Shoe in...or so I thought.

     My husband and I moved to California (back to CA for me) in March of this year.  He started his new job about a week after we arrived.  I on the other hand had not been in hot pursuit for a new j-o-b because our apartment had become a small hotel with plenty of guests soon after we arrived here AND I was also the right hand gal to my best friend's wedding planning, her wedding in June.  I had to hand write placecards and help choose flowers and change out linen and let San Diego do a lot of the work of entertaining as I was simply the Vanna White of showing off the vowels of the city.  A delightful job indeed.  But after the wedding and into July, my job search had to get real.
     I had, for many, many years, been a private duty caregiver for elderly and/or disabled persons.  Now back in San Diego, I preferred not to go that route.  I wanted to mix it up.  I applied with AmeriCorps as a Disaster Preparedness Facilitator for Native American's on their reservations.  I was interviewed for the job to help various tribes prepare their homes for wild fires, ie., clear their property of debris, put in smoke detectors and make sure there's a fire extinguisher in reach.  There would be some public speaking with groups of what could be 50 people (!) and one would have to work every other weekend.  While I loved the thought of working with the Native American population (there are quite a few tribes here in the county), Ess Gee and I FINALLY got out of his past (at least for 7 years!) work schedule of being on-call every third weekend at his previous job and I was not about to muck up our ability go places on weekend's cuz' of my part-time job.  Nope and nope.  So while grateful to be interviewed, I turned it down.  The search continued.  I interviewed as a Froster at a cake shop...they had days called Black Out days where one could not take off vacations around holidays because that was their busiest season.  I apologized for wasting their time, I have never worked Food Service, so I was unfamiliar with the pressure cooker of retail holiday work.  I also knew I was in a pretty luxurious spot...I could say no to jobs.  I wasn't in such need for a job that I had to say yes to weekend's and holidays.  I was completely aware of this blessing.  But after looking, applying, looking, applying, it all became a bit long in the tooth and I went back to the route I was SURE to get a job in...caregiving for the elderly.
     The particular job I was looking at was good paying.  I would be working for an agency (so I didn't have to take out my own social security).  It was super close to our apartment and the gentleman was a 95-year-old retired Army Colonel.  I'm like, "WHAT?! It's so mine!  I am married to a man who in in the Army, has been for 22+ years, I am made for this job!"  The Colonel was said to be a tough cookie, but I am like the Elderly Whisperer, so I didn't think twice.  I applied.  I interviewed once...I interviewed again.  I waited one day.  I was telling friend's that I wouldn't be able to see 'em Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday evenings cuz I was going to be working til 7pm.  I was counting up my contribution of a paycheck to help pay down Ess Gee's school debt, getting pumped at the idea.  I thought I had it.  Until I got a call from the gentleman who owned the agency and he said, "I'm sorry, but he didn't go with you."  I held it all loosely for about an hour.  "It wasn't meant to be, etc., etc." And then it hit me, that this thing that I had ALL THE CONFIDENCE IN THE WORLD about (I've got experience, I love old people, I do good work, I got great references) did not get me through the door.  And I know it's going to sound nutty, but I really liked getting schooled in humility.  I shook my head at my own ego.  I didn't want this lesson to go unnoticed.  I wanna learn it.  Because the greater part about any of this is---it    ain't    about     me.
     I could try to shove my way through doors with my own shining, gold-star report card with all the Look At Me's---how smart am I, how clever am I, how funny am I, but even that may not win me the position.  And it's going to sound contradictory, but I am glad that this is not the case.  It takes the pressure off.  Now granted, I don't always look at things in this way, but at this juncture, it's working:-).
     It's this mixed bag of "Don't get too cocky, It's not solely about your strength's, It's about leaning into God, learning to trust in His work and not just your own" and "Thank goodness it's not up to me to be the most intelligent, most beautiful, most successful" because we all know that that's too much work and pressure and it doesn't always equal happiness;-).
   I will say this, I did finally get a job---helping elderly move from one home to another.  I am not the moving company, I only work alongside the movers to pack boxes and unpack boxes once the move is done.  And I love it!!!!  It's part-time/as needed, so I can say no or yes to a job depending on the week.  It's BUSY work and concentrated work and just enough...just enough interaction, just enough responsibility, just enough actual work.  I am so spoiled and happy to be.
    Things did work out after all, and hopefully, because of this experience I am a little more reticent in letting my big head go first...(said with a smirk;-)!)

Making a comeback

The last person I worked for had a book on their shelf called "Better Homes and Gardens, New Decorating Book".  I picked it up and fell in love and bought one for myself.  But the funny thing about it is that this book is from 1981.  34 years old home decor, and I love it, and as I looked through the book I had to question, just what is it about this book that made me want to buy it and reference it and keep it on my own shelf?  I promise I will answer that.
  I have been reading books lately about women who have in one way or the other changed the way we see things...Jane Goodall, Sister Helen Prejean, a local San Diegan Miriam Polster and how when these women were little girls what they gravitated towards then propelled them fairly steadily into their future selves.  Like when Jane Goodall as a young child sat  and watched for four hours to observe how chickens laid their eggs.  Or when Sister Helen Prejean says for as long as she can remember she has always loved the mystery of mass, stained-glass windows, silence and music.  She can't remember ever not believing in God.
   I watch my 12 year old and 8 year old nieces...one stays in the guest bedroom and draws at the desk while her whole family is in the other room dancing and playing music and taking pictures.  The other niece, in the center of the living room, busting out moves in well-placed rhythm and rhyme. One knows she wants to be a veterinarian and has traveled up to UC Davis (known for it's veterinarian prowess) to get a tour of the campus, the other struggles with academics, but shows such love towards old people you'd think she was secretly one of them.
  The stuff we have inside of us will come out.  And that is what I saw when I bought that book.
For as long as I can remember I have been creating spaces, making homes.  Growing up in Michigan we had a long dirt driveway and with every rain we'd get huge mud puddles in the potholes of the drive.  I'd make that mud puddle my "house" and the girl I grew up with, she'd have the mud puddle "next door" and we'd visit each other's mud puddles.  We would put large stones in the mud puddle to act as a table or a seat.  We'd be filthy, but happy.  We had a lilac bush, a few of 'em, that grew close to each other in the yard.  I'd make the space under the lilac bush my "home", one room a lot bigger than another.  There were trees everywhere in our yard and some with such large, heavy branches they would droop to the ground.  Where they lay, along with the trunk of the tree would become the outline for my kitchen, bedroom, living room.  My dad made a raised, small room a few feet off the ground, with a slanted tin roof and ladder...home.
 Now in re: to 1981 and specifically the New Decorating Book.  I was 6 years old in 1981.  I visited my mom in San Diego, California. My mom has a great eye and has been decorator in some form or fashion all her life.  This book I have is a complete guide to my mom's sense of decor when I visited California (a far off land from a farm in Michigan) in the first years of my young travelling life.  It's wicker and ferns and textures and light.  I'd seriously copy some of what I see in that book now in my own home.
I bring any of this up because I saw an oak shelf headboard on Craigslist that I really liked.  And I had to laugh because no one does oak any more.   My mom's house in the 80's was oak to the fullest...coffee table, gossip bench, dining room table.  Today it's either black or white or mahogany (which I love btw).  So maybe in Ess Gee and I's life, oak will be making a comeback:-).
While I am a far cry from a Jane Goodall, I must say I do find it fun and fascinating to think about the things you did when you were little and how they magnify themselves in your life now.  And if they are not magnified, and it matters to you, then find out why and bring them back to life.

A transition in praying.

I used to pray, "Lord, Lord, please, please help me do this right."
I now pray, "Lord, Lord, please, please help me do this good."
And I know it's not proper English, I should say, help me do this well, but I want "good".  I want to go down in life having lived it well/good, having loved well and good, not if I lived/loved right.  If I follow "good", then all else falls into place.

Is your dog your kid?

There's a little girl about 4 years old that occasionally rides around our complex on her scooter.  She asks a lot of questions to anyone around.  She asked me one day, "Is your dog your kid?"  To which I soundly and specifically responded, "No, he's our dog, we love him, but he's our dog".
   The other day though, I step outside with my hands full of recyclables, keys, library books and Riley's leash was not quite yet wrapped around my hand and he decides to go running after something and everything I have goes flyin' everywhere and I find myself yelling at the top of my lungs, "RILEY JAMES!!!!!!!!", I had to laugh at myself and be a bit embarrassed.  I can honestly say that I have never heard anyone yelling at their dog to include their middle name...only parents do this...with their children:-).  

Too cute!

I was working on a yard project about a week ago for Bill who turns 90 this year.
  He got a new neighbor.  She came over to see what we were working on.  He introduced me to her like this,
  "I'd like you to meet Ericka.  She is my best friend."  And the rest is history.