employed

Today in the mail I received my first earned income in almost 9 years. Amazing, I know! It was a check from the city of Murray, where I've been doing an architectural history project for the past few months. Here's a little more about what I do in this part of my life:

My bachelor's degree is in Architectural History and Preservation. Yawn for most people, but not for me-- I loved school and really enjoy studying buildings as historical documents. They can tell us so much about the culture of the time they were built: their values, their standards, their lifestyles. I find it pretty fascinating.

The unfortunate things about this profession are 1)you really have to know someone to get into it-- there are no historic preservation jobs posted on Monster.com or craig's list; and 2)many of the available jobs are for non-profit organizations which translates to volunteer or very low-paying work. Consequently, when I got out of school I ended up taking a lot of detours and never really working in my field, much to my sadness.

When I returned to Salt Lake City 18 months ago, I contacted some of my friends from school, and they've hooked me up with some consulting work, and voila! The contract I have right now is a survey of about 50 square blocks in Murray where there are a lot of subdivisions constructed in the 1950s and 1960s. Believe it or not, these buildings are being considered historic right now, as they are over fifty or almost fifty years old. Basically, I document each house (1100 in total) by taking a picture of it, entering a few pieces of information about it into a database, and noting it on a map. When the documentation is done, I'll give the city an analysis of my findings and recommendations for actions to be taken, such as further studies, protecting some of the prime examples or changing zoning ordinances to slow development and commercialization.

I like the work, but it can get a little tedious, mostly because the nature of these subdivisions is that they were built all the same, so the houses get monotonous. But, unlike work I've done in the past, I have had the opportunity to talk to some of the original owners (you don't really get that with a Victorian house built in 1899).

In the future I hope to receive other contracts with city or county governments, as well as some private consulting jobs with homeowners, contractors, or architects. It's nice because it's usually pretty flexible as far as scheduling and I can do a lot of it from my home office, so it works out pretty well.

The picture above is of one of my first preservation projects when I was in college, a study of my parents' house built in 1929.

jumping in with all six feet

The worst part about starting a project like this: scrapbooking, saving christmas cards or wedding invitations, writing a journal, cataloging kids' art- or homework, is that I always feel like I have to catch up my entire life before getting to this moment. Not this time!  If you aren't up on the events that led me to this place, you can browse the past at hurricane.  For now, we're just jumping in at the present.

A brief synopsis of each participant in this chaos:

Enchilada (E for short) is a sassy, spirited and beautiful nine-year-old who's in the third grade at our local elementary school, to and from which she can WALK BY HERSELF (this is a big plus in mom's life)!  She is passionate about many things, up to about 15 per day.  Sometimes her passions last, like her concern about global warming, her serious goal to be the President "after she's a grandma," and her voracious appetite for books of all kinds.  Some are more fleeting, like her on-again off-again interest in American Girl dolls, doing the laundry by herself, or becoming a full-fledged member of Club Penguin.  She's an excellent artist, loves the monkey bars, and plans to go horse-back riding when staying with her dad in seattle this summer.

Lollipop (L for short) is an affectionate, silly and charming five-year-old.  She's just finishing a year of kindergarten at the University near our house, where she's been learning all about ancient Egypt (she can write her name in hieroglyphics) and medieval times (when they believed in dragons even though "turns out, they didn't exist!").  She is afflicted with what we call "magnet disease" which means she must be physically touching someone else at almost all times, usually in some sort of snuggling position.  She is nearly always pretending to be someone else-- her current repertoire includes Bindy the jungle girl, a teenaged celebrity called Ameliadora or something equally complicated, a baby polar bear, and any supporting role to one of her big sister's leads.  She has an extremely expressive face and is constantly pulling out words and phrases that no five-year-old should know or use (she informed me at the zoo recently that giraffes are "prehensile" animals, which means they can grab things with their tongues.  I had to look it up.).

And as for me, the mom, I'm trying to figure out what that means, mostly.  In addition to that major role I'm also a homeowner, a landlord, an architectural historian, a small business owner, and sometimes kind of a teenager.  I don't really know how to stitch it all together but I'm having a lot of fun trying.  I'll do separate posts about my career endeavors-- it's pretty complicated when someone asks what I do.

For now, buckle up and enjoy the ride-- we sure are.