Living Out Loud volume 11: Tis the gift to be simple

Did you know that there are some people who have already finished their Christmas shopping? If you are one of those people, I don't know if you can hear me frowning at you, but I'm doing it as hard as I can right now. I've actually wondered how the economy will affect what people buy for the holidays and how they celebrate. I watch a fair amount of daytime TV these days (also having discovered there is nothing good on at 4am, no matter how many channels you get) and there are a ton of Wal-Mart commercials talking about how your holiday spending dollars go further there. It's made me think a lot too about what kinds of gifts we give and receive and their significance.

In that vein, I'm curious what gifts have made an impression on you in your life. What is the best or worst present you've given or received? How important do you think gift giving is for holidays or birthdays? Have some of you stopped giving anniversary, birthday or holiday gifts and has that worked well? My husband bought me a lawn edger for my birthday one year and it remains one of my favorite birthday gifts to date. I still have and use the anniversary gifts Jeremy gave me all those years ago. Unfortunately, I also have a container of about half of my Christmas gifts from last year that has gone untouched for nearly 12 months, which makes me wonder if that was the best use of those funds or if something else would have been better. So for this month's Living Out Loud project, I'd like you to tell us how you stand on gifts and which ones have really stood out for you.

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each question above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I'm just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org.

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, December 6th (the first Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

As far as I'm concerned, your participation in these projects is all the present I need. It makes me ridiculously happy more than any themed sweater could. Can't wait to hear what you have to say!

Recap of 10th Living Out Loud project: When I grow up

Ever the team player, my child has slept from noon until after 5pm today so that I take a much-needed two hour nap, write my own entry for this month and compile all the other entries for our latest Living Out Loud project. He has done his momma proud. With no further ado, I present this month's entries. I'm happy to see how we're all faring as grown ups out in the world.

SuziCate's Digging in the Dirt First, let me say that SuziCate has been a writing MACHINE lately. She went back and did all the previous LOLs and continues to write great stuff online. She started out as one of those "hair cutter ladies" I wanted to be but has since moved on to another job I think would be fun to have.

Gina's When I grow up My first grade teacher was also named Mrs. Wiggins and she was awesome! As for getting to where we want to be in life, thankfully it takes us our whole life to get there so there's still plenty of time left.

Wil's When I grow up I find it really funny that Wil's list of potential dream jobs is not far off from my own (perhaps minus the helicopter pilot one). I love languages too and pick them up fast so always thought it would be cool to be a translator or something like that. Maybe there are more jobs than we realize that involve translating.

Deb's When I grow up ... Ah yes, just like Communication Studies there are worse unused majors to have than Sociology. We always said that Sociology was the highest paying major at Virginia Tech, but that was just because the football players picked it and went on to the NFL. I am too sensitive of a soul for social work, but I admire anyone who can do it. And maybe you'll get to bake your bread yet.

Megan's Writer: When I grow up Megan reminds me that what we are when we grow up is not necessarily what we get a regular paycheck for doing.

Ben's What I Didn't Want to Be I married and lived many years with a man with ADHD and it was like the third person in our marriage in many ways, so I can empathize with what Ben says about not wanting to be that person. But just like diabetes is a part of any relationship I have, we make the best of it and in many ways it gives us a lot of our gifts too.

Kim's What I Wanted to Be I would have never guessed that Kim would one day be a nurse if you had asked me 15 years ago. And yet here she is well on that path. And for all the reasons she says, I think it's a terrific decision. That and fashion design is kinda out (but love that drawing!).

JBarbie's Unconditional This entry of course speaks to a recent soft spot in my heart as I embark on this journey of motherhood. Seeing the joy in my own mother's face now at 71 years old as she finally gets to be a grandma, I can see how this is a job that won't ever go away. Despite all the cliches it's a job you never truly quit until the day you die.

Kaylyn Pippin's Reckless Abandonment I can't imagine all that Kaylyn has gone through but it really does make me smile to see how she's gotten to where she is now. It may not seem like a success on paper, but we know it's really the greatest success she's had thus far. Go team!

Karal's Somebody Unlike me, Karal wanted to be an astronaut and an archaeologist as a kid. And I'm so proud of her for all the digging and star gazing she's done lately.

And my own Would you like fries or a hosted server with that?

I was unsure how many folks would be inspired to write for this month's theme, but yet again you all have impressed me with your enthusiasm.

And I say this each time but all the entries were fantastic! I have, however, chosen Ben as this month's winner because he covered an interesting topic of what we don't want to be when we grow up (and I have great empathy for his challenges having watched my ex-husband struggle).

Ben will receive a gift card for a month of World of Warcraft, because while it's a horrible distraction it's also a great way to stay in touch with friends.

Stay tuned for next month's topic very soon. I'm going to try my hand at NaBloPoMo again this year and post every day this month. But since my son is awake now and hungry, it may literally only be one hand at a time.

Would you like fries or a hosted server with that?

When I was a kid, I never said I wanted to be an astronaut or a beauty queen or anything glamorous. I always wanted to be a "hair cutter lady" or a waitress or work at McDonald's (so I could make sure the orders were right). They were the jobs I saw in my day to day life and those people seemed nice, so I wanted to have one of those jobs. As I became a teenager, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to be. My parents always focused on getting an education that would gain me some marketable skill that would allow me to always have a job. Ever the pragmatics, they focused on jobs like accountants or engineers. Someone would always need their taxes done or a bridge built. People don't need to pay for poems to be written for them.

The year I graduated college was the same year Mom got breast cancer and Dad lost his job. It was a rough year for all of us. I only applied to two schools - Old Dominion University and Virginia Tech, with the idea that I could live at home if need be and both were less expensive state schools. I find it ironic that I do so much writing now when I never had to write a single college entrance essay.

I started out as an engineering major until I actually took engineering classes. Oh, how I loathed those classes. I loved math, even calculus, but suddenly vector geometry and linear algebra weren't really doing it for me anymore. After my first semester, I quickly changed over to Communication Studies, much to my father's dismay. I think he was convinced I would get that childhood dream of working at McDonald's after all. I remember him saying on the phone, "what does a communications major even do anyways?"

But fate smiled on me. I took incredibly easy classes that I was really good at. I finished my degree in three years versus four. I was able to work at least 20 hours a week in the library in addition to my coursework because it wasn't a strain. And that work in the library got me my first full time job, which led to my second full time job where I am today.

I'm not sure if people focus anymore on a particular occupation they want to be. I took those classes having no idea what I would do with them. I could have gone into journalism, but I'm not sure my heart would have been in it. I maybe could have become a speech writer but again, not sure if that would have really wowed me. And I'm not sure they have a college major for what I do now.

What I do now is about as close as I can get to my dream job and still make a living at it. I get to do technical things like help maintain web and database servers and write complicated queries for statistics. I get to talk to educated, genuine, kind-hearted librarians on a regular basis with a passion for learning and information sharing. I get to wear yoga pants to work. I have a pretty high level of control over my own work environment and policies so I'm not mired in bullshit. I have the flexibility to work from home if need be for random issues but a fine office to come into the majority of the time (I hate working from home). I can't remember the last time I wore panty hose for work.

But more important than all of those perks, I do a job where I feel like my talents are put to the best use. I do things in my job that I'm not sure any of the other employees could do but that come naturally to me. It's the best of all possible worlds, to feel appreciated for who I am. I use my powers of empathy and humor and troubleshooting and organization for Good and not Evil. And I've had a lot of practice in how to be a parent just from problem solving issues in my work environment. Everyone wants a pat on the head and to feel like they belong and their voice is heard.

I'm in the midst of the longest break from work I've ever had in my life, and we're barely at the beginning of week three of maternity leave. Work and I need this break to rekindle the romance of why we chose each other. I'd still like to be a writer one day, but that might have to wait until after we've won the lottery (which we don't even play). And really, I don't think I'd enjoy being a full-time writer since it involves a lot of alone time with a keyboard and that would slowly drive me insane.

So while I'm not sure that a true "dream job" exists, my gig is pretty good. My mother told me once years ago that Confucius says if you love your job, you'll never work another day in your life. I think about that all the time, particularly when faced with frustration. Really, I have just taken it to mean that no matter what I do, make sure it's something that I am passionate about or else it will never last.