An award! and some other stuff

Steph at Adventures of Jon and Steph passed on the Love Ya Award to me. This totally made my day!! If you haven't had a chance to read up on the life of her and her husband, you definitely should. They are currently living overseas, and I love getting to hear her stories and see pictures. Thanks so much Steph!!

On a less upbeat note, I am feeling a little overwhelmed these days, which I would like to blame for my lack of blogging these past few days. We have just been so busy lately. I am absolutely loving house hunting. It is so fun to search and dream and plan with my husband...and we love getting to go see houses! It does take up a lot of time, though.

If that wasn't enough, we've also got marathon training. For me, marathon training causes the most anxiety (I am scared to death of our 15 miler scheduled for this weekend), but it also brings such joy and accomplishment. However, it also takes up so much time! I feel like if we aren't running, we're house hunting, and if we aren't house hunting we're running! I'm loving both things so much, and if that were all I needed time for it would be great.

But, of course it's not. Really the thing that is mostly causing me to be overwhelmed is applying for a new job. As you all know, I'm currently a nanny. When we got back home from Thailand, it was so late in the summer that I wasn't able to get a teaching job, so I took this nanny job as a sort of transition job. It would give me time to get adjusted back to life in the States, without having an ultra stressful, time consuming job. It has been really great for me.

Now I think I'm ready to move on. I recently told H's mom that I would be applying for a teaching job, and that I would not be able to continue caring for H past this summer. I was so worried about telling her for fear that she would be upset and wouldn't have any other option for him. She took it really well, however, and I was so glad that I talked to her about it. My primary reason for wanting to teach is that I really want to use my degree. J and I plan on trying to start a family probably about 3 or so years from now. When we have a baby I don't want to work full time. So, if I'm going to teach at all before the time our children get older, it has to be now!

One issue in getting a job has to do with where we live. We live in a small city that is surrounded by little tiny cities. The closest larger city to us is about a 45 minutes drive. It was in that large city that I did my student teaching. I absolutely LOVED my student teaching. I loved the school district and the people I worked with. I was offered a job there at the end of the semester, but I was unable to take it because we were moving to Thailand. I think that I could probably get a job there now if I wanted it, but I just really do not want to have that long of a commute. Teaching already takes up so much time outside the classroom...I really don't want to have almost two hours of driving on top of that.

I also don't want to teach in one the tiny towns surrounding our city. I know I probably need to be open to whatever I can get, but I just really don't want to teach in a super small town, and any of those would be 20+ minutes of driving each way as well. So, I really want to apply and get a job in the actual city that we live in. I'm just so scared. I'm scared of trying to get my application and resume and everything together. What if I forget something? What if my resume isn't good enough? I'm also scared of getting an actual interview. I know that sounds crazy, but I have been out of the "real world" for two years now - first a year in Thailand, then a year staying at home as a nanny. I'm afraid I've forgotten how to be in the professional world. Because of this I'm also afraid of actually getting a job. But, I'm also afraid of not getting a job. I really want to teach. If I don't get a job in the town we live in, and I haven't applied anywhere else I'll be so disappointed, and I have no idea what I would do then.

I'm so sorry to just spill all of this, but I think I just needed to vent. One trait that I really dislike about myself is how I sometimes let fear rule over me. Because I'm afraid of all of these things, I've just been avoiding it all. I'm afraid of failing in all of these areas so I just don't do anything. I know I have to just make myself do it, and try to get past the uncertainty, but it's just so hard for me.

Anyway, thanks for letting me get all of that out. It always feels better to "talk" things out. I may be a little absent for the rest of this week. Thursday is J's birthday, and I'm working on doing some special things for him, so with all of the things going on that I've already mentioned, I won't have much time to post or comment. I'm thinking about you all though, and I'm still trying to keep up with reading! I hope you all have a great week. We're going to look at a few more houses after work today, one of which I'm pretty excited about based on what we've been told about it. You never know until you get inside, however. We learned that the hard way!