life changes, continuing a journey

.. just in time for my birthday!  (10 days!!)  hehe

Before I get started, lemme tell you a bit about the “now”:

I work for an awesome engineering firm somewhere in the northeast.  As their DbA (Database Administrator.. although I think I might be closer to an Analyst.. meh.. semantics), I telecommute from my home office.. controlling, maintaining, and creating their various databases and websites.. and I love it.

Besides my work’s work I also have taken on bits of freelancing when money was needed or as a favor. Currently, I am working on an eCommerce store for a friend, and a second one will begin once I have completed that one. Farther down the queue I will also be creating a database/app for a missionary couple to keep track of their newsletters/blog/and whatever else they want (we haven’t actually met yet).

And now for the rest:

For years, I have been tossing back and forth random ideas of my future career path.  (The most fun idea.. white hat hacker.) Now, I am not writing this because I am leaving my job or anything – I love my company, my job, and my coworkers. However, all things come to an end eventually and one is a fool who does not prepare for that.

To that end I keep coming back to that annoying question:  What do I want to do with my life? Yes, yes.. be a good wife and, eventually, mother.  But.. what do I want to do for a career? Well, I definitely want to stay in computers. But.. which of the 50 paths do I want to go down? And do I want to continue in a career once we start having kids? The answer to that is easy.. yes.. even if only part time.  On and on the questions go.. not entirely getting anywhere. So I keep doing what I am doing until I find the answer… with me getting more angsty the whole time.. each extra project I take on exhausts me more..

Then two random requests for website builds come in last week.

The first one I dismissed, partially because of a vague feeling of not wanting to build websites anymore, partially because I feel so horribly unprepared. Of course I felt bad about that decision because it was for a friend of my sister’s bf.. but I have weird guilt complexes all the time, so I tried to suppress that. One question came of the inquiry though: Do you have a portfolio? Um.. no.  I mean I have thought of creating one for a long time, but never got around to it.

Then when the second one came in I felt even worse for turning it down, because it was for (the in-laws of) one of my closest friends.  Honestly, part of me wanted to do it..  mean, doing a site for a restaurant in (or around, I assume) Orlando sounds pretty cool.  But then the questions came flooding back.  Should I make a portfolio first? Well, if you think that you don’t want to do that anymore.. why make a portfolio?  woah.. good question. Do I want to build websites anymore?

Not really.. they exhaust me!  Working with people (as “clients”) has never been a forte of mine.  Plus, I need to work with them on a financial level.. also not a strength. If I know them.. or if I was recommended.. my stress level triples throughout the project. If they want a design from me.. um.. I’m really not a designer.  I have a good sense of style.. I do nice clean sites.. and occasionally I have brilliant ideas.. and I do awesome people morphings.. but it’s not a strength. So, taking all this stress and weakness and building a site?  Can you imagine what havoc is wrecked within me.. and how much of a mess I am around the house? (My poor husband.. lol)  No.. I really don’t want to build websites anymore.  I’ll leave that to the people half my age who can do a better job than I.

Well.. what then?

Well, I already have a passion for open source.. I’d like to continue in that.   Although I began in ASP, etc..  PHP/CSS/MySQL has been my life for years. I definitely want to get better though.. learn more. I’d also love to learn networking and operating systems.. and I really want to learn other languages like Ruby and Java and maybe the C siblings and Perl..

So in the mean time and between all other projects, I have decided to host and re-brand my blog home back to ‘emijayne.com’.  This will focus on my journey and a little less on the mundanity.  Besides that, I will also be creating my online portfolio/master-resume.  Yes, I’m doing a portfolio anyway.. because it is just a good idea to have it.. although, it will be another journey to get there.  :)

I’ll talk to you all again soon.
yours, emi