It’s funny how sometimes I can feel like a totally capable adult while at the same time feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing and am doomed to failure.

Ok, maybe I don’t feel those ways at the same time; maybe I seesaw back and forth.

Work is good, I suppose, but work is challenging. Right when I feel like I have something figured out and everything’s going my way, something else comes up or is said or whatever that makes me feel like a rookie and feel like I’m not measuring up.

Last week I finally, finally, started to make a little traction with the renovations and the move. This week is the week of visits to the principal’s office. Not literally, of course, but instead meetings called by higher-ups to “touch base”. I hate them. I feel like they’re being called because the highers aren’t happy and I always go into such meetings nervous.

It’s all in my head, of course, but it doesn’t feel that way. I just need confidence.

How do I get it?

This is one of the reasons I got involved with Historic Preservation…

“The top priorities for economic development efforts are creating jobs and increasing local household income. The rehabilitation of older and historic buildings is particularly potent in this regard. As a rule of thumb, new construction will be half materials and half labor. Rehabilitation, on the other hand, will be sixty to seventy percent labor with the balance being materials. This labor intensity affects a local economy on two levels. First, we buy an HVAC system from Ohio and lumber from Idaho, but we buy the services of the plumber, the electrician, and the carpenter from across the street. Further, once we hang the drywall, the drywall doesn’t spend any more money. But the plumber gets a hair cut on the way home, buys groceries, and joins the YMCA – each recirculating that paycheck within the community.”

From a speech by Donovan Rypkema at the 2005 National Trust Conference

Things the Chittenden County Transportation Authority (a.k.a., the local bus) gets right:

1. To date, they have not (through negligence or other means) killed me.
2. End of list.