I had a false start on a blog I tried to publish with pictures of the kids and I making muffins and carving pumpkins with Ariel last Sunday...but, alas, I can't get the stupid pictures to upload off the camera. I am just going to have to wait for Ar's help. This last week has been a bit of a bear...we have been way understaffed with several people off and there is a constant pressure to work more days. When there isn't, there is usually two hours of overtime per night. Today is my four day weekend stretch - so I got to do lots of lovely things; I took a nap with Elias and Hamda, and walked them to get hot chocolate after school. Now they are all playing at the park in the sunshine. I really like it when I am able to unwind. Shukri and I are going to make meatballs for dinner.
I really enjoyed posting about my homeschool thoughts - so I thought I would post about another internal debate I have going on. I have been talking to Ar about where we see ourselves in five years...I feel like there are three real choices for us, although I am definitely open to other opportunities.
1. Stay in Olympia. We like it here. Our families live here. It is a good place to live - although we will probably need a bigger house by the time the kids hit their teen years. It is our hometown, though - which has its advantages and disadvantages.
2. Move to Portland. I love Portland - and it is a bit more affordable to live than Seattle. There are also a lot of good jobs for NP's in Portland. Every time we go, we wander around the Laurelhurst neighborhood were we would like to live. Ariel doesn't think he would have too much trouble starting up a new business down there.
3. Look for jobs abroad. I have always wanted to live abroad, and I do think that sometime I will. Ariel lived in the Phillipines when he was young and it was a great experience for his family. Both the state department and the U.S. military hire civilian nurse practitioners and post them around the globe - this is pretty close to my dream job. The question is more if the time to do this is sooner or later.
I like having choices - it is fun to think about all the possibilities, especially since all of them really would be nice. I can't get too secure - because the last place in the world I would have imagined being ten years ago is living in my hometown, a married Mother of Four.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
We always fantasize about living abroad. We talk about it a lot. The only thing that deters us is the thought of not having our (future) kids grow up around their grandparents. Neither of our moms like to get on planes, so that would be a problem.
We go back and forth. Sometimes we think it would be fine, in Germany you get 6 weeks of vacation a year (*envious sigh*) and so we could spend a good month back in Seattle once a year. It isn't like the kids wouldn't know their grandparents. It's just that they wouldn't have the close relationship that both of us had with our grandparents, with whom we shared houses growing up.
I think that Portland would be a fantastic compromise, if you felt like living abroad would take the kids too far away from family.
Then again, I've always fantasized about being one of those cool diplomat kids. They always seem like such open, self-assured people ...
A tough question! But you're also really lucky that you have such nice options with the career as an NP.
Post a Comment