I've never been the kind of person who worries about getting older.  That doesn't mean I don't wear wrinkle cream (I certainly do) or try to stay current on fashion trends (even though I don't participate in them).  I guess I've always thought it would be better to focus my energy on things I CAN change.   Maybe that's why turning 30 this past weekend wasn't something I was dreading. 

I had friends ask me, "Do you feel 30?  Do you feel different?"   And actually, I do feel different.  The feeling didn't come overnight.  It is a feeling of growth and change that has been building inside me over the past year.  I know more about who I am and I'm more comfortable in my own skin.  I've realized that I will become the woman, wife, mother, sister, ...

The directions were to make bold whichever ones you have done, so this is what I've done.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11 ...

I was at a New Year's Eve party this week trying to celebrate.  I'm not sure what I was trying to celebrate but I know I wasn't doing a very good job of it.  I don't remember what time we left but I know I cried on the way home.  It's been a hard year.  I wasn't at all sorry to bid farewell to 2008.  I think it was the intensity of the feelings, the rollercoaster of hope and...well...lack of hope that defined our year. 

Matt lost his job the first of January.  While no one likes losing a job Matt might be the exception.  Everyday for 5 1/2 years he dreaded going to work and he came home exhausted, frustrated, and unfulfilled.  To be honest, I was relieved after Matt lost his job.  He was transformed.  All of the sudden I was married to the ...

I opened my esty shop (www.uproar.etsy.com) one week ago today.   What a labor of love!  I've been knitting furiously for about a month now and this past week it's started to pay off.  God is so good.  I sold my first hat from my website on Thursday (thank you Lauren!!!!) and took a custom order from a mom at MOPS.  Friday I was knitting a pair of booties at work to put on the website and ended up selling them to a coworker!  I had two more very exciting things happen on Friday.  First, the woman that coordinates all of MOPS for Northern Colorado called me and said that I could have access to any and all MOPS groups I wanted!  Then, I got an email on Uproar from the friend of a woman who was at the MOPS meeting on Thursday.  Her name is Lyndsey Lewis.  She is a local childrens photographer who writes a blog that is followed locally and natio ...

I just got done reading Jamey's blog entries and they were so wonderful I thought I'd add a little something to my own.  However, I don't really have much to report.  Things are pretty much the same with us.  I'm still working at the Imaging Center and I'm still working out the logistics of the homeschool thing.  I did decide on a name for my Etsy shop.  It's Uproar.  I think it's so cute and clever!  I have three hats and two pairs of booties made so far.  I'm making a hat for Melia right now and I like it so much I'm going to make one for my website.  I'm still having a bit of trouble with pricing.  I don't want to charge too much for my products but I use the best yarn I can get my hands on (and only natural fibers) and the pieces are wonderful (in my own humble and unbiased opinion). 

We started working with the college group this fall instead of high school.  I ...

After the disappointment of The Job Fair (if you haven't read the blog about this please do so) I began to brainstorm.  I have very good friends that homeschool.  I don't know how everyone out there feels about homeschooling.  I don't know how I feel about homeschooling.  However, I was present at a conversation where my friends were talking about a woman who teaches homeschooled children classes and they were encouraging another friend of ours to consider this if she ever quit teaching public school.  If this works for her then why not me?  I'm not a teacher, mind you, but I was a TA in college and enjoyed it very much.  Not only that, but the professor I TA'd for said I should consider teaching because the students responded to me well and learned a lot. 

The whole idea when I went to school was to graduate and be a personal trainer for adolescents.  I wanted to be able to teach kids to use ...

I went to a job fair today.  Has anyone else ever been to a job fair?  Do you know what I went through before I went there?  I had to rewrite my resume to make it generic then had to send Matt to Kinko's to print it because our hand-me-down printer finally died this summer and we have had no money to replace it.  Well, Kinko's has that new Windows bull shit and it took poor Matt almost 20 minutes to change the resume back to the way it is supposed to look because going from the Windows program we have to the new one screwed up the font and all the spacing.  Then Matt had to pay for the 20 minutes on their computer and then had to pay $1 a sheet for my resume.  It was ridiculous.  While he did that I was getting all dressed up in my "Interview Outfit" so I looked professional but not in my suit so I didn't look  too stuffy.  I did my hair (which is at a very difficult and unruly stage right now) ...

I can't say that Labor Day is my favorite holiday but for some reason this year Labor Day was very special.  It wasn't so much about having Monday off (I don't work on Mondays anway) or what we did (camping) even though it was really fun.  This weekend was special because Labor Day seems to be the beginning of the transition from summer to fall and it seemed to parallel the transition Matt and I are experiencing.  First of all, the weather was perfect and in my mind it was exactly as Labor Day weekend should be.  The last two days of August were hot and sunny.  The perfect adios to summer.  Then, bingo!  September 1st was pleasantly cool with a breeze that holds the promise of fall.  It just reminded me of us transitioning from "just" us, through the first of our adoption paperwork, and on to the promise of the family we're going to have.

I'm trying to be positive i ...

We're home from Latvia.  It was an amazing trip.  I'm still trying to process everything we experienced.  I'll blog about that a little later and hopefully pictures will be up soon also.  For now I'm going to bitch about what we came home to because I'm jet-lagged and I can't hold it in.  If you want to read something happy come back later.

I don't think there are words that express what I'm feeling right now.  I didn't get that job I interviewed for.  The perfect job that should have been mine is not mine after all.  The job that I practically tailored my education to do with the great hours and the awesome salary.  Not mine.  And don't try to make me feel better by saying, "There's something better out there for you," because right now there isn't and I don't want to hear it.  My husband has 2 weeks left on his unemployment.  I'm currently working 25 hour ...