It has been so long since I have been on here. I am renewing my efforts to be more consistent. There is so much to catch up on. I will start with my employment. At the beginning of this school year, I was secure with my two part time jobs. Life was good. I worked at Arizona Conservatory from noon until 3pm, went home, relaxed and then went to work from 5-9pm. I made good money. Life was good. We then tested the kids to see how they were doing in reading. Turns out I am a damn good reading teacher! They all were at grade level! (that is really great considering a year ago, 12 of them read at the 3rd-4th grade level.) So, I was now out of a job. The principal was really cool and arranged for me to stay until I found something else. I found something else in less than a week. I now know why!!! I found employment at Phoenix Advantage Charter School. It is a K-8 school and I would be the 4th English teacher the middle school had had this year (it was only 5 weeks into the term). The students are obnoxious and there is little to no support from administration. It has been a year, but I am still holding on strong. More on that later.
Another issue that I was dealing with was what direction I needed to go in life. I have been feeling that I was just existing, that things were losing purpose. I was very prayerful and thoughtful about what should happen. The name Jennifer Thacker kept popping into my mind. Jen is a girl I dated about 7 years ago. We met when a mutual friend invited her to my house for a General Conference slumber party. They were a group of people from the east valley who wanted to come over Saturday after the session, play games, eat dinner, etc. Then, spend the night and wake up the next morning, eat a big breakfast and watch the Sunday morning session, then go our ways. It was a fun time. I enjoyed meeting Jen, and we dated for a few months. We then realized we were in a place that did not bode well for a relationship. We both had drama going on in our lives and needed to resolve some issues before pursuing something new. After four months, we decided to call it quits. Over the past years, we have occasionally touched base, but nothing too exciting.
Last February, she invited me to go see Mary Poppins with her and some friends. It was fun. I began thinking that maybe it was time to get to know her again. It took until our birthdays in November for me to decide to ask her out. (Her birthday is Nov. 5th, mine is Nov. 6th). We went to the White Chocolate Grill and had a great time. Since then, it has been a whirlwind romance. We are enjoying our time together, and it looks like we may be making some serious commitments in the next 6-8months.
We have several things to deal with: We both own homes. It is not the right time to sell and both of us have made modifications with our lenders. This means that we have contracted to stay in our homes for the next 5 years. I also have 4 large dogs that she does not really care for. I am going to have to find a way to deal with that as well. Her relationship with her family is a lot closer than mine is with mine, so I don't think asking her to move to the west valley is fair. These are all issues we will be dealing with soon.
It looks like we will be looking at rings sometime in the next two weeks.....
