joined us, i have created two other blogs that might not be worth your while. :)

the first is http://thecompleteidiotsguide.blogspot.com and the address alone is so long you probably won't even visit it because i find it laborious to type in (hence, bookmark).

the second is for my business, merry designs, and is http://merrydesigns.blogspot.com. i can't afford a website right now so this will have to do.

i'm thinking about creating four or five more just because i can (thank you google and your free blogging).

fire in the hole

i lost my job at the library recently.

it was the best job i'd ever had. it doesn't really matter why or how or what happened or even what day on which it occurred. all that matters is that i had a great job and then i did not.

this leaves me reeling, quite frankly, unsure as to what i'm going to do next. do i continue searching for the perfect library job? (though no other library will be as good as the one i was at.) do i go back to temporary work? do i go an entirely different direction and try my hand in something else?

i don't know.

maybe i should get a book on careers.

at a different library.

updation station

it's not really that all that much has taken place in my life, but enough has, and i realize i was in a slump for the past few posts and who really needs that? no one, that's who. and for what it's worth, the things that have taken place are fairly important (to me, anyways).

i learned the fine art of blurting something out that i didn't necessarily mean, only to really crash and burn because of it. note to self: don't tell a guy i'm interested in who has kids that i hate other people's kids. he's not going to get the jokiness of it.

for the record, i don't hate other people's kids. i just don't get them. but i think i will eventually.

i finally put my two weeks notice in at the coffee shop. i'd say about 85% of me is really excited about this transition because it implies that i'm ready to become a real adult and work real adult jobs that, at the very least, require high school diplomas. plus it means i'll be quite indispensable to both the hillsboro public libraries and the portland community college libraries. the 15% is the part of me that's freaking out that for some reason at the end of my 6 month probationary period at hillsboro that they won't keep me or pcc will forget to call me and then i'll end up moving in with my parents with an all new bedtime of 9:30 pm and a wake up time of 5:30 am. this is horrifying to think about.

i was asked out on a date thursday night. this is huge.

i seem to have this weird creepy old guy vibe that i put out and for the life of me can't figure out how to turn it off (don't worry the thursday night date asker was not a weird creepy old guy and for the record our date was really a lot of fun). it seems that everywhere i go, there's some middle-aged looking lech like man who keeps eyeing me or trying to talk to me. i've been told it's because i'm too nice and won't push them away but what is it that makes them want to talk to me in the first place?

i'm kind of getting tired of karaoke - i know totally shocking - because i've sung pretty much all i'm interested in singing. but i don't give it up because there's something comforting about the consistency of seeing the same people week after week, particularly my closest friends. i did completely rock the carpenters' "superstar" last week so not all is lost.

i still love sweats.