The biggest move of our lives is about to take place...

I'm scared but excited... 

My life will forever be changed

once we move to...................

You read that right! My husband, son (aged 12), my weenie dog and I will be making the huge move to Shanghai, China. What?!?!?!?! 

I don't know if you've noticed that my blog has been a little slow over the past few months, but my family has been dealing with some pretty heavy issues. Then, in the middle of dealing with everything I was called up by my principal to say that because of budget cuts I was going to be laid-off of 60% of my teaching contract. This is from a school that I've taught at for 6 years and a place where I've built the choral program up from virtual extinction to bursting at the seams... But, $$ talks and when push comes to shove the non-choral (band) classes I taught were trimmed down to one teacher and I was let go.

Literally, the night my principal called me I was in bed surfing on my phone and thought I would search: Teaching Abroad. I was at once amazed, excited, and optimistic about my future. The next day I updated my resume and applied for 20-30 jobs all over the globe. Places from arctic Canada to Mauritius, to, well, China. After I applied for the jobs there was a long wait. I stalked my email inbox for 3-4 weeks until I got a first interview with Sino-Canada High School. The interview (skype) went well and I didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks so I thought it was over until I got an email saying I had a second interview with the principal. (Yay!) The interview went very well and during the conversation I mentioned my husband was a teacher too and would also be looking for work. The principal asked if my husband would want an interview, RIGHT NOW, and he was game! A few days later we were both offered contracts, I am going to teach musical theatre, and Ian will teach middle school... 

Crazy, right? So we'll be leaving in 2 months and in the meantime I am up to my ears in preparations for a move... We're selling our house, our car, putting most of our stuff into storage, farming out two animals... It's a lot of work, BUT, I will be taking a fair amount of my crafting supplies with me, I mean, I'm moving to China, I'm not dying, lol... I will have to drop one design team, but other than that, I will be back to normal in September!! 

So for now, I will be posting until August then I will for real need to pack and ship all of my stuff to China, I just won't be posting as often! Any hints/recommendations are welcomed with open arms. Please let me know if you've made a move to a far-off land and what you did to make things easier.. I am relying heavily on advice to make this move as smooth as possible!