Incoherent Scribblings

April Showers

OK, the title of the post should really be “April Goals,” but I just couldn’t resist because Spring is here!

Anyway, as a reminder my March goals were to:

1. Finish “Celtic Spring” by March 11, 2007. No. I finished the stitching by March 11, but the beading slowed me down. Getting close though…
2. Participate in The Robin’s Nest March SAT. Yes. I didn’t stitch on the piece I had intended, but that’s OK.
3. Participate in Friends Gather Needlework Smalls March Challenge. No. I have the piece stitched, but couldn’t find any fabric for the finishing.
4. Pick out my pattern for The Robin’s Nest’s Mystery Exchange. Yes! I started stitching it even.
5. Start a new rotation. Rotation?! What’s a rotation?!

I didn’t do very good meeting my March goals, but if you read my main blog, you will know why I have been excused.
Now, for April I hope to:

1. Finish the beading on “Celtic Spring” ASAP.
2. Participate in The Robin’s Nest April SAT.
3. Participate in Friends Gather Needlework Smalls April Challenge.
4. Finish and mail my Mystery Exchange. (Post date April 16.)
5. Start stitching my Robin’s Nest’s May Flowers Exchange. (Post date May 15.)

SBQ: Freebie Organization

This week’s SBQ was suggested by Cindy and is:

Do you have a system for organizing freebie charts in your stash? If so, what is it? Do you print out copies of all of the freebies that you find on the web (that you think you might actually stitch) or do you maintain electronic copies of them until you are ready to stitch them?

My organizational system for Internet freebies has changed a quite a bit in the past year.

When I first discovered online freebies I saved them to my hard drive and then spent three or four days (and an entire color cartridge) printing them out. After they were printed out, I put them in protective sleeves and organized them in three-ring binders more or less by the website where I found them.

I never deleted the freebies from my hard drive and in fact, I kept adding to my collection; though I did start printing them out only when I thought I might stitch them.

However, when I got ready to move back to the US last summer I made the executive decision to leave the three-ring binders and all their contents behind. I did that for three main reasons: Number one, those binders were heavy and were going to cost more to move than I thought they were worth. Number two, my tastes have changed quite a lot in the past few years and I had plenty of printed freebies that I knew I would never stitch. And number three, the freebies were printed on A4 paper and wouldn’t fit in an American binder.

On top of all that, I decided it would make more sense (and save a couple of trees) if I just printed out the freebies as I stitched them, so after I went through the freebies on my hard drive and deleted a bunch of stuff that I know I will never stitch, that is what I do now. The freebies on my hard drive are organized by designer and when I do print them out, I still put them in protective sleeves and in a three-ring binder.

March Madness

March has always been kind of a crazy month for me. I don’t know why, but a lot of life-changing moments have happened to me in the month of March. For example, I lost my virginity in March and I got married in March. (And no, it was not the same March! )

This year’s March Madness actually started at the end of February with communications from two places where I had applied for jobs inquiring whether or not I would still be interested in interviewing with them. As I was, I spent many hours in the first few days of March exchanging emails and telephone calls arranging interviews. Besides, what better way to pass the time during a blizzard than to spend it off the road and inside?

Anyway, in the midst of all the interview arrangements, I learned that my dad was going to have surgery on his shoulder to repair a torn rotator cuff. As I mentioned before, I have a weird and flexible schedule so I offered to accompany Dad to the doctor appointments in The City during the week leading up to his surgery. And because I am The Good Daughter, I also shuttled him between out-patient surgery and physical therapy since he was not allowed to drive for a week following his surgery.

My first job interview was on the 14th of March and was only about 30 miles away from Small Town Iowa. Unhappily it was not for a library job, but was something that I ran across in our local newspaper and was encouraged to apply for by my mom. I wasn’t that enthused about the position or the pay, but figured it would be something that I could do while I waited for my library job to come along.

The second interview was for a library job and took place this past week. I only returned from this three day interview marathon last evening, so I don’t know anything definitive yet and won’t until around April 15, (the wheels of academia turn slowly) but I think it went quite well.

Like the last time I had an on-campus interview, I was lucky enough to get in touch with some friends while I was on the road and they took me out for a night on the town after all the stress of the interview was finished.

Oh yes, I’d say that March came in like a lion for me… let’s just hope it goes out like a lamb!

Frogging and Working Copies

Over the weekend, we had our monthly stitch-a-thon over at The Robin’s Nest. I had originally planned on stitching on my “Old Waterpump,” but when I went to retrieve it from my stitching bag at work it was not there. I had forgotten that I had taken it out of the stitching bag the other day.

“Above the Clouds,” however, was there. Now, if you have been following this blog for any length of time during the past year, you know that I have a love/hate relationship with this piece. After all, the confetti stitching nearly caused it to become a UFO last summer!

I last worked on Confetti in November and actually believed I had made some progress. When I was visiting Dawn in January, I attempted to work on him again, but after a couple of feeble attempts and the discovery of a mistake, I put Confetti away and turned my attention to “Celtic Spring.” (btw… Beading is STILL not done!)

A week or so ago, I took Confetti to work with me (hence the reason it was in the stitching bag), determined to locate the mistake or mistakes and fix them. Well, I found them (yes, I said them!) and when I realized I was off in three places and my dragon’s spines would not match up, I knew that fudging was going to turn into full-fledged frogging!

I ended up frogging everything I had stitched since November.

Therefore, as you can imagine, at that point “Above the Clouds” was in danger of becoming a UFO for the second time. But once I got the frogging done, I did something I have not done before: I made a working copy and marked where I was… And it was amazing how such little marks could help keep my eyes on right spot!

Before I started blogging about my stitching, I would never have thought about making a working copy. In fact, I didn’t even know what one was! But I am always on the lookout for things that make my life (and stitching) easier, so the idea of a copy that allows me to mark where I have been without ruining the original chart seems like a reasonable thing to do.

Though I hadn’t planned on working on Confetti for this month’s SAT, I am glad I did because now that I have fixed the mistakes I can show some real progress!

A Matter of Time

I have been deliberately silent concerning my job search as a professional librarian during the past few months here on my blog.

I have talked about the state of affairs at length with my family and close friends, but I have to admit in the age of doocing that I just haven’t felt 100% comfortable discussing the situation here for fear it might affect the eventual outcome of the process. In addition to that, I guess I am also a little superstitious: I felt like if I blogged about my job hunt I might jinx it.

And though this is my personal blog and if you are reading it you are more than likely interested in my life and all it involves, I really didn’t want to bore my readers with stories of writing cover letters, scanning transcripts, filling out online applications, or waiting anxiously for the mailperson every day.

Given my particular circumstances (nearly 5 years out of my field, unemployed and living overseas) I wasn’t sure how long my job search would take, but I knew that it would be a great assessment of how durable my library education and Master’s Degree really are.

Last summer when I made the decision to come back the U.S. and reenter my profession, I had hoped to be working in an academic library by the beginning of 2007. It seemed like an attainable goal that would nicely correspond with the start of a new semester. Unfortunately, it was not to be and as of today I am still looking for an opportunity to prove that my skills as a reference librarian did not diminish while I was away.

However, I have had interviews: Phone interviews, email interviews, and on-campus interviews. Though I was not offered any of those positions, the interviews were not a waste of my time. At the end of one phone interview that was for a technical services position, I realized that I am a public services librarian at heart and I belong in a reference and instruction department. I have also learned that I no longer want web services to be a main component of my job and that just by exchanging a few emails a person can get a pretty good idea of whether or not he or she might or might not want to work with the people on the other end.

Of course, I have had rejection letters too. The ones that come from institutions that were long shots or I never heard from beyond the standard we-have-received-your-application correspondence don’t bother me too much and I just file them away. The ones that come from places I thought I had a good chance tend to hurt a little more, but when they come I just grin and bear it.

Oh, I’d say my batting average hasn’t been too bad and that I need be patient just a little longer because something tells me that it is only a matter of time…