Last year I did my best to participate in this fun blog link-up, but I wasn’t able to keep up with it. This year I’m really hoping to be able to dive back into blogging and keep up the pace! So, if you’ve been around for a while, this post might be all old news to you. But if you are new here- this is me! And this first prompt is all about the jobs that I have had.
I am Suzanne (pronounced Suz-on like Anna in Frozen, not Suz-anne the American way) and I am a woman who wears many hats! I am married to Theo, who is a law enforcement officer in our local city. We have four children ages 9, 7, 5, and 10 months. We live on a homestead of five acres and currently have chickens, rabbits and cats. We also plan to raise another round of pigs in the spring/summer/fall. Theo and I own a couple rental properties that Theo manages himself. And finally, we are incredibly involved at our local Christian hybrid school. The kids all attend there two days a week, I teach the first grade class, and Theo is the security officer at school two days a week. On the days we don’t attend, we homeschool.
In our downtime (haha) we love to hike and do anything outdoorsy. Theo is always working on projects on our homestead, and he loves to tinker away at something or go shooting. The kids are very into basketball this year and I love to read, write or go for a long run.
As far as the jobs I’ve worked, my list is actually not very long! Since I grew up in a foreign country as a missionary kid, I actually wasn’t allowed to work there until I was 18 and came back to the States.
I spent most of high school in some pretty cool volunteer positions- I helped host and teach Bible clubs, I helped with translation work, and I was on a team for our school that planned short term missions trips around the area. But technically, none of those were considered “jobs” since I wasn’t paid.
My first official job was as a camp counselor at summer camp in NE Pennsylvania. It was a Salvation Army camp, and we often hosted kids from Philadelphia and the inner city for camp. It was a blast. I loved it so much that I returned for 3 more summers. After I met Theo at college, I even convinced him to apply to work there. We had totally different roles at camp, but it was always so fun to see each other in passing with our gaggle of camp kids.
In college, I worked a couple different jobs but I probably only worked 10 hours a week at most. I worked the front desk/admin at the student ministry office on campus and I also tutored kids at the nearby elementary school.
In the summers, I worked at a small church preschool/daycare and as soon as I graduated college I got a full time position there in the Kindergarten room. I wasn’t the Kindergarten teacher, but I had the kids in the afternoon after school.
Once I found out I was pregnant with Tera and due in August, I finished out the school year in May and then quit my job to be a stay at home Mom. From 2014-2019 I was a stay at home Mom and that was by far the hardest job I have ever had. We also did foster care in that time, so in those 6 years we had five kids enter our home!
In fall 2019 Tera began Kindergarten at our local private Christian school and I realized that I could get a tuition discount if I taught there, so I interviewed and applied for any random class that they needed a teacher for! I ended up teaching an elementary science elective, a middle school writing elective and a nature class one day a week. Those were not my favorite, but it got me into the school community and helped us afford the school. Of course, that school year was the wonderful year of 2020………….(insert all the emotions here).
That summer, the first grade teacher at the school retired and I jumped at the opportunity to apply for the position. I had intended to stay at home until all my kids were in Kindergarten, but being offered the first grade position was literally my dream job and I couldn’t let it pass me by! In the fall of 2020, I began teaching first grade at our hybrid school, and that is what I am still currently doing! Since it’s a hybrid school, I only teach two days a week and then I am in charge of assigning the “home days” work to be done at home as well. I LOVE my job, and love that I get to teach part time and that I get to be at school with all my kids (I’ve even had two of them in my first grade class!).
And that is all for now! I wonder what jobs I will be adding to this lineup as the years pass? I absolutely love teaching and it is my joy, but I can also see myself doing all kinds of other things, which is such a fascinating thought. Maybe I should write another post with the jobs that I would be interested in doing one day! Ha!
I forgot that I taught at a vacation bible school in high school too; it was so fun since my girlfriend and I were put in charge of the preschool classes. I hope you manage to link up with us more often this year; it was fun to learn more about you.
I plan to link up as much as possible! Thanks so much for hosting- it helps to have topics and ideas to post about throughout the month.