Lizbeth

You guys are either really awesome or really bored because like 45 people read my first blog!

I am still struggling with the work life balance to be able to have time to do the things that make me alive, like writing this blog, crafting or reading. Funny how the things that make us the most alive have to be scheduled.

Although one of the things that make me happy is fostering animals, and I just got a new foster on Sunday - a cat that I named Lizbeth, after Lizbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. I tried a couple of names out on her, but when I said Lizbeth to her, she turned and looked at me. So I said it again, and she again turned around & looked at me. After a third time of the same response, I knew I figured out her name. She is a love machine, purring even though she has a cold, constantly making biscuits on me. Happy to have a warm home with a variety of boxes to sleep in. I just have to get her healthy enough to be spayed and then she can officially be ready to be adopted to find her furever home.

We (the rescue I volunteer with) took Lizbeth in from another shelter to alleviate space there and were told she was pregnant. I had her into the vet today to get some meds for the kitty cold (otherwise known as an upper respiratory infection) and the vet checked to see how far along he thought she was. Yeah. She's not pregnant. I personally think she was constipated from eating too much when she got to the first shelter (she was probably starving from being outside), and the first shelter mistook a whole lot of poo for babies. I have been cleaning her litter box, I know a lot of poo when I see it.

Also? I talk about cat poo like parents talk about baby poo and vomit. I don't think its not normal. Cuz its my normal.

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

What should I be when I grow up? That is the question I have been struggling with for the last 8 years. I have a bachelors degree in Psychology and a masters degree in Higher Education Administration. I should have figured it out by now, but I haven't. I worked in the field of Higher Ed for a few years until I moved to WI, and was limited in my job search. Wandered into a great apparently in non-profit housing for a few years. Then got a great opportunity to plan events for another non-profit and jumped on it. Felt unfulfilled in that position, and found my way back to non-profit housing, emergency shelters specifically, for a couple more years. Then there were way more homeless people and way less money, and suddenly, no job for me.
That was a little over a year ago.

For the last year, I have had the opportunity to work for a local coffee shop, first as a barista, and now as a "gelato queen" and manager of one their locations. But I am making barely more than half of what I used to, with no benefits, unless you count the beginnings of carpal tunnel and Morton's Neuroma in my feet. I work for a great local couple who own the company, which has three locations, and get to be surrounded by coffee, which makes this espresso-addicted girl happy.

But I have been struggling with the whole "who am I?" question for the last year. I mean, I am 30-mumblecough years old, and working in a field nowhere near what I went to school for, treated like crap daily by doctors who feel they are better than everyone around them and customers who can't be bothered to stop talking on the phone long enough to place their order or receive their change. Its enough some days to make a girl slip some Baileys into her cold-press coffee.

The anal, organized part of my  brain greatly enjoys the managing of the store, placing orders, labeling, creating paperwork & staying on top of inventory.  The creative part of my brain loves creating signage for the store, and the people-person part of my brain loves the staff I work with and the customers that actually smile when they get their coffee.

But the previously exempt employee with her own office misses wearing pretty clothes without food or coffee stains, sitting down to eat lunch, being able to sleep until 6:30am and co-workers who want to hang out with me after work. That is if I wasn't dead tired after standing for 9 hours, didn't have to go to bed at 8:30pm and could actually convince myself to get off the sofa to go out with friends on a week night.

For so long, who I am was tied up in what I did for a living. I have less cognitive dissonance now that I am managing one of the stores versus being "just" a barista. But I feel this little being in me saying,"This isn't what you are supposed to be doing with your life. This isn't making a difference. Something is missing."

Now to figure out what that is supposed to be, what she should do when she grows up.