Monday, February 27, 2012

Let the Jobs begin...

After a long interview and waiting process I start work tomorrow. I took a 3 day/week position as a school SLP and a 2-3 day SLP position in an assisted living facility. I am keeping my inpatient per diem position at my favorite rehab hospital ( also my favorite job) and taking on another per diem position in a similar acute care rehab hospital. This should keep me plenty busy. I am kind of bummed that they all came together in basically the same week. I was ready to go weeks ago for the school and over a month ago at the assisted living place. I am most nervous about the school position. I have an undergraduate in elementary education and worked as a teacher for 2-3 years before going onto grad school. It has been awhile since I had pediatric clients so I feel a little rusty. I am sure it will all come back to me quickly but I'm still nervous. I am so thankful that being a speech language pathologist can bring you into so many different work settings.

Why, so many jobs? Well with having 4 kiddo's I am very concerned about committing to full time work and having to put all my little ones in day care for the summer. Last spring/summer I had a ton of per diem work at my favorite hospital I worked 3-5 days a week pretty regularly. The hospital opened up another rehab about 45 minutes away and with that went a lot of the patients from that area. I had tons of days and even weeks scheduled to work but they kept getting cancelled do to low census ( not many people in the hospital) I should be able to put together full time work for the next few months. The school job will end when the kids get out of school and then I will be done to 2 or 3 days a week. I can add or take away hours with per diem at the hospitals depending on how things in the start up are going. Then add in more hours come fall.

I have not got a lot of direction on this school position. I had to call up the director of special ed to set up my start date and to ask who I was reporting to and what the schools hours were. I kind of already new the hours b/c I looked them up, but still I think that is important info to give a new employee

A ray of sunshine in the mist of the fog

Building a business is very hard. We hit another bump in the road with our only employee. He has a new health issue that effects work a little bit. Even with this I got the 1st positive from P. He does like working for himself and the flexibility if affords our family. It is a small step forward but I am hoping that it will gain momentum.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

How did we get here?

I have been thinking for quite some time that I should blog about all the changes that my family is going through this year. I have another blog that follows our adoption to our sweet baby girl Lauren. I didn't want to muck up the waters of her online baby book with all the craziness surrounding our lives right now. So where to begin? Well, last year just around this time we came into some major life changes. My husband had been in a partnership of a company that he founded for 11 years. The partnership had runs its course and weathered many an up and down. He was not happy and needed an change and needed to head out on his own. He left his comfortable position in a great company that he had grown form scratch. We took a few months to figure out what we should now do. I was able to go back to work per diem as a speech l@nguage pathologist in a rehab setting while P stayed home with Lauren and the boys. It was a little bit scary to think that we had to rethink our whole lives and livelihood. We made some BIG decisions. We decided to sell ours house, move to another state ( not that far away), move in with my mom and start our own business. My mom has a good size house but it needed a TON of work. We cleaned out our house, cleaned out her house, her roommate moved out, my brother filed for divorce and moved in with his dog, and then we moved in with our big crew: 2 adults 4 kids and 2 cats. It has been a very busy house.

There will be many a time that I complain and vent about my new life in transition. It is hard to start a business. It is hard to move to a new town that is not as nice as the one you came from. It is hard to go back to work and stressful knowing that my paycheck is the one that has to pay the bills. But it is hardest to see my husband work so hard to build a company AGAIN. He isn't loving the process. I don't blame him. It is not fun to start from scratch she you are in your early 40's with 4 kids ( It wasn't a picnic being in your 30's with 1 kid either). We have done this before and se just have to remember that once we get through this it's gonna be great.