My Job is Making Me Green

Lately I've been asked by quite a few people how my new job is going. I started on March 31st and so far it's GREAT! I feel so blessed to be where I am. My old self is back and I feel so much better about who I am and what I'm doing.

The first part of my day at school is spent working with an elementary classroom doing one-on-one reading with kids who need that little bit of "extra" help in accomplishing the task of daily reading. Then my special needs student arrives and we work on Life Skills activities and classroom stuff. I am actually teaching and I love it. My student is attentive and has a great attitude. Part of the Life Skills program is to have him make his own lunch every day at school, so every Monday we plan a menu for the week, do the grocery shopping at our local grocery store and prepare his lunch each day like he would need to do if he were going to a "real" job. We also bake and clean on a regular basis.

On Mondays we are at school all day, but from Tuesday to Friday, we travel to another town located about 20 minutes away where he participates in a work experience program. We work at SARCAN, which is a recycling depot. We get down and dirty, processing the recycling products that come through, which includes pop cans, plastic bottles, glass, tin, tetras, cardboard, paper, paint, televisions and computers. There are three other special needs fellows that work in the back with us (they are employees) so it allows my student to develop friendships as well. We only have two hours each day that we're there to accomplish a lot. It's been very eye-opening for me personally to see the behind-the-scenes part of recycling, and it's actually put me into a heightened awareness of how I can improve my own household in the area of recycling. Since moving to our acreage we've had no choice but to recycle, since we don't have weekly trash pick-up. I never realized how much garbage we actually were accumulating when we lived in a town and how horrible I was being to the environment by not recycling back then. But I've turned a new leaf and am really getting green. That transition took place since we moved here, but because of my work at SARCAN, I'm getting greener by the day. This is a good thing.

Anyways . . . when we finish up our two hours at the "job", we return to our town and the day is done. On Mondays I stay at school until 3:30 p.m. helping out any teacher that needs extra things done, or I shelve books in the library. From Tuesday to Friday I don't have the opportunity to help out at the school after hours due to travel time. But this is all part of the way the principal planned out my day, so I guess I'm okay with it. Actually, I'm more than okay with it. I spend almost an hour a day driving and I get paid to do it. This is the time where my student and I talk and listen to music and just get to have some casual time together.

The only struggle I face in my new job is not at the workplace; it's at home. I am so far behind on my housework I feel that I don't even know where to begin to get my place back into ship-shape. And it doesn't help that for the past few Saturdays we haven't been home much, and I am really opposed to working on Sundays, so my sense of order is definitely out of whack at the moment. This really bothers me. However, I am grateful for a day off from work tomorrow (there is no school for the students--only for the teachers), so I've got high hopes for myself to get my surroundings back to normal. I am not kidding when I say there is a thick layer of dust covering my furniture, window ledges and hardwood floors. My kitchen is chaos right now. And in the midst of setting up a better recycling system in my house, my sun-room is currently a mess. My bathrooms haven't been cleaned in . . . well, let's just say they need a thorough germ-demolition. Mine and Wayne's bedroom and Mitchell's bedroom are a disaster, which leaves Ty's room--the only tidy place in the entire house. So yes, things are pretty bad when your six-year old son's room is in a better state than your own!

So, yeah. I've got to come up with a better system to stay on-top of my household duties. I'm not sure why this is such a struggle for me this time around--at least before when I was working I was somehow able to manage to keep a handle on the housework most of the time. I think it's partly due to the fact that my job is more demanding now in the sense that I've got a heavier physical load at my workplace than I've ever had before, and that may beginning to catch up with me. I'm not complaining--I actually enjoy the physical work. I guess my body just isn't used to it, and therefore when I arrive home from work I'm physically exhausted and don't "feel" like cleaning the house.

The boys are really enjoying the fact that I'm at school with them, even though I don't get to work directly in their classrooms. They are both doing quite well with school. They just got their report cards last week and yesterday was parent-student-teacher interviews and I was relieved to discover that Mitchell's issues from a few months ago have improved drastically. And Ty continues to excel in his class. I'm so proud of them both.

I think I mentioned this previously, but my position at the school may only go until the end of June 2008. There is a possibility of it being extended until June 2009, but nothing is set in stone at this point. I am praying that God will work this all out and I sense from Him that He will continue to provide for us, no matter what happens with my job. I'm just grateful to have my job for the time being; however, as I enjoy security and stability, I'm praying that this will all be sorted out prior to the end of this school year so that I don't spend my entire summer holiday pondering what to do come fall.

I know this has been a long post and I applaud you for making it this far. I feel so blessed. Thanks for (listening) reading.