Ding Ding Ding --- Back to Work!

My mother recently retired from a million years of teaching this past winter (February I think) and has been loving her retirement ever since. And who wouldn’t really- she went on a cruise, traveled to Disney World and has had some amazing day trips up to Door County with her new-found girlfriends. It was about the time that she was mentioning she wasn’t sure what her new activity/hobby was going to be that my father asked her to go back to work- what?!? I know… I said the same thing. Well as it turns out, as a public school teacher in the state of Wisconsin you have to accomplish something called an amartis (not sure that I spelled that correctly) which is part of the retirement agreement to collect any benefits. So (as I understand it) retired teachers have to work a total of 10 days a year for free to remain eligible for benefits --- or pay into the pot. My mother was planning to just pay in by my father felt that she was so fresh out of school that a few days wasn’t going to kill her… Really? I was fairly certain that she was going to bite his head clear off his shoulders when he proposed this to her but I give my mom credit because she kept her cool. I am certain the first thing she wants to do in retirement is go back to work but to appease her husband (as the loving caring wife that she is hahaha) she went back to work. Argh- there goes my sitter! But wait it gets better… it turns out that right about the same time Timmy was offered a job- a good job – in his field – YES!!! So then I had to think about if we were hoping to do daycare or a private sitter of what the plans were for my girls. This is where it gets good (and I know that I have at least one guardian angel on my side) Timmy’s job for the summer is part-time contract to hire fulltime salaried in the fall. He gets home at 1130 everyday. My mother starts work at 1200 and gets done at 4pm. Which means that there is no overlap and our sitter costs are still 0.00 (high five to me!) So my mom will finish out the Spring semester and earn her amaritis leaving her fall open to spend as she likes. While Tim spends the afternoons with his girls and has a little free time during their naps, whilst still contributing to the bottom line in our financial situation and family life… all those speed bumps 6 months ago were totally worth getting us to where we are now... and I couldn’t be happier (well maybe but lets not get greedy – hahahaha)