So I have written this blog post so many ways in my head...

...but I don't know which way I came up with was the best or the shortest to explain all that has been going on.
Good News... WE HAVE A PLAN!
Bad News... WE HAVE TO MOVE AGAIN!!
Warning... this post is very long but cathartic for me to write, share, learn, and move on. Maybe read in chunks!! ha ha. Skip to "final plan" if you don't want the summary.

Luke quit his job after 2 weeks back in February before it would get to the point that he thought they would fire him. He just couldn't learn as fast and be independent as fast as they wanted him to be despite working long hours, shadowing another therapist, and studying at night. He thought when he interviewed that they understood he was coming from no experience and that they would give him time to learn. Bottom line... he learned that working in a medical setting is not for him.

He made a couple of mistakes, not life-threatening, in charting and in staffing meetings which doctors and corporate people witnessed, and he was seeing a patient with a family member who was looking for any reason to sue. His mistakes had to do with not knowing the dysphagia diets off the top of his head (food textures and thicknesses that are allowed at different levels to aid safe swallowing and prevent aspiration= choking= pneumonia= death= a big deal) and writing that a person was oriented to other people but not herself - which doesn't really happen because the first thing you become oriented to after strokes/brain injuries etc. is yourself, environment, and then other people. Luke has an explanation for this because of the terminology used but I can't remember specifically.

Anyway... it is all in the past and it doesn't matter now. I don't know why we were supposed to come here to Greenwood and maybe we will find out in the future, perhaps not. Ever since we left Las Vegas in June 2010, we have been struggling to make ends meet. We chose to move to Utah to help Luke's dad with his new business after losing his job, and to care for and be close to Luke's mom while she struggled to live with Lou Gherig's Disease. We were able to pay the bills and live comfortably even though we needed medicaid for Gracie's broken leg and to have Katie born. We were very grateful to have it, but hated being on it.

After Lenna passed away and the business never turned a profit, Luke quit in August, got offered a job in a school, but he could not see himself going back into the schools as an SLP. Then we were going to go work in China but decided not to, which is a good thing because everything went South there after a few months and we would have been stranded, not to mention out money, time, and effort. I did not get the home-health job I interviewed for in SLC. I got a job in October working about 20 hours/wk for Connections Academy doing online therapy from home. It is hard to juggle being a mom and working from home. I do not recommend it but do it if you have to. Luke considered working for a internet marketing company in an entry level job and interviewed but then decided to try the medical setting one last time before leaving speech for good. He chose not to shadow a medical SLP first and flew out to Greenwood for an interview. He got the job and we moved in 2 weeks and had Christmas with my brother's family in KY on the way here. We spent some money anticipating the new higher salary and the sign-on/relocation bonus. We shouldn't have!

And here we are. We have been trying to figure something out and make it work here over the summer so we wouldn't have to move but the closest job was 90 minutes away. And to add to that, the job he interviewed for in a school next year here, decided they wanted somebody local. We waited for a month and half to hear if he got what we thought would be his Dream Job. It was at EATON working as an engineer despite having no engineering degree with 50% travel, but not working as an SLP. We knew the hiring guy and so he pulled some strings to let Luke at least interview. They grilled him for 2 hours and we got really good feedback. They loved him and he interviewed well. WELL, we didn't get the job or the second position like it because the top boss changed his mind that he DID need an engineer.

So this week has consisted of a different plan pretty much everyday until Wednesday when Luke interviewed for a job as school SLP in a Hilton Head till the end of the school year. I have been going nuts with the changes. I just wanted to pick a plan, whatever it was, and stick to it. I came to grips with moving again. Our plans involved lots of different scenarios to get us through the summer and to a permanent SLP job next school year. I will not carry on about all the different plans but just know that they included starting a garage door company, starting website consulting business, installing security systems in Virginia and somewhere else after training, living in extended stay hotels, or living separate, storage units, working at Lowe's, doing online therapy, and moving to Florida, or Texas, or anywhere!

FINAL PLAN **SUBJECT TO CHANGE**:
1- Pack our house with 7 days notice while still working
2- Pay out the nose to break our lease
3- Move in 2 trucks and tow car on Wednesday Apr 18 to our home that we still own in PCB FL. (Currently going through deed in lieu of foreclosure - basically where you give the bank back your house and you are forgiven your loan. We are not going to go through with it anymore and try to get a workout option instead. We are going to try and save our house and save our credit. It will feel so good to do both of those even though it will be smaller than we are used to. 2 bed/2 bath townhome with garage! IN A PLACE WE LOVE with people we LOVE and being able to actually save money again. We have got to put back the money that is almost gone or will be gone once we get there!)
4- Unload truck and drop off Saturday. Drive back up to SC to new place in Hilton Head SC - on the beach. It looks like we have found a 2 bed 2 bath furnished house for short term rent for 800/mo - cheaper than staying in an extended stay hotel. YAY. Hopefully it is close to the beach because we still only have one car. Maybe we will take Luke to work everyday. Hmmm. That would be okay. Turn us into early birds hopefully. ;)
5- Work in school in Hilton Head until first week in June.
6- Interview for Bay County school job in May to start next year (county our house is in).
7- Move to our home in FL to work summer school for the month of July for Washington County schools (where we worked before an hour away)
8- Interview for Washington County job who also has a job for next year as back up plan.
9- Decide if we don't get either job we will be good to do whatever job to stay in PCB FL or consider taking a job in Houston to be near my brother's family.
10- Continue working on HomeSpeechHome.com and other side endeavors with patience and hard work with the hope that OVER YEARS it will allow Luke to quit. :)

THAT'S the plan Stan! And whether we like it or not we are moving! I am not sad to leave Greenwood - several things we don't like here, but sad to leave a ward that needs a lot of help and people that we might have become good friends with. We will certainly miss the missionaries here for sure and the investigators I have become friends with. We can do the same in FL though. Even though it is a patch, I think we will have fun having a little vacation in Hilton Head on the beach with nothing there to compete for my attention. Just me and the girls, and dad after work. Who knows, maybe I will actually get to read a book for fun? I still have to work while we are there because I don't want to quit this close to the end of the school year but I have consolidated it to 1 hour/day. It should be an interesting summer. ;)

These challenges have been so hard, but we have always had our needs met. I can think of and know of a lot of people with a lot harder challenges. There are a lot of people who don't know where there next meal is coming from, and I can't imagine that. I feel so blessed and I am grateful to have my family. I love them so much. I know that we have grown closer together, we have learned what it is like to be unemployed, and that you can be happy without a lot of things and it is nice just to be able to pay the bills. We have learned how much we value stability. And most of all, it has helped Luke feel what it is like to not have stability, and extra money, and insurance, and he will continue working as an SLP in a school and love it because of how it takes care of his family and what it allows him to do. He will still keep working hard on things he is passionate about but never at the expense of taking care of his family again. :) I love that guy!