Anything Can Happen!

While I was working at Jordan Valley, I came up with a lot of fun groups combining music, books, movement, whatever. Every once in a while, I'd do one of the groups with a bunch of normal kids and had a lot of fun with it. I always thought "gosh, if I could find a place I could do one or two fun groups a week and nothing else for a decent pay, I would totally go for it." Fast forward to last summer when Miriam was getting big enough to take places without a valid and real fear that she'd completely melt down. I started checking out the library programming that they had for kids. I went to the Whitmore Library in Cottonwood Heights, the Sandy Library in Sandy, the Murray Library in Murray, and the Tyler Library right here in Midvale. Most of the groups were fine. Some were even good. But the professional eye in me always thought "oh, I would have done this," and "I would say that..." And part of me really wanted to lead a group so that Miriam could attend a group done to her mother's professional standards. So I asked Kami, my friendly local librarian, about their special programming. She said to write up a proposal and to send it to her. She said she thought the going rate is $50 for an 45 minute-ish group. So I wrote up a proposal that had several different ideas about groups I could do with a bunch of kids combining music, books, movement, etc, entitled it "Anything Can Happen!" and emailed it to her. She promptly emailed me back and asked if I would like to do this througout the county library system or just at Midvale's Tyler Library. I thought she loved my idea and wanted to spread me around, so told her that I would love to go throughout the system. "In that case, you need to send it to this other lady..." Sigh. So I sent it to the other lady. About two weeks later, I got a phone call from her saying that she'd love to talk to me about special programming and could I call her back. This was in March, just before a trip to Boise. So I called her back. When I got back from Boise I called her back again. A month later I called her back again. After a while, I decided that she must have died without giving her phone pin to anybody and that my messages were just floating around the Salt Lake County Voice Mail system. That seemed to be the only logical explanation of why nobody had called me back. So I put the library group idea on the back burner and started something new. I did a little summer music class with some kids in the area. I did both theory stuff and fun things and quite enjoyed it. But when the class ended a few weeks ago, I didn't feel a great pull to start another yet. I did start thinking about my library proposal again and decided to figure out who the programming person was now that the one I had called was so assuredly dead. Yesterday I got a phone call from the original library programming lady. Imagine my joy to find she was not dead but instead alive and well enough to be working! She said she was working on December-February's special programming and had pulled a file with my proposal in it. She wanted to know if I was still interested in doing special programming at the library! Absolutely I am! So we chatted for a while and she is sending my "Anything Can Happen!" special programming out to the branches of the library so the local librarians can sign up for me to come do my dog and pony show for them. At the end of the month, she'll email me back with times that the libraries have requested and we'll go from there. I am so excited to see how this all comes together because in my mind it's the best of any possible worlds. I get to go do groups without having to commit more time than just the group time to the place of business. The people who attend the group get to attend for free. And more important than anything else, Miriam does in fact get to attend a group that is done to her mother's professional standards. When I get my schedule, I'll be sure and post it so I can have groupies that come just for me. I'm just glad that I wasn't doing it as a primary source of income. Job hunting is frustrating enough, but when they don't call you back for six months, it would be even more so unless you're like me and just taking life as it comes with a husband who is making enough to pay the bills. It just goes to show that if you just wait for long enough, that "Anything Can Happen!"