To help me find my place in this world...

For the first time in the history of New Mom on the Blog, I'm writing this post with absolutely no subject in mind.  Not exactly stream of consciousness.  (You better believe I'm using the delete button if anything sounds stupid.)

But, I've been away from the blog for far too long, and I miss it so much.  I write this blog from the perspective of a new mother and therefore try to keep the subject matter related to the many triumphs (and failures) of parenting.  So, usually my ideas just come from what is going on in my life as a mom.

At the moment, so much is going on in my life.  But, none of it really has to do with The Incredible Hulk other than the fact that he's the bright, sunshiny moment of every day.  And honestly?
We could use a little bit of sunshine.

We sold our first home and moved out with no where to go.
I'm currently living in the house where I grew up.  This is supposed to be a temporary situation.
Except there is no end in sight.

I made it very far through the interview process (as in FOUR interviews) of a job I would have really liked to have.

And, in the end, I didn't get it.

I found an even more perfect job working in a hospital part of the time on the psych floor and part of the time in the NICU (!!!!)

Only to find out the funding for the position has been suspended.  Indefinitely.

Listen, I know we're living in the most craptastic of economic times.
I know that they say you should expect 1 month of job searching for every 10K of salary you expect.

Well, if that's the case, I'm gonna be ROLLING IN IT when I finally find a job.

It has been really hard not to get down on myself right now.  We are just weeks away from closing on our dream home in Chicago and we won't even be able to live there until we can find a way to both collect a paycheck in the state where the dream home sits.

All the while, I'm also trying to make peace with the fact that I am preparing to say goodbye to the only place I've ever called home.

One day, I hope my husband and I can look back on this time in our life and tell TIH that we were as happy as we could possibly be.

That even though we were dirt poor, even though we had no idea what the hell we were doing, even though we wished away every bit of the time we were spending in this relocation limbo - that we were still happy.

Because we had each other
And so, we had everything we needed.

Take these chances...

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter or don’t live under a rock, you’ve probably seen a strange photograph of brooms standing completely on their own in the middle of kitchens all over the place.  Lots of people had explanations for this phenomenon ranging from solar flares to static electricity to proper alignments of the planets and everything in between.  It could also be that you have a brand-new broom at your disposal for this experiment.  Or, maybe it’s just plain dumb luck.

Which is what brings me to my apology to you, my readers, for my unannounced month-long blog hiatus. 

I’m sorry.

I have desperately missed writing for you, and have really missed social media in general.  I am afraid to look at Twitter after being away from it so long and I cannot tell you the last time I read through an entire blog.

While I can make a pretty good argument for being busy lately, I’ve also been a bit stuck.  I have all of these things in my head to write and to say, but when it comes down to it, I can never make the words come.  I don’t know if it’s writer’s block as much as it’s just. too. damn. much. stress.

So here’s a list of what has happened in the month I was gone.

1.       As you know, we put our house on the market.  So our lives mostly consisted of keeping a pristine-ly clean house at all times.  Even for two adults, this practice can be difficult.  With a toddler, this practice is MIND NUMBING.
2.       After only 31 days on the market, our house is actually under contract.  Yeah.  I KNOW.
3.       Selling our house this quickly kind of caught us with our pants down and now we are homeless.  (Not for real, we’re going to be living with my dad temporarily.) BUT, on the day that our house sold we had NOTHING lined up as far as a job or a home goes in Chicago.
4.       In the past month, I have sent out what feels like 30 resumes.  It’s probably less than 30.  However, being that almost every job I applied for directly relates to my highly specialized profession, any resumes I submitted over 2 is pretty much a metric crap ton in the music therapy world.  Now that we have no place to live in St. Louis, we kind of need to make the trek to Chicago ASAP, but there is no way we can do that without continuing to be a dual-income family.
5.       In response to all of those resumes, I landed an interview with an awesome job prospect in which I would be doing some preeeeetttty amazing things.
6.       While looking for jobs, we also kind of stumbled upon the most amazing house in the history of ever AND it was a foreclosure, so it was something we could actually afford.
7.       We made an offer and the bank accepted it (!!!) so we own a house.  But we can’t live there.  Because we need my income to pay for it.

So, to sum up – We took a chance and did EVERYTHING backwards.  I own a house in a state that I do not currently reside and I live in my dad’s basement so that I can continue to make pitiful-but-better-than-nothing wages in my current job while my husband spends several days a week away on business making me a single mom.

LIVING THE DREAM.

In truth, I know how very blessed we are.  We’re blessed our house sold so quickly.  We’re blessed my dad welcomed us with open arms.  We’re blessed our child is healthy and happy.  We’re blessed to both be employed, be that it is in different states at the moment.  We’re blessed that we could afford the house of our dreams and that of the four offers made, the bank accepted ours. 

Sometimes things just work out in your favor.  Maybe it was good timing.  Maybe solar-flares.  Maybe the planets just finally aligned.

Or, maybe it’s just plain dumb luck.