Writing

So, as many of you know I left full-time public school teaching at the end of the last school year. I knew when I left that I would not come back to teach in that environment. There were many reasons for my departure:
1. I wanted to spend more time with Joel. I never planned to be a stay-at-home mom, but there were many things that happened that led me to stay at home part-time with Joel. We had a horrible experience with his first daycare provider. We love his current provider, but we wanted to take on more of an active role in his daily life. I didn't want to feel as though his child care provider took my place. I know that probably wouldn't have happened, but I just see more of a disconnect in our generation with our kids. I'll discuss that more in another post. Anyways, Joel goes to daycare 2-3 times a week and we love it.
2. I became disillusioned with public school teaching. It just wasn't fun anymore. I no longer had the desire to spend extra hours tutoring, attending meetings, or conducting state-assessment prep camps. When Joel was born, I also stopped believing in public education, and that has become a big issue in our family as we have to decide quickly if he'll attend public school or private school or a mixture of the two.
3. I wanted to pursue a college-teaching career. I still do, but it is difficult to get a full-time teaching job at a community college or university, so I've been teaching part-time, which works well for our family.
4. I wanted to pursue my writing career. Back in 2007, I really started to delve into creative non-fiction and fiction. It started with creating little stories for my students. I also did a 3-week writing workshop through my school district one summer which helped to solidify that desire. Murad always encouraged me to write, but I never had the time and after many rejections, I just didn't know what to do. This past fall, I started writing again. I was hired on at a few educational start-ups doing script-writing and passage-writing, but was let go due to lack of funding. I also did publish some articles here and there and started a small resume-writing service, but didn't have much success. Well, now I have a steady freelance gig with Modern Dental Practice Marketing! I write blog entries for dental practice blogs. Looks like there will be more opportunities to do website-writing, etc. Since the blog posts are to be written as if I work at the dentists' office, I will not post links to my posts on my Ashlea Campbell Writing blog. In fact, I am thinking of taking down the blog. I can do a lot more through my Facebook page and it seems as though more people follow me there than on my blog or Twitter. Anyways, I'm excited about my new journey. I promise to post more of my writing when I can!

I leave you with a picture of my boys! I love them so much and couldn't imagine my life without them. Our little man will be 23 months tomorrow! We're a month away from two! He makes me smile so much. Today, we played in the yard, took a walk and watched movies on the couch. Perfect Sunday with them. Of course, he did eat everything in sight today, but that's my son!