i don't want to jinx anything, but now that it looks like i may have a job fairly soon ('fairly' being relative in terms of getting employed by the county), saxy and i are making a few plans, particularly for him. with taz not having nearly as many problems (heck, with taz having next to no problems) as he did in cali, i can actually work fairly full time without worrying about whether the school is going to need me in the middle of the day. i still need the flexibility of a substitute position because of my own physical limitations and the fact that taz does get sick easier than most kids (including my own), so a f.t. certified teacher position is still not the best job for me even though it would pay more. this, of course, could change in a year or two, but for right now, subbing is the best thing for me. anyway, working fairly f.t. i can bring in about $1300 a month. saxy working part time can bring in $960 a month ($12/hour versus my $75/day). that kind of money not only helps get us out of debt, but allows for a few other possibilities.

the one thing saxy has always wanted is to go to culinary school and open his own restaurant. problem is that culinary school costs. in fact, culinary school is more expensive than a masters degree. without financial aid, there's no way to afford it. and until saxy has 2 good quarters in school of 2.0 or higher, he won't qualify for f.a., which means actual culinary school is out. without this subbing job, any schooling is out.

but with the subbing job, things are much different. the subbing job presents its own obstacles (in particular, scheduling), but it also provides for opportunities we, and especially saxy, didn't have before.

the biggest issue we had is the management of schedules. as it stands now, mcat wants saxy at work (wherever work is that day) before or by 8 a.m. this means saxy leaves the house at 7 or 7:30. no big deal when i'm not working since i can get the little ones off to school. but on days i sub, i have to be at the school by 6:40 a.m. considering taz's bus doesn't pick him up until 8:50, saxy being out the door by 7:30 becomes problematic. however, as i said, part time isn't so bad for him. really $240/week for 20 hours isn't all that bad. and, considering i wouldn't need to be picked up until 3, he could actually work a little longer than 4 hours a day. this all, of course, assumes no issues over it with mcat. the last time we mentioned the scheduling issues, he said something about needing to get taz taken care of, possibly by a neighbor.

not bloody likely.

but we won't go there today. for once, i'm not going to let my brother's ideas/behavior lead me into a rant-fest.

anyway, this kind of schedule gets saxy home in the mid-afternoon with plenty of time for homework and allows for evening classes without him being too worn out. and there is a technical college that offers a culinary arts a.a. - not as cheap as a community college, but definitely not the $20,000+ per year of a culinary school! when i figured all this out, i asked saxy if he was interested in going back to school with the aim of eventually getting him into a culinary school.

silly me. of course he wants to go back to school!

we discussed the whole process, why he would have to do technical school first, what kind of degree he should aim for, what kind of money we should save for it and how, all that. while not the cost of a culinary school, the technical school still isn't cheap and some planning has to be made to make it work. which is why i approached it with him now. it does put my whole m.a. on hold a little longer, but, really, that's no big deal since the m.a. is looking less appealing by the day (which has a lot to do with how many graduates actually publish or work in the field once they have an m.a. or m.f.a. - the numbers for m.f.a. students is utterly ridiculous so the m.f.a. is now no great loss for me and not even a consideration for future programs). with the program he's looking at getting into, he'll probably get the culinary arts a.a. from the tech school and a restaurant management degree from the culinary arts school, but we'll see how that all works out.

what's important here is that we're making plans - that we feel we can make plans, that saxy's excited about being able to reach for his dreams. and it's just so cool we can do all that and, as long as this job comes through, be able to pay off bills too.

oh, hell, it's just way cool we can feel like we can make plans.