Relief

In what really seems to be an eleventh hour thing, I have achieved a bridging loan. As a dependent (yay, being a SAHM :-/) available federal financial aid maxed out at $5500 for the year which was short of tuition by a few hundred after the state university system's Board of Regents approved a rate hike. We could have covered it and books but childcare would have been impossible and I invite the reader to try to get a part-time job in this area as a mom, a full-time student, with one shared vehicle, and with this being a secondary income. Yeah, I still haven't gotten called back for anything. On top of that, I would have been trying to do all the studying plus family/childrearing things, plus a job that would have had to be about 17 hours just to pay for childcare and that on top of my first semester back in school.

I'm just delighted. We're doing all the signing bits at present, some of which involves the mail, but we're going to be good for this. It's a relief. Next year will be much easier in one of two aspects. I'll either find that I'm washing out and decide to withdraw or change majors or something, or I'll do well enough that I'll qualify for one or more of the plethora of my university's privately funded scholarships, all of which, for some reason, apply only to second year students or greater, or those who have the credit equivalent of a year from my university. So that will help a lot.

The childcare bit starts Monday, so that we can sort of transition my youngest, who's never been cared for by anyone not family for so long that I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember the three hours a friend watched her (read: wore her in a mei tai/Babyhawk) while hubby and I went to a brief dinner and a movie. She'll got M-W-F for the next two weeks and start full time on the day my classes begin.

Reason #1 why just childcare alone is a great thing involves the following confession: I just absolutely hate childcare. Have for years. I love my girls, wouldn't trade them for anything, but I just detest babysitting. I am delighted to have a couple of weeks where I can catch up without having interruptions every minute and a half (yeah, I timed it one day) while I'm highlighting important bits in my Chemistry text.

Reason #2: Meg will also be interrupted when she gets home on the bus and sits down to do her homework. This was a real problem last year. Rose was just so happy to have her home and wanted to play with her Right Then And Forever Till Bedtime, and I was happy to have her home both because she's awesome and because then Rose would have two targets to pester, which meant I could possibly use the bathroom without worrying that she was walking out the front door to the road again, usually entirely in the buff.

Monday will be busy but just lovely. Meg will get on the bus (same one she's been riding even though she's now at middle school), and Brett and I will go drop Rose off and we will head into town. I'll get the van and then go do something crazy like avail myself of the uni's exercise facilities at my leisure, and then go to the library and study till I'm ready to stop. At some point there will be some shopping for related supplies, then probably more studying and possibly just a lot of farting around after that. Without dragging kids along! Then getting the hubby and kids and home. Most likely Wednesday and Friday will be entirely boring and largely consist of cleaning the house because damn, y'all.

Then in a couple of weeks, things really, really start. It will be just lovely. I feel like I've been spinning my wheels and making little ground for a year and a half. It will feel good to hear the starting shot and finally head out of the gate. I also feel like I'm fairly decently prepared at this point. It will be good to head forward.