I'm no ball-player, but I can handle a curveball.

Earlier this week, I got the news that I do not have a job for the upcoming school year. This is news that I've heard before; this is news that I knew I'd eventually get, even as a student in college--Home Ec teachers are a dying breed. Unfortunately, the public education system seems to delight in our withering away.

Because of the way my Foods program is set up, it pretty much has me destined to fail. The program goes as follows: enroll in and pass both levels 1 & 2, then enroll in the 2-credit internship and work 400 hours over the course of an entire school year at a foodservice establishment. Simple, right? That's twenty 20-hour work weeks--something that almost every student can accomplish, as long as he or she is willing. But here's the kicker: I am assigned 4 level 1 classes each year; 2 level 2 classes each year; and I don't have control over my internships. 

How is this supposed to work, when the numbers that I try so hard to increase are set up to automatically decrease?

I mentioned this to the principal, and to guidance. I suggested that perhaps they could modify the program so that it was no longer a state completer for graduation, but simply an elective...No. They can't do that. So, the funding for my program was cut off, and my husband and I are left to pick up the pieces of my shattered career (dramatic, yes, but that's what it's felt like this week in our house).

It's a good thing I'm smart and I plan for crap like this.

We're going to look at houses this weekend, on the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line. The original plan was to get pre approved on only one income (his) just in case this happened. We don't have to change our plan at all! Now, the house that I really wanted has a contract on it, as of Monday (which, incidentally, is the same day I found out through email that I was losing my job!)--but there are plenty more to see...I just think it would be nice if there were more like that one, especially with nearly 5 acres attached...but I digress.

The plan will not change. We need to get out of our current neighborhood and city. When he's away, as he was this past weekend, I sleep under the following conditions:

• both the front and back doors deadbolted
• a barricade at each basement door
• a loaded revolver under his pillow
• a shotgun within arm's reach of my bed
• my car keys under the pillow, right next to the revolver
• the dog sleeps in the master bedroom with me
• my large Maglite stays on the nightstand
• both my cell phone and landline lay on the bed next to me

It's not right that I should have to sleep like that when he's not home. It's not right that I should have to be in fear of neighborhood "hood rats" breaking into my car or my home. We need to get out of here.

So, I'm leaving my house in about an hour to go apply for a summer job as a waitress at a restaurant we enjoy, and as soon as my hair is dry and I'm dressed presentably, I'll be snapping a webcam photo to attach to my resume--and that will be sent to the local community college, along with my cover letter, in which I pretty much beg them to add Domestic Arts courses to their lifelong learning courses and let me teach them. Hopefully, one (or both) of these options will result in employment so that we can get some bills paid off for good, and get the hell outta Dodge.

Should be a fun day.