Ch … Ch… Ch… Ch… Changes

Today is Sunday, January 1^st, 2012. It’s the start of a new week, a new month and a new year. Wow.

The start of the New Year brings with it changes in the Steinberg household that have been the cause of some angst in the past few weeks.

Nothing serious, mind you, but occasion for thought and wonderment.

After almost 2½ years there, I decided in late November to leave my volunteer job as a writing projects specialist at JobLink, the City of Alexandria’s one-stop career center.

The decision actually caught me a bit off guard. I hadn't planned on leaving, but I knew I was becoming more and more interested in fundraising.

To my surprise, while perusing the “want ads” for volunteers, I saw a request from a local non-profit for development (fundraising) help, including working on grants. I have strongly desired for the past five years or so, to learn grant writing. So I inquired about the volunteer position.

Long story short, I start the new position/internship on Tuesday.

Having been at JobLink for more than two years though, I concede that I am a bit nervous about the new position. Since it will largely be a learning experience for me, I find myself treating it as though I were starting at new school. 

Will the “other kids” like me? Will I be able to manage the work? What do I wear on my first day? These questions have been dogging me since I was “accepted” to volunteer. (Yes, I had an interview for the job….)

I’ll be working at the new organization – Liberty’s Promise (www.libertyspromise.org) – two days a week, five hours a day, covering the lunch hour. Naturally, being the foodie I am, the big question on my mind has been, “What happens at lunchtime?”

It seems that to keep costs in check, the staff brings their lunch. OK. I’m down with that. I love cooking and I know that I have greater control over the general healthiness of what I eat if I make my meals at home.

So that’s all squared away, but back to being the kid at school…

I want to look “cool” so what to bring my lunch in?  

And, I should add that Gary’s starting the New Year with a new lunch bag too. He’s admitted to being a little uptight about parting ways with the lunch bag he’s used for the last four years or so, which he got at a yard sale…

These are our options: 

 

                  

So who uses what? 

Goal tending...

So here it is. The end of the first day of the new year and the new decade.
I’m older – I turned 40 last year – and consequently, hopefully, a little wiser. I have learned to keep certain opinions to myself and to more judiciously pick my battles. I also know that it’s foolish for me to set unreachable goals for myself because doing so is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I set a goal I can’t meet… well, you do the math. So I’m trying to set goals that can be met.
Six years ago I attended a Jewish leadership conference (where I met Gary!). During the three-day event I attended a session on the evils of gossip or, in Hebrew, Lashon Hara. After the conference ended, I returned to my job at a Jewish school and told my colleagues that I was committed to only engaging in 50 acts of Lashon Hara a day, instead of 100. Everyone laughed, but I said that if I could reduce number of times I gossiped by half, that I would be well on my way to being a better person.
So here I am six years later. Ask me how I’m doing. I still gossip, but I’ve finally started to recognize how purposeless it is. That brings me back to setting goals that can be met.
I don’t think I can go cold turkey on talking about others, but maybe I can cut back or try to make the talk positive? I also don’t think I’m going to love every moment of life, but maybe I can dwell more on the positive than the negative happenings?
I think it can be done. It just takes realization.
A lot happened in 2009. It started with a bang – Gary and I went to an inaugural ball (see pix), took a trip to the Bahamas and traveled to St. Louis for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four and I got to visit with some Washington University professors who I hadn’t seen for nearly 20 years. So much fun!
Then, as the year progressed, life took a turn for the complicated. I left a job I’d started the year before, I had multiple visits to the doctor about a leg problem, I got disappointing news from a friend about her family and I discontinued membership in organizations I’d previously been excited about.
But as a consequence of leaving my job and the organizations that didn’t work, I found time for new pursuits that did and do work. I’ve taken up the study of Italian more seriously, I attended lots of basketball games and have come to love the sport, I found a calming influence in Dhammakaya (Buddhist) meditation and I’m volunteering and possibly pursuing a new career path.
So the goal I’m setting for myself in 2010 that I think I can meet is to remember that life is balanced and that there will be good and bad moments along the way, all of which I have to accept with grace and gratitude. As I said, I think I can meet it.
If I do, it’s sure to be a happy and successful New Year.