Today

I'm so glad I cleaned my house yesterday.  I've been keeping it tidy since and whenever everything around me is tidy I feel so much more optimistic about the day.  This morning, after I'm done injecting caffeine into my veins, I'll be taking the toddler for a run in her jogging stroller.  We've been semi-regularly going for runs over the past few weeks, which I have been loving.  I wish I had the time and self-motivation to become a real distance runner.  When I do 3+ miles I get this rush and the whole day I delude myself to thinking I'll do 4+ miles the next day, then I always end up not running at all the next day.  In DuBois, through Treasure Lake, that wasn't the case.  I was tracking how many miles I would run per month and I did really good at going longer and longer distances (about 5 miles was my furthest).  I did that with my dog though, for the most part, and I haven't put the time toward finding good routes around here that I can go longer distances on and it's harder to map them out when I know I'll have a jogging stroller that I'd rather not take on roads without sidewalks (or busy roads).  We didn't have sidewalks in Treasure Lake, but the roads were never busy with traffic like they are here.

Anyway...I didn't mean to take such a tangent there.  After the jog, I'll take the kiddo to the park for a while, try and let her burn off some of that energy so she goes down for the nap on time and not as late as 3:30 like yesterday.  She'll take a bath, while I take a shower (the bathtub in our masterbath is separate from the shower, which is super handy for killing two birds with one stone while also keeping an eye on her).  Lunch, then nap.  Then at 4:15, I have a haircut scheduled at the LifeSpa in our gym (Lifetime...I'll have her play in the daycare area while I get my hair done).

I like days like this.  Lots of things on the to-do list and none of them unpleasant in any way.  Most of them involve getting to spend time with my daughter but in a way I know she'll enjoy, which is tough with a 2.5 year old.

So maybe I should postpone scheduling this blogpost since reviewing it made me realize that if anyone wanted to stalk me today, they wouldn't even have to make a real effort to figure out where I'll be at any particular time.

I hope to edit during the playtime at the park and/or during naptime.

What's today...Thursday?

That's how I've been feeling a lot lately.  Partially because my husband has been off of work for the holidays and partially because of this job-searching slump I'm having.  I was slightly more constructive with my time today, finished over a chapter already in the editing (got stuck at a major rewrite area early in the second chapter I was working on at lunch time).  I also revamped my resume with the help of a friend from the town I was living in the past few years.  Now I just need a few good library jobs to start accepting applications for me to see if it will help my chances of landing an interview.

Before the editing and the resume rebuilding, I emailed the Human Resources woman that worked with me on getting my one and only phone interview so many months ago.  I asked her if she could possibly offer me some advice on getting my foot in the door in a local public library.  No response yet.

All the libraries around here hire through the county or the cities in which they're located, and though I've applied to at least half a dozen good jobs (that I was totally qualified for), I've still only been offered that one phone interview a month before I even moved from Pennsylvania to Arizona.  It's rough...seeing the great jobs, applying for them, holding my breath for them for weeks, and not even getting offered an interview.  I know you're supposed to call the jobs to see if they've had a chance to review your resume but around here, it's difficult to decide who to call.  The job is listed through the official city website and other than the actual address of the jobsite, there's no other information provided about where you'd actually work.  So calling the library and flat out asking 'who might be on the panel for interviewing so-and-so position? Can I speak with said person?' seems like a bad idea.  Calling a library usually gets whoever is at the front desk.  Hopefully if that does turn out to be some type of common practice around here, the HR person will be kind enough to fill me in.  I guess I'll be happy if I hear back from her at all.

So my plans for tonight:

-Eat dinner (the hubby will be making it tonight)
-Get the goofy girl to bed
-Go for a 2.3 ish mile run with the doggy while listening to the audiobook version of 'Gone Girl' that I checked out of the Free Library of Philadelphia and loaded onto my iPod (little library tip...if you check out a book and load it onto a device that doesn't have Wifi, you can keep it on that device for well past its due date...basically it will stay on the device until you load that device to the computer again.  So next time I decide to sync my iPod, I'll say goodbye to my borrowed copy of Gone Girl).
-Get through that rough rewrite section of the chapter I'm editing while indulging in milk and cookies
-Bed

These are the cookies I got while grocery shopping with the family this evening:

Yummy, and only 120 calories in 10!

They were kind of purchased for the kiddo but I really really like them...so we're going to learn about sharing with this batch of cookies.