This is kind of a cliche, but…
Connections. Connections. Connections.
A couple of years ago, I was in kind of the same situation you’re in. I spent two years working part-time-full-time, waiting for a real full time position to open up at the public library where I worked, so that I could eventually start taking classes to get my MLS a become a full fledged librarian.
I eventually got sick of the grind, and took a job doing child support enforcement for the county human services department. My then-fiancee (now wife) thought it was bad idea, but was willing to support it on the condition that I go back to school for something.
Having run a middlingly successful local music site for a number of years, and done a couple of dozen Linux installs to amuse myself, I decided to go for an IT degree. It kept me sane for the year I spent otherwise miserable though exceedingly proficient at my job. They were looking at me for management, despite being in my mid-twenties, and only having a year’s experience doing child support work. I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about staying there, and started sending out resumes.
During this entire period, my wife’s chronic neurological problems started worsening, so I kept my eye out for positions that seemed non-revolting and relatively stable.
I actually landed a job with the state civil rights commission as an investigator. It was a $10k raise, and seemed interesting enough for me to tolerate. Not my ideal position, but it was definitely a couple of steps up from the cubicle hell I was stuck in.
As I was getting ready to accept the offer, a friend of a friend of a friend sent me an email. He was familiar with my website and my more-than casual *nix experience. He’s also a programmer at a small company that runs exclusively on Linux and AIX, and they were looking for a junior sysadmin.
Mind you, all of my experience was entirely informal. I only had maybe twelve hours of very basic IT courses under my belt at the time. But I can read documentation, and I told them I was eager to learn new things.
They offered me the job, based partly on the recommendation, and partly on my eagerness to learn.
The pay started out at exactly what I was making before, and the health insurance was definitely a step down. If I took the job, I’d be passing up an extra ten grand a year. I told them so, and they offered to pay all of my tuition up front until I finished my degree.
After some intense discussion with my wife, I took the job, and now I couldn’t be happier.
What they didn’t tell me then was that if I performed up to expectations, I’d be looking at 25% raises every year. After a couple of years on the job, I’ll be making more than I would have had I taken that offer from the State.
My $.02:
Do things. Meet people. Tell those people what you do. If you find the right company, your lack of formal certification/education won’t matter as long as you’ve got the right attitude and show a willingness and ability to learn. My boss has never been pissed when I tell him “Gee, I don’t really know anything about protocol XYZ. Lemme buy an O’Reilly book and read a little bit about it for a week or two.”
You might also want to consider looking at smaller companies. If you’re used to working in large organization, it can be a tough thing to conceptualize, especially if your spouse is sick – the health insurance is quite a bit more expensive, for one thing. My wife finally had to quit working in January, and her disability hasn’t started up yet, so we’re barely scraping by at the moment. But it’ll get better.
Small companies are far less likely to give a shit about things like certifications and degrees, insofar as they don’t really tell them anything about the person they’d like to hire. What’s important is getting across the notion that you’d like to get your papers, and learn anything you can in the process of doing so.
Small companies are also far more likely to be flexible with things like time off to care for your spouse. My wife can’t drive, so I’ve got to take her to all of the doctor’s appointments. I would probably go anyway, even if she could drive herself, because I want to be there to help her through all the scary shit. My employer doesn’t have sick time – they don’t even count it, and I’ve never had to worry about asking off for a couple hours a week to take my wife to the doctor.
As for school, send in your damn FAFSA. Before my employer was paying for it, I got about six grand a year in Stafford loans, interest free. That’s plenty for a couple of classes per quarter at a community college or commuter university. Start slow – one or two classes a quarter. It can be a grind, and plenty of it is completely useless, but if you’re in any way motivated and organized it’ll eat up far less time than you think.
That’s all I’ve got at the moment. Let me know if you’ve got any other questions.
(Wow. That was long.)