Hello world! Boy have I missed the blogging world. And I won't lie--I feel like a bit of a failure for dropping this from my life as quickly and carelessly as I did. Honestly, I wrote an amazing post about my Ewa Beach First Ward family, and it somehow got erased, which totally made me hate this stupid blogger for about six months... So I'm back now!
Well, while I was gone, the war in Iraq ended, meaning my honey came home! He was actually home for Veteran's Day, but I was in NYC for the weekend with my favorite sister from another mister, the one and only Alex! I'm pretty sure she and I did anything you can in 24 hours in the big apple. But those pictures are for another day. Playing super catch-up would discourage me from getting back into blogging. So I won't. I had a ton of fun living with Amanda and nannying for her little boys. I miss those boys every day, and I miss Amanda even more.
Let's talk for a second about Amanda. How many people do you know who would just take in two random girls off from the streets (basically) and let them stay with her ALL summer for free? And then invite them to move to Maryland and nanny for her children? Seriously? I think Amanda might have been my guardian angel sent to me this summer to make sure I didn't commit a murder (on Diana, not Alex!). But I will forever be indebted to Amanda for everything she did for us. I really don't know how I would have gotten through this whole deployment without her. Sometimes in life you meet people who you KNOW must have been put into your path for an important reason. Amanda fits that all the way. If Josh hadn't come home when he did, I probably would have just stayed with Amanda forever (or for as long as I was welcome!) because I loved living with her that much. Anyway, one day I'm going to pay her back for her incredible, life-changing kindness. I just don't quite know how just yet.
So, since returning to good ol' Utah, I took an amazing two-month-long vacation from EVERYTHING and spent many MANY days with my Joshua. A little before Christmas we realized we were getting poor again though, so Joshy went back to work. Our standards of living had to shrink again a bit because we were so used to having money, but we managed. The semester came and we both returned to school. I'm not going to lie--it might have been one of my worst semesters.
First of all, Kelsey had her baby, named Kimora Briell, and my mom and I went out for a visit. Oh my goodness--Brooklyn is SO big and beautiful and amazing! She is the sweetest little girl in the world. Kelsey and baby Kim were doing great too, just very tired still.
After spending a few days in Wisco, Mom and I returned home, only to have my mom's step-dad die a few days later. So off we went to a funeral in northern Idaho. I (surprisingly) got a lot of closure from that trip that I didn't even know I still needed. Apparently a person is able to build up a lot of resentment to someone they never really knew. By going to the funeral, I was able to see how deeply my granddad was loved, and how much more complex of a person he was than I thought. And it made me think a lot about my own trials in life and how if someone judged me as fiercely as I had judged him, it wouldn't be anyone's problem but theirs. And who am I to decide what he had all worked out before he died? I hope that he was able to straighten everything out with the big man upstairs before he died, but if he didn't, that's too bad for him, because his trials on this earth are something so huge that I could not even comprehend. It's hard to build empathy for something you don't understand, but it isn't impossible. That's what I learned anyway.
The semester was going all right school-wise, but Joshy and I were struggling financially big time. We didn't end up receiving the benefits we usually get from the Veteran's benefits, resulting in our having to pay for half of Josh's school--something we were NOT anticipating. $1,000ish later, school was paid for and we were significantly less afloat than expected. This continued throughout the month of March, and finally I got tired of Josh's griping that I wasn't contributing enough to money (without his saying that, but with his endless suggestions that I go find myself a job...). So at the beginning of April I decided I needed a job. I applied on Tuesday night for a position at a residential facility for teenage female sex-offenders. I was a little nervous, but I submitted my resume and waited. The next morning I already had received an email from the home supervisor asking me to come in and interview that day or the next. I interviewed Thursday and started work on Friday!
I felt out the job for a few days and decided that I love it! I have been working at this facility ever since, and so far I feel like I've gotten to know several of the girls pretty well. We even have a girl leaving the program tomorrow. I am a little sad that she's leaving, but only because I don't really think that she's ready to be out in the real world, as an adult. She would rather put the moves on her younger peers and play video games all day long. I feel sorry for her, because as an adult, she is going to have a rude awakening. Hopefully she is successful instead. I'm all for that.
Work has been a fun distraction from homework and the monotony of childless life, which is exactly what I needed. Many people don't know that Josh and I started trying to get pregnant about six months before his deployment, only to find out that it will not be that easy for us. Six months post-deployment and we still have not had a positive pregnancy test. It wears on me big-time, especially when my crass family members ask me if kids are not my "thing" or act like I think I'm too good to have kids. I laugh it off and say that we are getting through school first, but really it just hasn't happened because it's not our time to make a baby just yet. Waiting is excruciating some months. That's why I really needed a job. I needed something to take my mind off of my feelings of failure every month. I needed an environment where I could socialize with people who weren't asking me about my periods every few days. And this home does just that. I love it for the fact that I never have to worry about the girls asking about me. Because they are teenagers, and they really just don't care about anybody but themselves. And I'm okay with that.
Anyway, that's life right now, in a nutshell. Joshy and I just celebrating our anniversary of being sealed in the temple on Saturday, and I feel like life just keeps getting better. I would like to visit the temple more often though, because I feel like we don't go often enough. But that happens when you work completely opposite schedules and only see each other during the day for about fifteen minutes. It'll get better, I'm sure. Oh, and we are the proud carriers of the calling of Sunbeam teachers at church! We freaking love our 16(ish?) Sunbeams. They really do brighten up my week and make me miss teaching preschool. Maybe I'll start doing that again too, one day.
But for today, that's it. Over and out.
