{"id":164,"date":"2022-01-14T17:45:43","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T22:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/?p=164"},"modified":"2022-01-14T17:45:43","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T22:45:43","slug":"love-learn-create","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/2022\/01\/14\/love-learn-create\/","title":{"rendered":"Love, Learn, Create"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Love, Learn, and Create are the three words I use to order my life.\u00a0 I wake each day with a morning walk around the beautiful lakes near my home, enjoying the sunbeams reflecting on the water, and listening to a multitude of birds.\u00a0 These morning walks remind me to love the simple treasures that each day holds.\u00a0 You might be skeptical, believing it impossible to find beauty amid the bustle of city life in Orlando, Florida<\/a>.\u00a0 Moreover, living in the vacation capital of the world, some of us regularly visit our neighbors: Mickey Mouse and Harry Potter.\u00a0 We can spend a day traveling around the world at EPCOT, eating exotic foods.\u00a0 Further from the city, we can enjoy the sounds of crashing waves at the beach.\u00a0 We might sit quietly at a fresh-water spring and watch Manatees meander lazily about.\u00a0 We really need only walk outside our door to begin our next adventure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is me on my morning walk.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Captured adventures add up to stories, and I also love stories.\u00a0 And this love of story drives my desire to learn.\u00a0 I am a wife, mother of two, teacher, accountant, IT Manager, and a lifelong student. \u00a0 For the last twenty-two years,\u00a0 I have worked for DaVita Inc<\/a>., a healthcare dialysis company, at their laboratory in DeLand, Florida.\u00a0 I started off my career there as an accountant.\u00a0 I have been granted many opportunities to learn new things over the years and try out new talents.\u00a0 An accountant and teacher by trade, in the business world I have: taught Excel classes, puzzled out advanced analytics, developed a data warehouse, and managed an IT team who oversees the financial systems.\u00a0 It has been an adventure.\u00a0 I describe work as my extended-family.\u00a0 In fact, I met my husband through work 20 years ago. \u00a0 But, the thing I love the most about my job is the ability to learn new things and seeing where that knowledge will lead me next.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My desire to learn doesn\u2019t stop with my career, but bleeds into my hobbies as well.\u00a0 Eight months pregnant with my second child, I decided I wanted to learn to knit.\u00a0 So, I took an afternoon off work and went to the local yarn shop.\u00a0 I sat there all afternoon learning how two needles and a ball of yarn can create beautiful patterns.\u00a0 Fourteen years later, I am still an avid knitter. \u00a0 My journey has taken me on road trips to sheep farms, yarn festivals, and yarn mills throughout the United States.\u00a0 I often feel I have been transported into the past to learn about the Bluestocking ladies of the 1700s, or women of the Shetland Isles in the 1800s.\u00a0 I purchase my yarn directly from small US sheep farms.\u00a0 And for the last two years, during the pandemic, I have started growing plants like madder (red), marigolds (yellow), and indigo (blue); enabling me to naturally dye the yarns that I use.\u00a0 I have learned so much in my hobby but I am constantly amazed that there is always so much more to know.\u00a0 I have a passion to share this love with children, and actively seek-out opportunities to teach knitting and natural dyeing when I can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Traditional Shetland Hap made from hand-spun Shetland wool from Whispering Pines Farm, NY<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So, how did I end up in this Masters Program at FSU for Information Science?\u00a0 A few years back I tried to picture what I would be doing in ten years.\u00a0 By that time, my kids would be off to college and I would miss having them here at home.\u00a0 But I will not have changed.\u00a0 I will still need to keep learning new things.\u00a0 And, that means I will need a creative outlet.\u00a0 I did not see myself still working in an IT management role as I approach my mid-50s.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t see myself retiring either.\u00a0 Since I love stories and teaching so much, I decided to set out on the path to become a Children’s Librarian.\u00a0 With the blessing of my family and the financial support of my employer, which encourages the pursuit of higher education, I enrolled.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you find me, I will always be following my love of story into some new adventure, and creating beautiful things in a natural setting.\u00a0 Yes, Love, Learn, and Create are the right words to describe me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Tiffany Walters (@thelaststoryguard)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Love, Learn, and Create are the three words I use to order my life.\u00a0 I wake each day with a morning walk around the beautiful lakes near my home, enjoying the sunbeams reflecting on the water, and listening to a...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring2022","category-student","tag-intros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169,"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torch.cci.fsu.edu\/~lis5313\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}