Happy Sno--er, I mean Ice Day!

The kids have a snow day today after our area was blanketed in a beautiful coating of ice yesterday. (I say that it's beautiful because I'm not out driving in it ... it looks wonderful, but would be horrible to drive in.) I was planning to go out running errands for the day, but changed plans with this weather and the kids being home. So, today is my big cleaning day. Woohoo!!

It's funny how often old sayings ring true ... and the one that's going through my head so much lately is "when it rains, it pours." I have a crazy list of things to do this week, all leading up to little Miss Maya's birthday party on Saturday. It would be enough to just need to clean the house, buy some groceries, pick up her birthday gifts (finally have been delivered to the store and I just need to go collect them) and wrap them up to look pretty, bake and decorate a cake and throw up some decorations. But, no! This is also the week that we have our karate testing for graduation (which is also Saturday), I have a PTA meeting to go to (I would skip it, but the focus is Safety ... and I'm the Health and Safety Chairperson), an appointment to get my boobs squished (a.k.a. a mammogram ... now that I'm 35, I get to have all that fun on a regular basis), Austin's Christmas program at school and one of Tim's work Christmas celebrations. And all day Thursday I'll be teaching / volunteering at the kids' school. It all just seems to add up to a big bunch of craziness!

I've written it all down and even tried to plot out a schedule for when I'll have time / be able to do all of it between all these commitments. So, it made me laugh this morning when I had planned to get out and about to run lots of errands and saw that school was cancelled for the day. Brings to mind another saying ... "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray."

I guess I'm either a mouse or a man .... :)

teaching ...

So, a few weeks ago, our school district posted a job for an English / Spanish teacher. I called the high school principal and let him know that I would definitely be interested if they were going to fill the position separately--part-time English and part-time Spanish. The kids' principal called him to put in a few good words for me, too. Then I got a call from the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources / Personnel ... asking what the odds were that I'd be able to get certification in English also. Interestingly enough, I started out going to school to be an English teacher, so I did have quite a few classes. I met with him the following week so that we could look over my transcripts and talk about possibilities. He even told me during that meeting that he would like to hire me and that he's heard very good things about me (from the volunteering I've been doing at the kids' elementary teaching Spanish).

I called the University of Akron to see how close I was to being able to get my certification in English ... turns out, not as close as I thought. Okay, next avenue to pursue is to send an application / request to be able to take a test for certification in English through Michigan's State Department of Education. Still waiting to hear on that.

I've been so excited thinking that I might be able to get back to teaching--in my own classroom, with a regular, paying job. I've been kind of giddy ...

The Asst. Superintendent mentioned to me that the high school principal would likely be doing interviews this week, so I called him (the principal) on Monday. He told me that they found someone who is certified English and Spanish ... and that what they really need immediately is the English portion of that certification (because they have an English teacher retiring in January). It looks like they're going to hire her. Sigh. My heart just sank when he told me that. I had allowed myself to get excited about the possibility ... not just to teach again, but to teach English too--that sounds fun to me.

I am frustrated and let down.

I really do believe that things happen for a reason, and there's definitely a reason this didn't work out. I'll likely never know why, but I'm trying to focus on the positive. But I can't help feeling that this just sucks.