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When this weekend rolls around, I'll have another birthday come and go.

Last year's birthday was celebrated en route to a family reunion in SD. This year, planning to NOT drive anywhere and spend my birthday with the coolest people I know (one of whom is also having a birthday! Holla.)

Let's recap the year, shall we? These aren't in chronological order....

1. Tim came home.
2. 2 of my good friends got married
3. I got married
4. Found out I was going to be an aunt
5. Another year logged at RC, gets better every year!
6. Made some new friends, spent some GOOD TIMES with all friends
7. Deepened my relationship with Vino's and the Sip n' Stir
8. Signs of aging so far: Getting crankier and getting moles removed
9. Went to Mexico, Nashville, and Atlanta for the first time
10. Paid off my car
11. Started volunteering for the first time since high school
12. Re-discovered karaoke
13. Actually requested truffle oil as a birthday gift this year (I'm domesticated)

This is usually one of my favorite times of the year. It's hot, and there are lots of reasons to be outside and good people and good food. This weekend, despite our recent challenges, I'm looking forward to celebrating a damn good year -- so much has happened! I have so much to look forward to in the coming year... and because I feel like I'm on a roll, I'll list those, too....

1. New nephew
2. Tim gets a new career that makes him happy
3. We buy a house, hopefully
4. Trip to see Laura in Dubai (I'm thinking this trip is going to be one for the books, folks...)
5. Celebrate 1 year of being happily married
6. Maybe I'll run my first road race... if I can trick myself into thinking that I like to run
7. Crack the code into making creamy, cheesy things without scalding them and continue to feed people because it makes me happy
8. Other, exciting, unknown happy things

Cheers, everyone!

Pushing elephants up the stairs

We shall call this chapter "Obstacles."

So, long story short, we're not buying a house right now. We're looking for a job. The mister found out that his orders were being cut short because of another officer's personal issues and lack of federal budget. After September, his employment will end.

Before I launch into why this is making me eat Tums like I own stock in the company, here are the upsides:

We found out JUST in time to NOT buy a house.
We're young and childless, so if one of us loses a job, there's just 2 people + 1 cat to support
This career move was inevitable, so instead of making these decisions in 1.5 years, we can make them now.

All of the above is not keeping my mind from racing nearly every day, though. What happens if the troublesome economy goes from our doorstep into our home (i.e., 3 months won't be enough for us to find something else)? How long will it take us to recover from this setback?

How long until I feel confident that the bottom won't always drop out? (Perhaps the first way this failing economy is affecting us).

So much is up in the air right now, I'm doing the best I can to just ignore it, honestly.

I can't create jobs, I can't influence anyone to hire him, and I can't make time go faster.

I can help my husband draft a better cover letter, I can help him search for positions, I can say encouraging things, and I can hope for the best. I can plan for the worst (without expecting it).

Here's to making it through this phase with my/our sanity, healthy BMI, and liver in tact!

What a difference a day makes

I don't think we're ready to share all the details yet, but our house-buying plans are totally up in the air now. It was a really hard night last night, and we have a lot of decisions to make, but circumstances can change so quickly!

Hopefully, everything irons itself out and this post becomes irrelevant.......

This is worse than dating

We've been so busy lately! When we aren't working or seeing friends, we've been looking at houses and last night, we made an offer on one.

We're currently in the frenzy of the counter-offer process, and I'm so nervous and excited! But even after we make it official with this property, we still don't know the full extent of surprises lurking around every corner (eh? eh? see the dating metaphor?)

We'll decide after inspection if it's true love, and accept the house with all its faults.

This still feels like a diversion from all those crazy "what am I doing in life" questions, and a massive one at that. Goodbye expendible income and free time! On the plus side, if we become home owners and property tax payers, we have more street cred if we wanted to show up at a city council meeting and complain.

I think I'm finally going to blast this post out to Facebook (after much hemming and hawing), so to my family and friends: If you are curious and begin following my blog, pretend you didn't when we talk about stuff in real life :) Less confusing that way.....