Options

As I have posted before, my wife wants to move to Mt. Vernon.  We looked at some places in Springfield last week, but that didn’t go over well with Abby.  She says it’s just too busy, that she’d never feel at home, and that it’s no place to raise a child, especially in the places that we can afford.

If we were to live in Mt. Vernon, I’d like to keep my job in El Dorado Springs.  That’s an hour and fifteen minute drive though. That would turn into 2 1/2 hours on the road per workday.  Plus, part of why she wants to move is to get me away from my job.  Even when I’m scheduled for a  normal five-day workweek, someone often calls in or leaves early, and the work falls back on me.  Then, I arrive home to an upset wife.

From Mt. Vernon to Springfield is about a forty minute drive to the east and Joplin is the same amount to the west.  There are options there, but I’m not sure if I want any of those options.  I’m not really ready to think about this yet.  There are retail options.  There are call center options.  I’m sure there are job in fields that I’ve never even considered before.  I often look at jobs at Drury University, and they’re searching for a full-time groundskeeper.  I’d be willing to do that, if the pay was right, just to be back on campus.

There’s also an Orscheln Farm & Home store opening in Mt. Vernon this year.  Perhaps that is another opportunity, if they’d let me come back on, finish their manager trainee program, and manage that store.

Can I just stay here, keep my job, and keep our lower rent?

What will 2015 bring?

I’m not sure where we’re headed in 2015.

I love living in El Dorado Springs.  For some reason, I feel more at peace than any other time in my life.  I’ve always liked visiting this town and it seemed natural to make it my home.  I love the different views you get driving in, whether it be on 54 from the east or west, 32 from the south, or 82 from the north.  The rugged Ozarks hills transition into the Osage Plains.  I like a lot of the people, especially the older folks and more established families.  I like the busy business community and what’s available here.  I can tell that things haven’t changed as quickly since the 1970s and 80s as they have in other places.  I see more elements of the past here.  For me, this has been an enjoyable year and a half.

My wife hasn’t had the same experience.  This is her first time living outside of her parents’ house.  We’re about 65 miles or a 1 hour, 15 minute drive from their home in Mt. Vernon.  She finds the people here to be poor, slow, and backwards.  She had a tough experience teaching at the public school here, along with a difficult pregnancy.  She didn’t like the healthcare she was receiving in nearby Nevada, so we ended up making the 80 mile, 1 hour and 30 minute drives to Springfield through most of the pregnancy. We now go to Nixa for the pediatrician, nearly 90 miles away.  She misses being able to meet friends who live closer to the I-44 corridor.  She says they don’t want to come up here, since they’d rather meet down there where there’s more places to eat and shop.   She had to spend some time during her pregnancy teaching at the Nevada Head Start.  She is spending this school year teaching at the El Dorado Christian School.  She has a small number of students, so the pay is about half out what a public school teacher receives and it doesn’t help her with her state certification.  Just add that to her list of negatives.

She wants to move back to Mt. Vernon this summer and teach there.  I want to stay in El Dorado.  I say, maybe we can try Springfield someday.  She says she’s not raising Harper in Springfield, because it’s too big  and dangerous.  She’s not going to teach there either.  I keep hoping she’ll meet a great friend here that will make her want to stay.  Maybe something will come along here that will change her mind.  I keep hoping that maybe she’ll have a more positive outlook on El Dorado.  She’s basically making the decision and I feel stuck, like I have to go along with it or lose our marriage.  Will I be able to make the commute back to Shopko?  I don’t want to find a new job.  I like my job.  I don’t want to argue about this.  I’ve been told that she’s moving whether or not I want to.  Do I just keep my opinions to myself and go along with this?  This may be our biggest challenge of marriage to date!

Life happened

I haven’t made a post in over 2 1/2 years.  I’ve been busy.

• When the Mt. Vernon Pamida closed in August 2012, I transferred to the El Dorado Springs location which had recently reopened as Shopko Hometown.
• I then went to work for Orscheln Farm & Home as a management trainee in September 2012, where I trained in Republic, MO.
• I proposed to Abbigail Hubert in December 2012.  Our date consisted of driving to El Dorado Springs, shopping at Shopko, eating the El Dorado Mexican Restaurant, and watching Wreck it Ralph at the Opera House Theater.  My proposal appeared on the screen during the credits.  She said yes and we ended up going to the park across the street and sitting in the bandstand for an hour, just soaking up the moment.
• I was sent to work at an Orscheln location in Pacific, MO in March 2013 and was slated to become the manager there.  I stayed in a hotel for over a month.  Abby and I signed the lease on an apartment and I moved all of my belongings to Pacific, thinking I’d stay.
• Abby was struggling to get a teaching job in the St. Louis and Franklin County area, so she applied at El Dorado Springs and was hired.  I then called my my old boss at the El Dorado Springs Shopko.  I still had to go online and apply, but I was pretty much instantly hired back.
• On June 21, 2013 my grandfather, Lester Rodenberg, passed away at 94.
• On June 22, 2013 Abby and I were married on June 22, 2013 at Zion United Church of Christ, Mt. Vernon, MO.  It would have also been Grandpa and Grandma Rodenberg’s 67th anniversary.
• We spent a three or four days on our honeymoon in Rogers, Bentonville, and Eureka Springs, Arkansas, before going to Lexington, MO for my grandfather’s funeral.  After the funeral, we spent the evening and next day in El Dorado Springs in search of a home for rent.  The one we settled on, we had to wait until late in the day to look at.  I’m not sure what we would have done if the inside of this one had not been to our standards.
• On the first Saturday in July 2013, my best friend, Jay, and I moved my belongings to El Dorado Springs.  Abby had also already taken a few items to Pacific that I had to move, as well as a couch we already bought in Washington, MO.  By the time we got to El Dorado, she had most of her belongings unloaded from her parents’ house in Mt. Vernon, MO.
• I started work at Shopko the following Monday.
• Abby began teaching first grade in the El Dorado Springs R-2 Schools.
• It turns out that she was soon pregnant and very sick.  She wasn’t able to teach without leaving the classroom several times a day. The district worked out a deal so she could resign.  Unfortunately, that put a strain on our budget and put a stop to our plans to save for a home down payment.
• At nearly the same time, I was quickly promoted back to Assistant Manager at Shopko, a position I’d previously held at Pamida.  This time, I was salaried rather than hourly.
• Abby went to work for West Central Head Start in Nevada, MO until Harper was born.
• Harper Rose Rodenberg was born March 20, 2014 at Cox South, Springfield.
• Our store manager left at the beginning of June to return to his old location in Palmyra, MO.  I was acting manager through the summer and had applied for the job.  I nearly had the job, but a current manager from the Larned, KS Shopko Hometown applied for the position at the end of July or beginning of August.  I was told that I would have had the job, but they must choose someone who is currently a store manager over someone who isn’t.  She began work on September 2 and I’m still the Assistant Manager.
• Abby began teaching third grade at the El Dorado Christian School in August 2014.

What’s next?

Homelessness

This is a draft of a post I was going to make in June 2012.  I never wrapped it up, but thought I’d go ahead and share what I did write.

Growing up, I never encountered people who were homeless.  If I did, I never knew it.  Growing up in the Wellington-Napoleon school district, there was some economic differences between students but not a lot.  While my family’s income wasn’t a problem, my parents weren’t focused on their kids like many parents were.  At the time, I sometimes felt like the poor kid, even a loser.  My grandparents did help out to make things better than they otherwise would have been.  I did occasionally see poverty in neighboring Lexington, presumably because it was just a bit further from better jobs in the Kansas City metro area.  Also, to live around Wellington or Napoleon you had to have a good reason to be there, most likely family relations, inherited property, farming, or something related to the school.

Since being in southwest Missouri I have seen more poverty.  I think that it has historically been a part of the Ozark region.  While my hometown was surrounded by fertile land along the Missouri River, the land of the Ozarks is rocky and not as suitable for crop farming.  The Ozarks was isolated for a longer period of time, as they waited for the railroad while the Missouri River naturally flowed through my home of Lafayette County.

At the Pamida store in Mt. Vernon, I witness some of the problem.  Poor parenting.  Poorly dressed.  Obese.  Bad odors.  Poor decision making when making purchases.  Uneducated, or at least poor grammar and vocabulary.  I’ve set foot in filthy homes, beyond what I previously considered dirty, while delivering furniture or electronics.  I’ve recently learned of multiple families living in tents in Lawrence County.

In Springfield, Commercial Street is known as the gathering place for homeless people.  There are services and places for them to stay, which in the past caused conflict between the charities and the business community.  Today, Commercial Street, now dubbed C-Street, is seeing growth and revitalization.