🤓 From the homeschool trenches to the school library

✨ sometimes a career path meanders and then ends in a perfect place ✨

Hi friends!

Here’s me making my new job newsletter-official! That’s right, I started this school year with a new gig as a library media specialist at an elementary school. I couldn’t be more excited about this.

Getting this job was a bit of a whirlwind. The application process was slow and required a lot of time to put everything together, but then once I got offered an interview, everything fell into place quickly.

I interviewed over Zoom from a Starbucks patio in the historic first capital of New York, in the middle of a road trip from NYC to Cooperstown for my son’s baseball tournament.

I got a job offer later that day while driving to our remote farm cottage rental outside of Cooperstown and the call actually dropped while before I could even accept the job (I was able to call back once I got on wifi thankfully!).

And I learned all the HR details while wandering around Cooperstown with one eye peeled for a glimpse of Big Papi (who was in town to get inducted in the Hall of Fame).

Back in California, I had one day to do some new-hire admin like getting fingerprinted, before we left town again for beautiful Bass Lake. Finally, our late-summer travels complete, I squeezed in two days of professional development with a district where I didn’t know a soul, bought my kids school supplies, and boom! We all started school the following week.

The staff at my school is awesome, everyone has been amazingly welcoming and helpful, and while it’s been a steep learning curve, I feel like I’m getting feet set finally. Our library is a beautiful space, shared with a technology teacher’s design lab/makerspace.

I thought it would be a more emotional transition, to be honest. I’ve been a stay at home mom since May of 2007, when I said goodbye to teaching Spanish at CSULB. Since then, I’ve done a bit of part-time work here and there (mostly blog-writing/editing, a bit of tutoring, and a quick stint as a substitute), and went back to school for Library Tech classes last year, but I haven’t had a regular, outside-of-the home job since 2004 when I started grad school.

And for ten years, I’ve been a part-time homeschool mom. That’s the identity I thought I would feel the most emotional about essentially laying aside. This year is a transition year where my youngest is still finishing up that program so I’m juggling my library job and guiding her (along with some help from my husband and my mom), but I don’t feel like a homeschool mom anymore.

I’m sure I’ll have moments where I lament the loss of our cozy readalouds on the couch and trips to the beach or the botanical gardens, but I’ve never been one to look back with longing on the days we’ve left behind. Maybe it’s my enneagram 7 showing, but I don’t like to sit in my feelings and I’m always looking ahead to the next thing. My older kids are enjoying their public schools (high school and middle school) and I’m really happy about their teachers.

I’m excited for what this new career holds for me and also hoping to continue squeezing in writing time (my hours at the school are part-time!) and I love that these two vocations really go hand-in-hand and stem beautifully from the last decade of educating my kids. It’s been a meandering path, but as anyone who really knows me will say, it feels like I’m doing exactly what I was meant to do. 🥰

Here’s to new beginnings and bouquets of sharpened pencils!

xo,

Nicole