Looking for Lucy

Besties

I’m back!  I had an amazing weekend with two of my best friends (Josette & Supriya) in San Francisco doing absolutely NOTHING!!  Well not entirely true.  I dragged them to the Ferry Building to feast on gorgeous organic fruits which we still don’t have in NYC yet.  And we ate, watched lots of girly tv shows (finally saw Girls to see what all the buzz was about) and then caught a movie (Avengers!).  We shopped a little.  Talked a lot.  Laughed a lot.  Slept a lot.  Rearranged some furniture (I can’t help myself), and just relaxed.  Oh and I made them look at over 300 photos of Phoebe.  

So now I’m back and feeling well rested and refueled with patience for you know who. : )

It’s amazing what a few days of R&R with friends can do for your mind and soul.  It helped to be with old friends with whom reconnecting is never hard and silence is comfortable, not uneasy.  And since I’ve lived in SF a couple of times already, there was no pressure to go sightseeing and do touristy things in a short weekend trip.  

It wasn’t until my last night that we realized it was our 20 yr anniversary of meeting each other in our freshman dorm at Northwestern.  It’s amazing when you can say you’ve known anyone that long.  And while I have some friends who I have known longer, Josette & Supriya are the ones who have been by my side and with me through thick and thin, good times and in bad.  I feel so lucky to have developed such strong friendships over the years and I know I couldn’t have gotten this far without their love & support.  

Here’s to 20 years ladies!  And to many more. : )  

Decisions, Decisions

Why is it that sometimes, every decision seems so monumental and so gigantically important, that I just can’t seem to make a decision?

This indecisiveness has been a consistent complaint from hubby.  ”Let’s go get ice cream!” I say, to which he always gets very excited for.  Then 2 minutes later…”Well nah.  Nevermind.”  Because within those 2 minutes, I think about the fat and calories that I would be ingesting and have now lost interest.  But in those same 2 minutes, hubby is already salivating and thinking about where we’re going to go and which flavor he’s going to get.  So of course he’s frustrated because I won’t let us go indulge.  And we see the same behavior in Phoebe now too…she’s consistently changing her mind within 2 seconds, which of course he blames on me.  But of course I blame it on her just being a toddler.  Who knows who’s to blame but I can see how frustrated he gets because I get frustrated when Phoebe does it to me too.

So now here’s my latest decision to make:  do I pursue Interior Design or not as my next career?  Seems pretty monumental to me.  And also costly.  I wish I could just start working with someone and learn the ropes via working but I’m finding that there’s some core education that is required in order to even start working as an intern or assistant to an established designer.  And that would require me to go back to school.  

YUCK.  I thought I was done with school 10 yrs ago after getting my MBA.  I really never ever planned on going back to school.  And yet here I am…looking at Art Schools none the  less!  Art School?!  My parents would’ve fainted and probably disowned me if I had mentioned those words before.  So of course, it never crossed my mind to ever go down that path back then.  Hah.  I’ve already met with an acquaintance who made a similar career change several years ago, got her professional certificate and has never looked back.  And I’m about to meet with someone who actually went to art school and has been in this business for over 10 yrs.  And I feel like I’m “doing my research” and conducting my informational interviews (all the right things a business school student does - *snicker here*).  But something is still holding me back from really making this decision.  I’m not sure if it’s because I just loathe the thought of going back to school.  Or is it just dreading dealing with the scheduling of ad hoc babysitting when I have to be in class or class meetings or whatnot.  Or is it the financial cost of school tuition and then add babysitting on top of that.  Maybe it’s just that I’m so tired I can barely think straight.

I’ve been saying all these years that Interior Design is truly what I want to do.  I spend hours drooling over home decor sites and blogs.  I’d rather spend my money and time on home furnishings than on clothes and shoes.  I even remember drawing up floorplans of my bedroom as a teenager and thinking about how I was going to rearrange all of my furniture again and again based on my mood and sometimes even the seasons.  So what’s my problem?

Well if I were 20 all over again, I’d probably make this decision without a single second of hesitation.  But I’m not 20 again.  I’m almost 40 and I have more to include in my decision besides myself.  The last thing I want to do is spend thousands of dollars on school only to find out that I really don’t think I want to do it as a career.  

But then I think to myself, I just spent the last 15+ years, studying and working in a field that I thought would be great, but turns out I totally hated!  So am I going to spend another 20+ years of my life continuing down that same corporate path and doing what I know I don’t like, just because it’s easy and I wouldn’t have to go back to school?   At least I know how bad it will be and can deal with the pain.  Or just ignore it.  But how long can I last like that?  Probably not long.

And then I think, well what kind of role model do I want to be for Phoebe?  Wouldn’t I want her to see me as someone who chased her dreams and was a risk taker instead of some complacent blob on earth?  If she were in this situation, what would be my advice to her? Wouldn’t I want her to seek her happiness?   Would I say “Oh Phoebe, don’t rock the boat.  Stay on your miserable career path and just suck it up.”  Or would I say “You already know what you don’t like.  What you don’t know is if you may love Interior Design until you try it.  And now is the time.”

Hmmm….I think I just answered my own question!

Bye Bye Cheddar Bunnies

I’m finally starting to get into a groove with this stay at home mom thing.  But of course now Phoebe is being a nightmare at home and every day is full of battles and crying.  And while I have a list of craft projects that I wanted to do for and/or with Phoebe, sometimes I shelve them for a while because when she’s not behaving so wonderfully, my heart just isn’t in it (such as this project http://www.marthastewart.com/244292/doll-table-and-chairs).

However, one thing I can’t stop doing for Phoebe, is trying to make more food that is homemade and better for her.  So the last 2 days I tried making some cheese crackers at home since I got so fed up buying so many boxes of cheddar bunnies and chocolate bunnies and god knows what other types of bunnies.  The busier that our schedules became and the older she got, I found myself stocking up on boxes and boxes of snacks which then led to her wanting those more than the fruit and veggies that she used to eat so voraciously.  So when our “snack pantry” started to get empty, I decided that enough was enough.  I wasn’t going to stock it full anymore.  I’ll make a few homemade crackers or cookies for that week and she will have to deal if all we have is fruit and celery sticks!  

I found a super easy recipe at my go-to site 101 Cookbooks.  But I found the crackers were better when baked lighter rather than the darker color in her photos.  Phoebe loved them.  I used a really sharp cheddar cheese and maybe it’s too strong because she’s only been eating 1 or 2 crackers at a time, compared to the handfuls when I give her cheddar bunnies.  But I feel better knowing that it’s homemade and fresh.  Plus Buster loves them too so everyone wins! 

Here’s the recipe link on 101 Cookbooks:

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/homemade-cheese-crackers-recipe.html

Enjoy!

Oh…and I know most people would post photos of their crackers in various stages and what not.  But I have yet to fully master using this Mac and surprisingly, no matter how EASY everyone tells me it’s supposed to be, nothing on this computer seems intuitive for a veteran PC user.  So once I figure out what I’m doing I’m sure you’ll see some more photos from me. : )

Just fricking do it

It has now been over a week since I set up this blog and after so many different excuses for ignoring it…”I’m not ready!”….”I don’t know what I want to write about!”….”Phoebe’s sick!”…well that last one was legit…I am finally just going to sit my ass down and fricking do it.  

This has been my issue.  I do what comes naturally to me.  I find other things that I “have” to do to avoid dealing with the bigger questions I need to face such as “what the hell am I doing with my life?!”.  Things I “have” to do include:  I have to clean because there is always a mess with a toddler and a dog! I have to cook or we’ll end up eating packaged food!  I have to do the laundry or else we’ll have no clothes to wear!  I have to walk buster!  I have to buy groceries or we’ll starve!  

See…lots of good reasons to avoid facing my blog aka journal to finding myself.  But now I’m going to face it and confront it.  This is going to my outlet to say whatever I want to say and show whatever I want to show for myself.  And overtime, I’m hoping it will guide me to see what I really love to do, not because I’m supposed to do it and not because I think I love it, but because I truly want to put effort into it for myself and it makes me happy.

Happy.  There’s a hard emotion to grasp.  When Phoebe was around 2.5 yrs old, she would always ask me after doing something I asked her to do “mommy are happy now?”  You probably read that with some sarcasm but from a 2.5 yr  old, she was truly asking if I was happy and if she somehow contributed to my happiness.  And for a while I never really knew how to answer that.  It seemed like such a profound question and also such a loaded one.  I would always run through the possible ways she would interpret my response and how it would affect who she would turn into years from now.  If I answer “yes you made me happy”, would that make her think that she could only make people happy by being a “yes-ma’am?” Or would she think that the only way to make me happy was to follow orders?   If I said “no that didn’t make me happy because I had to ask you over and over again” would that make her think that nothing she did would make me happy and then turn her into this hating spiteful teenager (which is likely avoidable anyway)?  And so now that I’ve quit my job and freed myself of that stress, am I really happy now?  Sadly no.  And it sounds so crazy!  I see myself not being happy and I think “you are a crazy fool!”  To be able to quit your job in this economy, to have a husband who supports me quitting my job, to have the financial stability to quit my job…and I’m still NOT HAPPY?!  FOOL.  I’m a fool.

But I’m not happy.  And after a few weeks of grueling inner turmoil, I’m finally realizing why I’m not happy.  I’m now being given the chance to really LISTEN to who I am and to try and HEAR what I want to do and it’s actually scary.  I’m used to doing what is expected of me.  I’m used to doing things for financial security.  I’m used to following the path that is straight and narrow.  Hell I held onto my PC (aka straight & narrow) until the very last day I had to send it back to work and painfully had to start using a Mac at home.  I’m totally out of my comfort zone and it’s making me really stressed out.  I like having a plan.  I like to have my list.  I like to check things off.  I like to know that I have some sort of idea of where our life is going at least for the next year or so.  But now I got nothing.  And my head is spinning and I feel like the walls are caving in on me.  

Now I’m trying to dig myself out.  I’m starting to see a tiny light thanks to my loving friends and totally supportive husband.  The weather certainly helps.  Despite Phoebe’s craziness the last couple of days from being sick…taking her for walks in the park and just ooh’ing and aah’ing over blooming trees totally helped.  Coffee definitely helps. : )

So now it’s time to sign off.  This wasn’t so hard.  And I have to say it was actually really helpful.  Yay!  One step at a time.