All in a Day's Work

Today is a work day, although I’m not in an office, a factory or other place of business. I’m not dressed well, either—jeans and a t-shirt are my work attire even though I consider myself a professional. My work is varied and I am often multi-tasking as I move from one project to the next. There is a lot of "other duties as assigned in this job too.

What kind of work is this? I’m working on storytelling. Not just on the stories themselves although that is one of my projects. There are many other duties in this career field. Here is a quick look at what my day has been.

8:00 am: checking email, Facebook and this blog for messages and comments. Ate breakfast, washed dishes, sorted laundry.

9:00 am: addressing post cards to libraries to promote my program for their Summer Reading events. Dusted two rooms and started another load of wash.

10:00 am: checked my phone messages and discovered one from a librarian who had just received my post card and wanted to discuss a summer program. Received a call from storyteller Ellouise Schoettler and had a wonderful catching-up conversation. Returned the librarian’s call and found she was out, so left a message that I will call back. Put leftover ham in the freezer and planned dinner.

11:00 am: researching stories for summer using Margaret Read MacDonald’s Storytellers Source Book. It’s an amazing resource for storytellers, listing stories by motif and subject, and then giving sources in books for the stories. I have both volumes of her books and find them invaluable.

12:00: lunch time with hubby; checked out the shelves he’s made to fit into one of the oak secretaries we have in our booth. He did a great job using oak boards from an old desk we bought that had been totally disassembled—it was missing many pieces but the wood was gorgeous and I knew we could use it for repair work.

1:00 pm: back to story research, both in my books and online. Ordered some books and searched for songs to use for this theme. Any suggestions? I did find a song from the California Gold Rush, and of course Clementine was from that era so that’s a start.

3:00 pm: break to make dinner and then try to remove paint from a porcelain-topped kitchen table. Who paints a porcelain top? I bet when I figure out how to get the pain off (if I ever do) I’ll find the top has some bad spots, which would explain the paint. But the edge is the prettiest splatter turquoise I’ve ever seen. 

If I can get the top clean I’ll paint the legs white (they're a fake "antique brown" now) and I think it will be one pretty table. Oh, it needs a drawer too. I found one to fit it on eBay but the price was outrageous so we may have to make one ourselves. Unless luck puts one in our way somewhere.

4:00 pm: took a break to see the work Larry's doing on the chicken house. He's cleaned it out and spread the bedding on all of the gardens; now he's working on repairing the floor. Several boards have rotted (the coop is over 20 years old) and the joists needed repair too. This is a good time of year for such work.

5:00 pm: checking in online to see what my Facebook friends are doing and to send a message or two to libraries to let them know I’m booking shows for next  summer. Also writing this blog J

6:00 pm: I finally got to the auction boxes to start sorting. I thought I would work on them the rest of the evening, but I got tired and decided to finish my blog. Maybe I'll get back to it again after a little rest. 

That's been my day. Tomorrow? Who knows what that may bring? The best part of this job is I set my own schedule and my own pace, take coffee breaks whenever I want them, and do it all in a place I think is one of the prettiest places around.  

I wish my boss would ease up a little though. She expects me to wash dishes too!

Copyright 2012 Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.