Vegetables and Life Choices

I was home for a few days last week working on never-ending wedding details. It was a great trip, and we got a ton done including finishing my dress, testing the recipe for the wedding guest favors, getting my hair back to one color, taking bridal portraits, scanning childhood pics for the slideshow, and making the guestbook. Whew!

Productivity aside, I listened to a couple of really good audiobooks on the trips to and fro. On the way there, I listened to Veganist by Kathy Freston. She's a fun writer and I didn't find her to be very pushy with her "beliefs" like some proponents of the vegan lifestyle. Truth be told, I stopped listening part-way into the chapter about the mistreatment of animals raised for meat because (a) I couldn't handle the sadness and (b) I was already sold.

I quit eating meat (cold turkey, haha) in February of 2007. I did fine with it for 3 and a half years and even converted my sister for a time, but I had been dating Russ for a while and started to gain weight because we went out to eat so much to accommodate both our preferences. So I reluctantly started eating fish and progressed to chicken and turkey over the following 6 months. But I never felt good about the decision and, after being reminded of my convictions, I'm going back. Russ is ok with it, and he's usually a pretty good sport about my experiments in the kitchen. More to come about said experiments.

The second book [I'm still listening to] is What Should I Do with My Life? by Po Bronson. Oh, such a good book - it's like it was written for me! I try not to overspiritualize the idea of finding meaning in life, I just want to get to a place where I enjoy some part of my work every day, feel like I'm contributing to society in some way, and, for Pete's sake, don't have to sell anything. Is that too much to ask? But the trend in my work life has been to do something for a while, usually somewhere between 2 months and two years, get bored and quit. Let's look at my work history, shall we?

1. holiday gift wrapper
2. piano teacher
3. church secretary
4. fabric store worker
5. seamstress for interior designer
6. civil engineer
7. veterinary tech
8. drapery seamstress
9. nanny
10. wedding dress seamstress
11. tutor
12. *here's hoping* full-fledged teacher??

Mind you, this is all since high school, but all in the span of 12 years. So naturally I began to wonder somewhere around job 7 or 8 if maybe it was me? Maybe I was chronically discontent? Maybe I was lazy and just didn't want to work at all? But there was lots of evidence to the contrary for each of those. Come to find out, there are lots of people like me. According to Bronson, who refers to us as "change artists," there are people who, for one reason or another, get bored easily and need to be continually developing new skills and reinventing themselves. This information, in and of itself, is not news to me - I knew I wasn't alone. But the idea that it's okay to be this way is. So I'm rolling this idea around in my head. And I'm ok with it. If, by chance, someday I find a career field that I love and want to do forever, great. If not, that's fine too! That said, Monday morning I took my certification test to teach 8-12th grade math - and I passed! 4 months of studying payed off!