Growth

Things are growing, but there's already that little bit of something in the air that signals fall creeping up - maybe it's the fact that it's already dusking and it's only 8:38 pm. The light is falling away, minutes chipped away from those oh so light, long, summer days.
Working at home has been an interesting challenge - trying to keep myself motivated, organized, on task. Apparently my small desk does not work for large projects. The living room floor has become a work surface. Since I'm hoping to finish up this week, I'm leaving things spread out. I'm too much of a neatnik to let this go for too long (yet another way to stay on task and deadline).
Callie checks these things out, sometimes lies in the middle, but mostly not. She knows when she can get attention, and when I will need to work instead of pet her. She keeps me sane, though, keeps me going. Her love and her demands have pulled me through a week I would rate at -3 on a 1-10 scale as far as confidence, acceptance, persistence. I wallowed a bit in self-pity, but I'm back to seeking, working, pondering, and experimenting.

"You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her." - Churchill

Processing

"You're already right where you need to be." - S. Hagen

For whatever reason, this quote has been rattling around my brain, and has shown up lately on other blogs I read. It's interesting, because after my job rejection, my reaction has been, "what's wrong with me? - what do I need to change to become right, to become enough...?" Job rejections are funny things. The whole job search process can be depressing, dehumanizing, demoralizing. You put your soul out there, and when you're rejected, you don't really know why. Was someone that much better, or did you do something to screw it up? Did you just not "fit," whatever that really means.

So, I'm back to looking at where I am now, and where I would like to be. I'm processing through the disappointment of rejection. I'm processing through the possibilities open to me right now, right here, in this place. I have loose ends here, projects that are tied to this place. Maybe we're not done with each other yet. Maybe, for now, I am where I need to be.

Vacationing with my mom

Busy, busy, busy! My mom was here for 2 weeks. We took a trip to Glacier, then she entertained herself for 4 days while I furiously prepared for a job interview, then we packed in some sightseeing in Butte before she left. We did manage to get to a couple nice/interesting places to eat (Broadway Cafe and Pekin), visit with some people I wanted her to meet, and we saw the Granite Mountain Mine Memorial (where we got to watch a fast moving rain storm), MT Tech Mineral Museum, Our Lady of the Rockies, and the World Museum of Mining.

Near the Granite Mountain Mine Memorial

Granite Mountain Mine Memorial - this commemorates the 168 men who died June 6, 1917 in a fire in the mine. It's a very sobering place to visit, and the plaques that had notes written by men trapped in the mine.... well, reading them makes me tear up. (bring Kleenexes, you will need them.)

Our Lady of the Rockies (best not to take the school bus trip up to the 9000 foot summit if you are getting a migraine)

View from the top (mining and the ever scenic Berkeley Pit)

Our Lady of the Rockies from the chapel area

The doll collection at the World Museum of Mining contains many action figures, etc. They have every Star Trek figure ever made, I think (these are just a few). It also includes figures from such popular TV series as Welcome Back, Kotter. (who knew?)

If I could steal this sign and get away with it, I would try. (Okay, maybe not, but I really thought about it). When I digitized many things for the library, those things included advertising. My FAVORITE ad was for Mr. Richards. His catchy advertising phrase? - "oldest undertaker" in Butte. Makes me laugh every time (including right now).

The World Museum of Mining has an entire town's worth of buildings that they've moved to the museum, building by building, from many different places. They have typical items found in that kind of building or business.

They also have an old mine on the grounds (hey, it's Butte). These are the cages that would have gone down into the Orphan Girl mine.

They also do an underground tour of part of the mine. You get to wear the cool helmet and light pack on a belt. My mom remains skeptical looking about her impending adventure (really it's part of an evil plot to imprison tourists and make them work in the mine... shhhh, don't tell them I told you).

The entrance to the underground tour. You go down into the darkness with your light shining.

This is our guide, explaining how things work. He worked in mines in Nevada and Montana.

Pretty self explanatory. I would have been ringing right away.

The cage. You can look down and see the water that's now filled all these old mines in Butte. It's a little odd to consider what's below you as you walk around every day...

This is the tour group with their helmets, watching our guide demonstrate a drill. It was an interesting tour, and definitely gives you an appreciation for what miners did (and still do).

So, now I'm catching up on all my work that I avoided while having fun and doing interview prep. And waiting to hear about the interview so I can make some decisions about near future plans. I can't believe it's August already. . . It is, however, delightfully un-humid, with highs in the 70s-80s and lows in the 40s (unlike most of the rest of the U.S.). If I am in Montana next summer, I will be booking tours again. Some of you people should get out of the heat and come visit me (you know who you are!).

And the days go by

I'm still in transition, from my library job to something new, from a set schedule to something flexible, from having an idea of where I'm heading to pondering future plans. I've been playing with beads, as I sometimes do when I'm trying to process through ideas and thoughts in my head.

copper chain with leather, with a stone pendant

two pairs of earrings

earring hanger/display (the Buddha doesn't seem to mind)

Happy Independence Day!

The best way to watch fireworks is to sit in a backyard with people you know, while beautiful fireworks go off on a mountainside directly in front of you. (this was one I accidentally took with flash). The M is for the local college, and is lit up at night.

The display is pretty spectacular, considering the size of the town.

They do multiple ones, too, instead of trying to stretch them out one by one.

They had some cool shapes - circles, stars, hearts...

Ooohh, ahhh, pretty!

Only 9 working days until freedom....

and I'm still so busy that it really doesn't seem real. I have been waiting for so long to be free, and I have the feeling that the actual last day of work will be anti-climactic. I know that it will be like any other day, and that no one there will do a damn thing to mark the fact that I've been working there for 2 years and now will be done. I know this because they did very little (if anything) when another longer term employee left. That's the way the (non-existent) team spirit goes.

There will be things I miss, like my actual work duties, and all my pretty old books, and dealing with the people at the state library and historical society, and even CONTENTdm. I will not miss being in a work environment which is a staggeringly poor fit. That makes me even MORE determined NOT to do this ever again - not to take a job where the fit is bad. In this case, I did get to discover where in the library universe I want to be, and I did get experience that I will be able to use elsewhere. Still, I wonder if the tradeoff, experience for self-esteem, was totally worth it. I feel like I'm barely holding the shreds of my self-esteem together.

Having a very low pressure job, where people actually appreciate me, and where I'll be able to work in more of a team atmosphere will help me as I knit myself back together. So far, I'm really liking the people at the temp gig, and once the research is done and we are able to start doing more writing, I'll enjoy the job even more. Big bonuses are that the hours are flexible, I can wear what I want, there's an office dog, and I can work from home most of the time. Plus, I just found out that if I want to, I can extend my time with them past mid-August into December-January. It's nice to know, that I have a backup backup plan. (and that someone actually wants me, and would offer me more money to stay - which helps build the self-esteem back toward the plus side of things)

Minuses are that stress is still wreaking havoc. I ended up on antibiotics for yet another sinus infection. My eating is really out of control; I've tried sitting with myself, listening to the fears and pain and total loneliness that I feel, but it's so overwhelming that I bury those feelings in food. Because work triggers all the unsafe, self-hating feelings, I've made my peace with the fact that things will be out of control for another couple weeks. Once that huge stress is gone, I can sit with all the feelings that these past two years have brought up, and painfully process through them all. I just can't do that now, knowing that I still have to go back into that place. It's not safe emotionally, because these feelings tap into bigger and blacker places. I can't open myself up in the way I need while still working in crazyland. So, the future should be very interesting.

Old and New

This week we've had snow, rain, sunshine, hail, wind... not necessarily in that order.
The garden, with a light snow cover that melted off by the end of the day... Snow is definitely getting old. I don't think we've had a week yet where there hasn't been some kind of snow, even if it's just flurries that didn't stick.
But spring is trying to arrive. The climbing vine is budding.
When it's not covered with snow, the garden is growing, a little, maybe (at least it's not dying).
The geraniums are budding.
There's a mix of old and new - plants breaking into bud and old structures crumbling. Old and new. Living and dying. All inextricably knit together into the pattern of the world.

Old walls....
new green....
My neighbor's scaffolding, as they work on repairing the old.
The lemon thyme I planted growing through snow, hail, gropple, and rain, just waiting for the sunshine.
It's all good.