If at first you don't succeed... retire.

What's funny about the fact that I haven't written in such a long time is that the last thing I said was "but I bet that one thunderstorm will be really charming."  Ooops, it was a real whopper* of a storm and it actually made my flight delayed by 5 hours.  I was flying into Atlanta, and with the storm there, no planes were allowed to take off out of Atlanta (quick note:  I honestly just typed "plain" and "aloud" in that sentence.  I realized it before I was done typing the word, but still, someone might need to go back to school.) The plane that was supposed to come pick me up couldn't take off until the storm was over, then it still had to get us and take us back.

*You ask me price

A few charming things happened during my 6 hour sit in the airport though.  I kind of love the moments when it feels like you're all in it together, and this was definitely one of those times.  TSA wouldn't have been happy, but people were watching each others bags, one lady fell asleep on her stranger neighbor's shoulder and he didn't make her move, and I got to talk to two ladies who were about to leave on a trip to meet up with 6 of their other best friends from college for an annual weekend together.  I have a group of friends that does almost the exact same thing! so, since they were a little older we got to talk about what they've learned for planning and bringing babies along, etc.  They made me so excited for my trip two months later.  Charming story short, I landed in Atlanta at 3:30am, met up with my sweet uncle who had been waiting there for me since 11pm the day before, and we arrived at another uncle's house a little before 5am.  The good news is that the weather was delightful the whole rest of the weekend.  It was also the best weekend of my year, getting to be with my cute, funny family in the most beautiful Southern adult camp you'll ever see.  It's not really a camp, but what else can you call a place that has ping pong, golf, tennis, and a boat club where you call ahead and they have your kayaks all ready for you?  And where dolphins swim around you!  In South Carolina!  We also got to take bikes through the whole place and saw maybe the most amazing thing I've seen to date: a baby armadillo.  Maybe you've seen this video, my baby armadillo was even younger than that one!  It was all pink and its shell was soft and it forgot for a little bit that it was afraid of us and just moseyed across the path we were biking on.  Win win win.

That was a long aside to say that it was a great trip, but it sure wasn't a charming thunderstorm.  You're welcome.  Now to the goals.

I haven't been slacking on the achieving of goals, just on the writing about them.  So now I will write about a goal I've been working on but haven't yet achieved.

I may have mentioned that at the end of June I finished up my job where I was a smiling face to answer a phone.   I left because I wanted to both be available for any last minute teaching jobs that posted, and feel the discomfort of unemployment to push me to apply for as many teaching jobs as humanly possible.  At the beginning of the summer I found out about a job that would be available this fall at the school where I did my student teaching 5 years ago, and in Kindergarten, no less.  If I could make up a job to want, that's pretty much the one I would have made up.  They called me a week and a half ago to offer me an interview, I was thrilled, and immediately told about everyone I know so that they could be praying for me, for it, for whatever they wanted.

It was really incredible to me how many people called and texted me the night before and morning of the interview.  Including encouragement from my family, most of my old coworkers, all of the FFW girls, and lots of friends.  My sister in law who worked at the school called to prep me the day before, two of my teacher friends talked teacher jargon with me for a few hours, and I even bought some books that another teacher friend told me that all the teachers are talking about.  Well I didn't get the job.  They hired someone with more Kindergarten experience than I have; apparently they didn't think that men's fashion experience was applicable?  What?  So what I've realized is that while I know that I'm going to be a great teacher one day, they don't know me from Adam and I need to prove myself and get some experience.  So that's what this year will be.  I have always sort of landed in the laps of other jobs, so I expected that to happen again, but I think it will be good for me to go through a process of preparing and working hard for this thing I really want.  And it will make me one thankful little teacher one day. 

The upside of a life of semi-permanent retirement is this:  I have a whole lot of time to accomplish goals. So I can't cross off #39- Get a teaching job, but not everything is accomplished on the first try!  The learning is in the trying again.  I hope.

So you better be ready for me goals, because I'm coming in hot!