New Year

I always (for the last two years) write a beginning of the year post for our blog. This year has started off kind of rocky and that is why this post is a month late. Oh well...better late than never, right?

We celebrated the new year with my family in Idaho. We spent the night playing games and chatting...it was perfect. I just had a feeling that good things are coming our way this year. This was going to be the year that we accomplished some of our dreams and fulfilled goals that we have been working towards. Two days later we flew back to our home here in New York. I'm not going to lie, it was hard to come back. Lots of home sickness this time and wonderings of what we are doing here and questions about our future. It was a rough first two weeks in January, trying to get back into the swing of work and city life. But we made it! Life slowly started to feel normal again, at least our kind of normal. The home sickness faded and things started to come back into focus.

Brian is doing wonderful at work. He is SO busy though. He just got bumped up into being the senior of the two junior hardware analysts because his co-worker quit. He will/has taken on so many new responsibilities with this "promotion." He is doing so good though and I'm so proud of him. However, we haven't heard of any bump in salary included with his bump in responsibility. So, he is stressing about all of his new responsibilities, and dealing with management to get a raise. We really need him to be earning more, so wish us luck on that front.

Then I lost my job. Well this had been happening slowly since about Thanksgiving. There were some changes and restructuring being done behind the scenes of the company and because of some changes at Google and other web companies, my job just dried up. Just like that. No more writing opportunities. I was hoping that it was just a slow phase and things would get back on track, but nope. So now I'm hanging, just hanging wondering what I'm going to do with my life. I've been job searching and working as Brian's research assistant to help him get his freelance career up and running on the side.

I'm going to be honest, I'm having a really hard time right now. I've always had a clear path to follow in my life. I've always known what the next step to take was. I graduated high school, went to college, had two great internships, graduated college with a Bachelor's degree, married Brian, worked at a nursery, moved to working for a bank, moved to New York (even though I knew I would hate it, I knew that it was the right step for us), and got the writing job. Throughout all of this, I've been led and have instinctively know what to do next, sometimes even before the current situation was over. All of my jobs and internships have just miraculously come together and I've never been left hanging before. But now, I'm getting nothing....and its so frustrating. Every job that I find just doesn't feel right or won't work logistically at the moment. I don't know if this is me over-thinking things or if it is a stupor of thought. I just plain and simple don't know and it's driving me crazy!

Life isn't all bad though. We have so much to be grateful for. The weather has been wonderful! We've had a week or two of really cold temperatures, and a little snow, but the snow is gone and we've mostly had temperatures in the high 40's and 50's. In January! The last day of January was 58 degrees! Never in my life have I experienced a January like this. I'm really enjoying it. The below pictures show what its been like lately...sunny and warm!

Another bright spot in my life right now is Primary. I LOVE my Primary children. I still get nervous planning out activities to teach them the music, but once I'm there it always works out. We have eight new sunbeams in our primary this year and they are so adorable, and funny! Oh my goodness are they funny. They make me laugh every single Sunday! We're trying to teach them to raise their hands if they have something to say. After explaining this to the kids, one of them raised his hand and kept repeating "I have something to say" over and over. It defeated the purpose of having them raise their hands, but it was hilarious! I'm also the assistant cub scout den mother. I was really worried about this when I first got called. I didn't (and still don't) know that much about scouts. It has been a great experience though and I've gotten to know all three of our cub scouts a lot better (which has helped our relationship in primary during music times). Last week we baked cookies and I taught them about basic first aid while we assemble simple first aid kits. It was great! I fell like all the kids are starting to really warm up to me and open up, especially the new sunbeams. When they came back into primary for closing exercises after their class period, one of the little girls saw me and started rolling her arms like we do when we sing "Do As I'm Doing." The parents are also telling me that I'm doing a great job because they will find their little kids singing the primary songs at home, songs that the parents didn't even know the kids knew but that I've been teaching them. That makes me feel so good.

I've gotten better at my knitting. I'm currently making a scarf out of the softest yarn called parfait. I love the name. I'm going at a pretty fast rate, but I'm worried that it will be too warm to wear it when I get it done. Oh well, I'm really enjoying making it.

The best part of my life of course is Brian. He is such a wonderful husband. He is such a hard worker and I'm so grateful for him. He is the best part of every one of my days!

So, we've had a bit of a rough start in 2012. We are here again at the beginning of a brand new year and life is once again throwing us curve balls. I'm hoping that we are just getting all of the trials out at the beginning so that the rest of the year will be great. Who knows what this year will bring. I guess we'll just have to hang on and enjoy the ride together!