On Working Full-Time....

This is the first full-time job that I have had in eleven years and it is feeling pretty good thus far, midway through my first week. The thing that I am most thankful for is not to be running my children to and from activities after school each day. For some time, these car expeditions have not been the most productive and positive interactions with my children. Last night, because someone else was doing the schlepping, I was actually able to come home and prepare a very decent dinner. The job itself is shaping up, there is so much to learn and it has been a while since I have felt this ignorant. The family dynamics are changing a bit for the better and I hope that this continues. My husband is having to take up some of the duties that I used to be responsible for such as children's doctors appointments and taking children to and fro if our child minder is not available. Do I miss being away from home during the day? Not that much. It is often hard for me to get things done at home because I get caught up in cleaning or doing extra chores. Now I can bring things to do, like writing, in my down times at work and actually I have more time available to work on things that are important to me. Extra chores and housework can be saved for later in the day when I am no longer exerting my best energy to get them done. I will have to check in with my progress now and then. As I do enjoy this new work very much, I hope that it continues to be a good experience in regards to personal development and family dynamics. The sun is out, I may have to go for a walk.

New Job??

It is still hard for me to believe, but I am actually applying for a new job. This is really big for me, the first being that I haven't officially applied for a job in over a decade. My last two positions were obtained when two different friends of mine who work in management in my field asked me if I was interested in job positions that they had open at the time. Looking back, I am really quite thankful that my last two jobs were so easy to obtain, especially the first one as I was a new mother to a two-year-old and infant twins. My brain was no where near the level that it should have been to actually interview for employment.

Another reason that this is a big step for me, is that this is a full-time position. I have been working part-time and very part-time or not at all since the birth of my children. Going back to work full-time would be a huge change for me. I know that I am ready for it and can make it work if the position is right for me.

Lastly, this is huge because this is the kind of job that I really want. I was going to apply for this kind of job sometime in the future, when everything was right and it was the perfect time to do so i.e., meaning that I wouldn't get rejected. Because this is probably the only kind of job that I would leave my current position in order to take, I am filled with anxiety about not getting it. Of course, even though I am qualified I am sure that there are a number of other people who will be applying who are qualified as well. I guess that the important thing is for me to get my name out there and have my resume on file. If this doesn't work out, hopefully something in the future will.

All in all, this would be a dream move for me. I don't want to talk about it much more or I am afraid that I will jinx my chances. Here's to a lot of prayer and keeping my fingers crossed.

The Listening Ear

Yesterday I went to a professional conference about supervision. It was interesting in that many of the concepts and tools presented were quite elementary in nature and also things that I thought that I knew and maybe even thought that I was using. The speaker had a way of presenting these simplistic concepts in a way that made them seem new to me. Being a good listener is hard, it takes work, it takes practice, and sometimes one might even need to be taught how to listen.

When I was a pre-adolescent I remember my first experiences with someone who truly listened. It was the wife of the pastor of the church that I attended. Last week I visited that church for the first time in probably fifteen years and she just happened to be there. Her husband has long since passed away and she is quite elderly, but far from frail. The church has grown significantly since her tenure there, but way back when it was also considered to be a large church. She still listens. She clutched my hand and focused her eyes right on me although surrounded by a number of other people who also wanted a bit of her attention. I am not even sure if she really remembered who I was, but she still made me feel like I mattered. After she was done with me, she graciously turned to the next expectant person, and when it was time for her to catch her ride back to the assisted living facility, her exit was graceful and well-timed.

I know from talking to other people throughout the years that I am not the only person who feels this way in her presence. She had that gift when she was younger, the wife of a man pastoring a large church with her children still young enough to be at home. She has always been the best listener that I have ever met. Now I am not being critical of my friends, many of them are good and some are even excellent listeners. But sitting in that seminar yesterday made me think back to this woman because she had mastered the art of making people feel like they mattered in more of a professional sense. As I work in an area where people are sometimes in vulnerable positions, I have more than once wished for this gift. Not that it wouldn't hurt for me to listen better in my personal life as well.

So now begins the work and practice of making myself a better listener in general even when I might not want to listen. Hmmm...I probably should try and do that at work. At home? I guess that I will just have to take it one step at a time.

Keeping a Happy Outlook

The kids have been on spring break this week and I have actually had some time to read the paper. Often reading the paper can be a real downer for me, it always seems that most of the news is so negative. I have decided to focus on the positive this week and here are a few positive things that I have learned while reading the news:

1) Over 7,000 acres along the Hoh River in the Olympic Rain Forest have been preserved as wilderness, a place where the trees will be allowed to grow "huge," much like other areas in the rain forest that haven't been logged. This will ensure a local wilderness and waterway for future generations.
2) A crusty ex-serviceman and ex-child crimes detective legally adopted a former victim. The child is now 19 years of age and is blind, quadriplegic, and severely brain-damaged from abuse sustained at the hands of his mother's boyfriend when he was a toddler. This family-less detective was planning to use his retirement funds to travel. He had re-connected with this boy as a teenager, saw how he never got better, forged a bond with him, and decided to legally become his parent instead of travelling the globe alone.
3) A cop went undercover, posing as a pedophile father of two daughters ages 11 and 13. He developed an on-line relationship with the pedophile he was investigating and managed to secure enough evidence to put this guy away for life. People like to say that the Internet is the new playground for pedophiles and I think that is true. It is a real joy to see it working against them.

Tucked in between the real big stories are always those little events, a child promoting a charity, people lost to one another reconnecting, a new service invented by someone creative. If I really try to be less of a cynic, the positive news is out there, it just sometimes seems to get lost in all of the badness of the world.

Remembering to Breathe

One of the things that I have learned from the few yoga classes that I have taken recently is to breathe. This sounds simple enough, but when I pause and think about it, I realize that I probably only breathe with about half of my lung capacity most of the time. One of the reasons that yoga poses are so challenging for me is because I need to think about how I am breathing while I hold the pose.

This weekend we have been invited to join a long-standing group at their annual winter camp. We have never been to this camp and only know one family of participants (the ones who invited us) the trip requires preparation in terms of food and winter clothing for all of us and I am not a person who likes to be caught unprepared. I also don't like to have to rely on others should we forget something important. As we are snowmobiled into this camp, we will not have car access for a couple of days. I have been forgetting to breathe all day. Only now, when I am really thinking about it do I pause and stop for three deep breathes. There, that is so much better.

I hope that this weekend turns out to be fun and relaxing. Now if my husband would only get home from work early like he said that he would we could go and get started!

How Should I Then Read???

Lately, I have been reading about and hearing about plugs for electronic reading gadgets such as Nook and Kindle. Most people who have tried to persuade me regarding the wonders of such electronics are either a) very environmentally conscious and wish to save the trees; b) travel quite a bit for business and/or leisure and are avid readers who are tired of lugging books around the world or c) read so much and so often that they can't keep up and are usually reading many things at one time and find it easier to keep track of everything on an electronic device.

I think that the advent of such devices is wonderful. For two years running I have thought about buying my husband a Kindle for his birthday (he falls into category "c" above) and maybe 2010 will be the year that I do this. For myself, I just don't know. See, when all is said and done, I am a book addict. Now I don't just mean a reading addict, which I am, it is the books that I really like. I enjoy holding, smelling, re-reading, and thumbing through books. I can get lost for hours on end in a library or bookstore. It would be hard for me to take up reading on an electronic device. When I am done with books I either pass them onto someone else or I sell them to the 1/2 price bookstore (the libraries in our area do accept donated books), so I am making the most of any books that I purchase. I also love to support local authors that I like and thus I buy their books. Whenever possible I use the library, my in-laws live in a city where budget cuts have closed the local library so I definitely like to support keeping libraries open and operating.

When all is said and done, despite the extra weight when I travel and the seemingly needless use of trees to publish copies of all of these books, I would find it hard to live without a book in hand. Maybe in the year 2010 I will be able to get more technical, I am still not too old to change my tune after all I do know how to text! Maybe the said Kindle birthday present that I plan to purchase this July (yes, my husband does read my blog and no he does not like surprises so I guess that I should put this out there) will convince me to change my mind. I will just have to see what the future holds.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

I just got through reading the book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I know, such a "positive" tale just in time for the holidays. Although there were quite a few "bad happenings" as is to be expected in such a book, the ending was very novelistic. Most of the people, sans Uncle Tom, were tied up in a happy ending for the reader. In the author comments section, Mrs. Stowe talks about how many of the stories presented in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" were based on truth and events the she had witnesses in her life and in knowing escaped slaves. That is a perspective that none of us in the 21st century will ever have. It is horrifying to think of how an entire race of people was once treated en masse in the USA.

I thought of this again today when I was perusing my blog listing and my friend at Upside DownUnder posted a video about detainees from Guantanamo Bay. While maybe it is not mass suppression here in America our prejudices about the quality and trustworthiness of other races is certainly not alleviated. I can see where many of the attitudes prevalent in slave holders still exist today in the general public, especially when talking about persons of Middle Eastern descent.

Also, slavery does still exist. When reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin" I was swept away by the expository language and over-riding christian theme of the time. That theme being used to justify slavery and all of its cruelties. When I look at the sex slave traffiking trade I have to ask myself how far we have come and answer "not very." Do I think that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a good read? Well, that depends on why you want to read it. I am a firm believer that history repeats itself and by reading back into history I can see the same actions repeated in today's society. I am only one individual, but as one individual I have to ask myself how I can alter my life and thoughts to create a better history in my own tiny sphere of influence and that is mostly why I read the book. That was one reason, the other being that it is a book commonly used as a reference in many discussions that no one seems to have read. So, if you want to take it on and you can wade through the utter lack of political correctness and high dose of flowery christianity, go for it!

Two Sides of a Similar Coin

Yesterday a friend of mine told me a story that made me feel sad. She knows a large family through her parents and they have a son who is now eleven and quite obviously has Autism. The obviousness of the diagnosis was apparent when he was a toddler. The mother of this boy was encouraged by friends and professionals to seek a diagnosis and help for her son. She declined, passing it off as a language delay and never sought services for this child. He is now eleven and unable to communicate, his behavior is getting increasingly more difficult for the family to control. Now I am told that these parents wish that they had provided their son with the services that he needed when he was younger because now it is too late to get some of those things going. I have trouble understand why parents would not want to help their children be the best that they can be. Here is a boy that could have learned to communicate and have life skills to help him become more independent. The problem is that when these services are started too late, they are that much harder to learn. The chances now of living independently are quire slim for this child. There isn't much hope here because of the parents unwillingness to embrace their child for who he is.

Later that afternoon I went over to pick one of my daughters up from a playdate and was invited in to have a glass of wine. Another mother was also there to pick up her son from a playdate. We were talking and she told me that she had a ten-year-old boy with Autism and that he went to a special school in our area. He has been in this school since he was a toddler and that combined with extra therapy at home has helped him to become verbal and independent in many areas despite his diagnosis. This mother told me that she and her husband decided to ignore the advice of a well-meaning pediatrician who told them that it was just a language delay. They thought it was more and actively worked to get services for their son at an early age. They are now reaping the benefits of this. There is hope here because the parents are willing to accept their child for who he is.

I am not trying to be critical of parents. I am a parent. I am also a specialist who works with children with disabilities. I would like to think that I would be able to be strong and put my pride behind me if I had a child with a physical or cognitive impairment. It takes time. But when people throw you a lifeline early on and encourage diagnostic testing and intervention, why not take it. What would any parent have to lose by trying these options. It seems to me that they have everything to lose by not doing anything.

Tired of Writer's Block

Lately, I have been perusing different blogs. I need to do this every once in a while so that I feel like I am in touch with the blogging community and what is going on out there. I have come across a number of writer's blogs and I have to say that I am quite jealous. Damn you people who have time to write eloquent and interesting prose and dialogue. I am possessed of severe writer's block. Maybe writer's block isn't the correct term. I actually have things swimming around in my head that I would love to write about. In November I took a short-course on novel writing and came away inspired and filled with new ideas about how to approach the arduous task of putting pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard. Integrating writing into my life remains a challenge. Frankly I am not very disciplined. To be a successful writer, to start at least, usually requires one to make adjustments to their schedule such as getting up earlier or staying up later. I am good at neither. I am particularly not good at getting up earlier. I can always stay up later, especially if I am drinking red wine and in the company of good conversation. This is different, however, from staying up later to actually get some work done! The best gift that I could have for myself this holiday season is the gift of setting aside regular and consistent hours to write. This is currently my only goal for the new year. Wish me luck!