The Beal/Cannon Family: Big Decisions!

Well it's been a pretty epic week. Highlights: I got a lot of painting done. Scott ordered many plants and stained wood all week to build more garden boxes. He decided that our front side lawn was a waste so he is turning it into more area for his gardening obsession. He was very busy with that project all weekend. I had book club which I love, the kids and I had a shed movie date which we haven't done in forever.

I made a lot of decisions last week. I've been stressed and worried about this next school year with my kids and my work and I've been thinking about what to do for several months now. I applied for several teaching jobs and I didn't even get a call back for an interview. I wasn't too upset because I was really stressed at the idea of getting back into teaching under the current world conditions right now. I didn't want to go back and work full time as a para because the pay is terrible and the job is hard and trying to plan ahead I'm assuming my kids will be stuck at home at least part of the time with school closures. The idea of going to a crappy pay hard job while my kids were at home trying to do their school work themselves sounded terrible. At the beginning of the month I was in the middle of another teaching application and I decided to stop. I do not want to try to go back after 13 years and start over creating lesson plans from scratch for in class and remote learning and also be supporting my kids with their school work. Nope! On the 4th of July I walked into Target and saw that they pay $15 which is $4 more an hour than at the school and I applied for a job that day. It took a few weeks but I got an interview. I had the interview Monday morning and they hired me in the interview. My thinking was I could work part time at Target and make more than I do at the school full time. This way I could be more available to help support my kids with their work. But then I got to thinking how stressful it will be to have the kids go to school under the current conditions and know that school will probably be shut down anyway. The idea of trying to communicate and deal with ALL of my kids' teachers and assignments sounded terrible! So I decided to look into home school. Even though I think home school could be really stressful I think it will be less stressful than dealing with the school next year. I'm mid application to an online home school. If they get in they give each student $1300. We can use that money to go on field trips and buy supplies and pay for our internet and all kinds of things. I'm nervous and excited. I figure worse case scenario if they learn nothing from me...they will recover!

I have 2 8 hour training shifts with Target this week. I hear they aren't good at training their employees so hopefully I can ask lots of questions and figure things out quickly. Okay it's late! I've been painting off and on all day. Peace out!