here again

03/30/2011 Well, and well. So I haven't been keeping up with this magic birthday year stuff. Hmm. It's not that I don't follow through with things, I am usually pretty good about that, though there is a tendency to procrastinate from time to time. No, that's the wrong word. Side-tracked is more like it. I get side-tracked sometimes. But to tell you the truth, life has somewhat side-tracked me. And what was hopefully to be fun and interesting activities to spur a little energy and enthusiasm into my every day, ho-hum existence, turned out to be harder to do than I thought. Life just wouldn't let me have fun half the time. A lot of the activities I had listed were come upon with the help of my bff. However, she has disappeared - I know not where she is, what she is, or how she is. And she was the only one I knew that was available when I was available. Maybe that was using our friendship, not wanting to do things alone, but I guess that is one of my many flaws. I needed her to help me get on with my list, and now I just don't feel like getting on with my list by myself. That is not the only reason, I am certainly a big girl and can do things on my own. And half the reason I started the list, came up with the idea, was to get me out of the winter doldrums after last year's incredibly gray and cold one. Not that this winter has been that much better, but there has been more sunshine. And I do love sunshine. Then there has been the fact of all my jobs. Ha. I am laughing. All my jobs. I have so many stupid jobs and make so little money that it is absolutely ridiculous. And you know, that's just downright depressing. Most of what I have done, workwise, has been because I really, honestly loved what I was doing, money being kind of an afterthought. There is only one of those jobs of the many I have now that I can honestly say I love, most of the time, and that is the private teaching. More times than not, it is what I look most forward to. More times than not, I am happy to see the next student walk through the door. More times than not, I am having fun being with these young musicians and sharing with them this part of their life. And that is the one constant of my life for the past 34 years. (John has been my other one constant, of the past 16 years). My other jobs, this year, though, kind of deploded. My visual merchandising activities at Stein Mart have come to a halt, almost completely. I rarely get to dress any floor mannequins; I 'get' to do the windows, but it it far less of a creative effort than it was before. Rarely doing they even let me pick out the clothing for the mannequins. I am to assume that this is primarily because of corporate changes in that area of the store, but no one has ever really said that to me. I guess I am expected to know things omnisciently, or something. It was fairly easy to tell things were going south on the creative end when they had me sell off/get rid of 98% of the visual props. That was a very painful thing to do. You see, I have been in retail for many, many years, and most of those years have been fairly successful in sales. Stein Mart has been a bit of a different animal for me, it was a bit hard to acclimate myself to the discount genre, but I think I did, though I can always improve on that end. But when I got the visual job, it was like Christmas and Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July all rolled into one --- I have always loved display work, and was so happy that I could use that other college degree again! It was the best part of my job at Stein Mart, and it is gone. Now it's just same old same old boring. But it is money. And I find myself in a position I have never been in before, having to work just for the money, not because I like the job. I don't mind saying all this, because I know no one reads my stupid blog anyway so it really doesn't matter. And before I get in to the final job that collapsed upon itself, I am going to take a break, and tell that story later. It is the most raw at the moment. Maybe, just maybe, when I work through all this crap, I can get back to having a Magic Birthday Year. Maybe.