Jeweled Dreams

Labradorite, flourite and jadite necklace
Labradorite, flourite and jadite necklace

This week of the year is an excellent one for projects. Like 80% of the other people in my company, I took the week off. I hied to my mother-in-law’s house, where I’ve been royally spoiled. So here I am, with my brand new camera, and a promise to my mother-in-law that I would help her get her jewelry online. If you’ve met me in person, you’ve likely seen some of my mother-in-law’s jewelry. She spent about 30 years gathering beautiful things from around the globe. Now she is putting them together into works of “wearable art”, and is ready to sell them.

Carved jade with rough unakite and coral beads
Carved jade with rough unakite and coral beads

If your mother-in-law had gorgeous hand-crafted items for sale, where would you tell her to sell it? Of course. So we set up an Etsy store for her called Jeweled Dreams. She’s got about 12 of her items up now. And I’ll have you know that while I helped her set up the store, she’s done all the posting all by herself! I’m very proud.

Jade pendant
Jade pendant

But then comes the great labor. So…. I have this brand new camera I’m learning to use. She has about 75 completed necklaces. And heaven help me, I took pictures of each and every single one of them. Practically, I think they look pretty good – at least up to standards for Etsy. It was also frustrating. The second day, I simply couldn’t get the lighting right. I know enough to mess up the settings on my camera, but not to make it obey me. I can see progress on the photography, but I am also starting to see just how far I have to go to accomplish what I want to. On the other hand, it was probably excellent practice to take a gazillion images of beautiful jewelry for practical reasons. With the number of pictures I took, she should be all set to make postings to her store for months.

So I am feeling very proud of myself and very accomplished. I’m also feeling like I have a lot of room to grow. Finally, I’m really really hoping she actually sells something at her Etsy Store. She says she needs to sell them to make room to make more. I thought she was exaggerating until I had to take pictures of all of them!

So… if you know someone (or are someone) who loves beautiful, exotic, one-of-a-kind jewelry, consider browsing through her store (or pictures). Valentine’s day is only like 6 weeks away!

Carved turquoise and silver
Carved turquoise and silver

My Christmas letter

So after posting on Facebook about whether holiday letters are totally annoying or just a little annoying, I wrote a holiday letter to go into the grand production that is my Christmas cards. (The cards usually include: hand written address, hand stamped stamp on envelope, stamped return address, Christmas letter, picture and personal note to recipient. I sent out 80 this year. I have already purchased next year’s Christmas cards.)

Well, Facebook told me that other people’s Christmas letters were annoying and braggy, but that mine were entertaining, charming and practically a public service. This was good, since regardless of the outcome of the poll I was going to send them. Of course, don’t think I wasn’t thinking ahead. I KNEW that my Christmas letter was as good a prewritten blog post! Win!

So with no further ado, for those of you who did NOT get a Christmas card from me this year, here is my Christmas letter:

The included picture of the boys
The included picture of the boys

Christmas 2010
Dear Friends,

February found a big change in our family. After over 7 years with B Applications, I felt ready for some new challenges. On the 22nd of February, I started in a new role with XYZ Corporation. On March 1st, Millipore was acquired by ABC Corporation. Surprise! It’s been a wild ride since then. I’ve moved from programming, to project management, to business analysis. I’ve gone, in one year, from a company of 17 people to a company of over 40,000 worldwide. I wanted to grow professionally – I’ve gotten that in spades! So far, I’m really enjoying it!

Changing my job had some other effects. Sadly Abuela — the woman who took care of Grey and Thane since Grey was 2 months old — was right next my old job. She was not anywhere near my new job. So with sad hearts, we said goodbye. Grey and Thane started going to the YMCA in our home town, along with many of their best neighborhood friends.

My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding this summer. For our honeymoon, we traveled to Greece and visited every Byzantine church in Athens (and a few that were actually Episcopalian). For our 10th anniversary, we went a little further East, to the ancient city of Istanbul. It was fantastic. We wandered the labyrinthine streets where the palace had once been, stood in the center of Justinian’s Hippodrome, climbed the walls of the Fortress of Europe, walked under the high vaulted domes of Hagia Sophia, sat on the rocks of the Bosphorus watching a continent’s worth of shipping vessels and learned to love aubergine.

Grey turned five this fall. It’s amazing the difference a year makes. He’s now a very active reader and particularly loves the Owly books. In addition to preschool, he’s spent a year doing aikido and has earned his yellow stripe. He’s taking swimming lessons on Saturdays, and on Mondays he’s taking a cooking class that seems to specialize in the gooey and sweet. There’s still plenty of leftover time for running around, playing on his beloved “screens”, coloring, building with Legos and playing with his friends.

Thane is two, with all that means. After getting ear tubes last February, his language abilities have just exploded. He talks all the time, with amazing fluency, audibility and persistence. (That’s a nice way of saying the kid is never quiet.) His primary passions are cars (especially emergency vehicles) and dinosaurs. Thanks to Jane Yolen’s “How Do Dinosaurs…” books, his favorite dinosaurs include Pachycephalasaurus, Tapejara and Neovenator.

It’s hard to capture a full year in one page. The boys and I went to California
for 4 days to see my grandmother. We went camping in New Hampshire 4
times. Adam has continued to grow professionally at his job.
The cats are both still fat and lazy.

We hope that you and your families also had a year of
growth, fun and joy together with another one to come!

The section above was a PITA to format. There was a Christmas tree at the bottom of the stationary.

Love, Us

Christmas Music

For almost all my life, I’ve been the person who turned the music on. As a girl, growing up, music was played much more often once I figured out how to make it go. I still remember fondly all 6 of the CDs we owned, seared into my hind-mind as they are. When I graduated, I secretly absconded with all my favorite CDs. (Note to parents everywhere: check what your kid packs to college, especially when they’re going 3000 miles away and will never ever actually return with their possessions.) The music and NPR always played in my dorm room, eventually joined by baseball broadcasts. In my own home, I have complete ownership over the sound system. If it’s on, chances are over 90% it’s because I turned them on.

So it’s interesting to notice my sons gradually taking control over their own soundscape. Each has a CD player in their room. Grey is vert interested in what it plays, and will make careful choices among his handful of CDs. He loves Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence, but thinks Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme is too scary. And he’s started to form his own opinions about what he likes, what he wants to listen to. I’m sure there will be a moment in the future when I have to compromise the music played in our public space. I’m hoping to avoid sharing as long as possible, however, because my music is better. Ahem.

Anyway, this year for the first time, Grey has a favorite Christmas carol. What do you think it is? Maybe Rudolf? Grey went Christmas carolling with the church group this year (as our official bell-ringer – he refused to sing) and Rudolf was his request, but no. It’s not a kid’s song. Perhaps the Carol of the Bells on the traditional side? Or Joy To the World? Or “Darcy the Dragon” which is MY favorite Christmas song? (Kind of.)

Nope. Grey’s favorite Christmas song is The Kingston Trio’s Mary Mild, from the Last Month of the Year. It is such a joy to see him decide this on his own. While that song is certainly in heavy circulation (“The Last Month of the Year” is my husband’s favorite Christmas album), that song isn’t in my top 50 list. I’d hardly paid much attention to it, other than pondering its apocryphal origins. But he loves it. He sings it. He requests it at night time.

I know that my choices create the soundscape in which my sons grow up. They seem so young, so clearly under my purview. But already, they love things that I like. They notice things that escaped my notice. They hear things with fresh ears and reach different conclusions. I have set the foundations, but the house they build upon it will be all theirs.


“Go up the hill,” His mother said, “and there you will find three jolly children.
But let me hear no complaint of You when You come home again.”

Ho ho horrible

I’ve always liked the idea of the 12 days of Christmas, beginning on Christmas day and ending in Epiphany. Or, as I celebrate it, beginning on Christmas Eve and lasting until I have to go back to work in January. I like that Christmas is a season, not just a day. So I’ve saved up a few Christmas posts, and I even have time to post and take pictures and do fun stuff! Yay!

Zombie Santa thinks your brains are delicious
Zombie Santa thinks your brains are delicious

So with the foresight of an experienced blogger, when I encountered an amazingly bad holiday event, instead of thinking, “Wow, this is amazingly bad!” I pulled out my camera and took notes. It’s one of the blessings of this constant chronicling, that bad experiences can actually be way more fun to write about than good ones.

Now, it should be said that I’m quite positive the experience I’m about to write about is one cherished by generations of New Englanders (it’s the only explanation!). The volunteers who make this happen are hard-working and well-intentioned — I’m positive. The non-profit agency who benefits from the ludicrous, er, eminently reasonable ticket prices are worthy, I’m sure.

But seriously, the Zoolights in Stoneham are like a horror movie waiting to happen.

OK, ok, the immense line for tickets should be a good sign that joys await within, right? Right? Right? Or at least the hefty price of entry should be an indication of value to come?

The first part is ok. You walk through the zoo, past the nocturnal animals and the incredibly stinky reindeer. But then you get to Santa’s workshop. Another line for a picture with Santa — granted a decent Santa. But you start to feel… uncomfortable about the decor. Half of the animatronics (creepy at the best of times) didn’t move. As we waited in line, I failed to snap a picture of flamethrower Santa. Let’s see if you think his holiday candle is festive now! Who you saying moves like a bowl full of jelly?

Seriously, no one's made a major motion picture of Little Women in years
Seriously, no one's made a major motion picture of Little Women in years

From there into the hall of horrors. I’m sure these exhibits were cute in 1950 (or whenever) when the Zoolights started. But now, not only are the exhibits really out of touch with what kids even know (see also Amy March above), but they’re starting to… rot. There’s mold and mildew. Leaves get blown in. The exhibits are disheveled.

Or like some of the newer exhibits, completely faded. Elmo should not be pink.

Only one of the muppets still moves
Only one of the muppets still moves

I’m frankly amazed that the kids aren’t terrified by these things. I found them extremely creepy, like this giant, molding bear that periodically opened his eyes:

A greenish glow does not make giant teddy festive
A greenish glow does not make giant teddy festive

I mean, people are afraid of non-mildewed clowns. But the kids didn’t seem to mind a bit.
The people setting this up must not have read any Stephen King
The people setting this up must not have read any Stephen King

Sorry kids, Santa had a stroke
Sorry kids, Santa had a stroke

Once you’ve gotten through the gauntlet of creepy creatures, you get to the carnival rides. Several of them were just normal carny rides, but the Merry Go Round had the freakiest looking animals EVEH. I mean, the horses looked demonic.
Would you mount this beast?
Would you mount this beast?

But the place was packed. Everyone seemed to be having fun! Except me. I was half writing the forthcoming scene of horror, doom and destruction in my head, along with this blog post. Also, it was cold.

Anyway, in case of the Zombie apocalypse, I recommend staying away from the zoo.

All I want for Christmas is a digital SLR

This, my friends, is a perfect Christmas. We’re at my mother-in-law’s house… which is to say we’re completely spoiled. The place is all Christmasy. She has, at least count, six Christmas trees up, two full size and several smaller ones. She has about 6 batches of baked goods and every possible treat you can imagine. She also bought out several toy and clothing stores to outfit us. She told us not to pack anything… she had everything – and she does!

I spent this lovely hour today: my husband was watching Tron, the boys were down pretending to nap, the Christmas music was on, the fireplace was roaring and in an extremely unexpected turn of events, it was snowing. I sat on the couch, quiet, and read “The Dark is Rising”, which is my favorite Christmas book. It was an astonishingly lovely moment.

Anyway, for Christmas Santa Husband bought me a Digital SLR camera. I bought a photography book a while back and read it through. This permitted me to know exactly what my point and shoot could or could not do. It can actually do a lot. I use ISO all the time and I think it immeasurably improved my pictures. But there were things I couldn’t do: anything with detachable lenses and most importantly f-stops. I thought about it for about two years. But I decided: I wanted a real camera. So I told my husband and left him to do all the research on which one was best yadda yadda. My new camera is a Pentak DAL 18-55 mm F3.5 – 5.6 AL.

It’s my first non-point-and-shoot, so I’m probably not well qualified to review it. But I have spent, oh, about 24 hours with it now and taken over 300 pictures. It’s a leap of faith to record Christmas morning on your brand new camera (do you know how to take the lens cap off?) but we did it. Here are all the pictures, but let me call some out:

This here explains why I needed this camera. In a point in shoot, usually, most of the picture in the camera is sharp. That’s great – it means Aunt Agnes isn’t a blur (or everything is) – but it also leads to flatter pictures. Snapshots. Nothing wrong with that, but I wanted more. So here is a “non flat” set of the same pictures:

Rear focus - front blurred
Rear focus - front blurred

Forward focus - blurred back
Forward focus - blurred back

And for your viewing pleasure, here’s a full set of Christmas pictures!.

PS – I have totally not figured out how to work my camera! But I’m looking forward to doing so!

My Second Career

We 30-somethings have spent our lives being prepared for a working life that looks very different than our parents’ and grandparents’. I remember when I graduated from High School hearing that a person my age could expect to have seven careers over their lifetime. Of course, at the time, I had no clue what one career I might pick. In retrospect, I had a blithe confidence that whatever career I ended up doing would be awesome and I would be awesome. Perhaps I would be a wealthy scholar, of um, something. Ah, the hubris of youth!

I went off to a fine fine liberal arts college and got my incredibly useful double major in English and Medieval Studies. You’re almost holding your breath waiting for the cold reality-bath that I seemed destined for at that moment, aren’t you?

But…. my esoteric studies in Wind Instrumental Ensembles in Italy from 1450 to 1620 had inadvertently inspired me to get some useful skills. (NOTE: That’s actual heritage 1999 HTML going on there folks! AHAHAHH! I’d forgotten the Web Rings! Those were all the rage….) I’d built on this experience to have, by the time I graduated, roughly 3 years experience doing websites. This was in the year 2000 (pre-bust), when very few people had more than three years, and anyone with a pulse could get a programming job. That’s exactly what I did.

I tell this story nearly every time I have to explain to someone how an English/Medieval Studies double major ended up programming.

The entire first decade of the 2000s I spent on variations on that theme. I learned a medium-niche programming language called ColdFusion. I got pretty good at MS SQL Server development (coding queries, etc.). I can do an inner join with the best of ’em.

Across three separate jobs, I kept trying to move from programming (which I was unexpectedly pretty good at at) to a job that required talking and writing. If you were to draw up a list of the things I’m best at, talking and writing are probably right up there. I once won $1000 in a contest doing impromptu speaking on the Constitution. I am unafraid of presentations. I like meeting people. I like talking. I’m a rampant, unrepentant extrovert. And I spent ten years programming?

So in February I got this new programming gig in a totally different language (which I didn’t know) in a much larger company (going from a 16 person company to a 6,000 person global company). There was talk of the “succession planning team” (which I think must be mythical since I’ve never heard of it since). I thought that maybe this was finally time for me to break out of the code-mines. I’d become… I dunno… a project manager! Or maybe manage a small team of coders?

Since then, it’s been a whirlwind. I did to a tiny tiny bit of programming in that new language — exactly one function. Then I suddenly got assigned two large, really large, projects to manage. And we got acquired. And I got moved around. And suddenly everything I thought I was working towards I got. Bing! Your first genie wish arrived!

Holy cow.

This is it. I’m into my second career. There are no IDEs in my new career. I do not write code. I am expected to know a bit about all the acronyms and be in depth about none. My key skills are multitasking, interpersonal relationships, paperwork, fantastic note-taking, question-asking and presentation-giving. It’s a moving, spinning target with words that I thought were generic buzzwords suddenly taking on terrifyingly specific meanings. I am the one who tells people how we take an idea and make it happen. I have to update the budget. I talk a lot about making sure we’re in alignment.

I am learning so very much. I flip between terrified and excited. I don’t even know how to talk about what I’m doing. Do I sound bombastic and self-centered when I talk about the people, the politics, the circumstances of my job? This new career is of the kind that can suck you in and demand your entire personal life if you let it…. how do I not let it? I have a gazillion and one friends who are programmers. I could bounce things off them and my husband if I felt out of my depth. I have, well, pretty much no friends who are doing what I’m doing now. Who do I bounce things off? Or do I tie them up tightly and keep them inside? This new career is Corporate with a capital “C”. Nylons and ties Corporate. I have a Blackberry. Everyone seems to have a BMW, unless they have an Audi. How does that relate to my personality and identity… to who I really am?

When I was in high school, I did Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), mostly because you got out of class and went places where you could meet cute boys. I did extremely well at typing (my typing speed is still one of my secret assets). But I could never even imagine myself in the buzzword world of the Keynote Speakers, the swank unreality of plush hotel lobbies with fountains and glass elevators and stultifying conference rooms. Now I find myself wondering if I should find out if there’s a local chapter and volunteer with them.

All this has really shaken me. It’s hard to talk about, because it’s a very good change. Any sort of “working through” this sounds like bragging in my head, so I don’t do it. And I really can’t blog about the specifics because, uh, that’s career suicide and stupid to boot. But work is taking a tremendous amount of my intellectual energy. I come home really tired. I hardly ever have “extra” time at work that I can spend doing things like blogging. You might have noticed by my frantic “Please, at least one update a week!” pace here. I’ve held the line on hours worked, but somehow it seems like my days are even more compressed.

And I still don’t know if I will succeed at this, if I want to succeed at this… what success looks like and whether I’m willing to accept the consequences of success.

Thus my transition from Career 1 (programmer) to Career 2 (Business Analyst).

Have you made career transitions? What career number are you on? Have you found them hard or easy to make? What was your favorite and least favorite career? What did you do when you found yourself succeeding faster than you can adjust your self-image? What’s the biggest career-related adjustment you’ve ever made, and how did you do it?

Not scare-mongering

My sons’ daycare hosted an event to train parent’s in the new safety curriculum. Hint to everyone: here’s how to get young parents to come to your event. Offer babysitting AND dinner. I probably wouldn’t have gone, otherwise, but that critical combination told me that they were serious. They really wanted me there. I heaved a sigh, and we went.

I consider my own parents some of the finest examples of the parenting genre. I wish I could bottle their parenting and uncork it onto my own kids. (Camp Gramp will have to do.) And my folks’ philosophy is usually described by my mom as “benign neglect”. Perhaps uncoincidentally, my childhood memories mostly include leisure, fun, exploration, etc. If my children had my childhood, I’d be delighted. My aspirational parenting philosophy would be to raise Free Range Kids, confident and capable to deal with what our safe, careful, child-friendly area has to offer in the way of real life. So I went to this training ready to do some serious eye-rolling to what I figured would be an inevitable histrionic over-reacting.

Well, color me impressed. The curriculum and training were done by the Committee for Children, with funding offered by a local business. (Wish I could remember who — they deserve credit!) They got off on exactly the right foot with me. Here’s how the introduction to a book to share with our kids put it, “This book will not frighten your child. It will give your child skills that will help make him or her strong. A strong, informed child is a safer child.”

Awesome. Fantastic. Let’s not wrap them in bubblewrap. Let’s not keep them inside forever. Let’s not hover. Let’s give them skills to make them safer! Sign me up.

And it just got better. The “touching saftey” chapter is one of about 17, with others being firearm safety, fire safety, kitchen safety, water safety… good stuff! And all very reasonable, centered and operating on the assumption that our kids could apply simple sense to stay safe. Plus, it gave we parents excellent language to use to talk about tough stuff, and they even showed us videos of parents superbly handling some of the hardest discussions a parent might have with their kids. It was extremely valuable training for us, and an excellent curriculum for them.

There is so much in the world that seems hysterical or divorced from reality – especially when it comes to kid’s safety. I thought I’d just take a moment to let you know: a private company is helping fund an excellent, sensible curriculum to teach our children how to navigate through the world instead of hiding them from it. Fantastic.

Ten and a half years later

This year marks my decade on a number of milestones. I’ve now been married ten years and change. And it’s been a few months longer than that since I graduated from Connecticut College with a Double Major in English and Medieval Studies. It’s brought to mind because this month marks the very final time that Sallie Mae is authorized to take a chunk of change out of my checking account. It’s funny, that a form letter with a strongly serif font, printed in black and white, actually inspired a number of emotions in me.

First and foremost of course, is satisfaction. It’s nice to finish things. To finish paying off a debt, that’s extra nice. And then there’s the fact that I get a little bit more money now. (Not that much more. Thanks to good stewardship in the pre-kid era, I’d prepayed a significant amount of the loan and halved the payment from what it was originally.) And finally, I confess, I have a little chagrin that I’ve never gone back to school – not for even the smallest class. I vacillate between being slightly embarrassed by my lack of graduate degree and going through the logic again that shows it’s a sensible decision for me. In many programming careers, work experience is more valuable that education. Education is how you break in, but once you’re in it doesn’t matter as much.

I got to thinking, though, about what I’d gotten for that debt incurred. In serious retrospect, I think it was a superb investment in all the ways that matter. From a career investment point of view, I have no complaints about the career I’ve had so far, or about the opportunities for advancement that I have. In a surprising turn of events (another post for another day) I’ve even started to use some of those hard-won analysis and writing skills!

But those four years in college gave me some of the most important things in my life. For starters, and in the obvious camp, I met my husband there. That relationship has been the foundation on which so much of the rest of my life (and my joy!) has been built. I made many of the friends who still roll around for Mocksgiving and Piemas. Connecticut College gave me “Make We Joy” and Chaucer (at the same time – I’ve associated Chaucer with Christmas ever since). I wandered its hallowed greens under the faint luminescence of the Hale-Bopp comet, freezing time to memory. I read American Literature basking in the sun on the roof of Smith, becoming increasingly dismayed that Robert Service was completely unrepresented! I discovered that a hatred of science and mathematics was not actually inevitable for the literary-minded. I worshiped in a small, meaningful service on Wednesday nights with the faithful few. I learned how to write. I learned how to read. I learned that grilled bagels are way better than toasted bagels and had lobster for the first time ever.

In retrospect, my college experience lived up to the billing, and I’d likely be one of those nostalgic alumni who wandered through the gray-stoned campus stopping to tell sophomores to enjoy it because it’s the best four years of your life! … if I didn’t remember how alien and obnoxious those interlopers are to the currently-being-educated.

Staring at that last bill, I am completely satisfied with the investment I (and my parents) made and would decline to return the product, even if that was offered. I only wish my car loan and mortgage carried the same sense of satisfaction!

Mocksgiving and other pictures

It’s Christmas card time of year. I usually do ridiculously complicated Christmas cards. In recent years, my cards have involved:
1) Hand-stamped return address
2) Hand-stamped stamp in corner of envelope
3) Hand-addressed
4) Christmas card with personal note
5) Christmas letter (sometimes with personal signature)
6) Lovely family portrait picture

(I usually do about 80 of these)

There’s a chance that I might not live up to that this year. Let’s take, for example, the family portrait. It’s already pretty late to get one taken. And it requires planning. Money. And a time when we are free and no one is guaranteed to be hungry, tired, cranky, or demanding “red car! red car! red car!!!!”. Yeah. So then I wen through my 2010 pictures looking for that great picture where both my boys are looking at the camera and smiling. Now, I’ve taken a lot of pictures this year. Probably over a thousand. You’d think that there would, you know, be that picture. But you would not be the mother of a 2 and a 5 year old. There are few enough pictures where they’re both looking at the camera.

So a month ago, I decided to set this up. I found some scenic locations, and asked the boys to stand together, arms around each other, looking filial. HA!

I’m thinking this might be a good year to skip the family portrait. Still! Here are my attempts, along with Mocksgiving pictures (some great ones there!) and a bonus video of Thane at the Museum of Dinosaurs Science, talking about his favorite dinosaurs. (Tapejara, Neovenator, etc. You know. The classics.)