Soon after the last post...

things changed.

So, I am working as a consultant for a few days and the person I'm working for is my supervising teacher from my student teaching. It's a short contract that ends in June, but she had a proposal for me.

She has offered me a job for next year. It is part time, has no benefits and doesn't pay into my retirement. However, from the dates I found that I could work, I could work 58 days next year at about $50 an hour and make around $23,000. I have a few options for more part time work to fill in the gap between that and my old salary. I need to make around $34,000. (which would be my salary next year minus day care). I have a side job I'm already doing that could give me another $3500. I can also do some subbing as well which is a good chunk of money as well.

My neighbor said she's willing to watch little J for cheap. She said if she could make $100 a month to pay for her daughter's preschool, that would be great. She also talked about doing a swap where I watch her kids so she can do some accounting/payroll stuff.

If I were to take this job, I would be working outside the home for 5 days a month max. I could do a ton of subbing at the beginning of the year while Jeremy is home to make some more money.

The benefits of taking this job: I am home with Jana a lot more than if I was working in a school. This would get me some experience with the educational law as well as how to deal with federal grants. I would be making contacts in the world of education-outside of teaching. We'd have little or no daycare costs. We might still be able to move. I'd get to learn something new (educational laws) and that would be very intellectually stimulating for me. I have no idea what my teaching job would look like because of cuts, I would only be teaching math part time and they'd have to fill it with maybe English (meaning more prep time and potentially teaching classes I've never taught before).

The draw-backs of this job: I would be giving up a full time job for a job that has the potential to be renewed each year for 6 years, but no guarentee. It has no benefits or retirement (although I have no insurance now because I was dropped for being out of work too long and we have put into our own retirement since I started working). It could be long days when I do work. There will be some local traveling (at most an hour away) which would make it longer days.

If I take this job and if we decide to move, we could sell both cars and buy a new(er) more fuel efficient car which would eliminate car payments (or most of them because we could pay off most of it with what we get from selling our cars). It would decrease our insurance and gas bills as well.

So much to think about that my head is spinning!

Too Much to Do And Too Little Time

It's a battle all new and not so new mothers fight: the clock.

The tasks are prioritized, and I usually come in at the bottom. Blogs, posting, and even email are luxuries. A fed, clean, and contented baby, food for dinner, and a clean house seem to take all of my time these days.

I caught myself dreaming last week and am now suffering the consequences. Hopes raised high crash hard.

We have lived in our house for 5 years. Our immediate neighborhood is okay... the outside neighborhood is turning scary. The outside neighborhood is beginning to creep in. Our neighborhood police officer is now watching two different houses and running the plates for stollen cars because there is an abundance of nice, new cars tat seem too expensive for our neighborhood. Not to mention the traffic of numerous people in and out of those houses and the apparent lack of jobs for the inhabitants. One of these houses is our neighbors whom we dislike strongly.

J finally relented and decided that we should start looking into moving. We spent the evening of Mother's Day looking at houses on line and got our hopes up. We had a realtor come look at our house and he priced it $60,000 more than we bought it for, not to mention how much we've paid down on it already in 5 years.

Then reality sunk in.... The job I was hoping to get that might allow me to work from home, won't allow me to work from home. The capability is there, but our school district distrusts its employees so much that even though they could monitor my activity in the program and my hours spent on the program, they will not allow anyone to work from home.

So now, we need to pay for day care and that added expense makes any increase in our mortgage unbearable.

I'm so bummed. It feels so selfish, but I hate living here. Beside the fact that the house is only 1190 square feet and we have no guestroom for any visitors to stay, I want a new neighborhood. The problem that we run into is that the next step up is a huge financial step. Our house is now the mid-range house ($175,000 to $200,000) which would be the next step up for us financially. But to get a bigger house that could fit our needs long term, we'd need to jump to the $275,000 to $300,000 range.

I think the thing that is bumming me out more than the house is that I thought there was a chance for me to work from home and not put little J in daycare. I am not judging anyone who has to or wants to put their children in daycare, but for me, I hate the idea of little J being in someone else's care all day. I want her with me. I want to be the one to feed her, play with her, put her down for her naps, hug her when she gets an ouchie, cuddle her when she needs a hug... not someone else. Here I am crying about it right now as I type this. I don't want someone else doing what is supposed to be my job, but I am incapable of doing it because we are too financially irresponsible to make it work. It's our own fault. I can try to blame poor pay of teachers, but we should be able to do it... if we could have learned long ago and daily to give up those extra things.

I better go tend to my poor neglected child since I've been typing this for so long, she's now sick of watching her fish on her boucer.