After several applications, 1 observation, and 3 interviews, I am successfully employed for next year! Doing exactly what I do now, in a school that has NORMAL SCHOOL HOURS THANK YOU OBI WAN KENOBI, and i won’t be extending my commute as it’s about the same distance away in a different part of the city. So, that’s helpful.

In other news, my father has had to rather abruptly retire, which is going to lead to some interesting adjustment pains, I’m sure. He’s been “on leave” from doctoring for a month (more, possibly, they didn’t tell us what was going on right away), due to having some odd spells of confusion – which isn’t a good thing when you are in charge of other people’s lives. After a host of random tests that included fun things like a lumbar puncture, they have determined that he’s got an early form of dementia. Which sucks, honestly.

They’re getting here this week to celebrate the Dark Lord’s sixth (SIX OMG) birthday. I’m tempted to buy Daddy a whole pile of crossword puzzles and Sudoku.

-I’ve never seen The Notebook.

-If given a choice between reading classic literature or reading ridiculous young adult novels, the young adult novel wins every time.

-I once called a 4 year old student an evil little troll child. This was after he kicked me for the millionth time and I’d spent the past 4 hours wrestling with another child who wanted to scratch my face off. I don’t feel guilty for this at all.

-Wall-E depresses me, and I cried the first time I saw it when I saw all the babies in their lonely little float cribs.

-I have a list of sensory issues a mile long. This list includes Food I Will Not Eat, Clothes I Will Not Wear, and Ways I Will Hurt People Who Tickle Me.

-I continue to teach, even though it continues to try and destroy my soul.

It’s the last one, really, that keeps getting me. Last year, I was not asked back, because I “wasn’t a good fit,” for the school. Which I can buy, because I pretty much hated the school and was bored bored BORED by my class.

I got the job I have now at the last minute, cancelled travel plans that had been made for months, and then promptly got called on the carpet and had my job threatened, so I wasn’t expecting much out of this year.

But, it turned out ok. While the principal never spoke to me and I never got even a tour of the school – so there are still whole areas of the school I’ve never been – nobody told me how to do my job, came in to criticize how I was following the curriculum (by which I mean, no one came into count how many kinds of manipulatives or types of books I had out). And I really like my kids, and the support staff are awesome.

So, to find out, a week after the required date of notification, by which I had already missed the school district’s hiring fair, that, while I wasn’t being not invited back, there would be no position for me to return to as my classroom was being closed, was a shock.

I was initially upset, but I came back the next day laughing.

I don’t know why or how, but I’m not crying and panicking over it.

It happened, it sucks, I just bought a bunch of new classroom stuff out of pocket, which REALLY sucks. But I’m ok.

And I’m applying, again, to more teaching jobs. Where principals will hate me or ignore me, where paras might or might not understand my directions, where parents will jump to conclusions, and we’ll run out of paper, and the kids will glue their fingers together, or cut their friend’s hair with scissors that are supposed to only be able to cut paper.

Better hold on tight – there’s no telling what will happen next.

Over the weekend, we went to the playground. It was a good thing we did, as we got to run around and climb the slide and generally be silly, and the very next day we got 7 inches of snow. Which is hard to push Voldemort’s scooter through.

But while we were there, and right before we were leaving, a strange thing happened.

Now, we’re no strangers to walking up to random people and making odd requests, but this one left Brandus and I both feeling…weird.

Voldemort was running in circles, and I was heading for the path home, when a man came up to me – older, smiley, average looking – and asked to borrow the kid.

Which isn’t the weirdest thing we’ve ever heard, so I just waited, and he explained – he had locked his keys in his truck, but the back window (the one over the bed) was open, and would we mind if he borrowed Voldemort to see if the kid could fit in the window and crawl in and get the keys. And in return, he would let Voldemort get something out of his “grab box” in the back of the truck.

Brandus and I looked at each other.

With both of us there, there wasn’t really any reason to say no, and it wasn’t like we wouldn’t be RIGHT THERE.

So, we shoved kiddo through the back window, and he grabbed the keys, handed them to the guy, and the guy popped open the door.

And kid got a matchbox car and some kind of Power Rangers toy from McDonalds, and later, a focused discussion as to why he would never ever do something like that without me or Brandus RIGHT THERE to say it was ok.

With the Dark Lordling finally have taken a turn for the better (long story involving 3 doctor visits in less than a month and way too much missed school for all three of us), I find myself longing for Spring.

…Partially because he’s bouncing off the walls now that he’s better and outside doesn’t have walls, but it’s still currently too cold and there is too much snow for me to want to challenge his just recovered immune system with spending too much time outside.

But I want it. I want Spring and outside and green.

I want to plant daffodils and I want to poke around in my little raised garden and I want it to be WARM.

And I want grass.

No, not weed – grass. A lawn.

We’ve lived in our house for just over a year, and we still have nothing that is lawn-like. The grass was all dead when we moved in, and even though we’ve received strongly worded scolding letters from our HOA*, we have yet to do a darn thing to fix it. Partially because when we moved in, it was winter, and then in spring when we called and talked to places that help raise the dead, they said it was too late for seed and we’d have to buy sod and omg do you know how expensive that shit is?

So, our lawn remains as little more than dirt and some scraggly looking dandelions.

But at this point, I’ll even take the dandelions. At least they’re green and alive.

*Other strongly worded letters from the HOA have included our inability to put our trash cans inside the garage instead of the neatly garbage-can-shaped indent BESIDE the garage where it makes sense to put it, the fact we have a nearly dead plant in our yard, and the fact we should be shoveling the walkway no one walks on.