Last Day Working

Our last day working here will most likely be tomorrow. 

It has been such an odd, odd season.  The resort will be closed as of Monday.  The earliest close they've ever had.  We've been incredibly fortunate to be able to work this long, but it is depressing to know the number of lives this bad season will impact negatively.  The trickle-down for Vermont as a whole is discouraging.  They could have used a good season to boost things after the horrible flooding in August ... but that isn't the case this time.  It was over 80 degrees here today -- absolutely gorgeous, but definitely not snow friendly. 

Now comes the question "what's next?"

We are incredibly grateful that Jason has been hired as a long-term substitute teacher at our local elementary school.  He started last Wednesday and although he's only scheduled for three hours a day, it of course requires A LOT more time than that to get prepared for the three classroom hours.

Many people have asked me if I'm also going to get a job ... that is a little tricky since our winter caretaking gig is up as of May 31 and we also only have one vehicle. So, I basically need a two month job that I can do on Jason's schedule or do from home (without internet or electricity).  So, my answer has been to tell people that "I'm going to practice being a housewife."  Most people think I'm joking, but I'm not.  I don't feel any shame in just focusing on keeping up a good home and doing all the yucky jobs that Jason and I usually share doing.  We'll see if my attitude is the same after a few weeks :)

But, the even bigger question is "what's next for us?" Where are we going next, what are we going to do, etc??  Perhaps you'll be surprised to hear that we plan/hope to stay in Vermont for another season of winter caretaking. We really like it here and feel that since we didn't get a "real" winter this year, we should at least give it one more try!

For the summer months when we're off from our caretaking duties (and also don't have a place to live ;-) ), we plan to have an awesome roadtrip back to California and then up to Washington.  We are taking the l-o-n-g way home, but who knows when we will have the opportunity to do something like this again.  We are super excited to see friends and family that we have not seen for a very long time and see some parts of the country that we've never seen before.