God is Good

I'm writing this Friday morning, inauguration day.  Not sure exactly when I'll be able to post it live.

Almost two weeks ago, Ching was called into her bosses office and essentially fired. As you know, it was very unexpected.  Ching was in an odd situation at work, even for a contractor.  She was hired by the contracting company and placed in office X.  Office X, not long after she started working for them, said "hey, office Y across the hall needs someone with your skills, why don't you work a few days a week for them."  So she was "owned by office X, but doing most of her work for office Y.  Office X then had a change in the contract, which made Ching no longer eligible to work for them, so they had to let her go.  That left office Y without her as well.  They had no idea she was going to be let go.

This started a series of actions on the part of several people to get her a contract under office Y - to get her back.  That never happens in the contracting world.

With the presidential transition and other factors, Ching was really feeling this job search would be different than the others.  It had been a few years since she'd even had to look for a job, as one would end, another company would already be in contact trying to hire her.

We've been so blessed in regards to Ching's work.  It sometimes stresses her out, but she's been able to provide so very well for our family.

As I've mentioned, back in September, due to my optimism for the country, and on a word from God I'd read many times from the preacher I followed that God was going to give favor unprecedented to His people, I decided to give this real estate career a try.  This whole process has been a real exercise in patience.  I had a couple of really down weeks after the holidays, and then bam, Ching lost her job.
So, for the past week or so my thought has been, God hasn't brought us this far to abandon us now.

Yesterday, Ching got a call from her contracting company boss saying everyone was working on getting her moved to a contract for office Y.  Wow.  They had already agreed to pay her two weeks severance (through the 24th) - that also doesn't usually happen.  Her boss said they'd keep paying her until they worked out the new contract, which could take a week or two.

Basically, her being fired turned into a paid vacation.

She really needed this break.  She's gotten to rest, exercise, and spend some great time with Noah.  But, she's also seen just how valued she was at her job.  And her line of work can often feel pretty thankless. 

The Contracting Cycle

Last Monday night, Ching got a call from her boss boss.  (There are too many layers of management in contracting.)  He asked her to meet with him the next morning.  He left the impression there might be some small matter to address.  Nope, she was let go from her job.  Some higher up somewhere re-wrote the contract so that she was no longer qualified to do the job she was doing.  It happens.

In the ten years she's been a contractor, she's never had a job for two years.  Sometimes it's by choice, sometimes not.  This time really caught us by surprise. 

We have a decent emergency fund for times like this, but it probably isn't what it should be due to my real estate stuff and new stairs.  (We really didn't see this coming.)

As for my real estate stuff...  ugh.  I'm still waiting on two things to be able to actually list a house for sale or to represent a buyer.  Not that either of those things look likely to happen soon.  We'll see.

Ching was feeling a little burnt out and overly tired, this is never the ideal way to get a break.

Noah is just happy to have Ma home more, taking him to school and picking him up.  We've tried explaining it to him, but it's just as well, he doesn't really understand.

Sunday, we go get the new puppy - so that's something fun!

A New Career

Back in early September, I asked my cousin, Dean, what it would take to get my real estate license, and what the job is really like.  Shortly thereafter, I started down this path.  It's definitely been a one thing, one step at a time journey.  I took an online class, then I had to take a final for that.  Due to snafus, the test took a little longer to get scheduled and done than I liked.  Then I had to register and take the actual licensing test.  I passed that yesterday.  Thank God I'm good at classes and test taking.

The other process involved finding a company to work with.  That's been a little tougher.  There are two very different compensation approaches.  But, as a complete newbie, I know that going with the more training/less money is the smart move.

Today we sent off the official license application.  Week after next I'll be signing all the paperwork to actually partner with a broker.

Throughout the process so far, it's been a roller coaster ride.  Between the stress of getting this preliminary stuff done, there was the stress of the election.  It actually ended up that I took the class final the morning after the election.  Yeah, that was some smart planning on my part!

So, at this stage of life I'm starting something entirely new.  I've said for over a year now that I'm optimistic about life and the future.  This is me trying to put that into a tangible form.

My brain still makes all of this a roller coaster ride.  What if I suck?  What if I never sell a house?  Blah blah blah.  But the other side is the optimism, that I can really do well at this.

First Grade

This is what I wrote this time last year. 

Today is the same and different.  The same in that I'm going to miss him during the day.  We've been together almost 24/7 the past month.  Towards the end of summer it was a little iffy, maybe we were both a little bored.  Different in that he and I have kindergarten under our belts, we've got this school routine down already.  Thankfully he's still excited about going to school. Although he's not clear on why there are different kids in his class this year.  That's a hard one to explain.  

This year he has a Korean woman for his teacher.  I know it's supposed to make a big difference in kids' lives that they have role models and teachers and such that look like they do.  We don't really know how much it matters to Noah.  There's so much diversity in our world already.  She's very positive and optimistic about getting all the kids reading this year.  We'll see how our boy does. 

Mother's Day - This is being a Mother

The past 24 hours are what parenting is about. Changed plans where we end up at an airshow which Noah loves. Soccer games cancelled both Saturday and Sunday. Three hours after we get home from the airshow Noah tells us his ear hurts. Uh oh. Give him tylenol and hope he can sleep until morning when we can take him to a clinic. Wake up at 11:30 pm to him saying it really hurts. Poor baby, this is the first time he's complained of pain.

Off to the ER we go. Where he immediately pukes up the antibiotics and motrin as we're about to head home. My stomach growling because I went to bed hungry thinking I'd wake up and eat a decent breakfast. So, off to the all night pharmacy, which informs me their computers are processing the day's batch and so it's $50 for the antibiotics until I can make a second trip to have it re-processed. Many cuss words. Back to sleep about 2:30

Plans, new plans, changed plans this morning. Fun. (or not) Evil neighbor kid ends up in the house (with Noah and our friends' kids) and dumps 1/3 of a container of fish food into the fish tank. More cuss words. Figuring out how to clean out the fish tank while expelling the evil child and entertaining the good ones. Then Noah pulls out his current loose tooth. At least this one we have for the tooth fairy.

Off to see if the haircut place for Noah is open. Nope. (I kinda figured.) The pet food store to get the cats food. The grocery store for a few things.

Time to finally fire up the grill.

Why in the world don't I drink??

But, this is being a mother. And it's still the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Loopholes

Noah has the potential to make a great lawyer one day.  He is an expert at finding and exploiting loopholes.  (I joke with Ching that the osmosis between Noah and I is strong...  the red highlights in his hair, and now loopholes.  It's from all the nights he and I played while she was pregnant and sleeping.)

Noah has "self control" issues in school - you know, because he's a five year old boy.  The first month of school, when they did what's called walking feet after lunch, where they walk around the circular drive in front of the school, he tended to run.  We talked with him, and that problem got better. 

I think it was at the parent/teacher conference we found out Noah has a tendency to drop things on the floor, then get out of his chair and crawl around to get them.  And he still likes to throw things - like the dice when they're doing a math game.  Sigh. 

So, I gave Noah three rules.  Stay in your chair, keep your hand to yourself, and don't throw anything. 

And that mostly worked. 

Until yesterday, when after school his teacher told me he had spit on the floor and licked a kid.  (Ok, he licked her shirt, which is Ching's fault because they have this weird lick each other thing that he and I don't do!)

I asked him why he was spitting.  It's something he's done a few times here at home, but not often.  And he mentioned something about getting up to clean it up.

Ah-ha.  It seems he found a new way to get out of his seat.  Heh. 

Kindergarten Update

We got Noah's six week report yesterday.  It was the general one from his teacher, and then an update on his IEP goals.  The overall picture is that Noah is really, really distracted by all the goings on in the classroom.  We're not really surprised by any of it.  But it's hard not to worry a little bit about our boy.  Thankfully, we've had two years of pre-school and we know his strengths and weaknesses.

Every day he tells us he had fun at school.  He likes the other kids, and they seem to like him.  He's good at the routine of school.  We just didn't know how he was doing on actual school work.  The worksheets he brings home are fine.  And when he and I do his little bit of homework he does fine.  The biggest problem is he just can't pay attention in class to save his life.

We knew that this was going to be a problem.  It's a big change from 12 kids and 3 teachers to 22 kids and 2 teachers.  There's just so much going on in the classroom.  And he's a kid who from just about the day he was born loves to watch what everyone in the world is doing - literally.  If he were older, he'd probably be one of those kids staring out the window all day, and then having to do all of his school work once he got home.  In Kindergarten, it's a little bit more of a problem that he can't pay attention. 

One of the things we've learned about Noah is that he learns almost everything by watching videos - his alphabet, numbers, shapes, colors, everything.  Thankfully, there are some good educational websites where he can learn letter sounds and all the other things they're working on.  We showed him one of them yesterday and he spent a good amount of time on there and enjoyed it.

We have to keep coming back to our goals for Noah and school - that he enjoys being there.  We can't change what they have to learn in kindergarten these days, but we don't have to get caught up in it all.  That can be hard.  To not compare where he is to where all the other kids are.  He's just not a typical student, and we may never know why.

To us, the most important thing is that he's a happy and sweet boy who loves to go to school, loves music, and loves to play outside with his friends.  At five, not much else really matters.