Praise the heavens for sweet potatoes

It’s amazing how booking a one-day job with a new photo client makes me feel human again.

The national news media and I have been doing a wonderful job of presenting nightmarish economic scenarios that have left me on the verge of a breakdown the last two months.

Shooting a sweet potato festival in Mississippi sounds like the best cure for my insisting on projecting into next year where I inevitably imagine that I’ve run out of $$, I am forced to sell my house, and my kids can no longer attend their beloved school because I will have failed to figure this mess of my life out.

Not that this is an impossibility. In fact I will be extremely grateful if I can figure out how not to move and how to keep the kids at Redmont through 2010. I feel like if I can make it to then, things will have settled down in my personal life and externally and it should, in theory be easier.

The stock market crash and the slowdown in real estate have shaken me to the core; these are my financial lifelines right now, and they are dwindling rapidly.

So I’m thinking about getting a job. Only problem is childcare. What do you do with your kids in the summer? How do you deal with long workdays and also get supper on the table? How do you ever exercise? I just don’t know.

My dream job would be to well, continue doing what I’m doing and actually make enough $$ so I’m not a nervous wreck when things slow down. BUT, really, I’d love to be able to work at the Redmont School. It’s funny, b.c when I visited and took photos at the school for a day when I was photographer at the Post Herald 8 or so years ago, I thought, gosh if I ever have kids, they are going to attend this school.

And then I actually considered leaving journalism to become a Waldorf teacher and did some investigating, but concluded at the time the pay was too little and the training too expensive. But now, with two kids in the school and being a single parent, I’ve again crunched the #’s and it actually could work.

Bur the only opening at the moment at the school is for a 1st grade teacher, which I feel that I could do at some point, but would feel a bit presumptuous applying for since I don’t have a great deal of experience with teaching children (although I do have college-level teaching experience) and it involves an 8-year commitmnet (teachers move up wth their class each year). I may feel more ready in a few years (wouldn’t want to apply for the 2010 first grade class since Avery would be in it).

So, I’m training to substitute teach right now. And shooting occasional assignments. And hoping to God my house in Crestwood sells soon.

But I’m trying to drum up more photo work and am looking for part time/flexible things like administrative assistant, marketing, teaching, library work, etc. I’ve got a couple of building ideas, too.

And I’ll keep subbing. B/c I LOVE my kids’ school. And so do they. Keep your fingers crossed that I can make all of this work. I’m open to ideas and would love to hear from anyone who thinks they know of a job that might work for me. As anyone who has worked with me knows, I’m creative, work hard, am reliable and stick to my word, and work well with a wide variety of people but am also focused and self directed. And I learn quickly.

I feel like if I can navigate my family through the next two years and keep the basics (home and school) the same, I ought to be able to run a country or some huge corporation. Or take on a class of first graders.