Stress? What stress?

Ah, the winds of change. They sound all breezy and poetic, which, I suppose they are for some. But alas, I live on the TX plains where mostly the winds of change resemble tornadic activity. They come roaring through, plucking you right out of your comfortable little place in life, then spit you out in some foreign technicolor dreamland. So, here's where our little breeze turned mesocyclone....

We put our house on the market in early April and SHAZAM! It sold 2 weeks later. Excellent! But then came the search for a new house. Apparently we are just a *wee* bit picky. We drug our realtor through every house in the city that was in our price range, but to no avail. We were nearing the closing date on our house and were going to be homeless if something didn't pop up soon. We were actually getting ready to sign a lease on an apartment when I sat down one night to look through aaaaalllllll the listings in the city again, this time through more compromising eyes. I even upped the pricing parameters hoping we could maybe find a suitable house and then work the sellers down into our price range. Sure enough, a listing we hadn't seen before popped up and it looked really promising house-wise. Not so promising price-wise....it was almost $20k above the absolute maximum on our budget. We decided to go see it anyway, and guess what?? Matt and I actually agreed on a house!! This was the one...and it was vacant so we wouldn't have to move into a rental until the sellers could move out! Trying not to get our hopes up, we made an offer a few thousand below our budget ceiling, leaving us at least a few dollars-worth of wiggle room knowing we'd have to negotiate up. Not an hour later, they accepted our first offer. Whaaaat? Really? Apparently they'd listed it last year, taken it off the market after 5 months, re-listed it this spring at a reduced price, and then moved out (empty nesters as best I can tell). The offer we made happened to be their bottom dollar and they were so ready to be done with it, they just accepted!

Now, as if the house saga wasn't enough, I managed to get a job in the middle of everything. I didn't actually mean to. Seriously. I didn't. I knew I wanted to go back to work in the fall when G went off to kindergarten because frankly, I've been getting a little bonkers at home recently. Bonk. Ers. So an old colleague of mine in LISD advised that I get my file updated in the system so when a part-time job opened up in the fall, all my paperwork would be in order. So I did as she suggested. However, being a secondary math teacher, I started getting hammered with calls almost immediately. I took the interviews, but they were all for full-time positions, and I turned down the jobs when they were offered. During all this, I had decided to get paperwork in place for LCISD also, thinking something out there might become available in the fall. Less than 20 minutes after I'd hit the submit button on the application site I got a call from the HS principal requesting an interview. Weird. But I went. The interview was great...I was pretty hooked right from the start, even though the position available was full time. About half-way through, the principal asked if I'd been through Human Resources yet. Um, nope. Apparently all apps go straight to HR where they're screened, then they'll call you for a general interview, then recommend you to interview with the principals if you make it through all of that. Hmmmm. My app must have had a mind of it's own because it didn't go where it was supposed to go.

So I finished the interview and the principal sent me over to HR so the process would be complete, albeit backwards. Before I left, I stopped to say hello to my high school English teacher who has been working out there for some time now. While I waited to see her, the HR guy comes walking though and stops to chat, and says, "You need to probably be thinking about whether or not you're going to come back full time or not. Like, you need to probably decide today." Gack!! Today?? Sure enough, the call came later that day offering me the job. I knew I wanted it, but I asked for another day to think it over before I decided. I can't say what made this offer different from the others, but I really felt at peace with it, whereas with the others, I really did not. So I accepted and now I am a Pirate. Aaargh!

This decision also means the boys can come with me and be Pirates too! So, in addition to scouring the city for a house, I have also been scouring the schools trying to make a decision on where to send the boys.

I think we've got it all figured out. And almost all worked out. New house, new job, new school. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.