Happier Days 🌞 😊

 Work is really dead, but me and Kevin are enjoying being around the house a lot.  We got a new account, and thought they’d want us to start tomorrow, but they don’t want us till the 15th!  I’m not worried about it, because:

I’ve been working on my writing and my sewing. I’ve been listening to a lot of music. With the book I’m writing about working with children, I’ve decided to now start to jog memories about the 7 or 8 some odd year period that I worked at the children’s museum. That was the only thing I did in my life to help kids that was very joyful and happy instead of hard and sad. I started there in the spring of 2006. I found out I was pregnant on October 6th, 2006, and worked there until I had my daughter in June, 2007 and then went back the following year up until she was about in first or second grade. It was not only a joyful job, but I had a very strong support system there. I went through my divorce in 2010, before my daughter turned three and I do not know what I would have done without the people at work and the people at her daycare. My daughter used to love what we called “Busman’s Holidays”. This is when you visit your place of employment as a customer. I never had to pay to get in. We always had free memberships. My daughter was obsessed with the museum. 

While working there, I saw a lot of “aha moments” in many children. I want to talk about as many of these that I can. I also want to talk about some of the activities that we did in the exhibits that can easily be adapted at home. My entire book will tell a story as well as raise awareness and be educational. 

I surfed the museum’s website today with my five subject notebook and jotted things down. From the pictures, it looks like the discovery guides (that was my position title) are now wearing chartreuse shirts!  When I was a discovery guide there, we had to wear khakis and turquoise shirts. The higher up positioned people who were called “educators” wore darker blue shirts. But chartreuse is literally my favorite color, and I would have loved wearing that. Even with khakis. 

The museum chapter of my life was such a significant one that it needs to be included in the book. If it’s not, then the book will be pretty much a bombardment of misery. It will only raise awareness of serious issues like abuse and childhood adverse experiences, and not simple things like fun games that actually teach them math and science. And the museum memories won’t make me sad and affect my mental health the way my other jobs working with kids did. Sometimes Kevin asks why I don’t go back to the museum. I mean I could. It was such a mistake to leave. I left so I could finish my degree, and that was catastrophic for me. But when I worked there, I was in my late 20’s and early 30’s. Most other guides were college age “kids and there were a handful of women who were grandmother age. If I went back now, I feel like I’d be one of the grandmother guides and the young guides would be calling me Ms. Danielle. In Texas, most younger people call older people Mr. Or Ms. First Name. No one called me Ms. Danielle back then but they would now. And we all called the 4 or 5 grandmother discovery guides Ms. First Name. If I did, I would get to wear chartreuse shirts too!  But I won’t. I would need a lot of caffeine now to get through a day with a gazillion kids running around. I tend to believe I had more energy for it in my 30’s, but I might could muster the energy now. I also feel a level of loyalty to the company I work for now with Kevin and have no interest in leaving. After all, that company not only brought me a husband but has been financially digging me out of the college hole at a pretty good rate. During slow times I can either do the apps if I need money, or mill around and do my interests at home. 

I made my mother a patriotic wreath and will ship it to her so I can have practice shipping wreaths. It’s gotta be tricky. I also altered my t-shirt that says “proud parent, class of 2025” for my daughter’s graduation. She is going to stay up here with me all next week because she only has school one day for one final and that’s it. Seniors get out a week early. It’s so surreal that my kid is graduating and will be a legal adult in five short weeks. Tomorrow we’re going grocery shopping and Kevin is going to mow and put up our “2025 Grad” lawn sign so my daughter can come home to it on Sunday when she gets here.