Nothing But My Version of Ordinary

I read a book cover-to-cover yesterday. It's called "The Lovely Bones", and plot follows a girl who has been murdered at age 14. She's in her heaven, watching her loved ones and her murder.

The book brought up thoughts I've had off and on since Kenneth died, thoughts I'm sure that all of us have had from time to time. What really happens when we die? I know what the Bible has to say about it, so I don't really want to look at it from that angle right now. I want to think outside the box.

I've never had what you'd call a "paranormal" experience. Some people talk about having their deceased loved ones visit them in their dreams. I haven't had that, either. I didn't really care about the paranormal stuff one way or the other before Kenneth died, but I now have a morbid curiosity.

I don't want to go to some con artist and throw money away for the chance to 'talk' to Kenneth, but I do have this burning desire to know if he's really okay.

I guess some questions will always be unanswered.

Things have been so stressful around here lately. The whole house issue is part of it (okay, a big part of it), but we've also had a sick baby all week and an announcement from my school district that they'll be doing a Reduction in Force, aka "RIF". That's layoffs, in normal people terminology.

The district isn't being very clear on who, exactly, will be subject to the RIF. Ordinary jobs would let people go based on seniority, but not NEISD. Seniority is last in the list of four criteria to be RIFed. At the moment I can't remember what the other three are, but I'll look it up again later. From what I understand, they'll look at each specialty (EC-4 generalists, music teachers, science teachers... you get the idea) and decide how many positions need to be cut. They'll then look and see how many people from within those specialties will be retiring or not returning to the district in the fall. If that takes care of the need to reduce staff, then nobody from within that specialty will be let go. If it doesn't, then a number of people will be on the list to be RIFed. They'll then look at those people's certificates to see what areas they're certified to teach. If they can move a teacher to a different subject area within the district, then they'll do that without letting them go. If not, they get canned.

I *think* I'm fairly secure in my job, just because they'll be opening 2 new schools in the fall. I've been with the district for 6 years now (7 at the end of this school year....how is that possible??), so I have some seniority. What I don't have are extra credentials on my certificate. I'm torn about that. Do I add to my certificate, knowing that could mean that I'd have a job, but I'd be teaching something I don't necessarily want to teach? Or, do I just leave it alone, stay a music teacher, and risk the RIF? For that matter, I could be RIFed regardless of what other credentials I add. I hesitate to add to my certificate because I know I'd be miserable teaching a TAKS subject or being a classroom teacher with the same 20 faces all day long. I hate the beauracracy and paperwork part of this profession, and being a music teacher allows me to avoid a good part of it. Being in a classroom would mean that all of the things I hate about the teaching profession would be magnified.

There's another option that may or may not end up panning out. Hector (the PE teacher I work with) and I have been kicking around the idea of doing some consulting and teambuilding. People in that industry get paid quite well. What gave us the idea was a consultant that came out and did a full day workshop for our school and one other school back in August. The activities that he did were all the types of activities that Hector and I do with the kids all the time. A lot of them were Orff-Schulwerk based, which I have training in. A lot of them were standard teambuilding techniques, which Hector has a background in. That consultant was paid over $2,000 for a day's work, plus expenses. There's no way we'd make that much to start; that consultant has a reputation and therefore can charge a fortune. Hector's pretty confident that we could pull in $500 each for a full day, though. If we could get off the ground, there's a huge market for people that do that sort of work within the education world and also within the corporate world. We're thinking we'll start it off as a side gig for the time being and see where it goes. It would be really nice to be able to set my own schedule to a degree, and maybe be able to earn a living on my own terms without having to work under somebody else. I'm sure there would be things about a job like that that I'd dislike, just like with any other job, but my fantasy is that doing something like that would allow me more time with my family.

To move away from job stress, I mentioned earlier that Grant's been sick all week. Last Saturday, he was running a fever of nearly 103, so we took him to the ER. It shook me up pretty badly even though Grant was okay and just has a virus. The sound of monitors alarming set off a PTSD trigger for me and I had to really work to stay calm and focused on Grant. Having to hold him still so they could poke him not once, but three times, to draw blood didn't help matters any. I was really wanting to be able to go to the support group for parents of kids that have died of a heart defect so that I could talk about it to people who get that, but Grant was still sick and I didn't have anyone to watch him, so I had to stay home. I'm better now, but it really messed with me for a few days. The nurse thought I was one of "those" moms until we explained why the sound of monitors alarming bothered us. We took him home after all of that, got him into bed, and I drank a big glass of wine to calm down. Not fun at all.

Combined with all of this is the issue of our house. To fix our house's foundation, the engineer said that they'd have to drill holes every 7-8' on our slab and drop piers to a depth of 25'. It's a major, expensive repair. Regardless of whether the builder decides to buy us out of the house or fix the house, it will mean we have to move out of here for at least a little while. I'm hoping they can fix the house and just compensate us for the reduction in value that we'd see from having this done. We love this house. It's perfect for us. If it's structurally sound, I can see us living here for a long, long time. BUT... the repairs will be at least a third to a half of the value of the home, assuming they can fix it correctly the first time. I wonder if it's possible to fix this house correctly at all. From the looks of things, Lennar will probably try to say that the foundation isn't really as FUBAR as the engineer said it was. That will mean taking them to court and a big pain in the ass.

All in all, the whole house situation is a big mess. If the builder doesn't do the right thing, we'll have the hassle of having to fight to make them do the right thing. If by some miracle they do the right thing, we'll have to move out of this house and into a hotel while repairs are made, or move out of this house into a rental while we search for a different house to buy. I hate moving with a passion. Moving over 20 times in the course of a 28 year life will do that to a person.

As my brother-in-law said to my husband: "If you didn't have bad luck, you'd have no luck at all". I'm sure feeling that way right about now.

So. My new house is a lemon. It has major foundation issues. Major. It has a 4" difference from one front corner to the opposite back corner. For it to be in code, it wouldn't be able to have more than 1" of difference. It was within code when it was completed in June, which means that there's been 3 inches of foundation movement in a very short period of time. We're seeing lots of symptoms of foundation movement in the house, but I don't feel like listing them all here. The structural engineer that we hired said that he'll recomend a total foundation repair, which he estimates will cost between $50-100K.

We'd work with Lennar's warranty department, but there are other houses in the neighborhood with the same sorts of problems, and Lennar is trying to get away with not fixing the issues. Sooo...we're hiring a lawyer and will take them to court if they don't do the right thing. The "right thing" as far as we're concerned is to either buy the house back (which would make me sad, I love this house) or fix the foundation correctly. If they choose either option, we also want them to reimburse us for our expenses, including the lawyer's fees. If they choose not to play ball, we'll take them to court. Going to court will be a long, drawn-out hassle, so I hope that they agree to just fix the problem. I won't hold my breath, though. If Lennar chooses to be ugly about it, the gloves will come off, and they'll find out that I don't scare easily. Anybody want to help me man a lemonade stand in front of the sales office?