work/life balance

Wow - after almost a 1 month lapse in blogging, I am here to reassure you that we are alive and well. I have tons of things that I want to blog about - Jess' wedding (which was almost 2 months ago), all of the fun restaurants we have been testing out in our neighborhood, White Linen Nights, and some major house projects. But to keep you coming back, I will hold off on those (at least until next week) and explain WHY there has been such a hiatus in our blog life!

The day after I returned to Houston following a 2 1/2 week NC vacation, I started my new JOB! I said "bye bye" to summer in July and honestly haven't had a break since!

But let me back up a second....Last year, I was lucky enough to find a school willing to hire me in October/November. The Village School hired me to teach history part-time and assist their two Admissions directors, with the promise that I would teach full time the next year. In all honesty, I took the job (without being too excited about it) with the expectation that I would find something better for the next school year.

So I spent the spring doing a little bit of job searching and trying to figure out if teaching full-time at the Village School would be my best option. If you know me, you know that my REAL passion is College Counseling, which I had the amazing chance to do in Atlanta. So imagine my surprise when my headmaster called while I was on Spring Break (ironically in Atlanta at the time) and asked if I would consider College Counseling instead of teaching at the Village School for the next school year! Of course, I said yes and knew that I had resolved my uncertainties about the following year.

So, when I agreed to this new position as College Counselor, I didn't realize that it was a 12 month position (bye bye summer breaks!). While my new job actually began July 1st while I was in North Carolina, I practically assumed the role on July 12th. In the last 6 weeks, I have already attended a week long training institute, designed and moved into a new office, rolled out a new software program for the College Counseling office, hosted a College Night and begun meeting with all of the Juniors and their parents.

In addition to my role as College Counselor, I am continuing to teach a semester long history elective course, provide some assistance to the Admissions team, redesign the advisory program at school, co-write and roll out the high school's new Honor Code and just generally problem solve around school! Needless to say, all of these responsibilites take a lot of time (I usually arrive at school around 7:15 am and leave between 5:30 and 6:30 pm) and is primarily responsible for my lack of blogging (and cooking or cleaning or returning friends phone calls).

Overall I am really loving this job but know that I need to find a better balance between work and home life. To hold myself accountable, I am going to follow the lead of amazing photographer Nancy Ray and blog my monthly goal list! So, here they are:

try a new recipe each week (we have already tried two this week and I can't wait to share my new filing system for recipes-to-try)
blog the super fun pictures from Jess and Mike's wedding
leave work by 5:30 pm! (or better yet, 4 pm on Fridays)
meet at least 15 college representatives at NACAC in St. Louis
plan a fun date for David and I
check out a new book from the public library
have a girls night for our Growth Group girls

Hopefully I can make all of these goals happen this month! To ensure that work doesn't get too much in the way of fun, David and I are heading to Atlanta this weekend for the UNC v. LSU game and to visit many friends! After our weekend getaway, I promise to keep the pictures coming with a bit more frequency!