A Job Mess

I decided to go ahead and post about my job debacle. It's not good folks, not good at all. As most of you know I got this teaching job on a whim, it literally fell in my lap. I interviewed at a public school for an elementary teaching position, and I did not get hired. I had no other offers or bites, but then in June I got a call from the principal of Trinity and they offered me the third grade position basically on the spot. They called me with the job offer later that day. I never felt like God was more on my side, from high school to college everything seemed to come with a hitch, nothing went smoothly.And then finally, something broke through for me.

On the 10th week of school there was an article that ran in the local newspaper saying that a charter school was going to be taking over our school. Now, apparently nothing had been decided yada, yada. We've had a meeting once or twice a week about whether or not the school was going to close, what would happen to us, etc. Finally, today the board made a decision to close the school regardless if the charter school wants to lease our building or whatever. The reason: money. We have no money, and we lost 44 students during the summer, and we have lost about 7 more since school started. Tuition is what pays everything from year to year, and since we have lost so many students we have no long term plan to keep the school running.

So, now 4 months into my new job I am job hunting again. They are going to honor our contracts through August so that is financial good news. Amid job hunting, and just being a wife and a mom I am also working on my Praxis III exam which is Arkansas' final test for teachers to receive my 5 year license. I only have a 3 year license right now. Since finding a new job is now a necessity and not a luxury I am also going back to school to add a 5th and 6th grade endorsement to my license so I will now be certified to teach Pre-school to 6th grade, instead of just P-4, so that will make me a little more marketable. It only requires me to take another Praxis test and 3 courses, and I have 3 years to complete them after I get hired in a 5th or 6th grade position. I'm going to take the test in January, and then the courses as I can starting this summer probably.

I know it could be worse. I was never planning on staying at this school more than 3 years anyway, not that it helps much. But, it's not like I got fired for job performance, and I will teach again somewhere. I also have stellar recommendations from my principal and mentor teacher. I also asked and I was on the short list for the job openings at the public school that I first interviewed at, and so I have a decent shot at a position there next year. It's just another bump in the road that will eventually smooth out, and I know this...I'm just tired of the bumps.

It Only Gets Better.....

Well, Michael and I have decided that being a parent only gets better the older your child gets. Or at least so far in our case that seems to be the pattern. Alexis is every bit of 2.5 years old, and I can slowly see my little girl changing from a 2 year old to a 3 year old. We have had so much fun with her, and especially the past few months. I need to get all of my pictures organized so that I can share some of the recent ones. She has just turned into her own little person over the past 6 months or so, and it has been truly amazing to watch.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. It took Alexis all of 1.2 seconds to run into the Halloween store, spot the Minnie Mouse costume, and declare that it was hers. Luckily, it was in her size, and only in her size, and there was only 1 left that hadn't been opened. This year we went to Boo at the Zoo instead of trick or treating. My parents joined us, and Alexis had a blast riding the haunted train, going to the trick-or-treat stations, and riding the carousel. She also had a Halloween party at daycare. She wanted to wear a special Halloween dress to her party, but we couldn't find one that met her standards. (I'm not even kidding.) So, I took a deep breath and said, "Alexis, do you want Mommy to make you a Halloween dress?" Her reply was of course, "YES!" So she picked our her fabric, a sparkly Elmo and Zoe Halloween print with a solid orange fabric, and I found a pattern that I thought I could pull off, took everything to my mom's and had my grandma help me with the whole thing, because come on, it's been high school since I've used my home ec. sewing skills.It turned out really, really cute and she loved it! She just kept spinning around and around in it, and when we walked into daycare that day the first thing she yelled at her teacher was " LOOK AT MY DRESS ISN'T IT PRETTY? I MADE IT!" It was so cute and she had a blast at her party. She came home with way too much candy, and I let her eat on it for 2 days and then we threw it all away, because she has quite the sweet tooth and would just beg and beg for it if it were at the house. I will try to post some Halloween pictures of this year, and then blog about Thanksgiving, and the Christmas stuff, and then my job. It's been a crazy year since we decided to move in April, so much has been going on it's been hard to find time to blog, but I'm going to try harder because life is so precious at the moment and I don't want to forget it.