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

So I thought that I would finally get around to updating my life onto here.. :) And with that.. a new design.. (which is unfortunately a little off since WordPress has their custom header compression set at 75%.. ah well).

Wow.. I haven’t updated since Christmas?? Sigh.. ok..

Christmas was lovely.. our travel plans were pushed back, so we were able to be down here with the rest of my family. Kathy and Mike flew down. We had a really nice time with everyone. It was a really oddly stressful time for me.. a mix of bottling stuff up for a while and a decent sized B12 deficiency. Kathy gave me my most awesome gift, and I broke down in tears. :) Horribly embarrassing moment. :) Anywho, it was the Yoga Zone DVD set that I had been desiring for a couple years. I also received gorgeous jewelry pieces from Becky.. and some absolutely incredible tea and lovely body washes from Mom & Dad. The visit was awesome, too, because Alex came down. AANNNDDDD.. they got a Wii.. !!! :) Lia is a whiz in bowling.. Brandon has mad amounts of fun in the racing games.. Alex received a Star Wars lego game… which we played for hours.. and it was a blast. Apparently it was a blast for everyone else who watched Alex and I play.. :) .. we had fun ripping on each other, etc. He seems way more like a little brother to me now.. not physically of course.. the kid is turning into a giant.. he’ll probably take after my Dad or Uncle Walter or some other random tall relative. :) He kept ripping on Jon and Steve, calling them short, etc.. lol.. it was fun for him.. :D As for my frozen pumpkin pie from Thanksgiving.. it didn’t keep perfectly, tho it still tasted pretty good.. I think it was too much of a custard. Ah well, next time I’ll go more traditional.

New Year’s was quiet… all four of us were pretty beat that day, so we just hung out and had a couple drinks.. watched movies, etc.

We went north for about two weeks in February. Way too cold for my taste, but it was nice. It is AWESOME to have a laptop for work, which actually sits up wherever you put it! Plus it has all these lovely bells-n-whistles like a built-in webcam and mic, fingerprint scan login, etc. so cool. ;) It was great catching up with everyone back at the office, too.

Since then.. much has happened.  Both the mundane and pivotal.  That will come out in time.

Until then,

yours truly, emi

Telegraph.co.uk posted an article on the 3rd of April;

“Having a sister makes you happier and more optimistic, say psychologists”

Having a sister makes you happier and more optimistic, a new study shows, but the same is not true for having a brother.

Growing up with at least one girl in the family also makes people more able to cope with their problems, according to the study.

Daughters tie loved ones closer together and encourage them to communicate their emotions more effectively, the researchers believe.

Prof Tony Cassidy, from the University of Ulster, who carried out the study with researchers from De Montfort University in Leicester, said that having a sister helped to promote good mental health.

He said: “Sisters appear to encourage more open communication and cohesion in families. However, brothers seem to have the alternative effect. Emotional expression is fundamental to good psychological health and having sisters promotes this in families.”

Girls who had sisters also tended to be more independent and keen on achievement, according to the findings.  [emi note: so true!!]

The effects were stronger among children from broken homes, suggesting that sisters might lean on each other more for support when their parents divorce.

Prof Cassidy added that the lowest scores were among boys who had only brothers.

“It could be that boys have a natural tendency not to talk about things,” he said. “With boys together it is about a conspiracy of silence not to talk. Girls tend to break that down.”

The study questioned 571 young adults, aged between 17 and 25, about the make-up of their families and their emotional well-being.

Only children tended to score in the middle range for happiness and optimism.

Liz Wright, the co-author of the study, said: “With only children we found that they had lots of strong communication outside of the home. It appears that they have as much social support as those with siblings, but it does not come from within the family.”

The findings will be presented today at the British Psychological Society annual meeting in Brighton.

Dr. Mercola reposted this article with his explanation:

Knowing how to communicate your emotions effectively, as opposed to keeping them bottled up inside, is one of the keys to your emotional health. Without communication, feelings tend to simmer inside you until eventually they boil over … often with disastrous effects on your personal relationships and health.

This intriguing study of nearly 600 young adults suggests that growing up with at least one girl in the family ties loved ones together, helps families communicate emotions more effectively and makes them more able to cope with their problems.

These benefits appear to be related to sisters’ tendency to encourage open communication, whereas the boys in the family tended to be more tight-lipped about their feelings.

These findings fall right in line with the stereotypes of how men and women communicate, with men being more guarded and women more open, but there are always exceptions to this rule. Perhaps the benefit really stems not from your siblings’ gender, but from how well they are able to communicate their emotions.

No one grows old by living, only by losing interest in living.

we took weeks trying to decide the color.. then the perfect shade of green that we would paint our living room.. matching up to the other colors in the room.. carpet.. kitchen counter (it’s open to the LR).. fighting along the way.. and ended up agreeing on a version of sage.

of course then steve accidentally forgets the shade number and picks up a shade that is a bit more pistachio-meets-mint-choco-chip. …of course i made him go back out and get the correct shade. …of course.. he likes his mis-shade.. and i like what we agreed on. so we finally decide to paint the sides of the bay window, and below to the floor; one side in sage, the other in pistachio.

we turn into zax.

hey.. why don’t we mix the two.. just out of curiosity.

huzzah!! perfect.. absolutely perfect.

the swatches have been painted on our wall and window for.. oh, a few months.

so we’re finally ready for the painting process! begin work on a built-in on one wall..

.. discussing how we’re going to continue the color into the dining and kitchen since it’s all connected.. wait.. we are? AAAAHHHHHHH!!! lol..

time for a new color.. um..

blue?