A lot of people have asked me, “What are you going to do this year?” The answer: a lot. So far in 2013, I have had a baby, quit my job in Augusta, been a homeless/stay at home mom (wait, isn’t that an oxymoron?) while Andy was at Officer training and I have travelled across the country…my 5 month old has been to more states than some adults, 10 in all.
But of course, that’s not the answer people are looking for, most people want to know when I’m going to get my next TV gig. The answer: I don’t know.
I now have a resume website that’s nearly complete. When I look at it, I feel a sense of pride, accomplishment and confusion. Confusion because I go through it and think…What the heck am I going to do with this? At first I thought I would send it to News Directors in Las Vegas and just see if they had any positions that interested me. Then I realized…there’s no position that a potential boss could present me that I would be willing to take.
I graduated college early at 21 and to my knowledge I was the first out-of-college reporter that my TV station hired. Let me tell you how fun that was…actually I’ll leave that part out. My point is, is that at 21 I wasn’t going to bars in downtown Athens…I was working long hours at a job where I was just trying to keep my head above water. It got better of course, but with hard work comes privilege and that privilege got me moved up from noon producer/sometime reporter to weekend reporter. And on the weekends I would stay for the next 3 years.
I was offered to stay at the Columbia station as the morning reporter/noon anchor which would have been a great gig, but I couldn’t handle the hour plus commute from Augusta to Columbia at 2 a.m. So, I got a new gig…Weekend Anchor in Augusta.
I wouldn’t trade my time at either of these stations, but, it was a lot of work and very little (sometimes zero) play. Not only did I work a crazy news schedule, but Andy was a dental student who had his nose stuck in books for 4 years. Because I worked weekends the only vacations we took were holidays with family. So far this year…we’ve been to the gulf, dates on the Vegas Strip and San Diego. Even though the game didn’t work out the way I wanted it to…it was the first full UGA game I was able to watch in years that I didn’t have to take a vacation for. As you can imagine…all of this has been a lot more fun than trying to fill a weekend newscast!
So, now there is the opportunity to try out staying at home for a year. We will only be stationed in Las Vegas for a year, so if I don’t do it now, I never will. I want a year where my husband, baby and living life come first. So far…I really like it. I love the time with Vi, I love having an organized house and I love having time and energy to cook. Will I still really love it 6 months from now or will the news bug come back to bite me? I’m not sure, but I’m using this year to figure it out.
Pics of enjoying this Air Force Adventure so far:
