Happy Birthday Katherine!

Attitude Adjustment: Day 2
Project Glass Half Full is on track. Aided by an adorable daughter's third birthday, a kite, a swimming pool, and cake, everything is GREAT.

New plan: attitude adjustment

Today begins Operation Looking On the Bright Side. It's a survival thing. I hope it works. My glass is half full, by golly.

Bitterness probably won't help me survive this recession

Good news: got a call for a job interview.

Bad news: it's in a town about 4 hours away from here and we've decided that come heck or high water we're staying put. (In this context that sounds foolish, but it makes a lot of sense for our whole family's long term, big-picture plans.)
Good news: had an actual interview for an actual job not too very far away from home.
Bad news: didn't get the job. found out when I ran into the girl who did get it (a perfectly nice person if not as deserving as I- I who have five people to support versus she who has a dog. And then I found out that the job pays over twice what I need to support my family. Twice. Grrrr. But my bitterness causes digression...)
Good news: there's still some hope for two local jobs I applied for recently, but both are in limbo until the middle of August; depending on enrollment figures, the jobs may or may not exist. Does that even count as good news? I'm thinking not so much.
And in the same vein (the "does it count as good, bad, or indifferent?" vein): I applied for a part time, minimum wage job yesterday. Again, won't know anything until probably August, but that's fine as I'm booked through July anyway. The job involves books and nice people, so it's good. It may have a flexible schedule that can fit around substitute teaching and, maybe, part time adjunct-ing (one of the aforementioned local jobs). That's good too. And it's not actually minimum wage: it's a whopping $0.73 above minimum. Yep. That's what a master's degree gets you in 2009. Gets me, anyway. Apparently if you're 23 and you're from these parts and you say "like" a lot you're golden. Not so much for me: the chunky matron, heading in to middle age and trying to start over like I'm brand new or something. I'm not brand new. And I'm not from around here, and this is a small town, with a handful of outlying smaller towns where people know each other and they don't really know me.
This week has been incredibly depressing and demoralizing. Six months ago I was confident that I'd make a great teacher and some school district would be happy to get me. Happy. Now it's looking like going back to school was the biggest and most expensive mistake of my long list of regrettable mistakes in this glorious life. So in between trying not to cry all day I'm angry and just plain bitter. Just what HR people want in an applicant. Grrr.

teaching my favorite students

With the oldest daughter away this week at SOU's Academy camp for fabulous above average talented and amazing kids (I'm so proud of her!), it's just the little big kids here at home. And with grad classes only two days this week (plus an interview on Wednesday! Crossing fingers!) I have a lot of time to spend with my 8 and almost-3 year old girls.
My 8 year old is a willing guinea pig and experimental mathematician, so we've been playing with multiplication and trying out some new (to me) ways of finding these types of math facts other than rote memorization and the old fashioned standard algorithm. She eyes me skeptically when we try the array model I learned recently, but she's game and lo and behold the answers are correct! I think she'll do well in third grade next year.
Littlest kid is mostly running around sans pants and working on remembering about that special potty chair in the bathroom. I'm trying to introduce some more alphabet games, but the formal education stuff is mostly mom reading to kid. That's the most fun anyway, and it's like finding out that your most favorite comfort food is nutritious and slimming. We'd rather just read a good stack of library books anyway. To her credit, Littlest has been exhibiting some good self analysis. When questioned on her reasons for a half hearted bite she gave her poor sister, she allowed that she'd been bothering 8 year old and should go play by herself. After a mandated apology, she happily bounced off to her play kitchen, and peace again reigned in the living room.
My sweet husband's out filling a box full of helium balloons to send to Eldest Daughter at camp. What better way to be reminded that your quirky family misses you than to open a box and have a swarm of balloons randomly fill your dorm room?

Happy Faces!

Me, my mom, and my older kids on graduation day at Southern Oregon University. Everyone got a chance to try on the cap!

happy graduation to us...

Yesterday I participated in the commencement ceremony marking the completion of my master's degree. (OK, my cohort and I are not quite there yet, but we're mere weeks from complete and got to walk anyway.) I have always valued higher education and am proud of this accomplishment; I'm even proud in advance of the good work this degree will allow me to do.
But.
There are no jobs. There is no money to go around. I am not qualified to be an RN or a long haul truck driver, and these are really about all my local paper is advertising for. Somehow my worries have been overshadowing my pride in a job well done. A Wall Street Journal article is highlighting the way the baby boomers have, well, basically ruined the country and maybe to an extent the planet for us, their children. Leaving school doesn't look so good when unemployment is this high. For about eleven months now, I've been second guessing myself, and it's only gotten worse as the year dragged on. Was taking out these student loans a good idea, when I could (presumably) gotten a job a year ago and been making money all this time instead of accruing debt and angst? Boomer commencement speakers this year are on record apologizing to this year's graduates for the world we're inheriting. As Judy Berman puts it, "too little, too late". Sure, there are individual examples here and there of baby boomers who I value and like (mostly my parents and one or two professors). As a whole, though, they've really done a number on us.
I'll be lucky to be working part time pumping gas after summer classes are done. I'm not exaggerating either. (Pumping gas is an actual job here in Oregon, btw). The glow of graduation day is definitely gone already.

Bad economy, good time to be creative

I'm at loose ends. With no long term writing projects hanging over my head, this week off is actually a week off! My older children finished up their school year on Tuesday, and I spent the whole day doing family-errands. I visited the high school to pay my oldest daughter's band teacher for the flute that looks like it won't be abandoned. Then I took the almost-3 year old to get on a preschool waiting list (good news: they're not worried about potty training status; bad news: it may be a year before she gets in). Then it was on to big kids' elementary school, where I procured a loaner violin for 8 year old to play over the summer, watched 10 year old receive many many awards for being an all around good kid and serious scholar, and make friendly, sort of "hire me someday" chitchat with as many folks at the school as possible for one last time. Then, toddler and I hustled home as fast as possible, as we were running all these errands on the bike and a rain storm was threatening. Rain. In the high desert. In June. Wow- this global warming is treating my area all right so far. More biking and less driving is in order anyway.

The strange thing right now is, I suppose, economically driven. Because we're in the toilet as far as the state budget goes, there are literally No Teaching Jobs. None. Like teachers are being laid off. So I'm forced to get creative with the whole job/career thing. It's looking like I'll be substitute teaching for our two local school districts next year. This is fine with me; I've gotten used to the idea of not getting a full fledged job and there are advantages to subbing. The pay won't be good, though, because there is a large pool of subs and I'm a newbie. So I'll need another job that starts around 4pm, so on days when I do get a subbing call I'll be able to accept it and still make it to the other job. This could make for a weird and even hectic school year, but we gotta do what we gotta do. This is where things get interesting, in my current mood of cautious optimism. What will I do for work in the after-school hours? I know there aren't a million jobs to choose from that will fit the bill, but maybe something good will surface... I've actually sent out two resumes today, and the one I'm hoping works out would be in that after 4 bracket (most likely) and would involve education and my undergraduate area of expertise and is right here in town and would be fun. While paying the bills. And not interfering with that keeping-my-toe-in-it substitute work. Fingers crossed. Please please please. If this works out and I'm hired, and subbing, and our big exciting new real estate pursuit pans out, well then I think 2009 will be a Good Year. Actually making a living at this stuff would be a dream come true.

writing conventions are important!

They may be small, but apostrophes, semicolons, and especially commas really do matter. So there.