I feel like I'm behind in everything - behind on the dishes, the cleaning, the accounts, getting a start on yardwork for the season, my knitting, blogging... pretty much you name it. So, first off, let me say that I really enjoyed my spinning class. I'm getting slightly better than "lousy" with a hand spindle, and I even got to try a wheel (with which I'm absolutely horrible). The ladies that run the shop where I took the class were very nice, and it is a great shop, in general. If I lived closer to it, I would SO hang out there, but alas, I don't. It was a fair drive for me, but the closest place I could find that offered a spinning class. Anyway, I bought a few ounces of roving, and am very slowly spinning it. It will probably come out around a worsted weight, if I Andean ply it (the only plying method I know). I figure that I'll make another pair of felted slippers with it, because felting should make it not matter so much if it is uneven in gauge and twist. I should probably try to actually make sure I do a bit of spinning about once a week, in order to have a prayer of actually getting any better at it.
Now that that is taken care of, the next major thing on my mind is that Arazyr recently got some bad job-related news. I'll leave it for him to tell the details of his own story, should he so choose, but suffice it to say, things are likely to get even tighter, around here, and it has all left me trying to figure out how fast I could put my Plan B into effect. I don't think I've ever discussed Plan B here. The summary is this: I've pretty much decided on a career change.
Don't misunderstand me, I love being an engineer, but I've been out of work for over a year now, and have, in fact, spent fully half of my career either out of work, or in a job I really didn't like. I have no real confidence that, after this long, an engineering job is going to appear, for me. Additionally, the vast majority of engineering jobs in this area are in the auto industry, and that is notorious for ups and downs. To be totally honest, I hate job hunting, and I'm tired of having to do it, every time the economy hits a bump. I don't want to move out of state, and I'm none to sure that would be a "magic bullet" solution, anyway. I'm also thinking that, for the security and stability of our little family, here, that having both Arazyr and I in the IT industry is just not viable. I would love it, if this were not the case, but while I am mildly notorious for being an optimist, I'm also realistic enough to know that it would be best not to have all of our metaphorical eggs in the IT basket. At one point, I had considered going for a master's degree in math, and hopefully teaching it at the college/university level, but a hunt on the job boards seems to suggest that the demand is not as high as I'd like to see, and I don't know there is much call for mathematicians, outside of teaching. So, I'm seriously looking at trying to get a degree in nursing. Yes, nursing. There has been a nation-wide shortage of nurses for something like a decade, and it persists. In nursing, I can be pretty sure that I'll be able to find a job, for years to come. I understand that people to teach nursing is supposed to be the next huge shortage, so there is call to both do, and to teach. Plus, there are plenty of part time and/or offshift nursing jobs (things uncommon [to say the least] in engineering), which will likely be advantageous, when it comes to raising my little girl.
In some ways, I will always be an engineer, but (and I'm undoubtedly showing my software development roots here) I have re-analyzed what I need in a job, and it seems fairly clear to me that engineering, regrettably, no longer seems likely to meet my requirements for a career. Ironic that an engineering-like approach to what I need in a job has lead me away from engineering. I wish it were not so.
I am in the stages of trying to figure out how to proceed with everything, in light of the aforementioned bad news, and it is on this that we could use some prayer.
Oh, and Happy Saint Patrick's Day.