Hello all. Here I am, ready and eager to share discussion and perspective on topics and issues that may change from one day to the next, while I sort through the vast range of concerns that occupy our overstimulated, information-addicted minds, or at least, my own.

The realization is upon me that several years passed while I have neglected my avocation, in favor of vocations, some of which have been more meaningful than others. Now I have realized that these several blogs and sites are not up to date, yet I continue to pay for them. One might at least offer notes about the process.

There were a couple of attempts to write a manuscript or book, but my work in the Census soon became full time for a good long time; many of us didn’t want it to end. I must have lost interest with the manuscript. I honestly don’t recall how I saved the manuscripts, and perhaps I will find the files, or simply start again. There may have been a short story, Bitter Root.

My current gig is demanding and the pay is less than minimum in states that mandate a living wage. I do work from home, but I am literally on the clock and monitored for eight hours, with an unpaid 1-hour lunch in the middle of a nine hour day. The lunch hour could be nice, but since I often awake as if I had to milk the cows before work, the day becomes long and leaves me drained from what is often pleasant engagement with a variety of customers. My nondisclosure agreement prevents me from giving any details of the job, client, customers and products.

So, even at age 63, I have dusted off the resume to apply for “suitable positions.” I could easily fill a book with my career of many colors. My longest lasting was (or has been) as a woman-owned small business. Parallel to this I had jobs that served as temporary stop gaps or as hopeful stepping stones.

Since my path might rather have been professional, and my retirement assured, the course of events and life choices leaving me at this juncture is my own story. It’s a story of a young woman with a 4 year degree who left the workplace before the birth of her second child, who/which was followed four years later by a third. The fourth arrived seven years later, and by then we had started our own business, which I continued to manage from home.

The baby is now in her mid-twenties and the eldest is 40+ but none of my children has suggested grandchildren. I worry that my own parenting was not calm and steady enough to give them confidence to carry the ball forward. Perhaps they all inherited my strange combination of ambition and self absorption. Or perhaps a stay at home mom was less advantageous than a mom with a full time job. Smiles.