In My Life

Yep, it's been a while since I've been on my blog. Do you like the overhaul?

Without a doubt, this has been one of the hardest years of my life.  After having so much success finding another job, and finding it so quickly, the new job turned out to be very difficult and took an enormous toll on my health.  It was beyond stressful and due to this I had to step down from being a full time teacher, and was a paraprofessional instead.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a paraprofessional is like a teacher's aide.  Once the decision was made, I took boxes into "my classroom" for the last time, took everything off the walls, and began packing up the items that were mine...crying the entire time.

The first week after I left my class was VERY DIFFICULT.  My students weren't told why I was no longer their teacher.  They would ask me why I wasn't their teacher anymore when they saw me in the hallway at school.  There wasn't much I could tell them besides, "It's just a decision that was made".  It broke my heart every time.

During this ordeal, I continued to wonder WHY this was happening, and WHY I had picked this school out of the other offers that were given to me.  At the time Nick and I both felt so sure, so confident about this choice...what the heck was going on?  It was a daily struggle.

As time went on, the question of "Why did we pick this job?" was answered.  Well, at any other charter school, I would've had a MASSIVE pay cut going from a full-time teacher to a paraprofessional.  Here, I was able to keep the same pay, just go to hourly.  It was still a big hit financially, but not nearly as bad as it could've been.  Most paraprofessionals make half what I do.  The question of "Why this job?" was now answered.  My stress level was much less, and I was still able to teach reading and math groups, and interact with students, so that made the hit a little easier to take.  I continue to look for another full-time teaching job, but as of right now, I'll be returning to my paraprofessional job when school starts again in August.

We knew that once our current lease was up this September, we would be moving out of this house.  There are only 3 of us, and West Jordan is an INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE place to live. Again, because of my health, we have to live somewhere that is close to wherever I work.  So, we will be downsizing.  If I find another full-time job, we won't have to downsize quite as much.  If I stay at my current job, we'll be downsizing even more....much to my YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!  This November we will have lived in Utah for 5 years and we will have moved FIVE times (Sandy, Draper, Tooele, West Jordan, and wherever we end up next).  Ummm, enough already.  This next move needs to be somewhere we can stay for a while because I am DONE WITH MOVING!  We need stability.  Brandon has made friends with kids on our street, and he'll loose that soon, which kills me.

Each time we move, we have to change church wards.  Since there are so many Mormons in Utah, the boundaries for each ward are small.  If you move a few blocks, you are in a new ward, or group of people you go to church with.  This means each time we move, we have to leave the people we know, and attempt to learn the names of all the new people...which is not easy for me at all.  We've been here almost a year, and I only know the names of a few people.  I knew we were going to leave again, so why bother!  Heck, we didn't even hang pictures on the walls of this house because we figured we'd move again and it would be less work when it was time to pack again; plus, we wouldn't have holes to cover up!  It's frustrating.

Since we will have to downsize, I'm holding a garage sale sometime next month.  I want to get ride of EVERYTHING we haven't touched, looked at, or used in over a year.  We have a basement FULL of stuff to get rid of.  This has become my daily task, since successful garage sales take A LOT of time and effort to put together.  I've spent many hours researching on the internet regarding how to do this correctly.

For now we are in limbo.  As of right now, we have no idea where I will be working come August, and we have NO IDEA where we will be living September 1st...it just won't be here.  I will begin packing the house up AGAIN starting next week.  It's a little early to do that, but I want it ready to go so that the minute we know what is happening come August, we can just pack the truck and leave.

Moving on.

Brandon turned 8 this last March.  He made the decision to be baptized and become an official member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It seems like just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital. Suddenly 8 years have past, and he's gone

from this:

to this:

Where has the time gone?  It was a fabulous day spent with family.

The sweetest part about all of this has been watching him read the set of scriptures that Grandma and Grandpa got for him.

I will survive.  I always do.  Somehow, we will be okay.  I have NO IDEA how, but I know we will be.

To end on a happy note...have you seen the latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer?!?  Holy cow, I almost peed my pants when I watched it!  The last 10 seconds alone made it all worth it!  I can't WAIT for December 18th!  That Friday I'll go see it with Nick, then the next day I'll see it with Brandon!