Glam, what size shoe do you wear? I may have a pair I never ever wear (...I really need to dig everything out of my closet and remember what I own and should wear, also)

Am I a snob if I think I'd be giving up something important by looking for something that's just a *job* and not a career? Why, at age 39, am I still completely blank about what I want to be when I grow up? If I went back to school, would that help, or would that just make me 20 years older than everyone else I'd be competing with when I got out? What would I even go back to school for? Am I having a completely normal midlife crisis, and should I just wait it out?

I was in the same position, having the same worries at your age (lololol - like I'm a granny now at 47). I think it's normal to get to mid-career and feel this way. Take your money and look around. I would say I'm more in a "job" than a "career" right now and I'm good with it. I make decent money, have low stress, and enough time for my family. You have a great job background and will land somewhere that works for you. Just keep on looking until you get there. I landed in a few jobs that were meh, but kept my eyes open until the right opportunity popped up. Wishing you quick success!

I recently came to the realization that I would Have idea about Step 1 or Step 2 and need to skip right to profit.

I want to be retired. My parents' lifestyle is GREAT.

Buffistas Inc. Our products are high-end luxury snark, virtual smiting of enemies, and wise advice.

Seriously, though, with our collective brain and creativity, it seems like there should be some kind of business we could open.

And Maria makes great points about restaurant life. It really depends what kind of restaurant it is, and what kind of hours you would be expected to keep. But it's also really hard to keep up with rising costs and staffing, etc.

::hugs Maria, just because::

I would also like to be retired, and devote my days to writing and reading, between bouts of tea drinking and cake sampling.

I kind of feel like I'm getting too tired or in too much pain to really do my job well, but I can still do a half-assed job of it, so I'm not at the point of "I can't work anymore" and probably won't be there for years, but I definitely do feel like I'm not really doing as well at teaching as I should be or as I could be. And I'm just exhausted by the end of the day and on the weekends. I am feeling somewhat better since getting my wheelchair, though -- not quite as tired or in pain as I had been before.

I wish that tutoring was a viable career. I like working with kids one-on-one so much better than teaching in a classroom, and I know that I'm better at it, too, but even if I was able to build up a private practice with rich kids whose parents can pay a lot, that still leaves health insurance as the big question. The university health insurance is fabulous -- in the two and a half years that I've been here, they've denied exactly one claim, and it was for a topical pain relief cream that just cost me $25 out of pocket (and barely worked, anyway.)

I'm sorry you are struggling with the pain and also not being able to do your job as well as you like. I hope as you use the wheelchair more you see more of a difference.

Also I made a mistake at work and can't deal with it until ipen. I don't think it's unfixable (I did an order in store and they wanted to pick it up in store. I'd never done that before and the system is weird so I accidentally put the store address as the card billing address instead of just as the ship to address.)

But I feel like I've made a lot of careless mistakes. I'm mostly being hard on myself . I know why the problem happened, it was me doing things more by rote instead of thinking about what I was doing.

Hil, I'm glad the wheel hair is helping (typo left in for amusement value).

askye, you are new on the job. Making mistakes is uncomfortable, but it is part of the learning process. I hope your supervisor(s) help you fix that mistake graciously.

Ugh. My landlord just stopped by to deal with something with the upstairs apartment, and I asked him to come in for a minute so that I could show him where one of my walls has a hole in it (which cannot, in any way, be considered my fault -- it's several feet above my head), and he looked around and said, "Did your organizer come yet? I guess not." Argh. There are a few things on the floor at the moment, but right now it's at the "I wasn't expecting anyone over, but I could clean this up in ten minutes" stage, not even remotely the complete disaster that it was before.

I haven't been here since about 1200 posts ago, so, hi. Caught up the last ~300. I saw msbelle's post on FB. I'm very sorry to hear about Strega, and with apologies, I'm not sure who is Strega. Laura mentioned Maria above, and I was stricken to think that it might be Maria N, and am so relieved to read the restaurant posts above.