Who wants to be an art teacher?

I do! Is this the part where 31-year-old me wishes that 16-year-old me would have stuck to the plan? Probably, but I choose never to have regret :) When I was in high school I thought I might go to college and study to be an art teacher, but my life ended up taking many twists and turns along the way. I still ended up going to art school and receiving my BFA, but I am not qualified to teach art in a K-12 setting. I still hope to one day go get my MFA, so that I can be an adjunct and teach the 101 classes for art, but for now I get to teach and play art with......2 year olds! Well, 2-1/2 to be exact. I will be a teacher at Early Arts two days a week teaching the 2-1/2-year old class. I am excited to start my lesson plans, in fact I need to get on it right now - researching craft and art projects for 2-1/2-year olds with a a pitstop over at Blogger :)

When do you start feeling like a grown up?

Getting up "early" for a 10:00 class? That was the complaint I overheard this morning from one of the MOPPET workers who are in college and paid to watch our kids while us MOPS moms do other things. Early? 10:00? By 10:00 I am already planning lunch! But yet with this realization of how far I have progressed as a person who reproduces and then lives the full-time life of caretaker, I still do not quite feel like I have obtained "grown-up status."

I would chock it up to the fact that my husband is once again a college student or that I am financially not able to go out and do glamourous things, but really we were not all that different pre-Oliver...and I did not feel like a "grown-up" then while I was working my 9-5 in downtown Chicago.

So when does the self-realiztion of grown-upism come? I am secretly hoping never. When one admits that they are officially grown up it seems like you then have surrendered to yourself, that change is no longer coming, and that you are now and forever the status quo. That just seems too bleak for me, but maybe that is just the way I am wired. Similar to how I cannot wrap my head around people that grow up and never move out of the same town, while envious I find it imcomprehensible - but that I will leave for another day!

Dear Sir, Please hire me.

So you want to be a writer. Well, maybe you don't but for some reason I do. I guess I must have the urge to create, pick your medium. Seriously though, I think I really need a job, and I am not really sure what to get a job at, I would really like to do something that I enjoy. I know you are saying, "If wishes were horses, we would all have nickels" - no wait - that is not it. I know getting paid to do something that we enjoy and can be proud of is not always obtainable, but I am going to try, I mean what else is an art school graduate living in Small Town, Alabama to do but go big or go home - unemployed.



So I am applying to 2 freelance writing jobs that I really want. One is at About.com and is P E R F E C T for me. It is a Guide Writer job on your expert topic, and they have an opening in Interior Decorating, Bedroom. Since my BFA has a concentration in Interior Design, I could totally work this. The second job is a bit more tricky, but is for Living Social, writing up wry, obnoxious, and funny paragraphs advertising the local deals, as well as coming up with things to do in your chosen city. Trouble is the chosen city is Mobile, Alabama....so either prophetic for Jason getting accepted to USA - or I get to visit the beach once a month. Either way I will take it.

Working on the Bucket List

As if a message from God, or more so my local library, I received an email for a writing workshop for those wanting to become a writer. I have not called and reserved my seat yet, but I am hoping that come Monday morning they will still have a spot for me. At first I was a little apprehensive, envisioning this workshop filled with retirees and missed Saturday afternoons, but the more I think about it the more I think I will really benefit from this.

I am still waiting to hear back from About.com for their Guide Writer position. I do not have any professional or formal writing experience, just field experience, so I am not sure if they will pursue me at all. I was very proud of my sample article and received some great reviews from friends and family. Ever since I have written that article though, I have been dreaming about how wonderful a job that would be, about how much I could enjoy writing for a living, and how much I now find myself with so much that I want to say.

And as the title of my blog post alludes to, it has been something on my "bucket list" now for a while, to write a book. I am still working on what and when and how and who, but it is something that I really want to do.

So maybe it is pure coincidence that I actually read the mass email blast from the Florence, Al public library, or maybe God has my new-found interests in his horizons, either way, I know who I will be calling come 9:00 tomorrow morning to reserve a spot and create in this mama a writer!

Random Thought

If you could jet around the world to reach a place where the weather could reflect your mood would you? Of course you would! What a question! On a Sunday night like this one, I would choose to transport some place where it would be winter right now. I can almost feel the crisp, cold air on my face, drying out my skin and lips, the dark blue backdrop with fluffy, fat snowflakes falling silently on the blanketed ground. I would be sitting inside next to a fire, under a warm fleece blanket, and watching my favorite movie.

Water for Elephants and Bucket Lists

Our book club is officially in full swing, after finishing up House Rules by Jodi Piccoult, which I found entertaining but likened it too much to a Lifetime movie, we chose Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I was a little apprehensive about this book, thinking that we had moved from one "chick book" to another, but I have to say that I was very much moved and entertained by this book. I won't spoil it, since we have our meeting on Tuesday to discuss over dinner followed by heading to the movies to watch the story play out on the big screen, but I know this was a wonderful novel by my physical reaction to this book.



You might be wondering, huh? Physical reaction? Sounds weird I know, but I do not know how else to explain it. It is strange, I find that when I finish a book, and if I really enjoyed it and was moved by the story, my body feels as if there is a hole in my chest, a small place where the breeze of the story that once moved through me lies still, and it leaves me with that strange feeling, like coming in from playing outside on a late summer evening into a still house. Maybe I am an unaware empath or something. Who knows.

Anyways, moving forward.

I enjoyed reading the author's notes on this book, about the research she did and the traveling to the museums, the books, and all the leg work that was involved, and reading this only cemented in me that I want, no wait, I need to write something. Ever since I read how Stephenie Meyers awoke from a dream and started writing scenes from the Twilight Saga during her sons' swim classes I have thought to myself, I can do that.

So, now that I am *gasp* 31 year's old, I think I need to start really taking stock of my life and what I want to accomplish. I have pretty much consider myself above adequate in most things that I pursue, which leaves me to believe that there still must be something I can be great at. Maybe I will get lucky and it will be writing, though I will not hold my breath. But I figure I will give it a shot.

Now...what to write about.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Last year a little quiz thing circulated Facebook stating that according to the BBC, out of 100 "classic" books, most people had only read 6. It has been my goal since then to read every book on that list. So far I have read The Great Gatsby and The Lovely Bones, but I recently decided to take a detour from my BBC list and read The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.

I was warned. This book was going to make me cry, and that it did.

I usually don't read books about animals, because I know they are going to die, and for some reason an animal dying almost always has to be more sad than a person dying. I was intrigued with the concept of the dog narrator, and I enjoyed the quirkiness of dogdom, but midway through it began to feel a little tedious to read. You know the dog is going to die, it is not really a spoiler, the first chapter sort of starts Pulp Fiction-style near the end. But as I got to the end it pulled nicely together and left me overall feeling like it was worth my time and money.

I recommend this book to anyone who can handle the emotional story of a dog and his master, and the story of their lives together and the beautiful wisdom and the pictures it paints of a dog and his family. I will honestly always look at my doggies differently now.