Well, we did it! We closed escrow on our house in Morro Bay. We decided six months ago that we wanted to move out of the area to a place where it is more community-oriented and family-friendly. Anytime we wanted to do something on the weekend or the holidays, we couldn't. There were too many tourists and it was just too busy. Forget going to the grocery store. We had been here almost 7 years and haven't really met new friends. It doesn't help that we both work in SLO and pretty much do everything in SLO. But, after talking to a lot of our friends and colleagues, Los Osos was the logical choice. Still by the Bay, liberal town, horse-friendly and best of all, much cheaper to own a home than most other options, or so we thought!!

After 15 years of California Department of Fish & Game (well it's now Dept. of Fish & Wildlife, not to be confused with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service...smart move DFG!), RT has decided to move on. All I have to say to that is, hallelujah!

I am officially hired as a substitute teacher with SLO Coastal Unified. What??? I still have my “day job” working for The Land Conservancy, but I am slowly getting my feet wet again with teaching.

It’s been 5 years since I set foot in a classroom, so why the sudden change of heart? Well, lots of reasons, really. First of all, having a child without family close by and not being a stay-at-home-mom makes it difficult to juggle a work schedule. Now that our child is approaching school-age and witnessing a colleague at work trying to juggle her schedule with her children’s school schedule and a newborn, it seems to make more sense for me to go back to teaching and be on the same schedule as P. Ideally, I’d love to be able to teach at the same school where she is attending or vice versa.

In the past few months, if you have driven by our house, you may have wondered why we haven't kept up the front yard. Well, this past fall, I had a brilliant idea to redo the front yard. For me, the idea is brilliant, for my husband this just means more work! My motivation behind the makeover is to have our yard fenced in so P can have a place to play out in the front. Also, when we come home from work/school, our street can get busy, so I'd feel better if P can just get in the fenced area while I unload our stuff or groceries from the car. PLUS, since being on Pinterest, I have tons of ideas as to what I want to do.

 

Side note: Jannu ran away from home. Or, I should rephrase that: Jannu ran away to try to find us! We left her by herself for just an evening (Friday evening) since our friends who usually watch her were coming back into town the following afternoon. I happened to look at my phone on Sunday morning and read that somehow our neighbor has Jannu. After a phone call to figure everything out, Jannu had escaped to Del Mar Liquor Store, which is close to Highway 1. They picked her up and called my cell phone but didn't get an answer (cell phone service is sketchy up at Big Sur), so someone took her to our house but since we weren't home, they knocked on other neighbors' houses to ask if she belonged to us. It all worked out in the end, but we are lucky that someone picked her up and called us.

I turned 40 this year! It's funny  how society puts so much emphasis on milestone birthdays and even birthdays at all. Everyone kept asking me what I was going to do, did I want a party, even poor hubby was stressing out on what to do. Well, the answer was simple: nothing. I do not like the spotlight. I was never into celebrating my birthday. When you have a birthday on December 23, it's hard to expect people to be around    and in the past we usually traveled somewhere.

My parents came to visit and escape the valley heat. We decided to take a short hike to Harmony Headlands State Park. It's just a 5 minute drive north of Cayucos, and just south of the little town called Harmony. We had never been there before, even though it's pretty close to us.

Luckily the sun wasn't out too much and weather was fairly cool. The trail is actually pretty exposed with no real shade.