Job News

We are finally settled on the job front.  We will be heading back to to the U.S..  I am excited and relieved to have a plan in place.  But, they threw me a bit of a curve ball on start date.  We aren't scheduled to leave here until July, but they would like us to come NOW, if possible, and no later than May otherwise.  I wasn't really expecting that.

Part of me would love to go back now.  Honestly, I am weary, and it would be nice to be living in the U.S. again.  From a practical perspective, it simply doesn't make sense.  First, I have no schools lined up for the kids.  We are playing the school lottery for next year, but for now, we have nothing.  Finding care for a 5 year old and and almost 3 year old in a major city on a moment's notice is not really possible.  Especially when you factor in the compensation piece.  My compensation package isn't as healthy for this job.  We needed to go back for other reasons, honestly.  I think I didn't push hard to stay abroad because I know we need to spend some time in the U.S.  It made sense to take what is essentially a giant paycut (like, $3,000 a month, after taxes, so HUGE pay cut).  But with the ages my kids are, it's also a tough time to go back, because GOOD LORD, how are we going to pay for everything?

Of course, T has also been staying home with the kids, and the reason we have been able to afford that for the last 5 years is because we've spent most of that time overseas, where we benefited from a very nice salary on my part.  T is eager to get back to work in his field (his job here gets him out of the house, but not in his field).  In the back of my head, the plan for the budget working out was that he would be working.  But now that the reality is here, I also realize that it's not like he's going to snap his fingers and have a job.  It's going to take time.  If I knew he had a job lined up, it would be easy to head back early.  But, right now that's a big black hole.

And on top of having no schools lined up in the U.S., we have very good school options lined up here.  Miss M starts school next week (it's the start of the school year for her school, which is on the South American calendar).  We've settled on a preschool for SB, and she is supposed to start next week, also.  They'll both be in Spanish-speaking schools, which is totally to their benefit.

So it totally makes no sense for us to go back early.  Unless T gets a job, which definitely isn't going to happen during the time period that I have to make this decision about when to go back.  Sigh.  This is hard.

And also, I'm doing my followup tests today.  We did my cancer markers a few days ago, and they are slightly higher, although still in the normal range.  Of course, this totally freaks me out.  So I'm stressing about this, too, and praying that everything comes out just fine.  It's time for me to head off to the hospital for the tests, actually.