Where Have I Been?

Don't worry everyone-I'm still alive!  I couldn't believe I had let nearly 2 months go by without posting.  I'm officially terrible at this blogging thing.  Although, to be fair, I have had a lot going on.  So what have I been up to?

Well, the wedding is now less than 1 month away (Yay! and Yikes!)  We've been doing a lot to get ready for that-some DIY projects, some shopping and attempting to keep up on thank you notes as we keep getting wonderful goodies delivered to our doorstep.  I've been blessed to have had 2 wedding showers in April-both of which were lovely and resulted in us needing to completely re-arrange our kitchen.  It's a nice problem to have though so no complaints here.

We've also been incredibly busy with our yard.  I am happy to say that we are basically done with yard stuff for the summer. We've got lots of little baby plants to keep up and alive and we've even got some baby grass growing!  Here are some pictures so you can see what we've been up to (fair warning-there are lots of pictures):

Stage One:

Starting with a blank slate this year!  So much better than last year.  As a refresher, here's what it looked like last year around this time:

We've had so many more perennials come up this year over last.  I attribute it to there not being quite so much junk in our back yard.  It's been kind of fun to try and figure out what kind of plants all of the new little green leaves coming up are!

Stage Two: Planting!

It's hard to tell in this picture-but there are about 15 to 20 coleus plants and a few marigolds up front in this bed.  I'm hoping the coleus does okay back there this year-but we'll see.

More coleus along the fence-and an Azalea tree that actually bloomed this year!

And even more coleus between the driveway and back yard.  We had a lot more space to fill this year so we're hoping all of the coleus will fill out nicely.

View from the patio.

We're giving butternut squash another try this year (on the left) and also growing some tomatoes again. This year I've put marigolds in the planters with the squash and tomatoes and I put some around the outside of the container.  Hopefully they help keep the critters away.

Stage Three: Grill, Furniture and Mulch!

Our fantastic neighbors had a few wheelbarrow fulls of extra mulch...so they just dropped them off in our driveway for us.  I still owe them a pie as a thank you-I should probably get going on that :)  So we put some mulch in the small bed between the cement pad and the walkway-that is now our grill's new home.  I also split and transplanted a few different hostas in that bed-just to add a little something.

We bought a table!  We had plenty of chairs so we just got a table for now.  It's so great to actually have a full size table to eat dinner outside on.

Our patio pots :)  We have three this year instead of just two.  This year we went with the normal, bigger petunias rather than the small super petunias.  Matt didn't enjoy deadheading tiny super petunias all the time-so we switched it up just a little.

Oh-I forgot to mention the yellow things on the fence!  We found those at a garage sale and I repainted them.  We weren't sure they'd work inside so they found a new home on the fence outside.  Just adds a little something I think.

We also added some solar lights and pots of lavender by the table.  It actually looks pretty cute at night when they light up.  I haven't been able to get a good picture of that though.  If I can, I'll post it.

So that has been our yard work progress.  Really, we're in good shape to just maintain and not have lots of projects all summer.  We're both excited to have the plants grow up a bit more and just enjoy having our own outside space.  I think it's a vast improvement from what it all looked like when we got the house.

We've also been busy with some other things.  The Gilda's Club event I was on the committee for happened a few weeks ago.  It all went very well and seems to have raised a decent amount of money which is always nice.  Here's a slightly blurry picture of Matt and I from that night:

We've also been able to make it to a couple of Red Wings game and Tigers games.  We're going to a Tigers game on Monday-I'm hoping that this time will actually be warm.  The first two times we've gone I've needed blankets...and gloves...and a hat!  So hopefully this one gets above 50 degrees!

My first Red Wings game!

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!  Hopefully it's slightly warmer where you are.  It's been in the mid to high 60's.  Matt loves it, but it's a bit on the chilly side for me.  I'm hoping our trip to the zoo today brings with it warmer weather!  Even if it doesn't-I still get to go to the zoo!  

Have a great holiday everyone!

Spring!

This past year has gone fast!  Yesterday marked our first full year in Michigan; naturally we celebrated by going to a Red Wings game :)  That wasn't actually why we went but the timing just worked out nicely.  It’s been quite a busy year for us with lots of ups and downs but overall its been an worthwhile experience.  I’m even beginning not to completely dislike it here-or as Matt say- I’m beginning to tolerate it.

Sadly, this year has not been as warm as last year which is a big bummer for me since I now have an open yard to play with.  We finally got the management company (by way of the owner) to tear down the terrible gazebo like thing in our backyard!!  Yay for small victories :)  Getting rid of that thing made our yard look about twice as big-and not nearly as ghetto (always a plus).  It also means I can plant more flowers in our back bed and hopefully the back part of our yard will actually be able to grow some grass.  We did our first outside work day/afternoon this past weekend.  We removed a bunch of old boards that were “edging” out our driving and replaced it with some plastic edging.  It’s amazing how much a quick $50 project can make something look so much better.  It only took us 2 hours to take out the old boards, move the dirt as needed, run to get more edging (we underestimated the length of our driveway) and set the new stuff in the ground.  Overall not too shabby.  We’re also working moving some dirt around, moving some rocks around, and just prepping the grass and dirt for when spring truly decides to come. 

On other news and updates (since it’s been a month since I posted last) we successfully navigated the new car adventure.  It was one of the more stressful things for us, not because we couldn’t decide on a car, but because I am someone who figures out what I want and then I immediately want to get it.  Matt figures out what he wants and then researches and tries to haggle to get the best price possible.  When you put those two things together it can result in some tense discussions and planning.  We made it through however and I am now running around in a 2013 Subaru Forester!  We ended up just leasing it but we calculated things out pretty well so we should be good on miles and either way I love this car!  Except the new car smell-that gives me a headache every time, I’m hoping that goes away soon.

Let see, what else is new….not a whole lot actually.  We finally made the jump to a new mattress.  Well we ordered it and it’s arrived but it’ll be a few days before we can sleep on it.  We decided to buy a memory foam mattress and it was shipped to us so we have to wait a few days for it to reach its full size.  Tonight is installation night…we’re getting some wood boards to put across our frame and taking the thing out of the box.  I’m pretty excited because it means we can finally put our current bed in the spare room and the futon can go down to the basement which means we will have a legitimate bed for people to stay in when they visit!  I feel so adult now!  Matt’s also pretty excited because it means he can get a second tv to put in the basement.  Although our basement stays fairly cool in the summer so we’re thinking it will helps us keep our AC costs down if we just watch tv in the basement during the summer. 

I think that’s about it for me.  Work is going well.  I’m also managing to keep myself busy through my Gilda’s Club event committee and I’ve taken on a co-chair position for the Membership committee of AFP here in Detroit.  That is turning out to take up a decent amount of time and energy.  Plus there’s still wedding stuff to be done!  Overall we’re keeping fairly good track of everything and not annoying each other too much about everything that needs to get done.  Now if some warm weather would get here I would be a very happy camper!

February

As usual, I have no idea where the time went.  I know February is a short month, but even considering that, it just flew by!  For Matt and I, February had lots of new things.  I started my new job, Matt went on his first  long(ish) business trip since we've been together, and we are in the process of making our first big joint purchase (a car-not a house).

So I can now actually tell you a little about my new job, since I've been here for a bit.  So far it seems like a good choice to have come to this organization and this team.  It was a little bit of an interesting start since I was one of two new people on our annual giving team.  The team is made up of a specialist (me), a manager (he's been here a long time) and a director (she started this Monday).  It's been interesting because I started two weeks before the director so nobody wanted to start having me get into things until she got here.  I mostly just have jumped on to whatever project or task needed an extra hand for the last two weeks.  It hasn't been too bad and I think its a good way to learn about different aspects of the group.  Since I've gotten to meet my new boss I'm even more excited about this position.  She seems really great and, like the department director, seems very into encouraging professional growth.  It's nice to be in an organization that not only encourages growth through things like conferences and professional group memberships, but that also has the funds to actually have people do things.  I've already been told I can expense things-this is a word not often spoken so freely in non-profit.  I am seeing the advantages of joining a large, more corporate, non-profit.  

I've been pretty happy with how easily I've gotten back in the swing of things and having a full time job.  I got extremely sick last week and am just now-after about 10 days-starting to feel like a normal human again.  That kind of put a hamper on my ability to keep up with everything at home (read as-our house got pretty messy for a few days, which is very unusual).  Besides the being sick, Matt and I have re-adjusted pretty quickly to sharing household chores which is great.

Matt made his first long trip for his new job.  He was gone for 5 days and was unfortunately sick the entire time (he was ever so kind as to share his illness with me before leaving).  It was an interesting week.  I'm not crazy about the idea of having a partner that travels a lot but I've just had to come to terms with the fact that it's a requirement of his job.  So, to try and brainwash myself into liking the alone time, I went to the grocery store the first night he was gone and bought a ton of junk food and stuff we don't normally buy because its either terrible for you or he won't eat it.  I also made plans for pretty much every night.  Sadly, I then got really sick the next day so I didn't touch any of the junk food and kind of just went through the motions with the plans I had made.  Overall it wasn't as bad being home for a week by myself as I had expected it to be.  I think my brainwashing attempt was successful (even if I didn't eat all the junk I bought) J

The other big thing we’ve been doing in Febraury is trying to find a new car for me.  We’re looking for either a new to me car or one to lease for a few years.  Matt really had to sell me on the idea of a lease but I finally came around to his point of view and I’m good with it under certain circumstances J  So, we’ve been going to car dealerships pretty much every weekend for the past month.  We’re getting closer to closing on one but, Matt in all of his negotiating glory, can’t quite close the last few points of negotiation with the dealership.  I am so hoping that this weekend will be the last weekend we’re dealing with this.  I’d love to have our Saturdays back!

Well that’s about it for us.  Besides travelling, the new job and car shopping we haven’t been up to a whole lot else.  We’re slowly chipping away at wedding projects (although at this point it’s mostly just me doing things).  I am currently working on putting together all of our favors-oh the joys of DIY!  I’m going to start addressing all of the invitations soon as well and I’m planning on getting those in the mail the first week of April.  At this point, I’m just happy the months are going by pretty quickly.

Oh!  The other thing we've done is gone to see The Lion King on stage.  It was Matt’s Christmas present and we went on February 15^th and made a night of it with dinner before the show.  It was the most amazing thing I think I've ever seen-and the Detroit Opera House is pretty impressive itself.  The costumes and colors and scenery were just spectacular.  If you ever have the opportunity-GO!

That’s it for me.  Feel free to send me an email and let me know how you guys are doing.  I love hearing from you!

Good News

I am happy to say that I can start this blog post with some happy news-I am starting a new job on Monday!   I accepted a position last week with one of the largest health care providers in the state of Michigan.  It's pretty much the same type of job that I got last year but this time with a thoroughly legitimate organization :)  I made sure to do my homework on the woman I will be working for and the organization in general.  I've been trying to get myself back to getting up early and getting going right away in the morning.  I succeeded most of the days this week on getting up early....most.  All in all I'm excited.  It' kind of bad I can't totally remember what the job description for this position even said!  I've looked at so many of them that they all just kind of blurred together after a while.  Either way it's a job in philanthropy and no matter what I will be keeping it for the next 12 to 18 months :)

The job came at just the right time.  My original six months of unemployment were going to be running out relatively soon and on top of the wedding expenses we now have to start looking for a new car for me!  Mine still looks like such a nice car but needs more mechanical fixes than we're willing to pay for at this point.  It's a slightly bittersweet thing for me.  This car was the first big purchase I made on my own and I haven't really had it that long.  That said, I am pretty excited about getting a new car (minus the cost but that's just something that will never be easy-large purchases are always a bit terrifying!) but Matt is about as thrilled to go car shopping as he is to go furniture shopping.  In short-he loathes it.  Furniture shopping is his own personal version of hell and car shopping is only a slight notch above that.  I'm sure we'll find a way to power through the pain :)  If anyone has a car they love or have heard great reviews on-please let me know!  I'm always open to other's reviews of cars.  Luckily, I think we're both pretty much on the same page on the type of car we want to get.  Now we just have to put that theory to the test!

Other than the new job and looking for a new car there isn't a whole lot new with us.  Matt is liking his job.  He's been travelling quite a bit-mostly regional but he does have a week long trip coming up.  Thankfully I'll be getting into work more so I'll have something to keep me busy.  I've also joined and volunteered to co-chair an AFP committee so that also comes with a decent amount of work to do.  That's actually what we are doing this morning-Matt is catching up on news and working from home and I'm finishing all of my online on-boarding for work and slowly chipping away at my committee work.

Things with the wedding are slowly coming together.  We think we've found a tie we both like for all of the guys in the wedding and I've ordered part of the girls gifts.  I love that we are actually getting stuff for the wedding now!  We've also worked on quite a few other small projects of DIY things for the big day.  It's hard to believe it's only 4 months away.  We both couldn't be happier about it.  We've only had one small disagreement thus far which I think is pretty darn good!  We've got that issue all settled and have happily moved on to the next item :)

Well that's it for me at the moment.  I'll write again after I start the job and let you all know how it's going!

Christmas Celebrations

The holiday season certainly was in full swing in our house!  We decked out the house with lots of Christmas decorations, pine tree smelling candles, and holiday music.  While the festivities are all over we do still have a nice festive feeling in our place....we still haven't had the heart to take down the tree.  Maybe next weekend :)

We were busy making and getting presents for everyone this December.  It's always fun starting a new project, but I have to say, this time around every project took longer than we expected!  Thankfully, we started perhaps earlier than we needed to so we still got everything done with a little time to spare.  Sadly I didn't remember to take pictures of all the presents before we wrapped them up :(  I definitely dropped the ball on that.  We made some coaster sets, decorative painted wine bottles, and a pair of decorative (and reversible) cloth covered bulletin boards.  All in all, not bad for us.  We branched out from our normal painting based projects which was pretty fun actually.

We were lucky enough to be able to spend some holiday time with both of our families.  With the distance its not really possible to see both sides on Christmas or Christmas Eve.  Instead we had a nice dinner and opened presents with Matt's parents and sister the night before we left for Wisconsin.  We stayed with my family for a few days in Wisconsin and when we got back, spent New Years Eve with Matt's parents and cousin.  It worked out pretty well.  Thankfully the weather cooperated for the most part and travelling wasn't too bad.  We even got to spend a night in Madison on the way back.  It was really nice to break up the drive a bit and we got to stop and visit some friends and their little boy and even got to have dinner and breakfast with some of our good friends!  Overall not a bad trip :)

Since nobody reading this got to come to our Christmas party I thought I'd share a picture of our Christmas tree with almost all of our presents underneath:

So besides the general holiday happenings and busyness we also had our Christmas party.  We had one last year too and decided we want to make it a tradition for us.  It's pretty much the only party we throw all year so we generally go all out for it.  We make all of the food ourselves and its a big reason that we deck out the house so much.  Here are some pictures of the house all set up:

All of our more substantial and savory food.  I have to say-our cooking ability is slowly improving!  Here's what we made: 2 types of meatballs (one with regular BBQ sauce and one Cherry BBQ sauce), baked brie with cranberry sauce, cherry salsa and cream cheese dip, spinach and artichoke dip, a cute meat and cheese Christmas tree with tomatoes.

A nice little bar area, always a must for a party :)

All the sweets!

The sweets menu (my favorite part!): cream filled strawberries, pumpkin pie dip, dunkaroo dip (tastes like cake frosting!), home-made chocolate/mint fudge and the only item we didn't make: whoopie pies.  Matt's cousin who lives across the street brought those over.

I found this cool fireplace movie on Netflix that we played on our TV all night.  It was pretty awesome actually!

So that's what our party looked like.  For those who know me really well, I feel the photos are needed so I can prove we actually cooked all that :)

I've discovered something interesting about the auto industry-it completely shuts down between Christmas and New Years.  I personally loved it....I got to have Matt home for the whole week!  It was great.  We definitely kept ourselves busy but it was nice to have some time for whatever we wanted.  We made it a point to spend a day (well it turned into an evening) exploring something new that we haven't done yet.  So we decided to go to Cranbrook Institute of Science.  I had never heard of Cranbrook before moving here but it's a crazy good, and disgustingly expensive, private school.  They also have a science and art museum on the campus.  It was fantastic!  We ended up going at 5pm because it was 50% off after that time-but the place stayed open until 10 so it was perfect for us.  As usual-we were the only adults without kids but we enjoyed it just as much :)  I even got to go to my first planetarium show (at least I don't remember going to one before so I think it's my first!).  All in all it was a lovely evening.

Other than that not a whole lot is new.  Well, I guess except that Matt has accepted a position with a different company.  He is starting next Monday actually.  It was a nice opportunity with a good company and more along the lines of Matt's interest.  As I figured would happen when he took the job here, he got bored pretty quickly with the job that brought us here.  He is a guy who likes being in the thick of things and who works well under pressure.  His current position is a little too slow paced and not nearly challenging enough for him.  So this opportunity presented itself and we decided, why not?  We don't have to move and he'll be happier.  So he gets to start somewhere new on Monday.  I'm still looking for a position.  Still reaching out to anyone I can think of and I'm working with a staffing agency now that has some experience placing people in non-profits.  So hopefully the new year will bring new opportunities!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

8 Months!

December 1st marked 8 months of living in Michigan!  Seriously, where did that time go?!?!  These past 8 months have been a bit more interesting than I had expected but I'm sure it will all work out for the best in the end.  I'm just not sure where/when we'll get to that ending point.

The last month has been a bit busy with the kickoff of the holiday season!  I was able to get back to Wisconsin for 6 days which was nice.  I got to see my family, some friends and hang out in the woods with my dad so those were all good things.  Then when I got back to Michigan I did Thanksgiving with Matt's family and then worked in a mall on black Friday for the first time.  I have to say, it wasn't as terrible as I expected!  Surprising but true.  Only one customer was angry enough to make a co-worker cry so that's a plus.  I didn't have to work until 2 in the afternoon which also helped I think.  Funny enough working that Saturday was actually worse than working black Friday.  Maybe I was just so worn out from Friday.  Who knows.  Since then I've been working a little less and have been trying any means possible to get a job!

Clearly I still don't have a full time job-but I'm still working on it!  I've been trying to use any tiny, barely there connection I can to get my foot in the door somewhere (so far, to no avail but I'm going to keep trying).  I also graduated from my mentorship program on Wednesday so that was nice.  I'll still stay in touch with my mentor and I've kept all of the materials I got through the program and I think they'll really be of use when I get a position.  I've also agreed to take an unpaid internship at Gilda's Club as a grant writer.  I've done some research/reading on grant writing but haven't got any practical experience so it will be a nice way for me to gain a new skill.  So that's where I'm at with the job hunt-not a whole lot new to report there.

Now for fun stuff-Christmas trees and pictures!  In our house Christmas is a big deal-Matt LOVES Christmas!  I can only imagine how much more ridiculous it is going to get once we have kids.  We had our Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving night and we were all decorated within a week!  I've posted some pictures below of our tree and how we moved things around in the living room a bit and added in some Christmas decorations.  I've also got pictures of our 2 bedrooms and kitchen....you know the ones I said I'd post about 5 months ago!  Finally got there!  We just re-arranged our kitchen a bit and bought a new shelf thingy to open it up a bit more and give us more storage (something our kitchen is sorely lacking).  The spare room has been pretty well set up for a while but I recently did a total re-organization of all of the closets in our house so I was able to fit more into the closet in the spare room so it looks a bit better now.  Both bedrooms are still pretty sparse but they're totally functioning spaces which is all we really require of them at the moment.  The pictures aren't of the best quality(I just took them with my phone) but they're pictures! Enjoy.....

Christmas tree all decorated.  I made the the thing on the wall next to it.  A super cute towel stretched over a wooden frame :) 

Christmas tree all lit up!

We only had to move a couple of things to get the tree up and some decorations out.  At first Matt wasn't sure he would like it but I think we've both gotten used to the new arrangement.  

I've loved having all of the pine tree smelling candles out like the one on top of this shelf.  We had fun adding decorations to things we already had out.  For instance the two snowflake guys on one of the shelves and the ornaments leaning up against the figurine and camera.  Just fun touches that don't require a whole lot of effort :)

I've been adding little festive things to this planter on our front porch.  I really wanted to have a Christmas thing in there now and was about to go to Home Depot and buy one of their pine decor things when I realized....hey I can just make something!  So I used some branches from the tree in our front yard and some random decorations my Grandma gave us and...voila.  Matt even noticed it without me telling him I did it!

Our bedroom with a patio door going out to our deck and back yard. This patio door is totally backwards.  Instead of having the glass door on the inside the screen is on the inside!  It's one of the more annoying things about this house.  Makes it kind of hard to leave the door open on nice cool spring/summer/fall nights.  Oh well-I guess it doesn't really matter now that it's winter.

The other side of the view from the bedroom door :)  This is the most decorated part of our bedroom.

Like I said....our bedroom is pretty sparse but totally functioning.  Although, I am looking forward to being able to get an actual bed frame-complete with headboard and footboard.  Eventually we'll get there :)

Here's our spare room.  Or as we call it-Pablo's room.  I have a large penguin stuffed animal that Matt named Pablo.  So he get's his own room.  This room is pretty small.  When the futon is folded out there's just enough room to move around.  Believe it or not, this is where we had our bedroom for the first 2 weeks of living here.  Not the best fit ever when you add in all the boxes and clothes we also had to keep in here at the same time.  I do not miss those days!

Here's the other side of the room.  Again-small but it works.

The view from the corner of the room looking out.  As I said-this room is also pretty sparse but we'll eventually get to putting things on the big empty wall :)  We just haven't gotten there or figured out what we want yet.

On to the kitchen!  View of the kitchen from the doorway leading to the living room/rest of the house.  The lovely yellow/orange door is the color that all of the walls in the spare room used to be....now you see why we painted :)  It's a decent sized kitchen that lacks storage space (we have exactly two drawers...I kid you not).  Since we only had one day to find a place to live and almost everything else we saw was so bad we were thrilled when we saw this kitchen.  Only after we moved in did I realize how much less storage it had than our previous kitchen.  We dealt with it and got nice and creative with our storage :)

Here's the new shelf we just got.  I like the openness of it-it doesn't really block out much light from the window which is great.  We didn't overload the shelves with stuff but it's amazing how much moving just a few key things out of cupboards or off of counter tops can make a big difference.

The bar cart thing was one of my better Craigslist finds in Madison.  So glad we were able to bring it with us.

This is the view from the corner by the shelf.  We do have a great gas stove which we love.  The wood counter tops are cool-just not super taken care of.  It's defintely something I would consider in a house some day so I'm glad we've gotten to try them out here.

Well that's about it for the tour of our house.  We do have lots of Christmas lights up in the living room and we even bought some solar lights for outside (no outdoor outlets in this house).  I'll try and get some pictures of those soon.

Gloomy Days

**Fair warning:  this is a long post (sorry!) and can be a bit rambling at times...well for pretty much all of it!  I've written it more almost as a journal entry.  I've peppered it with some of my favorite quotes and quotes that I feel are good for me to remember- I hope you enjoy them as much as I do and that they make this a bit more worth reading :)**
         
             "In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."-Albert Einstein

I decided to start with that quote because I'm trying to convince myself its true.  I am a little sad to say that my optimism has pretty much been exhausted since my last post.  Perhaps that's why I haven't really felt like posting lately.  I've continued to apply for jobs, I'm still working at the store and am volunteering a little less at Gilda's Club but I just feel like I can't really catch a break.  I've had quite a few interviews and either don't get past the first round or I end up being the runner up, or the organization goes through a sudden reorganization and the job is no longer open.  Oh the joys of job hunting in a decimated economy!  The last two jobs I interviewed for had 50 and 80 applicants.  I keep making it to the in-person interview stage but I can't seem to get passed that.  This is pretty much all I think about lately-my lack of job-getting abilities!

            "Mistakes are a fact of life.  It is the response to error that counts." -Nikki Giovanni

As it so happens the only people I know that read this blog are close friends or family so I figure some brutal honesty is okay.  I was never incredibly thrilled for this move but looked at is as an adventure and I try to always be up for a little bit of adventure.  Unfortunately over the past few months I've come to ever so slightly regret jumping into this move so quickly.  I'm starting to think if we'd had more time to think about the career prospects for me here, we would have realized it probably wasn't the best idea.  We, however, did not have that much time to consider everything.  We did the best we could, but we were two 24 year olds making a big decision and didn't necessarily think of everything we should have considered (we also only had 3 days to give the company an answer to the offer they made Matt).  There are so many more considerations than I imagined-even just basic cost of living things- that we couldn't have possibly thought of everything and been completely informed before deciding to move.  I guess that in itself is a good lesson to learn.  Honestly, I am still trying to figure out what the best response is to this decision to move that I am beginning to view more like a mistake.  As long as I learn something from this it won't truly be a mistake-just a bigger challenge than expected.

            "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength." -Corrie Ten Boom

For me the biggest thing I overlooked was how I would handle this big change emotionally.  I also forgot to consider how I would deal with the challenges of finding a job here.  Clearly that process was complicated by my taking the hospital job only to find out it was a less than properly run organization.  I have always been a driven person and I never thought it would take me this long to find a job that was a good fit (and at this point I'd settle for any job that pays a living wage-it doesn't even have to be a non-profit or a good fit necessarily).  I didn't fully appreciate what the lack of employment would do to my self esteem and how I identify myself.  I think its a very American thing to tie one's personal identity so much to your career and employment.   I have been trying to think positively about the situation but the truth is I now find it hard to find anything positive in my current situation and in the whole move.  I was hoping this move would do a few things- give Matt a chance to fast track his career and be closer to his family, allow me to become closer to Matt's family, help us grow together as a couple, and teach me about adjusting to foreign surroundings.  Some of those things have happened, but mostly just the ones that concern Matt (although I guess they truly concern us both as we're pretty tied to each other!).  I guess it has definitely brought us closer as a couple and has given us a whole new vast array of experiences together.  We're learning how to be much more communicative and we're learning how to help each other out in new situations and surroundings.  Sadly I don't feel it's done a whole lot as far as helping me become closer to Matt's family and I'm not sure how I'm doing adjusting to new surroundings.  Although, I officially have a friend here that isn't a professional connection (don't get me wrong-Debbie from Gilda's is a great friend and has been a great sounding board for professional things).  Stephanie is the eye doctor I found here and we got to talking and realized we're both recent transplants and neither of us have kids but are engaged or married so we have a decent amount in common-well at least enough to become friends in a strange place!  Beyond Debbie and Stephanie though I mostly spend the days by myself looking for jobs or just hanging out at home.  Anywho, I've gotten sidetracked.  I guess what I'm mostly trying to say is I'm having a harder time as of late than I ever thought I would.  I have struggled with depression in the past and have always been lucky to have people who are supportive and understanding to help me.  I am thankful now that I have Matt who is doing the best he can to understand the things I struggle with and to find ways to make me feel better.  It's a lot for both of us to deal with but we figure if we can make it through big changes like moving some place new and surviving on one income while I desperately search for a job it will make things that much easier as we face struggles later on in our marriage.  I find I am constantly worrying about pretty much everything lately.  I know that my worrying frustrates and, ironically enough, worries Matt so I'm trying to let things go a bit more....we'll see how that goes!  We are trying to find the good side in things.  I'll be the first to admit Matt is much better at that than I am.

            "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on!" -Robert Frost

So I've rambled (quite depressingly...sorry 'bout that) for long enough without really telling you anything.  Lately we've been decently busy.  I've been having to work weekends a lot so we've been trying to spend more time together during the week.  We've been blasting through seasons of the tv show Bones and slowly chipping away at wedding planning.  I think we're at a good point for planning for as much time as we have.  Although, I know it will go by quickly especially with the holidays coming up so soon.  We've been working on getting the house and yard ready for winter.  We finally got most of our leaves picked up by the city today.  We even put out Christmas lights yesterday!  It was so warm out that we decided we might as well get it done.  We decided to go with solar outdoor lights. Our house doesn't have outlets outside so it was the easiest option.  I also really liked the idea of not using up electricity throughout the holidays.  We need to go buy one more string but then I think we'll be good.  We aren't putting up a ton but just enough to be festive.  We'll probably decorate for Christmas next week-maybe Thanksgiving morning.  Since I'm working retail I have to work Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving week.  I'm not going to lie-I'm a bit terrified to see how people get around here on black Friday.  I do have a few things to look forward to besides decorating for the holidays.  I'm making a trip back to Wisconsin this week.  I'm looking forward to spending a few days in Rhinelander, I am not however, looking forward to the 11 hour drive.  At least I'll have company for half of the trip there-I'm picking up my cousin in Chicago on my way home and giving her a lift to our Grandma's.  I've also requested a bunch of books on cd from the library so hopefully I'll get some of the before I leave.

            "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow." -William James

Speaking of the library-I have a request for anyone who is willing to leave a comment or email me.  I've decided I need to start exercising my brain a bit more during the day.  While searching for jobs all day is exhausting it isn't exactly intellectually stimulating.  So, I've decided I want to start reading a book a week.  If anyone has suggestions on good books please let me know!  I'm looking to learn about some new things and discover some new authors.  I'm hoping you all have some good suggestions.

            "It always seems impossible until it is done." -Nelson Mandela

I love this quote...and Nelson Mandela.  If you've never read his autobiography I suggest putting it on your must read list, he is truly an inspiration.  But anywho, thank you for making it to the end of this crazy long and probably kind of depressing post!  It is amazing how cathartic writing this all out can be.  It also serves as a good reminder that I do indeed have a lot of good things going for me, among them are the great family and friends I've accumulated throughout my life.  I appreciate you all taking the time to check in on me :)  I truly hope next time I write that I will have more uplifting and exciting things to tell you!  Until then, I am doing my best at staying positive and upbeat.  I continue to try and learn more about myself and life in general and I figure as long as I continue to learn it's all worth it!