When you’re a military spouse who relocates with your service member, you may face some job search challenges. But, when you’re a military spouse who relocates, and is a licensed professional and wants to maintain that license so you can get a new job too, there is a whole different set of challenges.

Since military spouses frequently relocate, they are encouraged to find portable careers.

“Yet, many of the most portable jobs come with a catch: You need to be state-certified to work in the field, and for many spouses, that’s an ongoing nightmare,” said Barb Poole, career strategist and writer at hireimaging.com. “The Defense Department has taken notice of the issue, and its state liaison office has begun working with state legislatures to enact laws to at least lower the hurdles military families face when moving to a new state,” she added. “Unfortunately, to date, not all states have passed favorable military spouse credentialing legislation.”

Be ready to take on the load of researching the licensure or certification requirements for your new state. And, be forewarned, depending on your field, that can potentially mean lots of time and money. Take lawyers, for example.

“Relocating lawyers may have to take the State Bar Exam – again,” said Jim Wojtak, senior career coach at Impact Career Group (impactgrouphr.com). Usually that means lots of study time.  And, maybe the exam is only offered once or twice a year. This could cost $1,000 to $2,000 and you have to wait months for the results,” he added. “So, now you are in limbo.”

This can seem a little extreme, but it happens. Other situations you may be faced with are: a license not being required in one state, but required in another. Or, the licensing requirements could be different and sometimes feel trivial.

“I remember a teacher who moved and was required to take a state government course on her new state and another who moved to a different state and had to take a state ethics course,” Wojtak said.

Maybe these aren’t huge hurdles, but they are hurdles, none-the-less. And, if you aren’t expecting them, they can delay your entry into the new job market.

Poole and Wojtak suggest the following ways to potentially save a boatload of time, money and aggravation.

“Contact your state licensing board as soon as you know of the move, to inquire about their licensing process,” Poole said. “Ask if they recognize a license from another state (also known as having reciprocity), offer a temporary license or expedited review process.”

Often, these situations may only require small licensing fees, fingerprinting fees or a review of your credentials, so they definitely save time and money.

“Explore your career field to find out if there are jobs that require the experience, but not the license,” Wojtak said. For example, if you are a licensed attorney in one state you may be able to teach a law course at a community college in another state and not need a license for that.”

“Get involved in professional associations through in-person or on-line (LinkedIn Groups etc.) to stay connected with those who have your similar credentials, and often relocation stories,” Poole said. “Find out how others have kept their cost down, any strategies they’ve used that made the processes a bit more seamless.”

Although professional associations do not license or certify professionals, they will be up-to-date on issues with doing so, making them a great first contact, Wojtak said..

“Find out if your career has a national board certification, like the National Board for Teaching Standards” Wojtak said. “You may be surprised at the advantages beyond easily transferring your credentials. If you are a nationally board-certified teacher, school districts may have incentives such as reimbursement for certification costs and annual bonuses,” he added. “In some states, they even seek out teachers with this credential.”

“Many employers (including the military) offer spouses relocation services,” said Poole. “Investigate what might be available to you; and whether it encompasses licensing and credential assistance.”

Some employers also help with job search and career counseling.

“Find out whether you can get tax deductions for any of your work-related educational expenses that either the law or your employer requires, in order for you to keep your job,” Wojtak said.

Visit these web sites for additional information and resources:

Department of Labor License Finder: http://www.careeronestop.org/FindTraining/Types/do-you-need-a-license.aspx

Department of Labor Certification Finder: http://www.careeronestop.org/FindTraining/Types/certifications.aspx?&frd=true

Department of Defense and State Partenerships for state licensing and career credentials initiative: USA4MilitaryFamilies

My Career Advancement Account: grants to pursue licenses, certifications, etc. https://aiportal.acc.af.mil/mycaa

By Amy Nielsen

I had signed up for this retreat almost eight months ago. In fact, I signed up for it with the intention of using it as a launching pad for the first part of my health and wellness mentoring journey. I was really looking forward to the experience. It centered on a topic dear to my heart, was taught by and shared with some exceptional women in a location I love deeply.

Though I had never been to this particular conference before I have been to several of its ilk and was interested to see how this version incorporated the elements of several parts of my life that I feel are somewhat separated.

This was a “nodule on the web” sort of event for me. An event where several different parts of my personal web intersect in an interesting way; where people will know me in a different way than they have before. Many of the women I knew would be at this retreat would possibly have heard of my recent adventures through the lenses of mutual friends and acquaintances.

I have spent the last four months working very hard on a new business plan, but not one related to health and wellness mentoring at all. This was not a retreat or conference I would have attended in support of the food truck business I was creating. It would be fun side knowledge to share, but not the crux of the business. But, I cued the business strategy book up on the Kindle and away I went.

I felt a little like I was going through a worm hole as I travelled up the eastern edge of New York state and across into Vermont. All areas of the country I know well, but that I have not travelled through in many, many years. As I went over the top of one of those glorious Vermont peaks, my break light came on and Casper, my white SUV, started to grind.

“Aw, crud” or some such escaped my mouth.

I played the “just how much does Murphy hate me today” game all the way across Vermont and half way through New Hampshire to the camp. Lucky me, I had started early in the day, as I intended to take my time across one of the most spectacular drives in the country. I arrived at the conference, parked my car, unloaded my stuff, called my home office, i.e. my husband to find a place to get the breaks done on Monday as well as a place to stay over on Sunday night, and by the way, has him ask Nana to stay an extra day. Please! And I let it go out to the universe.

I was planning to work on the overall topic of the conference since it was no longer applicable to my business plan. I was expecting to work on a very physical level with some alternative treatments for my personal health and wellness. It was that kind of retreat. Only women. So I brought the work for that school, my homework, a book on the topic I am working my way through and even a journal I keep meaning to start.

Once I got settled into the weekend and met up with the friends, I got into the groove of the space. I had several of those moments in class where I heard not only something healing to me but something I wanted to pass along to a specific person in my greater tribe.

I started to hear how I introduced myself to people and how I described myself, what I do. Because, I don’t “do” anything right now. I’m a SAHM searching for what I want to do when I grow up. What I heard myself saying in that space of great grace and great power was not the business I had spent the last four months trying to shove into my life, but what I had been incubating when I signed up for the conference in the first place all those long months ago.

I began to take that information and look at it. I talked it out with some of the women I found myself in regular contact with throughout the weekend as we ebbed and flowed through the classes. I began to look around and see who does what and what the options are out there. I started to “try on” other identities to see if that job title, or skill fit my being. I touched in with some deep understandings of where my core is situated right now; what my current strengths are and what the weaknesses are. How to use those and learn and support others through my own personal journey.

And I realized that while I love the idea of a food truck, it’s not what I am supposed to be doing right now. Never once did I even mention the café to anyone who didn’t already know I was working on it as a plan. It never occurred to me to do so.

Instead, I found the most strength and felt the most need is in supporting our military spouses on the journey through the deployment cycle, daily life of a military spouse and the transition into the civilian world.

I can support our community on a large scale at duty stations around the country through workshops and classes. I also want to mentor individual clients on their path to health and wellness as they move around the country. It is exceptionally hard to keep up with alternative treatments when you move as often as a military family does.

If I can be a bridge to link them to care options around the country I believe people will be more likely to continue practices that will support them through the incredibly stressful life we live. By teaching classes in alternative stress management techniques that can travel with a family I believe families will be better equipped to deal with the inevitable hardships.

By the middle of the weekend I was wishing I had brought the business books I intentionally left at home. I wanted to write out my new plan. I wanted to sketch out the logo design. I wanted to write client intake forms. I wanted to start my list of conferences to offer. I wanted to be doing the doing of the business. But the Great Mother in her way said, “Wait child, let it grow. You have more learning to do within you yet before you teach others.”

It was fire circle night. If you have never been to a live fire circle, it could be you and a friend and a guitar and a candle or it could be a bonfire in the corn field with the truck radio, or the wild women in the wild horse ring singing our power, but go to one. Be part of one. It will transform you. And it transformed me as it always does.

By Sunday at closing I was feeling the stress of different meals, different water, high energy and deep learning. My voice was shot, my belly was starting to get unhappy and I had to figure out the car. Yep, remember Casper with no breaks and a five-hour drive back across New Hampshire and Vermont? Yep.

So I said my good byes and trundled down to the brake shop, back up to the hotel, then back in the morning to get the car and away to home. That extra night to get the breaks done turned out to be the space between my learning and my knowing. I needed the space to process what I went through before facing my family with a new plan.

The space to incubate your ideas on a deep cellular level, in the energy of your being. The time to let the idea flow out and through you. To really believe it will happen so much so that you delve deeply into the the pulse of the business is crucial to determining if that business is really the right one for you to start. It is a gift you can give yourself and your business that will be the make or break for it.

I thought I knew what I wanted to do. I made a business plan, created a name, even designed the wagon to carry it. I went to meetings with small business advocacy people. They asked me all sorts of very challenging and opening questions about exactly what that business would look like, and feel like.

I took those questions with me as I went away for the weekend to a retreat. I ended up with a totally different plan but one that is much more suited to me and what I have to learn and to give. Without the space and time to work to be open enough to hear that voice, I would have kept trying to shove my spirit into the wrong bottle. Take the time to incubate your business plan. It is the most important part of the planning process.

PCS is over. The boxes are unpacked. The kids are on their way to a new school.

You are still searching for a job.

If you have dropped a resume at every local employer you can find, try visiting some lesser known, and some well-known, national companies.

The editors at Military.com have comprised a list of national companies that are committed to hiring military spouses. Most of these organizations have locations in every state, cover every field imaginable and need part-time and full-time employees.

Their list includes hundreds of employers who want the skills and dedication that military spouses can bring to their company.

Check out the full list at http://www.military.com/spouse/career-advancement/military-spouse-jobs/military-spouse-friendly-employers.html

Grab a cup of coffee and have your resume up and ready to send. Your next career may be waiting!

If you're a savvy job hunter who knows that 80 percent of job vacancies are filled through networking before they ever "hit the street" then you are probably already networking through family, friends, professional associations, college alumni, volunteering and social media. But, are you tapping into talent communities? If not, start now. In a few minutes you could be directly connected to an employer whose team you've been dying to join.

Companies with large recruiting budgets are building online forums, known as talent communities, to engage with potential candidates long before trying to hire them. They can be found in the careers sections of companies’ websites. You can sign up using a social media account or by providing basic contact information, share a little about yourself and the types of jobs you have your eye on and that's it! You will have opened yourself to a whole new level of networking.

Take for example, Zappos, a company that invites you to become an Insider in just a few clicks. Zappos considers its talent community the best way for you and them to get to know each other and touts the Zappos Insider (Jobs.jobvite.com/zappos/p/inside) as "a special membership for people who want to stay in touch with us, learn more about our fun, zany culture, know what's happening at our company, get special inside perspectives and receive team specific updates from areas are most interested in."

Marriott International calls its talent community hospitalityonline and has a Facebook page (@marriottjobsandcareers) where you can meet the talent community crew who are ‘the official voices of Marriott International who are here to converse with you on social media channels.”

Recruiting approaches like these obviously benefit the employers, but don't take lightly the fact that they can also push you way ahead of your job market competition. Imagine this:

-    Instead of trying to dig up information about what's going on in a company, the information will literally come to you.

-    Instead of getting emails blasts about anything and everything, you decide what types of alerts you want to receive, like those about products and services, business happenings and affiliations with local community organizations.

-    Instead of reading generic FAQs and marketing material, opt to attend company-specific webinars, chats and other online events that enable you to interact with recruiters, current employees and past employees who want you to ask burning questions and who will give you answers.

-    Instead of reading through countless job boards and applying for everything, find out only about jobs for which you are best suited before they are announced to the general public, which narrows down the field of competition and that's the whole point, right?

Once you have gotten to know the company and employees, and become known to them, use all the insight you've gleaned from the experience to present the best picture of how you are a match for that company. Tailor your resume, application and cover letter, and do mock interviews to practice showing how well-informed you are when the right job comes around. Not only might you find yourself on the short list of candidates, but you may soon find yourself on the other side of that very same talent community, providing a leg up to others. Recruiters are going out of their way to find YOU. Be found!

After all, as the saying goes, "If you stay ready, you never have to get ready."

By Amy Nielsen 

I am not really sure how to describe what is going through my head right now. In the past week I have felt higher highs and lower lows than I have ever in my life; including the phone call telling me of the death of my father in a car crash; including the possible still-birth of our second child while my husband was deployed to Afghanistan without communication home.

 I went to Colorado on the offer and verbal agreement to do a specific job. It quickly became apparent that that job was in fact far larger than I had originally thought. And, the problems that came with it, both professionally and personally, were much deeper than I expected.

I decided it was not possible to complete the job in a fashion I felt professionally comfortable with. I am perfectly capable of doing the work, just not under those circumstances. That decision triggered a whole host of personal conflicts and issues I was unaware were so tightly wrapped up in this project. I was, and still am, broken from the ordeal; in heart, spirit and body.

I turned to my tribe. Those that came, came running in force to bring me spirit, heart, encouragement, gentle and not so gentle criticism. These are the people I love deeply. I honor and trust them. Their support is the deep well that I draw from to keep me rolling forward, especially now when I feel so fragile.

 I have never felt more supported by the family, the tribe I have curated and cultivated across the far reaches of the globe who had my back in this moment. But, at the same time, I have been left quite literally hanging in the wind by people standing next to me who I thought were my heart.

What frightens me now, as I re-read what I posted on social media less than 24 hours ago, is the lack of response from friends and family who are trained in crisis management. Who, when they hear a cry for help from a stranger, have professional training that causes them to drop everything and help. Now, that I was in need, the opposite response was given to me. There was no help. It was devastating.

I am not a person who makes phone calls or confronts someone easily with a deeply personal matter. It makes me physically ill to think of my response to those conversations. To feel and replay the lack of empathy and the lack of compassion from people I considered to be part my heart rips me to the bone. 

I started my drive from Colorado back to New York in a frightening state. I was still unsure of exactly how to go home from where I had been. So much has changed. So much has happened. So much has been said that I am unsure exactly how to exist right now.

The planes of the Midwest and the rolling hills of the heartland were a meditative soothing balm to my tattered mind. The wheels and miles rolling ever farther away from there and yet ever closer to here. Once I hit Des Moines though, it was all downhill into the seething pits of the humanity of the East.

Moving along and rolling forward, brings me finally and irrevocably to the state of New York. I think I am beginning to believe Billy Joel. It's a New York state of mind I need to achieve before going home.

I have to figure out how to assimilate all of these emotions bubbling to the surface. And I will take another couple nights of sorting myself out before I try to enter back into the womb I was delivered from four weeks ago.

Several states have enacted legislation this summer to close the pay gap between men and women.

This week Massachusetts made it illegal for job seekers to tell potential employers their current salary. Instead, employers must make an offer first, based on the individual’s worth to the company. It is the first state to enact this type of law.

Earlier this year Maryland lawmakers passed legislation that requires equal pay for what they call comparable work. Last year California began requiring employers to prove that pay was equal for men and women who are doing similar jobs.

Massachusetts and 12 other states also require companies to allow employees to discuss with each other how much they are paid.

Federal law currently prohibits companies from paying one gender more than the other. But, that type of discrimination is difficult to prove. And even with extra efforts by lawmakers, the gap between men and women’s paycheck can be found in almost every type of job.

The United States Census Bureau reports that women are paid 79 cents for every dollar that men earn.  African-American women earn 64 cents and Latina women earn 56 cents for every dollar earned by a non-Hispanic man.

Nationally, Congress has tried to pass the national anti-secrecy law, the Paycheck Fairness Act. However, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly blocked the bill from becoming law.

Some employers have taken the matter into their own hands.

In June, 28 businesses across the U.S. signed the Equal Pay Pledge, promoted by the White House. The pledge requires the companies to audit salaries annually to find gaps in pay by gender. Companies who signed the commitment include Dow Chemical Company, Amazon and PepsiCo.

To read more about the Equal Pay Pledge, please visit https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/06/14/businesses-taking-equal-pay-pledge

By Amy Nielsen

I am rarely speechless. It is almost unfathomable to try to describe what has just happened in my life. The best way I can think to describe it is: paradigm shift.

I honestly thought this blog would be the easiest thing in the world to write. It's turning out to be the hardest thing I have written yet. I can’t focus on any one aspect because every single aspect of my life has changed. Every. Single. One.

I spent this past weekend, at the job interview for my dream job. It was halfway across the country and it was, in the end, the most amazing experience.  I will not, nay, I cannot go into the details as I could fill a million pages. Honestly some things are better just left as experienced and never told.

I can say that to plan a three-month traveling internship with a chef has turned into something much more earth shattering and amazing. There are a lot of moving parts, which seems to be par for the course. I feel somewhat like I am hurtling towards the inevitable and the universe is trying to make all of my dreams come true. Like all at once.

The actual logistics of the whole thing are going to be easy compared to the new family dynamic we are tossing ourselves into. However, as always with third culture families, we can step up to a difficult task, use logic and plan. I already have vast experience living with groups of unrelated people that become a very tight knit structured family unit and that will make this transition easier. All of us are formerly connected with the military and have travelled the world as such. All of us have travelled with performing groups for a living. All of us have worked in jobs that have a very strictly defined hierarchy. That said, with the exception of one, everyone has had significant time outside of the structured group life and in their own spaces. That has made us all appreciate our personal space and time. Something we are all very aware of.

The dynamics of road life with a small group of families is vastly different than all of us have experienced before. Not that we will be bringing our children on the road immediately, but my husband and I have discussed this option for our life many times. This new job of mine will eventually allow us to do just that. And keep our newly made, yet deep and cherished roots, planted where we have chosen to make our home - before the universe opened up a black hole and swallowed me, then spit me out a worm hole into this new paradigm.

So what the blooming, dickens does any of this have to do with herbology or integrative nutrition? Well, I burned the snot out of my typing thumb and index finger in the kitchen and was able to find a local herbalist who had what I needed to help the very deep burn. As for nutrition, I think I am supposed to work on healing my body now that I have healed my spirit.

I am exhausted to the bone. I am physically battered; scared even, for sure. I cannot feel my toes from the standing I have done. I have a planned 35-hour day tomorrow and I could not be happier, more terrified, more exhilarated or more ready to move forward. After feeling so stuck for so long, I really hope everyone can hang on for the ride. I intend to be graceful in this process. I intend to be trusting. I intend to take no - oh the sky is just so amazing out here in the west.

None of us in the core team can do this without the others, we have seen that in spades. Now we need to make the vision happen. It will be a roller coaster for sure.

Does your stomach sink at the thought of getting through your annual performance appraisal? Well, you may soon be in for relief.

In December 2015, the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology announced the top ten work place trends for 2016. Coming in at number four, according to more than 700 members of the organization, is the changing nature of performance management and development.

“More and more organizations are changing the way they approach performance management, moving from forced distributions and ranking systems to processes focused on continuous improvement that truly fosters the development of employees, rather than competition between them,” they predicted. “Performance management is no longer an event-driven process where conversations are held once or twice a year, but is becoming an ongoing conversation between manager and employee that encourages performance development.”

What's driving the change? Janelle Brittain, a performance management consultant, trainer and speaker, believes there are three main drivers.   

“We have the most educated workforce ever; therefore, they have the highest expectations,” she said. “There is low unemployment so people can change jobs whenever they want to. And, the younger generation expects to be more empowered and have their ideas listened to.”

But this change won’t happen overnight and it won’t be perfect, considering the facts that form-focused evaluators tend to have a ‘let’s-get-it-done-put-it-in-the-file-and-get-back-to-work’ attitude. And, even if people-focused, not all evaluators have great conversation skills.

So, whether you are subjected to form-focused performance reviews or treated to people-focused ones, take control of the conversation so you can have the best outcomes.

Brittain, co-author of How to Say It: Performance Reviews. Phrases and Strategies for Painless and Productive Performance Reviews, offers these tips:

·         Ask for interim conversations, rather than saving all your accomplishments until the end of the year. Otherwise, you’ll only gloss over the past year and end up focusing on the past two weeks' accomplishments.

·         Complete the assessment form yourself or write out your successes if there isn’t one. Be fair and realistic about your accomplishments and missteps. Include training you completed that enabled you to do a new task or improve one.

·         Look at your last performance review. Figure out whether your responsibilities have changed since then and document how so. Have many been added, but none taken away, or vice versa? If so, how should your priorities be re-set? If you were your boss, what new goals would you set for yourself?

·         Work into the conversation what you would like your next career step to be. Ask your manager what it would take for you to get there.

·         Finally, step back and evaluate whether you have enough documentation to frame a request for more money, a promotion or an official change in your level of responsibility.

To find out SIOP’s other top work place trends for 2016, visit http://www.siop.org/article_view.aspx?article=1467#sthash.cpzZHCpk.dpuf

By Amy Nielsen

I GOT THE JOB! Yes, I am screaming! OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH!

This is unexpected and out of the blue. This particular job is not just any job either. It is a logistical nightmare in the making – just the way us military spouses like it.

Within the next three weeks I have to go on a weeklong business trip, have several medical tests and procedures, sort out a nanny for my daughters, and figure out how to get a new pair of riding boots to match my kilts before August first.

Boots! In July! Are you kidding me!?

Now how does this new job, on the road for the next three months, fit in with my current newly started studies? Well, in a word, it doesn’t. At all. Except that knowledge never goes to waste and it is stuff I have wanted to know for a long time. If this gig goes south I still have my original pre job-bombshell career in the works.

As a military family, recently retired, we have a unique opportunity here to be in opposite positions for the first time ever. I will in essence be TDY CONUS for three months, while my husband gets the role of fulltime working spouse, AKA Murphy’s new best friend. It has been fascinating watching us pull together, in almost muscle memory precision, the slightly, rusty pre-deployment plan. In my career as a Navy spouse, I was a peer to peer spouse mentor for Navy life. I taught the pre-deployment cycle and the deployment cycle classes. I know how to make slick work of a short notice set of orders. Except this time I’m the one who is going.

So many people ask how it is that my husband is letting me pursue this job. He is clear to point out that he is doing all he can to make this happen for me. He understood going into our relationship that if, after he retired, I was ever given the chance to go return to my career that we would do everything we could to make it work.

He is exceptionally supportive and willing to step into the role of keeper of the homefront. To him it is a chance to see a side of life he has missed out on for the last 20 years of his career. He finally gets to be the primary parent. We pride ourselves on having a very equal relationship, but there is definitely a primary parent and a primary working spouse in our family. Since we homeschool, and will continue to do so while I am away, he will now step into a different role as parent and spouse.

Then they usually turn to me and ask if I know what it’s like living like that? I have plenty of experience on the road. This job is not a new endeavor for me. In fact, being a road warrior is an essential part of my career history. It is one of the things that made my relationship to the Navy and to my husband’s career much easier to deal with. While I was never a service member, I did spend many months at a time away from home with little to no communication, living in very tight quarters with a very small group of people, doing day in day out the same off the wall, never would use it in civilian life in a million years, expertise. I was a lighting designer and road technical manager for a national touring children’s theater production.

I have also spent 10 years and four, 12-month plus deployments with my husband’s Navy career. I understand he cannot possibly know exactly what the roller coaster before him looks like. Between exploding washing machines, flaming minivans, dying pets, vacations alone, and a few other sundry joyous experiences, I survived my visits with Murphy’s law and his sidekick Loki. At least my husband doesn’t have to give birth alone, twice.

Now we are working on a new childcare plan. This so far is turning out to be the hardest stumbling block. I have three weeks to find an appropriate nanny. We have several odd requirements for our nanny and while in an area with a large available pool, our particular situation is proving difficult to fill. The other difficulty is figuring out how much to pay for a rate since we live in the poorest county in our state, next to one of the richest and the rates vary as much as twenty dollars an hour. And let’s not even get started with nanny taxes.

I have a steep learning curve to make sure I get everything at home situated as much as possible so the transition will be as easy as possible. I know it will be rocky. I know it will be hard. I know we will be changed. My job is to make sure we are molded not shattered. I have such a special perspective on this situation. I am bringing all of my resources and talents to bear to make sure this job happens.

By Amy Nielsen

While away on vacation last weekend, in the middle of the craziness when I missed every deadline, the universe plopped an opportunity in my lap that I had to reach for.

They say that with great risk comes great reward and never clip your own wings and such right? So I sent out a resume. Well, not really a resume so much seeing as I haven’t written one of those in over 10 years. Rather, it was the most enthusiastic letter of curriculum vitae that I have ever written.

I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to do with the degree I am currently pursuing. I know that I want to open a practice mentoring people with their current special dietary needs to be able to fit those new needs more seamlessly into their lives. That plan is still on the table.

But, for now, I might get the chance to follow a lifelong dream doing something totally different yet oddly related. I met a mentor who could open up a world I have wanted to follow again for decades.

Therein lies the rub. Do I play it safe and just stick to what I am planning and plug forward to finish this certification and then follow on to a private practice, or, do I find a way to work the old plan in and around the new plan. Of course I have to hear back from the mentor first. But, let’s play with planning the new future for a while. If I do hear back favorably, there is a good chance I will have to move very quickly to jump on the opportunity.

I kind of feel a bit like a juggler on a ball with flaming knives. Trying to keep school, homework and home life together is already a bit crazy. To add in the changes that will need to happen for the new plan to not break us as a family is tough but not insurmountable. As a military family, we are semper gumby and can roll with the waves just fine. We just need to have a little bit of time to be able to put our support networks on notice.

I figure it is going to take the next week or two to shake the biggest bits of this out and get a clearer picture of whether I am going to stick with the original plan of mentoring or the new. A lot depends on another person right now and I cannot manage his timing. All I can do is wait and gather my ducks. Or, at least make sure my ducks are headed for the same pond.

Making phone calls, sending emails, and all of the what if’s might drive me crazy. But, I know that in order to follow this dream I have to make sure that everything else is totally, 100 percent as situated as our dear friend Murphy will allow. Which means planning for a deployment-like time period. Right.  Deployment., I, no, we’ve got this.