I totally suck at blogging.

It seems that I've forgotten the first rule of blogging, which is to, you know, blog. Anyway, its been a super busy summer and a lot has happened.

Short story is that I am in a new relationship with an old old friend and I am really enjoying life. Things are going well. Its an adjustment for the kids, but they are liking things too.

School is getting ready to start. I was all excited about the new school year, and the column movement raise I was expecting to get. Until I didn't get it. I remember having a conversation with the HR lady last may when I checked out. At the time she said I was good to go and it would show up on my new contract. Well, the new contract came, and it wasn't on there.

In fact, due to a hiccup in the negotiated agreement, I don't get a raise at all. I was on MS+15 and step eight. The salary for step nine is exactly the same. Id I had moved to MS+30, it would have been a 1200 dollar a year raise.

My new guy grew up in Kansas, he was one of my very best friends in elementary school, but he has spend the last several years living in Colorado. He moved back to Kansas to finish his degree, and I think to be near me (scary flattering, I don't like having that kind of power over a person), but I know he missed it. I was dead set against the idea, partially because I feel like it is silly to walk away from a decently paying job. That was before I was screwed over.

In talking to my co-workers, this seems to be  a pattern. They did the same thing to my friend, Amanda. She was due to move over a column, but then it didn't happen because it wasn't on the transcript she turned in in April, when the paperwork was collected. She graduated in May, and was assured that it would be ok, she'd move up. Then it was reversed and she ended up working a year underpaid.

This year she took a pay cut to quit working for the coop as a special education teacher in order to work for USD 257 as a math teacher.

I should be ok either way. I make enough to carry us. The extra hundred or so a month would be nice, but I'm planning on trimming out cable and internet when school starts and that will save money. I'll also renegotiate the cell contract. The new guy is a sweetie and helps out with stuff and will probably keep doing so.

Anyway, the point was, I'm much more open to a relocation now. Colorado sounds like fun to be honest. Nicer weather, out door activities, higher pay for me, and I'm sure for anyone else when compared to a similar job in Kansas.

There's other stuff to get into, but that's what's on my mind at the moment; well, and the fact that the guy who died yesterday was supposedly this great  composer but all the music clips they play on the news are super annoying.

Or the fact that if summer break were much longer, my kids would be in terminal danger. I'm serious, they are tired of everything, playing outside, watching TV, playing video games, the pool. They've settled into beating each other up and begging for junk food.

I have two classes to take this fall. I'm trying to get the soul sucking coop to cover the majority of the cost, they usually only do one class. If I take two this semester and one next semester, I'll be finished by the summer. It will be hard, but I can do it.

Anyway, I hope that I don't fall off the planet like that again, but no promises.