Life Swallowed Me Up

After a waaaaay too long hiatus, I am back. I don't even know where to begin. Things have been beyond crazy these last few weeks. First of all, my aunt died. This woman was beautiful and amazing and hilarious and I took it very hard. She was still so young and had so much more life to live. It was a shock to us all, but we are handling it.

In the midst of her sickness and unfortunate death, we were also trying to move from Madison to Starkville. While Adam and I were busy in Florence helping with arrangements and being with family, his mom and dad packed up all of our stuff from their house in Madison and moved it into our house in Starkville! I know, right?! SOOOOOOOOO amazing of them! The following day we made it back to Starkville with my parents and we all had a huge moving party (don't mistake the "party" usage. It was no party. We literally unpack and moved things ALL DAY LONG). Given that I have moved 12 times since I left my parents home, I really have no desire to ever move again. Ever. The sad part is, I don't have a choice. We will be reliving all of the moving fun in one short year when Adam graduates. Oh joy.

With all that said, we are moved in for the most part. Adam has been building several pieces of furniture and adding things to the closets so I have barely seen him since we got here. I am ready for all of the madness to be over, the projects to be done, and things to get back to normal. Normal of course including me having a JOB! This has been a source of constant torment since before we even left Madison. As you know, Adam is in school for landscape architecture and contracting (he is doing a dual major). As you also might know, he has been deployed 4 times. While providing him with wonderful experiences and skills, it has interrupted college. With a wife and a family, he now wants to finish college as quickly as possible. He hopes to finish in one year and while thats a great plan, it does involve taking an overwhelming number of hours each semester... 21 to be exact. He is barely going to have time to breathe, let alone work, which leads me to my point - I MUST find a job. The sad news is that with all of the budget cuts, its pretty much impossible to find a teaching position right now. I thought that might be the case, so I didn't have my heart set on it. I figured I could find a job doing something else for the short time we would be here. However, there is a problem there too. THERE ARE NO JOBS! You would think I would be able to find something, but I suppose with the economic situation right now, no one is hiring. Now, yes, I could get a job working as a waitress or at a fast food place, but I would like to avoid that if at all possible. Don't get me wrong, this is not a thing wrong with working in one of these fields, however, I didn't go to college to do that. If that had been my calling, I wouldn't have gone to college. I went to college so that I could find a good job making a decent salary. There has to be SOMETHING out there! Help me out here job fairy.

In other news MC is doing wonderfully. We recently took her on her very first beach trip which was quite exciting. I would love to say she enjoyed every minute of it, but that wasn't exactly the case. We went with another couple and my dear friend Kristen and I think MC wanted so desperately to be in the middle of everything she couldn't stand going to sleep. Therefore, she didn't nap like she usually does. If you have a child you know what that means - one cranky and fussy baby. She spent a great deal of the vacation fighting her sleep and screaming/crying. Not to mention the poor baby had some MAJOR constipation issues and was in a great deal of pain. All in all it was a good time, but I do hope MC actually enjoys it next time we go! I shouldn't say she didnt enjoy it, I mean she had a great time in her little float in the pool (didn't dig the beach so much). Here are a few pics to enjoy! (Yes, I know she favors the Michellin man... she's, umm,

healthy. haha)