News!

As many of you know, Eric has been in a perpetual job hunt for the past three years. He's been teaching on one-year visiting professor contracts at Notre Dame for the past two years. They allow their graduates 3 of these total. Each year has been the same up and down roller coaster of will he get an interveiw, will he be invited to campus, will he get offered the job. The span of time from application to offer is abou 5 months, so there is lots of time for stress and worry. Every year it seems I feel less invested in the "here and now" and more concerned with the "what is to come." Not at all a fun process to go through.

This year, even with the economy in the tubes and many schools cancelling their searches Eric was lucky enough to get three on-campus interviews. They were January 20th, February 12th and February 18th. The job he REALLY wanted was on the 12th. Without going into the details we had some highs and some lows and some stress throughout the past 5 weeks.

I'm happy to announce, however, that he was offered the job he REALLY wanted and he has accepted. The job is at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL (part of the Quad-Cities on the boarder of IL and IA). We are all very excited about this.

It does mean that I actually have to get the house ready to put on the market (we are targeting April 1st to put the sign in the yard). It does mean that I have to actually write all those procedures I've been planning to write to explain the various functions of my job. It does mean that I have to polish up a resume and start job hunting myself.

But all in all it's good. We will be so sad to leave the community we have been a part of for the better part of 11 years. But ultimately this is where our family needs to move for our next step. The kids will start Kindergarten in a new school, hopefully where they can stay their entire elementary school career.

I'm excited and hopeful and scared and terrified and... all rolled into one.