New job, New Paths..

The past month has been a weird one...

For the past two months I have been blanketing Georgia with job applications for a teaching position for next year. I have stayed awake until the wee hours of the morning filling out application after application online. I landed two job interviews this month, and lo and behold, praise Jesus and pass the biscuits, at the second interview I was offered a teaching position.  The job is two hours away which means, of course, I will be moving to a new town and driving back to my real home on the weekends, but the town where I will be teaching is quaint and friendly. The school is also offering me a chance at teaching autonomy so I can practice my “craft” and make a difference in students’ lives (I know that “making a difference” is an overused cliche, but cliches become cliches for a reason; they’re true).  I am not one who likes to be micro-managed. I know how to teach, I know how to get results, I know how to make learning a positive experience for my students. Give me even semi-autonomy and I will give back students who have learned how to think.. really think.  For life. I am amazed at the opportunity that I have been offered. Things just kind of work out sometimes, don’t they? In the most unforeseen ways.

I have rented a small house in my new teaching town, started planning on what furniture to take with me, and Dear Husband and I have talked about how we’ll make this work. A two hour drive is not far- I can be home in no time.. less than no time if I plug a little Beth Hart full blast into the CD player.. (speaking of which I saw her in Atlanta this month and she kicked some major musical ass).

The Beth Hart concert was day two of four days of feeling normal. After the concert I relapsed with my oh so glorious upper respiratory infection.  A week after the interview (I went to my job interview sick.. so sick that I really don’t know how I got through it) the principal phoned with the good news that the BOE approved my hiring. My daughter swears that once the principal sees me in my natural pingy, bouncing off the walls state he will wonder what happened to that sedate, pensive woman at the interview and will be looking for an out. But it'll be too late.... he will be stuck with me, but he'll learn to dearly love me, over an extended length of time. I promise.

Two rounds of antibiotics and a round of predisone didn’t kick Mr. Respiratory Infection’s butt. I finally had the proverbial rug pulled out for under my feet and I was forced to admit defeat.  After spending a mind numbing, National Geographic watching four days in the hospital where they blew out seven of my veins and never did give me any real answers, except to let me know that I don’t have TB, I think I may finally be on my way to recuperation. The IV antibiotics they flooded me with seem to have been the magic key.

So, I have a dream job at a charter school for next year and I have a nice little duplex that I can decorate any way I want. I will be a mile from my school so I can ride my bike to work if I want. All I need is a nerdy little wire basket installed. My Dear Husband is so very very glad that I will be taking my big ass green chair I have in the living room. He hates my chair. In fact, it may be the first item he loads onto the moving trailer.

So there’s life..

Dad is still battling the Alzheimer’s beast and I miss him so much I ache, Mom is still trying to fit into the new role that life has thrust uninvited upon her, my grandson is crawling and becoming mobile and independent, my rose bush is blooming magnificent roses, and I have a new wrinkle on my face. In other words, life marches on with little to no real predictability, except that the sun will rise tomorrow and a new realm of possibilities, joys, heartaches, tears, and laughter will present themselves to me for inspection.

Ain’t life a kick?