Happy Fall?

   I have all the motivation of last week's pancakes to continue adulting. It's nothing new, certainly. You'd think I'd be relieved that it's fall. My daughter is back in school and I have regained a bit more freedom. There's some mommy guilt over not living La Vida Facebook, as I call it. We did manage to get her to the beach for one week this summer. We still managed to swing Summer camp. It was rough when camp ended and the last few weeks were slow for us. I'm guessing the problem is isolation.
    We don't have a large family and there aren't a lot of kids in our neighborhood for her majesty to play with. The other issue was that we do not have any pets for company. Too many of our friends have allergies and frankly, l barely have my husband housebroken. I'm drowning keeping up with our house as it is, I can't imagine having to vacuum like a nut on top of it and adding vet bills to boot. Someday there will be a dog in our family, but my ADD kid has to get a little older and more responsible.
   We, as a family, are also still recovering from the massive depletion of our savings that resulted from a year of cobra payments. We didn't just scrape the bottom of the bottom of the barrel,  we were starting to see through it. Here's what's wierd. I have been fighting a lot of Mommy guilt for the Summer despite the fact that it would have been so much worse for us had we not lived the way we had these last several years. It's yet another example of guilt defying common sense.
    The fall is really a nice time of year, if I could just relax and enjoy. That seems to be about as easy as leaping over a tall building with a single bound for me. I'm guessing the biggest stressor is getting my ass back to work. The substitute teaching gig last school year wasn't pretty. There was no training and I got thrown into some really tough rooms. I also haven't noticed any aide jobs up yet. I didn't , and still don't feel prepared/qualified to teach a full day flying solo. What do you do when your school district could care less?
   I freaked out a lot last year. I could really use to learn how to keep my trap shut. You get mighty comfortable being home as long as I have. I need to put some "Professional Teacher Pants" on. Unfortunately,  I'm finding out that I have a lot of company. This whole lack of training thing is apparently par for the course in substitute teaching. What's also scary is that I haven't actually taught a class yet. I signed up to try it in a coteaching classroom. Oddly enough, it's one of my daughter's teachers from last year. Stay tuned.......