Yellow Wallpaper

1. I wanted to try NaBloPoMo again to see if I jump start my writing and creativity again. I've spent the last few years feeling increasingly uninspired and spending more time reading things on the internet rather than producing them. I have no idea if anyone is still reading this--I'm one of the few people I know who still uses a feed reader and actively reads blogs--and I think most of what I've posted so far has been drivel, but I'm going to keep trying. 2. Today was another busy day, all day long. Five or ten years ago I thought things would be easier when the kids were bigger. They are easier in some ways, since they can all feed and dress themselves. However, expectations are higher, problems are bigger, and they definitely all have personalities and priorities of their own. Plus we are just busier with more activities and homework and other things. The three kids are at three different schools (elementary, middle, and high school) for the next three years, and ...

Tonight I re-read a cover letter I wrote four years ago when I applied for a different position at the library where I work. At the time, I had only been in my current job for about eighteen months, but had been wanting to work in another department and move up the ladder a bit. I still feel that way, and was re-reading the letter while writing a new one for a different position that has opened up. As I was reading the letter, I realized how much I've changed and how much I have learned since that time. I was upset not to get hired in the different position and thought I was qualified, and I'm not completely convinced I wasn't, but it was amazing to me to see how much more I know now. It was a good reminder to me of why it is important to stay humble and to remember that there are always opportunities to grow and change.

I really can't let leap day pass by without writing a post about it, since it only happens every four years. I'm curious to see what my life will be like four years from now--hopefully I'll still have a blog, and even if I don't I'll be able to go back and read this and reflect. In four years I'll have kids that are 16, 13, and 10! That feels old to me. I wrote a post in 2008 that reflected on what my life had been like in 2004, and in some ways it wasn't all that different four years later. We were still in school, still didn't have a lot of money, and probably spent too much time waiting for 'real life' to happen (well, I know I did). Really, 2008 was mostly a good year and a lot of nice things happened.  I did write again in 2012 , but it wasn't consciously a leap day post. In fact, it was more processing a lot of feelings about the divorce. I feel a little weird going back and reading it now, but it had only been about six months out a...

The middle of winter is actually not a great time for starting a new year. It's too cold and dark for me to feel like I have energy to do anything new. On the other hand, we've just passed the solstice and the days are starting to get a bit longer. Plus we just had Christmas and all its decadence, so perhaps the time is right for change after all. We're two weeks into January and I'm not sure yet if I want to make any resolutions. I'm a bit behind, as evidenced by my recent attempts to catch up on book reviews.  Christmas was quite lovely this year. My parents came to town and we had a nice dinner on Christmas Eve with my brother and his family. I woke up the next morning to fluffy white snow everywhere, and a quiet house filled with sleeping children. Unfortunately I also woke up with a sore throat and headache that only got worse as the day went on. The kids had a great morning and loved their new presents. I was actually grateful that Mr. Fob came to pick them ...

Last night P. Bibby had a bit of a stuffy nose and was acting tired and whiny. The tired and whiny bit didn't surprise me because we had a busy weekend doing fun things together (on Saturday we took family pictures in the morning and then spent some time at a Day of the Dead celebration). This morning, however, when I woke her up to get ready for school she was definitely running a fever. It wasn't a high fever, but definitely enough to keep her home from school and childcare. Mr. Fob is often the parent who takes care of sick kids because he has a flexible schedule and works remotely--it's not hard for him to keep an eye on a kid and still get work done. Most of my sick leave during the last few years has been spent on myself. Unfortunately Mr. Fob is traveling for work this week, so I had to take the day off.  Taking the day off, especially if I didn't plan on it in advance, is always hard for me. The work I do is certainly not life-or-death in its importance, and a...

This past week was not very good. I was tired and didn't sleep well most nights--I should have been writing a draft of my paper that is due next Sunday, but I haven't done it yet. There were several nights where I felt exhausted and decided to try going to bed early instead of writing, and instead I didn't fall asleep right away so I was still tired and I have no draft of my paper. I also spent most of the week stressing about our final exam that took place this morning. Spoiler alert: I took the exam and think I did a pretty reasonable job even though it's hard to write seven decent short essays in 75 minutes. We're all adjusting after the death of our sweet kitty last Saturday. Surprisingly the kids have been mostly fine with the new state of things. My other kitty spent the first few days wandering the house and meowing, which was more heartbreaking than actually saying goodbye to the other cat. She peed on the couch on Monday but has otherwise not changed her ...

I'm not a fan of January--I'm sure you can look back through this blog and find plenty of posts describing all the reasons why this is not one of my favorite months. It's long, cold, and doesn't have any birthdays or anything to make things exciting. The first part of the month is always swallowed by recovery from Christmas break, and I always set too many high expectations for the new year. This January was a mixed bag. The weather was ugly--the entire western part of the country has been stuck under a high pressure ridge that's pushing all the cold and snowy weather to the east. It's been a moderately cold, hazy, polluted month around here. I've barely seen any rain or snow, and it's gotten warm enough for trees to think they need to pop out some buds. I like winter weather and feel sad that we haven't had any this year.  I've settled into work and made plans through the rest of the year. At the end of last November I interviewed for a posi...

Yesterday I was going to write a blog post about how tired I have been feeling this summer. Physically tired, emotionally tired, mentally tired. Just tired. My yard has giant brown spots on it and my flowerbeds are sprouting weeds that are taller than I am. The garden has been a total bust due to my neglect and the only things still surviving are the pumpkin vines and the tomato plants. I haven't cleaned the bathrooms for about two months, there are piles of papers and books all over the house, and I'm at least four weeks behind on the reading for my class (at least all my assignments have been turned in on time). I have 10 shirts in my closet that haven't been worn for 2 months because I can't bring myself to iron them. I've been in a slump for a while--as evidenced by the dark circles under my eyes, the massive amounts of books I've been reading, and my inability to make simple decisions or to email people back about things.  When I was on my trip to Portlan...

Two weeks ago on Friday was my birthday and then Mothers' Day was the week after that. Those two events are usually fairly close together, so if there's not a big celebration for one of them I don't really feel left out. This year it ended up that both days were fairly uneventful. On my birthday S-Boogie and Little Dude made me some French toast for breakfast. It was pretty tasty and they didn't make too much of a mess in the kitchen. I spent the whole day at the annual conference for the state library association--there were some interesting sessions and I got a tasty free lunch with an entertaining speaker, so I guess the day wasn't a total wash. There was terrible traffic coming back from the conference so I got into town a little later than I had planned. I had to pick up the kids from Mr. Fob and then we had a ward activity that night; I thought it would be fun to just get Wendy's for dinner, but it really wasn't that great. We had poor customer service...

The kids had their Spring Break this past week. One of the hard things about being a working parent is the fact that when the kids have days off from school, you have to figure out what to do with them. One of us, or both of us, usually has to take time off work to take care of them; thankfully Mr. Fob has a flexible job so sometimes he doesn't even take time off and just has them hang out with him. Last year for Spring Break I took off part of the week and the kids and I went to Las Vegas to visit my parents. The year before that Mr. Fob took the older two to Disneyland, but left P. Bibby here because she was barely two years old. This year's Spring Break has been highly anticipated by everyone for several months. Mr. Fob took the week off work and drove all three kids down to California to spend a few days at Legoland.  It was a weird week for me--the first time I've ever had all three kids gone for such a long period of time. Their dad picked them up last Sunday evenin...

Why is January always so crappy? I wish I knew. Actually, this January was slightly better than January was last year. Last year the weather was much colder and Little Dude had a broken foot. At least this year the temperatures were closer to normal winter weather, though we've had very little snow and way too many days of nasty, hazy inversion. If I'm going to live in a state with winter, I'd like some decent winter weather.  About two weeks ago P. Bibby got sick with a fever and a cough. I knew a virus was going around and thought that she'd be sick for a few days and then get better. She had a fever Monday and was still sick on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday when I got home from work she looked much worse, rather than much better like I had hoped. I took her temperature and watched the thermometer climb up to nearly 104! I was able to get her in to see the after-hours doctor and was actually relieved when he looked in her ears and diagnosed them as both infected. In m...

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I had started exercising again and had successfully met my goal of working out three times a week. Unfortunately during the next two weeks I didn't do such a great job. The next week I exercised on Tuesday night; then on Thursday night I had my book club and came home late. I thought I would at least exercise on Saturday morning, but I stayed out too late on Friday and was completely exhausted Saturday. This was past week wasn't much better. I worked out on Tuesday night, but Thursday was Halloween and we were trick-or-treating instead (at least I was walking around quite a bit, so I think that counts). Then yesterday morning I did not get up and exercise; however, we spent two hours outside raking leaves and getting the yard ready for winter. Meeting my new exercise goal and getting into better habits has been a bit uneven but I am still committed to making it happen and having some positive changes in my life.  Those last two weeks have been b...

The weather has been weird for the last few weeks--we've been having a lot of muggy mornings followed by massive thunderstorms in the afternoon. About 10 days ago we had a crazy microburst that caused a lot of flooding around the neighborhood (thankfully my basement stayed dry). Things have been rather unsettled, but we are slowly creepy towards fall. I love watching the trees slowly turning colors and feeling the air cool off a little each day. On Sunday I distracted the kids from the fact that we didn't have a lot of good food options in the house by packing a random picnic and driving us up into the canyon for dinner. They love getting outside and I need to take advantage of our proximity to the mountains more often.  The last few months have been somewhat unsettling for me too. I've been in my new job for almost five months now and am finally starting to feel more comfortable in my role. I think I underestimated how big a transition in workplace atmosphere and job typ...

I've been feeling a bit melancholy the last few days. It's the kind of thing where there isn't a logical explanation for it, and I've been having a lot of really great experiences too so there's not an obvious external cause. I think it's just a combination of the usual monthly hormonal fluctuations, the stresses of adjusting to a new job, and the fact that I have the hardest time making sleep a priority for myself (that's a constant theme here, isn't it?).  First of all, the new job is great. I felt like taking my last job didn't make a lot of sense logically, but it felt right. This job made much more sense for me logically, but I wasn't feeling a strong prompting about it like I did last time. However, since being in my new position for the last two weeks I have really come to see that this is a great job for me in many ways, and I have also seen the ways in which my previous job and other experiences have prepared me for it. The first littl...

1. Disbelief A few weeks ago I decided to randomly look around at possible library jobs in my area. I do that sometimes; I have only been in my current job for a year and was planning on staying longer, but I am always curious about what is available out there. Weird, I know. I saw a job listed at the other university library (not the one I work at). It was in an area of the library that I had not ever worked in before and I wasn't sure if my experience would be applicable, but the pay scale was better and it looked like it was something that would be interesting and that I would be good at. I filled out the application online and then got called in for an interview the next week. I felt like the interview went well; I used to be pretty bad at interviews, but I have gotten a lot better as the years have gone by. It also helps that I have been doing some interviewing at my current job so now I have a better perspective on what works well and what doesn't. I interviewed on a ...

Just when you start to forget what short sleeves and bare feet feel like, you wake up one day and realize that the sun is shining and the air feels clear and warm(er). I can tell that I have overcome my California childhood and acclimated to Utah because the temperatures have been in the 50s lately and I have stopped wearing socks. Well, until today when winter weather came back and I got my coat out again. Spring in Utah is pretty fickle. Last week was Spring Break at the university I work for; what that meant for me was the execution of a rather big project. We have a satellite campus that is about 45 minutes away, and last week we needed to inventory and relabel all the books that are in the small campus library branch. There were about 10,000 books total, so each day two of my coworkers and I drove up with several students and spent about six hours a day re-labelling books. It was an adventure and a lot of hard work, but mostly went smoothly. That took us through Th...

On Friday morning I experienced another run-in with one of the Annoying People at Work. I know all of us have had to work with at least one Annoying Person. They are varied in their presentation, but generally make life difficult. This person complains and makes the atmosphere negative, no matter what we try to do. After dealing with this person I went back to my desk and began to complain to two of my coworkers. While I was in the middle of my little diatribe, the Annoying Person came walking by and we immediately stopped talking. Of course Annoying Person noticed and said something, and of course I felt really bad because I was acting like a petty little junior high student instead of a professional. Then yesterday in Primary we began learning the song "If the Savior Stood Beside Me". And I had to sing the line "If the Savior stood beside me, would I say the things I say?" about twenty times in a row. I felt bad. Because it's true--this person is difficult a...

Friday night I didn't want to come home from work because the kids were here. I just wanted to come home to an empty house and not have to fix anyone dinner or anything. It didn't help that I was out of groceries and out of good meal ideas. Finally I decided to make creamed tuna and serve it with leftover rice that was sitting in the fridge; it was a major hit with the kids, surprisingly. Everyone had two helpings. Last night turned out to be a better night than I thought it would after all. I realized the other day that part of why I feel like I have blogging writer's block lately is because I spend so much of my time at work, but I can't write about work. My job is not great for many reasons, but I don't dare blog about it. I'm also still trying to figure out my emotional balance in order to not let my job dominate my life. It's hard sometimes. For a while I was only listening to NPR in the car. Then last year I switched to listening to pop music on th...

My friend Josh Weed recently started doing a thing on his blog where he does a 'weekly check-in' post about how he is doing physically, emotionally, and spiritually. He encouraged readers to respond with their own check-ins through comments, but I'd rather just put it up on my own blog. I might try doing this for a few weeks and see how it goes. This week went by quickly. Things were a little hectic because work had a lot of crazy stuff going on (including two coworkers who were on vacation and a bunch of new hires that need training), plus my sweet sister-in-law and dear friend suddenly lost her father about ten days ago and couldn't babysit for me all week. I certainly don't hold it against her at all and I've spent all week thinking about her, but making different arrangements in ours schedule can be a bit tricky. Thankfully everything worked out well and we all survived this crazy week. Hopefully next week will be a little more calm and happy for everyone. ...

I've been working at my new job for two weeks and I've been meaning to write about it for at least a week. The truth is, I've had the time, I just haven't taken it. I've been trying to readjust my thinking and speaking to reflect the fact that most of the time when we say "I don't have the time for that", what we're really meaning is "I haven't made it a priority." Apparently wasting at least an hour each evening on reading internet articles is a priority of mine. I think I need to make some adjustments, because other things really should be on the top of my list. People keep asking how my new job is going, and the truth is that at this point it's hard to tell. I always have a hard time getting used to new things and new situations. It's not that I dislike my new job, not at all (and things like this are why I hesitate to write about my employment on the internet). In fact, the people I work with are great and I love my new ...