I was living my life. Give me a break!

I have received numerous complaints about starting a blog and then abandoning it for over a month. You know what it means when I am not writing in my blog, people? It means that I am living my life. I am so darn busy that I don't have time to sit down and write a post. You should all be incredibly happy for me, don't you think?

Okay, enough with the grumpy monkey attitude. So, I actually have been really busy. I hosted out-of-town guests, I placed four kids during the month of April (which means work was wicked crazy), I had my fabulous birthday celebration (posted photo is of Rose and I laughing our hineys off), I "went" on stay-cation, organized a volunteer event at the Feeding San Diego food distribution center, etc, etc. Also! It is important to note that I received an Ipod for my birthday, which is my first MP3 player item, so I have been spending all of my computer time transferring my music from cds and downloading NPR podcasts. When one is given the choice between writing a blog and creating fabulous, elaborate playlists, one chooses the creation of playlists. (Well, if one has been Ipod-less for her entire life up until this point, one chooses creation of playlists.) So, if you really want someone to blame for the lack of blog posts, you can blame Bryan (aka the President of the San Diego County Young Democrats) who gave me the beautiful gift of an Ipod.

I will try to catch you up on things over the next few posts. I am going to really, really try to be diligent about posting. Here is a teaser for the next post: Haylapa.

P.S. There may be a delay in photo postings because I dropped my digital camera in a tide pool while babysitting my little shmoopie. Apparently, I can be trusted with children, but not electronic devices.

Social Work as a Profession: No Way to Get a Man

Being a social worker is exhausting.




Well, that statement was going to be the entire blog, because, honestly, I don't really have the energy to compose much more text at this point in my day. It is nearly 8pm, and I am ready to climb into bed. How do social workers ever manage to get married? When is there time to date? Well, okay. If I really examine my schedule, I see that I do have some time on Saturday mornings, around 11am. (But not this Saturday because I am volunteering at the food bank with the Young Dems.) All other times, I am either booked up with appointments and meetings or my brain is completely fried from inane incidents with clients, or, even worse, other social service professionals. The only men I meet at work are birth fathers (who are in the process of pulling together their lives to regain custody of their children), foster dads (who generally have a co-parent already), or other equally stressed-out social workers. In the past, I have considered doing my social work job in a half-ass manner so that I can reserve my precious energy for man-hunting/dating. But you see, the idea of doing the job in a half-ass manner is pretty incongruent with the profession itself. I don't know if you were aware of this, but social workers don't really get paid very much money. Instead of monetary compensation, social workers are compensated by the satisfaction of doing good work (at least, this is what they tell us in grad school when they give us our student loans, which won't be paid off until we are 50). Ultimately, if you decide to do half-ass work AND you aren't getting paid very much money, then there's really no reason to be a social worker (even if you do have increased energy for man hunting.) So, I will push forward in the pursuit of satisfying good work, and I will hope that one of these days, while en-route to a Team Decision Making Meeting, I run into a handsome, liberal man whose multi-million dollar renewable energy corporation is installing solar panels into the county offices.

Hey, even social workers are allowed to dream.

Full Disclosure: Daily Skin Regime and A Rebirth

Last night, while getting ready for bed, I considered the appropriateness of the term "end of an era", which I used in my inaugural blog entry to describe the finalization of my teens and twenties. You see, one would think that if I was really at the end of this era of youthfulness, then I would be able to rid myself of the items associated with youth. Say, just for an example, acne medication. Wouldn't one think that if it was, in fact, the end of my youthful era, I would be tossing the Clearasil in the trash? Well, sadly, this is not the case. Oh, but not only is the salicylic acid solution still in the medicine cabinet, I have recently introduced a new product into my daily skin care regime - an age-retardant moisturizer for treatment of those fine lines around my eyes. Yes, you read this correctly - I use anti-zit cream and anti-wrinkle cream. I am getting lines around my eyes, which clearly indicate the wisdom of an aging woman. Yet, I still have the shiny, reflective forehead of a high school sophomore. I am stuck between the eras of youth and adulthood, and this nebulous place is one of imperfect skin.

Also. . . in respect of full disclosure, I should tell you that the boom box started working again this evening. When I got home from work, I tentatively pushed the "on" button, and sure enough, I was immediately rewarded by the chirpy voice of a BBC reporter. For all of you who like to look for deeper meaning in things, please feel free to analyze the rebirth of the boom box. I am just going to keep on trucking and feel thankful that I don't have to spend the next week scrolling through Craigslist trying to find a new radio/cd player.

The End of an Era: The Death of a Boom Box

Upon graduation from high school in 1998, my parents gave me a brand new boom box, complete with cassette and cd players. If you may recall, in the late 90's, mp3 players and Ipods were virtually unheard of, so I considered my boom box to be a stellar gift. (When my younger sister was given a trip to the west coast following her own graduation from high school two years later, I was pretty pissed and it made me reconsider not only the stellar-ness of my own graduation gift but also whether or not my parents did indeed have a favorite. ) Anyway, in the fall of '98, the boom box accompanied me to New Brunswick, New Jersey, for my freshman year at Rutgers University, and it has been with me ever since. It is on this boom box that I wore out my Allison Krauss and Union Station cd while weathering depressive episodes and on this boom box that I became addicted to NPR. The boom box has been disassembled and reassembled in six different states.

So perhaps you can understand my misery when tonight, after a uneventful Sunday afternoon of blissful radio programming, my boom box ceased functioning. Sure, it wasn't in perfect condition -I was aware of that. I mean, the volume was no longer something that I could control and there is a plant in a ceramic pot on top of it to weigh down the cover of the cd player enough so that the disk will actually spin. And sure, there have been close calls in the past. Two summers ago, when Meghan and Lisa came to visit, Meghan over-watered the aforementioned plant and the boom box didn't work for a day. But miraculously, it came back, albeit with the newly acquired volume-control issue. But tonight, it's not coming back. The boom box is dead. It is indeed the end of an era in the life of Stephanie Amber Tesch. I told my sister (who I have since forgiven for the whole better graduation gift thing) that now all there is to do is wait for my boobs to begin to sag and my butt to get flat because - I'm just gonna say it - I am getting old.

In two weeks, I will turn 29. (In single female Mormon years, I will actually be 90. Thank god I'm not Mormon.) For some time, I have been thinking about starting a daily journal or a blog, but it was the death of my boom box that solidified my decision. So here we go - I begin a new era.