REALLY Big Decisions and Changes

The previous post about "attitude change" was meant as an introduction to this one, so if you haven't read it, read it first.

While we were in Brazil K and I talked about our options and decided a couple of things:

• We are not going back to Brazil just yet and will stay here for now.

• K is going to quit his job at big pharma and go back to pursuing an academic career (applying for a postdoc either locally or in MA).

Now it's all settled for K to begin another postdoc (locally) in September and he has already given notice that he's quitting his job.

What's still up in the air: the housing situation and where to live.

What I/we really wanted was to continue living in this house, but with a 50% paycut, the only way we could afford to do that would be if I had a job (at least a 40K job). If i had a 9-5 or even a 8-4 job, what would we do with the boys????? K will be gone for almost 10 hours a day due to the commute of at least 1h15 and how would I drop Kelvin at school and pick him up as well as dropping Linton of at pre-school/daycare? The more convenient thing would be a teaching job, but it's quite late in the year to get one. Besides, I don't have certification to teach high school (I am aware that some States do hire Ph.D.s without certification, but I don't know if PA is one of them -- besides I know NOTHING about the educational system here, and, again, it's much too late, probably). The advantages of staying here would be - Kelvin can go to the same school and we don't need to move. We can also try to continue our home improvement projects so the property value may go up.

The most rational option would be selling this house (we might break even or lose some money) and moving to Philly, close to a train station so we could have only one car again. This would allow me to stay home with Linton and only teach piano (and even English as a foreign language to our Brazilian friends) and we would be able to save K's severance package for the future instead of possibly spending it to pay our mortgage and/or on home renovation projects. At first I was adamantly against this second option, but now I'm almost convinced that we should try to sell. I won't deny that it's a heartbreaking decision and that I can already feel I'm back in that roller-coaster of grief, sadness, and disappointment...

More on all this later. The boys STILL have fevers and the pediatrician's office told us to bring them in only if they still have a fever tomorrow. Coincidentally, tomorrow is Linton's yearly check-up, so we'll see.

I am surprisingly calm given the situation. Well, what use would stressing out have? None.