Snippets

I said to someone at work last week that it was like my childhood was dying. Leonard Nimoy’s death last year hit me harder than the ones from this year, but still. Between David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and today Glen Frey, and numerous others crossing my FB page, it really is that the music and actors I grew up with are leaving this world. Of course the hardest part about all of it for me is that they are all about the same age as my parents. And while C and a number of my friends have lost their parents, I still have both of mine, and I am honestly in no way prepared to lose either of them yet.

I actually have a really hard time writing when there are people having conversations around me. Sitting in Starbucks this week, there was a group of women whose sons all apparently play soccer together sitting right behind me. I could not help but listen to their conversation. I did manage to not interrupt and tell them that the Revenant may be based on a true story, but only very loosely, as the true story does not involve a son at all. And also, just because an actor is supposedly willing to almost kill himself for a role does not automatically earn him an Oscar.

It also reminded me that cliques do not go away as we get older. Or maybe they come back when we have kids in high school. I do not know. What I do know is that while I do hope I can be friends with the parents of Pop Tart’s friends, I hope I am able to be more generous about other kids. And also, that if I am privy to information people reasonably think is confidential, I will not go around telling my friends “oh, you can’t see this information but I can” and then answering all their nosy questions about what other people said.

We have had to separate the rats. Stitch plays a little too rough for Stella, who is part hairless, and therefore less protected from claws and teeth. Stitch actually injured Stella’s nose, which led to some breathing problems. So for now, they are in different cages that sit right next to each other. Neither is really happy about that, as not only are rats social creatures, but these two have been together most of their lives.

We are also facing the fact that Miss Stella (who we were told from the beginning would be a sicklier rat) seems to be starting to fade. She spends most of her time sleeping and sometimes has trouble breathing (even without the nose injury).

Average rat lifespan is less than 22 months, and 95% of all pet rats are dead by 36 months. The girls have been with us about 16 months. I think it is important for kids to have pets and to experience loss through their deaths, but that does not mean I am looking forward to losing Stella (or Stitch), and I am especially not looking forward to Pop Tart’s reaction to it. But it will happen, and we will get through it. And for now, we will just enjoy our ratty girls.

I occasionally think about my “second career”. I know that I get bored in a position after about three years, and at some point, I will hit the ceiling for my career path, so I ponder what I will do after I reach the pinnacle and then decide it is time to move on. Current leading thoughts are forensic accounting and career counseling.

Of course, to be a forensic accountant, I would need to go back to school and take some more accounting classes, and probably become a CPA. But it does seem like a good freelance/work from home kind of job. I like taking classes, and learning more accounting certainly would not hurt my current career path, and might even benefit it. And it seems like it would be really interesting to me. I love puzzles and digging through the data. Oddly, it combines the traits that led to my BA in History and my MBA really well, I think.

Career counseling is probably much easier to career change in to. I do not know that it requires any additional schooling, just really getting someone to believe that I am ready to take the paycut/make the change to that kind of work. But I love helping my current staff figure out their next career steps and what I can do to help make that happen. I enjoy helping friends find new jobs and giving feedback on resumes and cover letters. Certainly it would be a less stressful second career than accounting.

I have not posted anything about goals for this year. In general, I am not a big “New Year’s Resolution” kind of person. If I feel a need for a change in my life, I do not wait until some arbitrary date to start those changes. At the same time, this year, my recognition of needing change has coincided with the change in the calendar.

My biggest goals are actually more about getting back to habits I had before Pop Tart arrived/I was laid off. I want to walk more. (I got a Fitbit for my birthday to help with this – I know having the step counter motivates me.) I want to get back to good snacking habits (meaning limited and controlled snacks during the day). And I want to get back to keeping track of our finances.

There are other things I would like to do this year, but those three are the big ones. They are all habits, habits I once had that I let fall away. So now I need to do the work to make them my habits again.