When Did September Happen?

I haven't blogged since July?  Really?  My last blog was about Rue.  She is healed and doing great. She even has some fur on her bottom half now, helping her to look a lot less ridiculous.  It's still not as long as the rest of her fur, but one more haircut ought to even her out.
A lot of good has happened in the last month.  I was due for some good juju out here and so glad it finally found me.  The kids both started back to school.  Yea for schedules and routine!  I was able to land a J-O-B, finally!  Yea for a paycheck (which will happen only once per month, but yea all the same)!
I finally got my California Teaching Credential (applied for that in May, just got it this week).  So, now I can teach in California, well sort of.  I still have to take the CTEL (California Teachers of English Learners) exam to become a classroom teacher.  In related news, I DO NOT have to take the four classes I thought I was going to have to take!  Thanks to some investigating (thank you Carla) and meeting with the district's credential analyst, I was able to cross that off my list of things to do.  Never.Been.So.Fricking.Happy!!!!!!!!!!  I'll take a 7 hour exam over 4 college courses any day of the week.
In the mean time, I am working as an instructional assistant (also called a para educator) about 20 hours a week in a great school.  I am learning a lot about how the schools out here work.  It's very different in some respects, just the same in others.  The teacher I'm working with went through the same process I have been going through when she moved back here from Kansas.  She's an amazing teacher and we work extremely well together.
The first day I was there, I taught the 2nd grade group (13 students). It's a combo class, so the other 13 students are first graders.  This is something quite different from what I'm used to.  But, I just took her plans and dove right in.
One thing I will be sure about until the day I die-I was meant to be a teacher.  It was as if I'd found the part of myself that had been missing since coming here.  Me and myself were like peas and carrots again!
Good juju, indeed.