Life Happens

Not sure what happened to the last six months.

Oh right. Full-time library job. Relationship. Holidays.

Truth is, I got distracted. By life. Who can blame me really. The past ten years has been full of so many ups and downs that it was nice to finally have a steady income with a regular job to go to. And then thanks to that job, I met someone that I wanted to spend my free time with. When I had any. 

I was happy (and exhausted), but I don’t regret a single choice that I made.

Still, in working that job as a cataloging librarian for this guy that had built his own dream library, (where I finally fulfilled my goal of becoming a professional librarian yet had to drive two hours a day to do it), I quickly realized that everything I had built over the past five years was going to have to take a backseat. There just weren’t enough hours in the day (or energy in my body) to continue to perform shows, work on my book, write for Creative Loafing Tampa, and sew purses. Did I mention I was still working one day a week at Barnes & Noble? And volunteering at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium? I never had a day off. I was running myself into the ground. This time, mostly for other people.

At first I tried to continue to do it all, not wanting to let anyone down (mostly me), but soon discovered that writing articles for CL at 3 a.m. after a long 10-hour work day, followed by making a purse or bow tie for a customer, wasn’t resulting in my best work. Most importantly, it just wasn’t fun anymore. So I took a leave of absence from B&N, CMA & CL. Then took most of my products down from my Etsy shop. My book shoved in a box in the closet. 

Meanwhile, the new guy in my life loved taking care of me. And for the first time in my life, I allowed someone to. I stopped trying to be everywhere to everybody and instead fell into the comfort of being in a relationship that mostly consisted of us staying home, cooking, and watching movies. Of course, the holidays were that much better having someone by my side at family dinners and to go do fun things with like tree lightings and trips to Key West and Miami. He was also the first person to discuss wanting a future with me so I started to consider it. It was all so wonderful, like a fairy tale I had cataloged in that beautiful library.

But when my cataloging job was over at the end of the year and I had put away all of the holiday decorations, (not to mention, my boyfriend going back at his job without me being there), I finally got the time to myself that I had been lacking. And, sadly, I didn’t know who I was anymore. I had spent so much time getting caught up in the role everyone else wanted me to play, I forgot about me, and what I wanted for myself. And then the things I thought I wanted – a job at a library, a companion – both took me away from the things that actually made me, ME!

The one thing I was absolutely grateful for was that I had finally paid off the credit card I had been living on the past ten years after deciding to become a librarian in January of 2006. My steady work on the cruise ship and at the library had both taken care of that. I was free. It was a great feeling. I could now start 2016 making choices that weren’t just tied to the debts of my past.

I’m now in the second month of that new journey and so far so good. I’m working a regular job again with great money that also allows me the time to work on my book that I really hope to publish this year. I got back to performing on Tuesday and it felt scary at first, but I soon remembered how happy I am up there on stage telling my silly book jokes and rapping about James Joyce in my parody songs. I also sat at the sewing machine and made a hat to wear at the show. And of course, I’m here writing to you after many many months. Sharing my story. Not necessarily funny, but always honest and real.

That’s what I figured out. 

Life happens to all of us. That is, if we are smart enough to let it.

Sometimes it opens our eyes to things we never imagined for ourselves, other times it acts as a reminder to the things that actually matter the most.

Home Depot Holiday Power Tools Do-It HERSELF Workshop: Nov 21st at 6:30pm

DO-It HERSELF Workshop/Seminole - 

A FREE, FUN & FABULOUS Way To Home Improvement!

This month's Home Depot Do-It HERSELF workshop will be all about POWER TOOLS!!!  We will use various power tools including a drill press, sander, and nail gun to then make easy birdhouse ornaments (bird not included.)  This will mostly be an active workshop of everybody trying out the power tools and assembling the pieces of the ornament so come ready to participate and once again, be artistic with paint!

In order to prepare the art materials and food & beverage for everyone, please RSVP here (*making sure to sign up for the Seminole store for mine if you are local.)  We will also have giveaways, refreshments, and plenty of time for you to ask our experts about any of your current home improvement projects or gift ideas.  Remember, this is absolutely FREE!!  And just a heads up that there will be no DIH workshop in December but we will be back on in January.

Hope to see you there but if not, have a happier holiday...with POWER TOOLS!!!

Operating a Drill Press to make holes
in the birdhouse ornament.

Making ornaments is easy with the right
power tools and instruction!

The finished product after using a combination of
Behr & Martha Stewart textured paints! (bird not included)

My holiday-themed DIH workshop display at the store.
Power tools make great gifts...for EVERYONE!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my friends and supporters of Stand-Up Librarian!  I am back in Florida with my family, where I am mostly enjoying the beach because it is so hot here.  Instead of a snowman, I had to build a sandman.  I named him Neil, in honor of Neil Gaiman who wrote The Sandman comic book series, but you knew this right?

The sunsets are absolutely incredible here.  This one inspired me to take off my flip-flops and Santa hat to go for a swim.  Until I got to the water and realized how cold it was.  Plus my parents were like "Put your clothes on, Meredith, there are kids out here!"

Then I got hungry and decided to make gingerbread because I am absolutely obsessed with it.  I don't know if this is because I am a 'ginger' or a just a fan of bread, so I did some research like any good librarian would.  Did you know we have Germany to thank for Gingerbread houses?

Instead of taking the next two days to make a Gingerbread Library, I settled on a Gingerbread Cheesecake, which I then topped with Gingerbread men cakes and Gingerbread men cookies.  Each cookie represents a guy I once dated.  Too bad I can't remember their names.

Anyway, if there is one thing I love more than libraries, it is the holidays! Whether walking on the beach, baking in the kitchen, or standing in a wooden wreath all by yourself, there are endless opportunities to give joy.  Writing on this blog always brings me joy, but it is a true Christmas miracle that there are people like you out there reading it!

     

I hope all of you have a safe and enjoyable holiday season with your family and friends.  It has been an interesting year but I am always aware that the true message of the holidays is to shop at Macy's.  No wait, stupid commercial just came on again.  The message is to BELIEVE.  In Santa.  In God.  In returns without a receipt.  Whatever.  Just believe in something.  We are all capable of anything if we believe...of course there is no guarantee on how long that will last, so that's where your family and friends come in.  After all, sometimes the best gift is just having someone believe in YOU!

It's a Wonderful Lifetime

“You broke the rules of my house and you broke the rules of my office, and then on top of all of that, you lied about it.  The truth is, you saved my company.  Thank you.  

Its Christmas, come on in.” 

– Boss lady in “A Nanny for Christmas”

With Christmas just around the corner and no job to go to or car to drive, I have been spending most of my days being entertained by the endless holiday films on “It’s a Wonderful Lifetime,” because if you ever need a Christmas miracle, a marathon of Hallmark movies is a sure way to convince you they exist…if only in unrealistic storylines.

I just finished watching the one about the high-powered career woman who loses her job over a misunderstanding just before Christmas, then gets dumped by her boyfriend/fiancé but ends up meeting the man of her dreams a few days later - first at a coffee shop, then at a soup kitchen - where they fall in love until she learns he lied about being insanely rich so they have a huge fight where somebody goes to the airport on Christmas Eve and then the other follows, where at the gate they both suddenly realize that lying or even knowing each other isn’t that big of a deal, so decide to spend Christmas getting married where somehow everybody’s family is suddenly there and it is snowing. 

Wait.  That sounds just like…all of them? 

But who doesn’t love the one with Tori Spelling as Scrooge?  Or Kristen Chenoweth as a NYC PR executive who gets fired and can only get a job doing PR in Montana.  Or my favorite, “A Nanny for Christmas,” the one that stars the lead actor from “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.”  No, not Ryan Reynolds, he’s successful.  I mean the other one, what’s his name?  Anyway, he is the love interest of this girl who is an ad executive who gets fired and mistakenly becomes a nanny, then gets fired again because she lied about being an ad executive.  Why did the lady hiring and firing this girl not read her resume?  If she is supposedly running a successful ad agency, I would think reading copy would be critical, but that’s not the worst part, Dean Cain is in it.  Remember him?  Well, “Lois & Clark’s” Superman now has four scenes in a Hallmark movie.  Jeez, I think that is the saddest thing about these silly movies, having to see all of these actors who once had promising careers, reduced to this.

And that’s when it hit me.  A lot of really good-looking people get fired…but we can always count on Hallmark to pick up the pieces.  What is the ad slogan?  “When you care enough to send the very best.”  See, that is probably what Dean Cain’s agent said to get him to do the film.  Well, that and a huge paycheck, I would guess.  The point is, Dean was the best name in that thing!  It is still crap but Hallmark tells us to be the best crap you can possibly be, or something like that.  Anyway, what I am trying to say is that we all used to have careers or jobs that didn’t work out because of a misunderstanding…like refusing to get a cappuccino because you can’t froth the milk, or you backed a Fed Ex truck into a tree trying to make a three-point turn.  So what.  You cared enough to accept the job, care enough to suck at it!  Then leave that job with your head held high knowing you could always wear your uniform at Halloween.

And Hallmark also tells us that romance is all around!  Who hasn’t met somebody at an airport, a coffee shop or soup kitchen, secretly hoping they might be really rich and sweep you off your feet?  And so what if that rich guy ended up being a homeless guy in a donated Ralph Lauren sweater.  He probably used to be but you were just too late and some other golddigger beat you to it.  Everybody makes mistakes and Lifetime is right, it is a wonderful lifetime because life is full of wonderful mistakes, misunderstandings, and times with people who both stink and don’t stink.  There are Christmas miracles happening all around us, you just have to believe…and having a ton of free time on your hands certainly helps.

For example, just the other day I was standing in line for coffee and this guy says to me, “I’ve never met anyone like you.”  I couldn’t believe it!  It was the exact line from the ten Hallmark movies I had seen, plus because I had recently lost my job, this was obviously the part where I was meeting the man of my dreams!  I adjusted my plaid holiday scarf and reindeer antlers and turned to meet my Dean Cain.  I suppose he was kind of like Superman.  They both had dark hair, but this one was frowning and holding a snowman mug over his head like a weapon.  I guess I had cut him in line and he wasn’t pleased, but how was I supposed to know?  This stupid antler headband is like wearing blinders.  You can’t see a thing.  Oh well, so he wasn’t “the one” and unlike the films, didn’t want to laugh about it and go ice-skating in the park.  I mean Sabrina the Teenage Witch kidnaps Slater in “Holiday in Handcuffs” and they still ended up together, so I don’t know what this guy’s problem was.

Oh well, no need to panic.  I don’t leave for the airport till the 19^th so I’ve got plenty of time to fall in and out of love before rushing off to my plane, where Dean Cain will suddenly appear at the gate to prevent me from going.  Hopefully we will live happily ever after…in a galaxy far, far away.  Shoot.  That is “Star Wars.”  I really need to stop watching TV.  

Or if this doesn’t work out, be a nanny. 

Link to It’s a Wonderful Lifetime:

http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/its-a-wonderful-lifetime

Link to Hallmark Channel holiday movies: http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/christmas/movies5

However, if you need some help this holiday season...