How Did We Get Here?

Hello and welcome!
Let me start by saying I never really thought I would write a blog.  I have led a pretty normal life.  Now to me a normal life is fantastic, it just doesn't give you much fodder for blogging.  But there I was at forty years old and I had this itch.  We'll get back to that in a minute.  Here is a little bit of how I got here.

For fifteen years I worked as a pediatric speech-language pathologist and I loved it.  I worked mostly in education but I also had some experience in clinical practice.  I was passionate about my students' success, and all things speech related.  During that time I got married and had two daughters.  I continued to work full time and couldn't imagine not having my career.  And then I burned out.  Increasing demands on educators, especially those of us in special education, combined with a husband whose job required him to travel 80% of the year left me with very little energy.  I lost my motivation and passion for my work and wasn't doing my best.  I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's the truth.  So I decided to try the stay at home mom thing for awhile, spend time with my daughters who were ages 5 and 2 and recharge my batteries.

It turns out that change is just what I needed!  I was able to spend more time with my daughters, volunteer at their schools, and work on myself for a bit.  Then my husband took a new position in his company and didn't have to travel anymore.  My daughters continued to grow up and now they are both in elementary school.  Pumpkin is ten and Peach is 6 and they are becoming more independent each day.  I started to get bored. 

It didn't look like boredom to me at first.  I napped a lot.  A LOT.  I had trouble focusing on the books I usually love.  I started to worry that I was depressed, but I felt happy and found joy in a lot of things so that wasn't it.  I wasn't at a loss for things to do, I mean there is ALWAYS laundry to do, right?  My husband B listened patiently and then pointed out, "Not that all you do at home isn't important, because it is, but it's not engaging your mind.  You're bored."  Holy cow, that made sense!  So what do I do about it? B's answer was simple.  "You don't have to go back to work if you don't want to, but find something you love and pursue it."

And here we are at the proverbial fork in the road.  If I take the road to the right I could play it safe and go back to work, or get more involved in my kids' school, or do something that fits in with my normal life.  Or I could step outside of my comfort zone and do something unexpected.  I chose the road to the left and applied to culinary school.