The Job

I have been dragging my heels at writing some of this down because there was just so much stuff that happened over the past few months, it was overwhelming. But I guess the important thing is not to write down every single detail, but to remember the important things and how we have been taken care of (even on those days I don't feel very positive). And this will probably be pretty long and boring; it's more for me to have it all written down.

After Ben lost his job, I picked up as much temp work as I could in various offices and especially my old office. I even went to California for a week to work for the dentist I worked for in high school. It was crazy how jobs kept landing in our laps. We didn't get extra work, and we watched our savings continue to dwindle, but we were ok.

Finally when our savings was almost completely gone, and I was so fed up with the office where I was temping, I told Ben he had to have a job by the first of the year or I was taking a job in California and we were moving there and he would just have to be stay at home dad. I was not serious about this, but I was getting pretty frustrated with everything. Ben had also commented that if he didn't find something by January, it wasn't likely he'd have anything until the next school year. I was kind of starting to freak out as my temp job ended Dec 31 and our savings was almost completely gone.

Ben hadn't been able to look hard for a job until then as his teaching license had expired in the meantime, and getting verifications and paperwork from people in California took forever. Of course it would have been better if he had just not let it expire, but looking back I see how all these small details came into play.
So when his renewal arrived, he jumped on the ball and started making phone calls. He called several places, and when he called Alpine School District, he spoke with the director of Special Education (Eric) and told him he was going to drop off a resume. Eric did not sound super excited and told Ben there were a lot of people applying for jobs that were probably more qualified blah blah blah and there weren't any for sure openings anyway. But they continued to chat, and Ben gave great detail about what had happened at his last job. I was in the background cringing. Ben is pretty open, and I felt a little too open about his job history in this particular situation. I figured since he only worked there three weeks, he didn't even really need to count it as employment. Imagine my utter surprise that his honesty actually paid off, and by the time the phone call was done, he had an interview with Eric that Friday.

When I talked to Ben after the interview Friday, I did not know what in the heck was going on. Ben sounded completely euphoric. No, he did not have a job offer, but he said he had never been in an interview like that in his life, and he was pretty sure the interviewers hadn't either. It was completely obvious there was a higher power directing things, from the questions asked and the answers Ben had, to the letters from parents that he last minute grabbed on his way out the door and actually had opportunity to show the interviewers. Ben said he didn't know if he had a job there, but he at least felt completely at ease with whatever was going to happen next and confident in his abilities. I guess after losing his job there were times he didn't feel so confident, and the interview gave him that boost that we all need to know we don't completely stink at what we're doing.

Shortly thereafter the phone call came. Eric said he didn't know where he was going to put Ben, but they wanted him somewhere.  They would make sure there was a place for him if Ben wanted it.
And ever since then he has loved it. He loves his students. He loves the staff he has in his classroom. He comes home every day saying it was a good day.

There will be some changes next year, and I'm not sure exactly how everything is going to turn out, but at least for now there is no doubt in Ben's mind he is where he needs to be.

And since we are talking about jobs, I got one, too. At my old office, where I had hoped to stay since temping there after moving back. I had been very hurt when I was temping that the office had decided to take things in a different direction and not hire me permanently. But I did my best to get over it and eventually realized I wouldn't be able to stay there full-time forever, which is what they needed.
Then at the very end of the position I was dumbfounded when they said they had been evaluating everything and would I be interested in working twice a week, any schedule I wanted. I was so glad I had done my best to do a good job and not hold grudges about everything, because it worked out even better than it would have had I been given the full-time position.

I don't know when I will learn to have more faith that everything will work out, because it always does. Things definitely haven't been ideal, but we have been taken care of one way or another--every single day.

So You've Had a Bad Day

I've been a bit of a grumpus this week. The icing on the cake was when I went to Wal-mart to get this pineapple coconut water flavor-er, and THEY WERE SOLD OUT. I wanted to scream. But I also thought it was kind of funny that it was such a dumb thing to be upset about, so I called my sister Janice who introduced me to these so I could vent to her. That was two days ago.

Today I got the mail, and what do you think was in the mailbox? A small package with a couple drink enhancer drops, a bag of cadbury mini eggs, and a sweet note from my sister Janice.

Then I went to this "smile jar" and put a little piece of paper inside about how this all made my day. It's March right now and the jar is slowly getting filled with papers about the good things that happened that day. I think by the end of the year we'll have a lot of fun things to read about and remember, and the bad days won't seem so bad.