hello. is this mic on?

Lately, I’ve been feeling that I’m not being heard.  But I’ve been speechless, maybe that explains why.  Time to speak up!  Hello?  I’m here!  Maybe you can listen.  I’d love for you to listen.  Please sit back, this might take a while…

So, how do I even begin to crack a seven week unannounced crafting sabbatical?  I feel that so much has happened in seven weeks at the same time that I feel nothing has happened in seven weeks (nothing productive that I can quantify).  In fact, significant things have happened, just perhaps without the outcome I would have preferred.  That includes one incident so bizarre that those of you who have followed my serendipitous adventures will continue to wonder “Why do things like this always happen to her!?!”.  Trust me, I wonder the same thing often.  I swear I don’t know how I frequently manage to catch myself in circumstances of low probability, but I seem to.

So now onto the W5:

1. Where have I been?

Everywhere but home.  Out of the past seven weeks, I was able to indulge in two Sundays of being at home.  Apart from that, I’ve gone to see O.T. in New York several weekends.  I’ve gone to see my parents in Michigan one weekend.  There have been Saturdays where I have done my part-time job or worked overtime at my full-time job.  I am home only on weeknights after work, for four short hours of being awake (but not wakeful).  Can I tell you a secret?  Instead of planning my crafts and writing blogs as I used to, my mind withers to a numb and dumb state of reading makeupalley and watching beauty vloggers on youtube.  Seriously and shamefully.  But can I use the excuse that I do so for research in case I muster up the wherewithal to become a youtube DIY guru myself one day?  Anyway, to follow those four short hours of being awake are seven hours of total sleepy oblivion in bed.  Then another day begins, capped with the same nightly routine.  Is this what they call mental burnout?  Which leads me to…

2. Woman’s Work

Since January 5th, my daily routine was disturbed by my brother who has connived me into carpooling to work.  He found a new job about 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of my job and I am now responsible for him getting to and from his job on a daily basis, at the cost of my gas, and at the cost of me waking up and leaving for work an extra hour earlier in the morning and getting home at night an extra hour and a half later.  My quality of life has dwindled to nothing.  It’s amazing what an additional 2.5 hours of commuting can do to your mental state.  I already had a total of 1.5 hours of commuting before my brother’s commute also became my responsibility.  As of January 5th, I have been commuting a total of 4 hours a day.  I am away from home from 6:50 am to 6:30 pm.  Nearly twelve hours of my day wasted with four hours of unproductivity!!!  To add to my distress, my brother believes this is necessary because it saves him the cost of gas!  And yes, he has a car of his own, which happens to require premium gas and has shiny rims that can’t drive on snow.  Is there something wrong here?  Again, is this mic on?!?   My brother, among others, isn’t hearing me.

All this extra commuting to work has left me to with lots of time to speculate: HOW IN THE WORLD DO WORKING MOMS DO IT?  Especially blogging moms who have a full-time office job outside of home.  I’m yet-to-be-married, I have a full-time job, I have a weekend job, I have some freelance assignments, and I have a blog.  Something had to give.  I hate that the blog has been sacrificed.  And I am without a husband and kids (yet) who need my undivided care and attention.  Seriously, someone please tell me how working moms do it!  Because in a couple of short years, that may be me.

3. What exactly I do for Work?

Gayla asked what I do at my full-time job and I realize I haven’t explained this at length.  I work in a civil engineering consulting firm (small/mid-size of about 100 employees) where we design municipal subdivisions.  I am one of two coordinators who sorts out all utility designs of our projects.  That means, for the subdivisions we are designing, I have to determine the feasibility of the placement of utilities (hydro cables, transformers, street lights, gasmains, telecommunications cables and pedestals).  I don’t want to put you to sleep.  To sum it up, my job requires a lot of back-and-forth prodding of utility companies, and a heck of a lot of conflict resolution which can really sour some days, and wee bits of computer drafting which is the zen part of my job that I most enjoy.

Things have gotten much better at work since I spoke up in the fall about workplace bullying, thanks for asking!  I may have gained the best retribution — the trust and confidence of co-workers who are eager to work with me because of my eagerness and diligence, no matter how new I am at my post.

Is resolving utility design conflicts what I’ve always dreamed of doing?  Is it anyone’s dream?  Perhaps for few.  To me, I see the value in the experience I’m gaining at work and want to learn as much as I can for professional growth.  In my silence these past seven weeks, I’ve also come to accept that maybe what we dream of doing is not what we end up doing…

4. What if it all means something?

Most of you have probably read a couple of serendipitous circumstances I’ve experienced, such as how I met O.T. and the dysfunctional GPS that led me to Martha Stewart’s building where I’ve always dreamed of being employed as a crafter.  You’ve also read that I have twice applied for a full-time crafting position at Martha Stewart.

Two weeks ago, on the Greyhound from Toronto to New York, a “random” girl had chosen the seat beside mine.  She had a familiar face, but I thought nothing of it at first, assuming maybe we met through friends of friends back in university a decade ago.  I sat through that red-eye bus ride, aloof or asleep.  Out of the blue, in the last hour of the ride, my mind produced her face on a mental roster — I know her face and I think I know who she is!

When she awoke, I began small talk about New York and the purpose of my trip, hoping to open up a conversation on the purpose of hers.  Fast forward through the small talk and I blatantly asked her if she worked at Martha Stewart because I have seen her on the site and in the magazine.  Indeed.  I was speaking to the Associate Editor of the Crafts Dept. at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Am I glad she chose the seat beside mine.  If it had been the other way around, I would’ve looked even more like the creep I already felt I was.  She looked at me with such bafflement that I was able to recognize her.  How could I not?  I have attempted to snag a job at Martha Stewart twice, and read the Crafts Dept. blog and profiles of the crafters I aspire to be.

Well, apparently, I have not read enough about Martha Stewart…There was mega downsizing at the end of 2011.  I was informed that a number of the editorial staff are now laid off and only contracted for freelance, given the future of print media.  It made me sad.  Aboveall, it made me wonder what the heck just happened!?!

Did this just happen?!?  How did this happen?!?  Me — a Martha employee-hopeful and devoted crafts blogger, on a Greyhound to New York.  The girl seated next to me — an Associate Editor at Martha Stewart (and a Canadian might I add!).  And the conclusion I’m getting from this random, bizarre experience is: Martha is NOT hiring and in fact firing?  I cannot wrap my head around this.  It MUST mean something.

I did not let the circumstance pass without soliciting contact information, though in hindsight I regret I may have been insensitive about the general situation.  I pried for her opinions on how I could create a successful portfolio to land a job there, meanwhile I was unwilling to face the fact that the jobs of many people have been lost.

5. Weddings and Wars

This is a sensitive issue for me.  O.T. flew the in-laws into New York from Istanbul for four weeks from mid-Jan to mid-Feb.  Understand that we have little to no communication because of the language barrier but I do put forth a lot of effort to speak the little Turkish that I know.

I do not know how to put it in words.  Apparently (by suggestion of a wise waiter at a restaurant who witnessed a venting session between me and a friend suffering from an identical situation), the words are summed up by the title of a Jennifer Lopez and Jane Fonda movie.  Yeah.  I gotta get my hands on that movie.

To cap this long update on my recent life — last Wednesday, I was given an update that O.T.’s mom, now back in Istanbul, found a wedding venue for our apparent July 7th wedding.  And what about the City Hall wedding I wanted in America?  Does it matter what I want?  Apparently, none of this is for me anyway.  So to make this “my” choice, I was asked to agree or disagree to a July 7th wedding in Istanbul in a venue I have never stepped foot in to celebrate “the most important day of my life” with a number of people on someone else’s guest list.  Really, if I agree, this whole ordeal would then be “my” choice, right?

Hello!  Is this mic on?!?  You must understand now how I’ve bitten my tongue.