Tuesday, September 8, 2015

I am now a certified Indoor Cycling instructor

A few posts ago, I alluded to having a specific goal for the past 15ish years which I never worked towards.  With my husband's encouragement, I worked towards that goal and I'm now a certified spinning/indoor cycling instructor.

I love it.  It's a fun, healthy hobby.  It keeps my fitness in check and lets me be a leader which I enjoy.  I also love picking the music for my classes (and I don't have to listen to another instructor's musical choices!)

I've been working at a local-to-me studio which offers indoor cycling classes.

But, I've had my eye set on a different studio.  I auditioned there a few days ago, and I thought I did a kick ass job.  But, today, I received a nice rejection email.  I'm a bit heartbroken, but I'm trying to keep it all in perspective.  I am doing some work as a spinning instructor and I'm pretty newly certified, so that's a good thing!

The other good news is that they let me know quickly, so now I get to look for other studios who may want to hire me.  I'm currently teaching about 1 class per week and my goal is to teach 2-4 classes per week.

Their loss, right?


Thursday, September 3, 2015

The Cost of Kindergarten - ask #1

This is a series of blog posts that I wish that someone else had written a year ago when I was trying to figure out what our expenses would be once our daughter started Kindergarten.

My goal here is to document every time we are asked to pay money during Kindergarten.

Date: September 2, 2015 - the first day of Kindergarten
What the ask was: The PTA is doing its BIG fundraiser.  They say that they spend $350 per child each school year.  They encouraged us to donate to them what we would have paid for one more month of pre-school, child care or summer camp.
What we gave: $1,111
Why we gave that amount: I was aiming for some amount between $350 and $1,600.  I wanted to at least cover my daughter's cost and then some for families who can't cover their $350.  And, as a side note, $7 of this amount goes towards our families' PTA dues for the year.  I'd like to say that so far, I am very impressed with our school's PTA.  They seem like they are hard working and smart people who work hard to make our kids' school as good as it can be.

.....................................
Running Total: $1,111