Self-Helping my way

I am a huge fan of self-help books. I know they saturate the market and for any one thing you may want help on you have a dozen or more choices of books that claim to help. Still, I love them. They are filled with the promise of a better you. And there is nothing that feels so good as being told "it's gonna be okay." Which essentially is the message of self help books. Regardless of how deep your anger management, relationship, grief, debt, time management or organization problems are these books tell us that in only x steps, or x amount of time, with x system or x rules you can fix those problems. Who doesn't want to hear a message like that?

My love of self help books has me checking them out of the library on a regular basis. My most recent rental being The Power to Prosper: 21 Days to Financial Freedom by Michelle Singletary.


I first heard about her book on NPR when she was being interviewed. At the time the book had just come out, my library didn't own it, my hometown public library didn't own it, and I couldn't inter-library loan it because it was so new. So, cut to me many months later and I finally was able to inter loan it.

The book prescribes a21 financial fast where you exist on cash - a predetermined amount you take out each week - and purchase only the necessitities. Now, she's not saying don't pay your mortgage, car payment, or insurance. She's talking about all of those other things that whip out the credit and debit cards for. Those moments when you walk into the grocery store with a list of 5 items and walk out with a cart load that costs $100 or more.

The other aspect of the book is God. Yep, God. God wants us to prosper and using biblical principles and daily activities for 21-days Michelle Singletary is going to show us how.

Now, I'm not a religious person. I don't espouse any belief or non-belief in particular and I'm not a Bible reader either. So, reading this book is going to get very interesting. Add to that the fact that I am not in financial trouble. I am not in danger of being evicted or having my car repossessed. I live fairly frugally, but I will admit to buying some cute clothes for the sole reason that they were cute. And find me a librarian that doesn't need another cute cardigan. However, money is a funny thing. It is easy come and easy go. I think I can easily say that most of us would like to see it go a little less frequently. And with that in mind I'm willing to give it a try.

I have a confession to make...

So here it is for the whole world (or who ever actually stops by this blog, really) to read - I am cluttered and disorganized.

There, I said it. Me. A librarian. I am disorganized.

I have tried unsuccessfully for years reading countless self-help books on the subject to get a handle not only on my clutter and my space, but my time as well. I see the two going hand in hand after all I'd probably be early enough for work to get a cup of coffee before opening the library if I didn't have to dig through my clutter to find what I need in the morning.

In 2007 I found the website Flylady.net. I have attempted to be a "flybaby" multiple times over the last 2.5 years to no avail. Last month was my latest attempt.

Now, if you're finding yourself in similar situations - I really would recommend the website although there are some pros and cons. (I'll start with the cons so we end on a positive note.)

Cons:
1. The website itself is not organized well. In the baby steps (see pros below) for instance if you click on step 8, you must click back to the list to get to step 9. The idea behind this (I assume) is that the Fly Lady doesn't want you to skip ahead. But for someone who wants a quick overview before jumping in it was extremely annoying. And nowhere on the site are the baby steps laid out 1-30.

2. The intended audience is stay at home moms. The acronym SHE (sidetracked home executive) is used through out to stand for the cluttered chaotic mom. A Payroll SHE is one who works outside of the home. Now, I am not saying that this site isn't useful for us single ladies*, but it would be nice if we were acknowledged a little more often. After all if I start now maybe I'll never become a SHE but an OTHE (On-track home executive - okay, I just made that up).

3. Overly Christian message. This would be great if I was a devout christian or if I did in fact believe (or could be convinced) that keeping a neat and clean home for kids and husband is a "blessing" on my family. An hour of cleaning is called "Home Blessing" on this website. It's a little to cutesy for me. Cleaning is cleaning and no amount of trite sayings is going make it a more favorable chore to do. I'm just sayin'.

4. Capitalism is alive and well even for a stay at home turned De-cluttering Guru. Everywhere you turn the Fly Lady is selling Fly Lady brand stuff. Don't want to make your own control journal with a notebook and pen? Buy one of hers. Don't have a rag or swiffer to dust with during your "home blessing"? Buy a Fly Lady Feather Duster. Decluttering and can't bother to write "trash, donate, sell" on a few boxes? Buy the Fly Lady Pop-up Hampers already convienently labeled. I could go on and on. Everywhere you turn books and items tailor made to make a SHE's life easier and more convienent are bieng sold. And not just for the SHE, but her kids and her husband. Of course, I'm not saying the lady can't make a buck on what may be a great system, but seriously, a feather duster? Go to the dollar store SHE, it'll be cheaper and way more convienent.

4.5. To go along with that one of the baby steps is to check Fly Lady messages every day. Sure it keeps you motivated, but it also keeps those ads fresh in your memory.

5. Enough with the kitchen sink already! I don't freakin' cook much and I never do dishes. I'm single I live on Panera and Diet Soda. See #2.

Okay... enough ripping on the Fly Lady. Here are the pros:

1. Baby steps. Yep, she breaks de-cluttering and the return of peace and calm to your home in a month of routine building baby steps. There is no step where you must devote hours to over hauling your home. Everything is done in easy to accomidate small chunks of time like 2, 5 or 15 minutes. The one con to the baby steps - most new habits are added to the morning routine, great for a stay at home SHE, not so great for us Payroll single SHEs. But, it's meant to be a personal routine so arranging your routines how they fit for you is encouraged.

2. Constant message of "you don't have to catch up. Just jump in where ever you are" and you don't have to do anything perfectly to be doing it right. I like this message, because it tells the audience that you do not have to go from Chaos to calm over night. It's a process and trying to be perfect the first or fiftieth time out is just going to lead to frustration. As long as it's better today than yesterday, then great that's an acheivement.

3. Some of the routines really do help and make sense regardless of who you are. I'm amazed at how something as simple as putting out my clothes for tomorrow really helps me be on time in the morning. And no, thinking about what you're going to wear (at least for me) does not work. Pulling it out of the closet and putting it on a hook really does make me think about - does this go, does it fit, does it have a stain, etc. that would cause me endless number of changes in the morning.

Okay, so, as I said I re-discovered the baby steps. Today is March 9th and I'm going to start with step 1 - shine my sink. It'll be the bathroom sink if you're wondering. That really does need to be cleaned.

*All the single ladies, put your hands up! You so know you got that song in your head, go head and bop around in your chair a little to it. You know you want to.

And then there was one

After that first semester of juggling three jobs I chose not to continue at the community college. I kept on with the dance teaching and even added extra hours there. This past fall (2009) I swapped out the dance teaching for the English teaching once again. It was in some ways easier and harder than the year before.

On the one hand I had a better grasp on the material that I was teaching. I was better able to plan for the classes since I had an idea of what was coming up and what I would be testing them on. I even had a better grasp on grading. Although, that part was still time consuming and far from perfected. Actually, none of it was perfected, even by the time I was finished.

In many ways this semester was also harder. I had three plagiarized papers turned in (that I know of!) and one person who cheated on a quiz. One section began with 27 enrolled students, 25 actually showed up the first day, and 16 finished the semester. I had a handful of very good students, one of which I liked having in class - he did the work made well thought out comments and generally contributed well in class - until half way through when I mentioned that I had a boyfriend. Then this student was chronically late and had little to say in class. My first semester teaching a male student did pushups on the last day of class after the final in an attempt to get me to go to dinner with him... in front of other students. I had a number of students in both classes who just failed to turn any work in - or handed in 1 page essays when the assignment called for 6+. I understand that I was at community college, but I burnt out having to deal with blatant apathy week after week.

Teaching dance did in-fact put me in a good mood. Seeing students go from knowing nothing to learning a basic step to putting real moves together was a fun part of my job. The commute, the parking, the walking 5 blocks to and from my car, the students that thought they knew more than me, and once again the being hit on all the time, was not the fun part of my job.

And in that way I have gone from three to one job in just over a year. And it's a part-time job at that! So what is a librarian to do with all this extra free time on her hands?

Go back to school that's what! I enrolled and began on-line classes in January of 2010 for a Certificate in Publishing. I am not 100% sure that I will get the certificate, but I am taking the classes to know more about the publishing industry. For now I am learning about Trade publishing and copy editing. It is fun and exciting - well, editing is at least if you're a big fan of grammar which I am in the process of re-learning. I am going to attempt a new blog about this, but don't really know what direction it will take just yet.

At first there were three

In the fall of 2008 I went from being unemployed to working three jobs.

I was offered a teaching position at a community college, a dance instructor position at a gym, and reference librarian position at an academic library. All three of them fell into my lap as I hadn't done much in the way of applying for them.

The first, the community college, emailed me among many others based on an application I put in more than a year prior for the library. Because of my master degree in English, I was qualified to teach at the community college level.

The second, dance instructor, came about by having a conversation with my trainer, who also scheduled the group fitness classes. I was training in order to build upper body strength for my ballroom dance hobby. Their latin dance instructor was leaving and they needed somebody new. I was hired soon after telling him that I could teach.

The third, as reference librarian, I took over from a colleague of mine who was leaving the position. It was easier for the library director to hire me (after interviewing!) than open the position to applicants.

That fall was extremely busy. I had two 11 hour days and two 13.5 hour days because Monday through Thursday I was commuting between two jobs. I was always at work by 8 or 8am and home around 10pm or later. I was constantly planning for classes, grading papers, and making notes about what in my curriculum needed to be changed. It was an extremely stressful four months.

It's been awhile

I realize I haven't blogged in a very long time. Besides that, I am also toying with my template. I found quite a few good ones at http://www.bloggertemplatesfree.com/ It was hard to choose just one, and they are very easy to install. So if you see it change again you'll know why!

Some changes are going on in my life - I've enrolled part-time in school while I work part-time at my academic library job. I have dropped my numerous other jobs to focus on these.

This is my first foray into Online classes and let me tell you that has been an education all of it's own.