Phillips Follies

So. (Harkening to the opening sentence of the great Anglo-Saxon tale, Beowulf), this year has been really interesting. January started off and Einar and I thought things would be the way they always were-- he'd be teaching music, I'd be teaching English. Sometime this summer though at a fateful poker game with one of my good friends from middle school and my first ex-boyfriend(yes, he and Einar are friends), Einar decided that to get out of teaching, he'd like to pursue a career as a fireman/EMT. He promptly set to work researching college and online courses for his EMT Basic and found an online course that seemed to work best with his current situation-- not having that much free time to devote to new careers. He's been working on that for 6 months now and hopes to be able to attend the skills training in April so that he can earn his certification. My mom has been really enjoying having someone else who is very interested in the health professions. Anyway, last month, he got accepted into the firefighter academy at SAC. He starts in January and will attend class after his school day from 6-10pm and on Saturdays from 8-5. I've kind of resigned myself that I'll be a widow until he graduates in June. But we're hoping that as soon as he graduates, he can land a job at a fire station and be pulling the rest of his teaching salary(we get paid until August for the previous year) plus a new salary firefighting. In a perfect world it would turn out. We'll see how it goes in reality.
I've been trying to find ways that I too could stop teaching next year because teaching is a miserable profession in which 150 younger people conspire to kill you slowly using only words and actions while a small army of other adults attempt to foil your every attempt at defending yourself. And yes, I've only been teaching for 4 years and another yes, I did find this out by about 6 months into my first year. Days have been filled with searching the net and trying to send some feelers out through people I know. I think I've found a possible out in a position as Assistant Director at Huntington Learning Center, but that depends on a whole bunch of variables. Since June, Einar and I have been trying to get pregnant, to no avail. When the dear Lord decides that we're ready for this next step in our lives, I will stay home, possibly working part time on the days that Einar has off at the station. The Huntington job might start in June depending on things that are out of my control, but if I get pregnant before that, I probably won't take it because I will have to just quit. I feel bad though because if I'm not and June rolls around and I'm able to take the job and then I get pregnant, I won't really feel great telling them I have to quit so soon after the promotion. Anyway, we'll just have to see how events transpire. By the way, none of Einar's family know that we've been trying and we'd like to keep it that way because of the disaster that was his brother's illegitimate daughter, so if you happen to talk to anyone connected with any of them, we would really appreciate it if you would keep mum.
So such is our life and position at this time. Or lack thereof.