Thank you very much! Do you know if it makes a difference where you got your education and experience for where law professors teach? Would it be easier to get a job teaching in the state where he is a member of the bar?

He was a journalist once, but all his writing now is fiction. I do think it would be a great fit for him to be a law school professor teaching criminal law, and he could do a lot of good that way, too. I wonder what is required to get that job? Dh’s old boss will be retiring mid-term when he hits retirement age. Maybe if I framed it as taking the job as a trial just until the next election year to see if my SAD could be managed, he would be more willing to consider it.

I can see trying some new things to manage my SAD, but the big trouble is convincing dh. I will try suggesting counseling to him, that’s a good idea. He is indeed devastated when he loses a trial. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s very rough when it does.

Going into corporate law, intellectual property, or estate planning law could be possibilities. It would be starting over from the bottom, on things he hasn’t studied in ten years, but I think it would be worth it, if I could convince him. We actually have family in Southern California with extra room and an open invitation, so I could potentially spend every February there.

That is his big concern. There would also be some stress with trying to manage an office in a perpetually underfunded county, but I think he would still jump at the chance for the promotion if it weren’t for his concern for me. I did use vit D, St. John’s Wort, and SAD lights to deal with it when we used to live there, but it still seemed to get harder to manage each winter. He carries every one of those kids with him in his heart. And there are so many! At his work, he is the calm and steady rock for victims and their families, but I see it coming out at other times: throwing up in the morning before a trial from nerves, insomnia, stomach and headaches all the time, breaking down crying when he sees the little girl in foster care at our church smile.

My dh is a public prosecutor who specializes in sex crimes and minor victims. He has been doing this for eight years and is really, really good at it. And it is eating him up emotionally. I am worried about him. I have suggested he ask his boss to give him a variety of cases instead of all of these ones, but he won’t do it—he says he couldn’t take the guilt if a defendant got off to hurt more kids because a less experienced attorney took one of his cases and lost. All his experience is in criminal law, which means doing what he does as a prosecutor, or going to the other side and defending criminals, which would not be much help. I don’t know if switching to private law is even an option—maybe if he was going for the kind of job you get straight out of school. He worked as a legal clerk for a private law firm pre-bar and hated it (“All I do is argue over other people’s money and help people who used to love each other try to ruin one another’s lives.”) but it wasn’t soul-eating like this. We still have $25,000 of law school debt left. Being a public employee, he makes far less than his private law counterparts, but with the promise of a great pension program if he works in this field for 30 years (or 25 if a possible bill goes through in our state). That was always our plan, but I am becoming convinced that another 22 years, or 17, is untenable. Some ideas: He taught a class at the community college last term, and enjoyed it. However, he actually made less than minimum wage with preparation and grading time. It would be somewhat better with repeating classes and less prep, but still very low. I assume teaching at a university might pay better. How does one become a professor? Would getting some more experience teaching at the local cc help to go that direction? He is also a really excellent writer, and I believe he could succeed as a professional author if he could finish a book and get in with a publisher—but the deeper under stress he goes with work, the less he writes. If we had a large enough savings to live on for a while, I could try to convince him to quit and try writing for a set period of time, but we have always thrown most of our assets at paying off debt—and I doubt I could get him to go for that. He is very risk averse. The most likely option, in my view, would be to go back to our old town. His old boss is retiring soon, and dh would almost certainly get his job if we went back. When I asked, he said that if he were the D.A., he would be able to let these cases go as he isn’t able to now, because the DA has to do office management and politics as well as prosecuting and it would be his job to train up someone who could give them his full attention. It would also be a great career move for him. He is dead set against going back, because I struggled with severe seasonal affective disorder there. But maybe with being able to afford a brighter, more open home and a couple trips to warmer climates during the winters, it wouldn’t be as bad? He is worried about my mental health, and I’m worried he’s trading his mental health for mine.

Yes, I grew up in an area that is strongly opposite myself on the political spectrum, as well as having lived in areas like that for 5 1/2 years of my adulthood. You will wind up paying for things via your taxes that you disagree with, but that will probably happen to some degree everywhere. Mostly it's not such a big deal in individual interactions with people, as you can always look for the common ground and the good in others whether you disagree or not, generally agree to disagree as needed, and excuse yourself from relationships with the few people who refuse to allow that mutual respect. The big exception to this was public school. There kids don't have the option to excuse themselves from a situation, and (at least where I lived) there are some teachers who feel free to use their position to push their own political views, deride students who publicly disagree, and even in one instance lower grades. On the up side, kids who go through the public school system and come out the other side still holding views differing from the norm will have really deeply explored what they believe and why by that time.

Well, she and her mother combine their students for group classes and recitals, so I'm not sure. Also, these teachers are very in-demand and she might just not have room in her practice right now. Another option is her daughter, who is just starting her teaching practice, and therefore much more likely to have space open--but I'd rather have them with someone who has more teaching experience if possible.

Sorry, not my daughter. We are definitely changing teachers, as I will let dd know. I mean I am wondering if the teacher's daughter (the other teacher that I think dd would do well with) will also have a problem with us not doing recitals on Sundays.

Well, she made this easy. At dd's lesson, I started to bring up my youngest who I had previously talked with her about starting this summer on lessons as well. I thought maybe I would start ds with the daughter teacher, and then see about switching dd over, too, after her book 1 recital in June. But instead, the teacher told me she won't take ds on unless we agree to start coming to recitals on Sundays. (We don't do extracurriculars on the sabbath for religious reasons). She said that she has had other LDS students who came to Sunday recitals, so she doesn't think it should be a problem for us. She did not say she would drop dd if we wouldn't, but it seemed like that was where she was going. So, the question is whether her daughter will feel the same way, or if I need to find someone else.

She's never cried during a lesson, but during practice. Her teacher will say, "practice just these two measures the first day for as many times as it takes you to master them completely, then the next day, add two more measures and do the same thing with those four, then add two more. . ." Which works better for her than when she was trying to work on a whole section at a time, but even so, she gets really overwhelmed before a week has rolled around and she is supposed to know a ten or twelve measure section perfectly. I have told the teacher this, but she keeps saying things to dd like, "Remember, it's very important for you to practice every day, and it's not good enough to just whip through it sloppily and say 'I'm done!' You really need to practice the way I have showed you, and work on each part carefully and the right way every time." So I'm not sure if she believes me. She also will often seem to be repressing irritation when dd still can't play a whole song after a month and a half of working on the same piece.

That's hard. There's a Suzuki violin teacher I keep thinking would be great for dd2, as she does really excellent teaching, but has a lighter, more fun and less stressful manner than dd's very exacting teacher. Monthly group classes are done with both teacher's students together, and the two teachers alternate teaching, and dd has really enjoyed the classes taught by the other teacher. Dd2 gets overwhelmed and cries at least once a week during practice--she wants to stay with it, but music does not come easily to her, and she has to work significantly harder and longer to master pieces and progress than either of the siblings she is sandwiched between. And I think, but am not sure, that dd's teacher thinks she doesn't work very hard at practicing, and that is why she takes so much longer to progress. (Ds who is 19months younger than her has been playing the cello for less than half the time she has been playing the violin, and is half a book ahead of her. On the same song, which is more technically difficult for cello because it requires shifting positions, ds will master it in two or three weeks and it will take dd three months.). Also, youngest ds is going to be starting violin lessons soon, and the other teacher's lighter, more playful manner seems like it would be better for a very young student. But not only do the two teachers do group classes together, the other teacher is dd's current teacher's daughter. I just don't know how to broach that, socially.

Thank you all very much. This has helped me to think through things. Dh and I have reluctantly agreed that, as much as we love house #2, the commute is not going to work for us. We have a trip in a few weeks, and we're thinking we'll just wait 'til after that and take another look at what's available in a month or so.

Thankfully dh's employment is very secure--or maybe unfortunately, because as long as there is crime, there will be need for prosecutors. Your point about being vulnerable to health problems is certainly valid (in fact we experienced that when my youngest was born, and moved closer to a city with a good children's hospital and specialists for a year), but when your employment is based in a small town, that possibility needs to be balanced against possibly renting or commuting forever.

I did quite a bit of work alongside my parents on our house growing up, and I think I have a fairly good idea of how much of it I enjoy in a hobby way, and how much would be too much. (I enjoy painting, minor tiling jobs like backsplashes, redoing kitchen cupboards, I don't mind things like baseboards and doors, I'm not up to handling things like walls and windows without my dad, but no one will ever get me to lay a large stone tile floor again!)

House #1 (current town) mediocre public schools + two great charter schools that are hard to get in to. Hopping real estate market. House #2 (town in other state) excellent public school. Moderate real estate market. House #3 (town dh works in) mediocre public school + a very good charter school. Low numbers of houses go on the market there, but they tend to sell quickly. This house is an exception, having sat on the market for 8 months now (I assume because of the weird L-space).

😂

House #1 has had everything redone. Plumbing, electrical, insulation, a new roof (the old roof had several layers of tiles already and was completely removed and replaced). I don't know how to tell whether a house was well-maintained prior to being updated. Would an inspection be able to find that out? I have no attachment to our town. We have lived here for a year, and I still have no friends here. My boys' best friends just moved away, too. It is conveniently located for shopping and some of the kids' activities. We have set a hard and fast line for ourselves for what we are willing to pay for a house, so yes, we'd be prepared to walk away.

It's mainly just plain, but not bad, and has an odd layout. The square footage looks generous on paper, but there is a long, narrow, L-shaped room that runs the length of two complete sides of the house which would be a challenge to figure out how to make good use of, and the other parts of the house that are put together normally are kind of on the small side for the size of our family. But maybe I should try to think of it as a blank slate instead?

https://www.instagram.com/eva.stories/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_mid=XMyEFgAAAAGBZ1owKaepE9G4wY2D A father and daughter reproduced the diary of 13-year-old Eva Heyman (who died in Auschwitz) as Instagram videos. This might be a good resource for families covering the Holocaust in history.

I don’t know about ps sports in either one. I should look that up. My oldest child interested in the kinds of sports they do in schools is six, so it’s never come up. Good colleges are available in both states, less expensive in the other state than in ours, though so far my kids all say they want to go out of the region to the private college dh and I attended, which is cheaper and better ranked than either state’s schools.

Taxes are significantly cheaper in the other state. About $1000 less per year on property taxes.

It would probably cost about $20K. Because it is a historic house, we would be eligible for a state grant to pay half the costs, but I don't want to rely on that because who knows if the funding will actually come through.

Cool, do you know if you can do it for each kid, or only one kid per family?

😂