When Life Hands You Lemons...

...you make hard lemonade.


So I've been grieving and soul searching and trying to figure out this thing I call life...and I've come to two conclusions:

1. Life is hard. REALLY hard. There are ups and downs and twists and turns, it's almost never easy and just when you think it's going well...something happens and you start a-twistin' and a-turnin' again.

2. If it weren't hard, we probably wouldn't appreciate the great stuff that happens quite as much.


So many of you know that I moved to Alabama in June of 2009. When I moved here I was so excited to find a teaching job. I spent the last 5 years of my life learning and working in schools and doing what I love so when I got to Alabama I just knew I'd find the perfect job. My husband sure did, so why not I?

Six months later...still no job. I started down the "I-feel-sorry-for-myself" train and it was pretty hard to get off it. I worked my ass off for my degree, I was pationate about my job...WHY WOULDN'T THEY HIRE ME!? I pointed fingers and placed blame and yeah, there is a lot of blame to be had with a certain unnamed school district ... yeah you know the one. But it just wasn't productive (or emotionally healthy) for me to be feeling that way.

So I continued to substitute teach and I told myself, "One more summer. Search one more summer and if you don't figure it out and find a job, decide if it's worth waiting for."

You have to understand that "worth waiting for" means a lot of things. Is it worth waiting to have kids because I need to work for 3 years in a school to garuntee my job? Is it worth waiting for and stalling my student loan payments (that are nearly the same amount as a frackin' mortgage) because substitute teaching just don't pay those bills?(and while my husband is more than capable of paying those loans, I just feel awful having caused that burden on us. I want to be the one to pay those off.ME) Is it worth waiting for and dealing with the craptastic pay and poor treatment of being a substitute teacher for another year?

So I decided. No. It wasn't worth all that. So what am I going to do? I'm going to be a nurse :-). I'm going back to school and I'm going to rawk it, because I'm an awesome student and it's what I do. I can't wait to be a nurse, because like teaching, it's something I know in my heart I'll be good at. I'm able to memorize and retain a lot of detailed information, I can think quick on my feet, I'm great with people, and I love fast-paced work environments.

I'm so freakin' pumped, and for the first time in a long time, it feels like my life is falling into place again.  I feel like sometimes we get to this point where everything just has to burn down to the ground so we can start fresh. That's where I'm at right now. I'm starting fresh, with a new outlook, exciting opportunities ahead, and fire in my heart that I just haven't felt for quite sometime.