A Leap of Something

I was having an existential crisis this morning.  I have been really struggling with my job and in general what I do for a living.  I like it.  I think I like it but I just don't know anymore actually.  I'm finding I am sick of the BS associated with what I do.  There's far more governmental influence currently and coming down the pike (pipe?) than when I first started.  More (and just like everywhere I'm sure) I'm getting asked to do more on less.  And I feel bad because it really impacts employees and at my employer MANY of our employees earn 12 - 18 bucks an hour.  We then annually take away 1400 of that in medical benefits alone.  And my bigger boss is now talking more deep benefit cuts. It kills me because I have at least 5 people right now who I know for certain have no ins because they can't afford it.  To me that's wrong.  (And I can also admit I don't like paying so much for my benefits and would hate to see my benefits get slashed).  I was feeling like this, though, even before I came to my new job.  So much more Bullshit.  So much less good stuff. 

So I've been considering going back to school.  I don't know if I'll do it.  I know I've talked about it before.  UNT has a library sciences program which only runs about 12k for the tuition.  I think I could do it.  I think it might be what I'm looking for. According to UNT's site, youth librarians are in demand.  God that would combine my 2 favorite things.  My biggest concern, though:  money.  I'll earn less than I earn now.  That kind of stresses me out since it is just me.  It also stresses me out to think about being subject to the whims of the government.  In Seattle, there were regularly furlough days where the libraries were closed.  They don't get paid for those days off. (Maybe they use vacay I suppose).  I think we've had them here too.  So I think I'll take a baby step and make an appt to go see a graduate admissions counselor and go from there.  Well that and find out about GRE/GMAT testing.

Not again

I volunteered for an event today.  For the first time in all of my volunteering, I left early and I didn't let anyone know when I left.  I was so over it.  I gave them 6 hours out of the 9 I was signed up for.  I like volunteering for events and maybe I've been spoiled because I've worked so many up in Seattle for really established charities.  This group has only been doing this event for 4 years so that's not really a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.  Nobody there knew or remembered my name so I'm pretty sure it wasn't noticed. Especially since they kept moving me from place to place.

I was already annoyed when I realized I had to get there at 9:00 this morning and yet the event didn't start until 11:30.  I'm cool with helping set up events but did we really need 2 1/2 hours for set up?  No.  I got there at 9 and the coordinator for my area wasn't there.  She eventually showed up and then left me again. And ultimately we were ready like 45 minutes early.  Time wasted.  It also bothered me that they were charging for the kids' activities.  It was only 50 cents to do a game and they had some good donated prizes but for some of the games the 50 cents seemed chintzy.  Plus it then meant you had to have a ton of change which we didn't. 

I got shifted around to various jobs during the day because they had way too many volunteers for the barely used kids' area so they kept moving me places.  They needed help at the live auction.  Turns out they didn't need help and I hung around there for freaking ever.  The problem with the live auction was that they were doing like one item between each band playing.  Seriously, how can you draw a crowd to check out the live auction if it is just like a commercial?  And there wasn't enough of a crowd for the 4 volunteers they pulled from other areas to watch the crowd. 

Eventually I got moved again and this time it was to trying to sell fully cooked briskets outside the store whose parking lot we were in.  After they decided to move the brisket sale to someplace else I ducked out and just didn't get with the group.  They had like 5 of us there trying to sell these briskets (mostly unsuccessfully honestly).  By then I was overheated and totally done with it.  I just felt like the whole thing was a disorganized mess and it was totally unfun.  Freezing my ass off for the Leukemia & Lymphoma society was more fun than this.

I'm easy, but don't piss me off

I'm changing car insurance companies.  This is kind of a big deal for me because in general when I sign up for a service, product or whatever I stick with them.  Short of a huge issue I'll stick with a company indefinitely.  Of course some of that is just sheer lazyness.  Once I've signed up for something I don't want to have to go through the huge project of researching information and then changing to something else.  So finally deciding to change car insurance carriers after months of spending a ridiculous amount of money took an act of extreme bad customer service to make me switch.  I called my guy several months ago and asked how to get off the high risk program.  He did some checking and thought he could and my new rate would be x - much cheaper than I was paying.  Ok great, sign me up I say.  And then nothing.  I called pack a good 6 - 8 times in the next two months with assurances that I'll get a call back.  With a "you haven't gotten the change paperwork yet?"  With nothing.  So I get a new insurance carrier and called to cancel my current policy today.  Again I get the "we're not in the office so call the 800 number" message.  Bye bye my guy.  Welcome new girl. The worst part is that I originally told them I would understand if it couldn't be done in this initial six months.  All they had to say was "Oh sorry, we can't make that change until your renewal" and I'm lazy enough to have stuck around.

10 lbs!

According to my official weigh in I'm down 10 lbs. (And by official weigh in I mean the piece of paper I keep in my linen closet where I keep my scale and I write down the weight on Friday mornings only even though I may weigh myself randomly on a Tuesday evening and a Monday morning after my shower and a Thursday right before I go to bed.)  That's pretty cool.  Technically I'm only 4 lbs away from goal weight 1.  But to give myself a little 'lunch leeway' I should probably see if I can manage 8 or more.  I have a month or so to do it.  That means I'm 29 lbs away from skydiving weight.  However I'm still about 79 lbs from learning to scuba dive weight.  (The advantage to putting these weight loss rewards in place... it gives me time to save up the needed funds to do them. :)  )

I joined a couple groups on my calorie counting website.  I'm probably going to quit one of them.  It is the "I am superduper fat and want to lose 100 lbs or more group."  (Obviously that's not the real name, that would be mean).  I was reading some of their forums and message boards and it made me rather depressed actually.  There was one whole thread about what people wanted to do when they go to their goal weight.  It made me sad for them because it kind of seemed like they were just waiting for this magical number to really do things.  I know some of what their things were they really needed that magical number - like shop at the Gap and not need seat belt extenders on airplanes - but others didn't and I just thought why make that big goal so far way out there.  You should reward yourself steps of the way.  We celebrate birthdays and not just the big ones... why not celebrate small successes?   

Satan's Scheme

Have I mentioned there's a huge church across the freeway from my apartment building?  Huge. It is a Baptist church and I can see it from various points in my complex. It is not a megachurch as defined by some website I found about them which kind of surprises me but what do I know?  Anyway... this week on their scoreboard sign thingy they have the phrase "Satan's scheme" and each time I think is this a hairbrained activity?  Is Satan planning on hiding his new dress from Ricky because he spent all his allowance on it?  Did he go to work at a candy factory and eat all the candy?  And since Satan is my heinous ex-brother-in-law, is he actually planning on doing something heinous to my favorite nephew now that said favorite nephew lives near them? These are the things I ponder.  Clearly I have too much time on my hands.