Christmas is over and I hope everyone had just as good of a time as we had. Since calories don't count on Christmas...they begin counting again today. And hard! I'm pretty sure I ate enough Grape Jelly Meatballs to last a lifetime. The New Year is about to hit, and that can mean a lot of things for a lot of people.
I for one am sort of dreading it. It seems to be we are at the same fork in the road we were at when 2011 rang it's bells. Just maybe not to the same extent, and we don't have things as cemented as we did that January. Jeremy brought it up before we went to bed last night...and I did my usual not entirely listening. After such a big move 2 years ago, it is a lot to swallow. The chance of us moving for his internship is great. As abundant as teachers seem to run, school psychologists sometimes run in the realm of one or two per parish. Therefore nothing is based on my job, it is all tossed to the wind to see what magical parish in Louisiana wants to hire that year.
The parish we are currently looking at is about an hour away from where we live now. He could commute, but the amount of money we could make won't be matched in many other parishes. Where I'm at now, I took a big paycut when we moved here. After 3 years of teaching and a Master's I am making what I made with no expereince and a B.A. in north Louisiana. Our ability to save money like we once could disappeared. If we stay and he communtes, that money we would be saving from his salary would be used up in gas. Plus I would be basically saying that I couldn't use to extra 4-5 thousand.
If we were to get into this particular parish we could bump out savings back up, pay off student loans quick, and pay off our cars that we were forced to purchase after moving to south Louisiana. When he's done we'd have money for a house, and possibly be able to save up again to travel like we like to.
The downside is that we have made such good friends where we are. Friends that it seems took us a year to feel like we had. Our first year was rough, making friends in a group that already had friends isn't ideal. On top of that, Jeremy is the youth minister at our church. Plus we are involved in the praise team. This nearly nonexistant and possbile dead church has, in the past year, grown leaps and bounds. There has been a sort of revival in recent months, and we have an amazing pastor who I couldn't write out into words just how much we appreciate him and everything he does to lead our church.
But, we might have to leave it behind.
When we do, if we do, move, we could possibly have to move the year after that if he isn't hired in the same parish he did internship in. I know this all too well. My uncle is a school psychologist, they lived in north Louisiana, he had to commute to his internship, and then they ended up in south Louisiana because that is who was hiring at the time. If we wanted to, we had the chance to go to Alaska for this internship.
I know God knows what's going on. I'm the one who is left wondering. I just really hope that wherever we go, we are able to serve in a church like we have here. The hardest part will be leaving friends behind.
If we have to. We could end up staying. When will be know the final decision...not until nearly July or possbily August. It all depends. So the next six months is going to be so much fun.
I think I can do without 2013.
