Changes for the New Year

We’ve got some big changes coming our way for this coming year.  We hope and pray we will have a brand new baby this coming summer.  I think when you’ve waited this long for a full-term pregnancy, you kinda hold your breath a bit…and just pray.

There may also be some changes in the future concerning Illumination Learning.  I’m still discussing it with Les.  But in the mean time, we’ll be having at least one more webinar in March.  I’m kinda excited about this one.  The theme is “Enriching Our Church School Classrooms”.  It’s the entire reason why I started Illumination Learning in the first place – and I will even be one of the presenters this time around.

I’m also going to have to get a job.  There’s just no way around this.  Les’ “new” job did not come with benefits.  As we have discovered, we didn’t realize just how nice it was to work for a big company until we no longer had insurance, retirement, etc.  The cost is astronomical.  Topped with a student loan that can no longer be deferred – Jenny NEEDS to get a job.  I have no desire to teach in a public school anymore but even if I did, my entire paycheck would go to supplying my classroom thus nullifying the entire point of me going back to work.  I have to have a job where I can be off when the kids get out of school and have days off (in the summer, snow days, etc) – which lends itself really only to teaching positions but I wouldn’t make enough teaching to justify it.  (Plus – we won’t even mention daycare – mainly because that’s not even an option for me personally.)  We’ve been thinking…and thinking.  And…I believe we have a plan.  We’re going to start a little business.  We’ve talked several times about how it’s hard for us to travel now because we’d need someone to come to our house twice a day to take care of the chickens.  An idea was born!  We’re going to start a chicken sitting service for our area.  Others exist (but not around us) and we can take care of others’ chickens while they go on vacation.  Start up cost is minimal – website, business cards, etc.  They provide the food.  We let the chickens out in the morning and put them up at night.  We collect eggs, refill water and food, etc.  I can bring the kids with me too.  We’ll also provide a garden watering service when we come over to take care of the chickens.  Soooo….I’ll be working on this for the next couple of months and hope to have it ready to go by early spring.  Hopefully this will help us out a bit.

Happy New Year everyone!