The Last Little Bit of Background, I Think

Anne of Green Gables saw me through much of February, comfy and cozy, illnesses starting to subside, cat not crapping as much on the bed.  I could almost imagine looking out at the blankets of snow on the ground and pretend I was on a peaceful, small farm on Prince Edward Island...almost, I mean, it is South Jersey.  No one can be that imaginative!

I then decided to stay with a few of my favorite books from my youth since I really needed that simplicity to stick with me through the never-ending winter.  I went with J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.  My high school was small and in my time there when grunge bands ruled the world, the football team was in a dry spell (mostly because pot does not increase your athletic aptitude), and the pretty girls were all too busy banging the faculty (substitute faculty, not tenured), we geeks and goofs had a bit of a role there.  A strong and wonderful role.  Our junior and senior English classes were divided into 12 week "mini" courses.  Over the course of those two years you picked three writing minis and three literature minis, and Tolkien was one of them.  Twelve weeks to read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy with one of the greatest Tolkien fanboys their ever was, Mr. Danny Kaye (no relation to the singing, dancing Danny Kaye.)

We obviously started with The Hobbit and his advice to us, many of whom hadn't read the father of modern fantasy or anything like him, was to "just not think about it.  There is absolutely no connection to our world and Middle Earth and don't try to make one.  Just read it.  Just take it for what it was and enjoy the adventure."

It was awesome! (said with total geekiness)  And having not read it in twenty-some years, it was just as awesome reading it the second time.  I have often tried to get my mom, an avid reader herself, to pick up a fantasy book herself and, though she has tried a little, she has never gotten through the first chapter.  It's just too far of a stretch for her to jump into another world.  Well, I love it, and it's so therapeutic.  My best friend described it best.  A few years ago I asked her if she read a particular chick-lit author and she said that at this stressful point in her life (She had taken a job at a hospital in the discharge office and had to deal with a lot of crap and see a lot of people discharged from the hospital with nowhere to go.) she couldn't read anything remotely as depressing as real life.  She thrived on trolls and goblins because they were the only thing that allowed her to escape our harsh reality.  And, yup, it's just like that.  Processing tiny, furry little men, a man who is sometimes a bear, dragons who are very smart (did you know dragons could talk?), and an all powerful ring leaves no time in your mind for the other junk.*

Feeling nostalgic for high school after reading The Hobbit, what should naturally follow, but a book that brings back such great memories of another time in my life--college.  Since I can't really relive my glory drinking days of college (I have tried with sad and pathetic results.  Just ask my husband.), I thought I'd relive my ultimately favorite college course, Austen; and thus picked up Sense and Sensibility.  We met once a week, almost all of us female with the exception of two guys, and we discussed (nope, not the right word again, you don't discuss Austen, you gossip about Austen) gossiped about all of Austen's novels--who was dating whom, what dress she wore, who was a slut, who was a snob, etc., etc.  Everything we said was right.  We watched all the movies, and at the end of the course we were deemed official Janites (term used for Jane Austen fangirls).  And, ironically enough in an Austen course with only two guys, I had my first crush...let me clarify...a guy had a crush on me for the first time at school.  (I went to a school that was 75 percent female and my favorite class was Jane Austen, so don't judge!  It was so totally a HUGE deal!)

Sense and Sensibility isn't exactly my favorite Austen novel; in fact, it's my least favorite.  But, I typically reread an Austen novel once a year and this is one I haven't ever picked up again.  I chose it for that reason and also because it was the first book we read in that class, so rereading it really and truly brought me back to that time in my life.

OK, so after Anne of Green Gables, The Hobbit, and Sense and Sensibility, I'm feeling a lot better and it's spring and we're almost all illness-free, AND the cat is starting to come downstairs and sleeping on the dining room table again.  Life is getting brighter by the minute!

Our financial situation has always been somewhat bleak and when you're a one-income family your prospects of getting out of that aren't really that great.  We live a relatively simple life so there isn't really much room to cut any more out of our budget.  The idea of me going back to teaching full time gets closer to reality with each year.  After having read these three books, books from the most promising and hopeful time of my life, I make the decision to return to teaching.  The older boys are both in school full days, and I've spent nearly three years home with the little guy.  I can return to work with a minimal amount of guilt and minimal child care expenses.  This is totally doable!

I have had these thoughts before, but this past spring I went into action.  I actually applied to several school school districts who had actual job postings.  Shit was getting real!

And then disaster struck again.  Panic set in about how I was going to juggle work and kids.  I needed something to inspire...Enter Eat, Pray, Love.



* Side Note:  I do not have any plans to move onto the LOTR trilogy.  That requires much more thinking and is much less an adventure and much more a war story.  Different train of thought that my mind wasn't quite ready for in high school and has yet to become ready for it again.