30-For-30: Laurie B.

Towards the end of my senior year of college, I started applying at various schools in the valley.  I applied to public schools, but I knew my heart wasn't in it and spent more of my effort looking at alternative schools in the area.  I applied to Community High School, which would be opening in the fall and my resume was sent down to the lower school, and I recieved a call from the director, Laurie B.  I went in for an interview and realized that Laurie had been one of my teachers when I was in fourth and fifth grade at the PLATO program at Raleigh Court Elementary.
I was fresh out of college and while I had experience in education, most of it was with high school students, where I had planned on teaching English.  Laurie, however, gave me a chance and I ended up teaching a mix of third and fourth grades at Community School.  Laurie was an amazing mentor; she was there for advice and suggestions, as a sounding board when I had ideas that I thought were maybe too crazy.  She helped to give me the confidence to try new things and to know that even if they  didn't work out, that I could try something else.  She encouraged me to take chances and as a first year teacher, it meant so much to me to have a boss who trusted me.  Part of the reason I know today that I am a good teacher is because of her support and wisdom.  Laurie, thank you.  Your guidance got me through my first years of teaching and built the foundation for what has come since, and if I can offer only half of what you gave to me to someone else, I will have done well.

We Sleep in Stickers

Just like the nation's economic status, our household economy is struggling.  We live paycheck to paycheck, and sometimes can only make it in between those weeks because J has gigs that bring in a few extra bucks.  We are not accruing any new credit debt; only paying down what he took away from his divorce, the car, the house and our student loans.  We are slowly but surely getting this thing under control.
On top of that, I make a pretty serious trade-off.  When we were trying to get pregnant, we were hoping for a spring due date and E$ was born in early March, which was just about perfect timing.  I have always known that I wasn't cut out to be a full-time stay at home mom, and I was able to have six months at home with him before returning to work.  Here comes the trade-off:  when I went back to work, I only went back 4/5 time.  I realize this might not seem like a big deal to some people, but when you watch where (just about) every penny goes, losing a fifth of your income can be difficult.  When we crunched the numbers, we realized that whatever extra I would be making on that day would just end up going to childcare and because all of the tax stuff changed (woot, Obama!), my take-home pay ended up being just about the same as it was before I cut back my hours. 
So, while we are oh-so-very close to paying off the ridiculous amount of debt (springtime, people-- spring.time), we're not there yet and we have to make lots of sacrifices.  But because my mother instilled in me a "you never know how many tomorrows you have" mentality, I also make some tiny splurges.  Tonight, we splurged.  Tonight, we bought books.  Just two.  Both paperbacks.  And if I had some fancy pants iPhone/Droid thingy, I would totally have snapped some pictures and uploaded them instantly but you'll have to trust me when I tell you that snuggling in bed with my boy, reading It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Clifford's First Fall was totally worth it.  Sharing a Halloween sticker from the back of Charlie Brown, hearing E giggle as he put one on his jammies and one of my jammies and whispering, "Mommy?  We sleep in stickers?"  Totally worth every cent.