Completely Different.

It is now  November 5th, 2011.  Summer has come and gone.  Halloween was a blur.  Thanksgiving will soon be here. 

Things have changed drastically in my world over the past few months.  The month of August was an emotional roller coaster.  I had a job opportunity in New Jersey.  I intended to use the job as the catalyst to get my family to move to New Jersey, having insisted for years that we would move there before Emma started kindergarten.  However, when the opportunity suddenly presented itself, there were too many significant concerns for it to feel like the responsible choice.  After a month of indecision and perpetual unease, the decision was made to let the opportunity pass and to deliberately stay here in AZ and continue to work towards creating a better life and future for ourselves.  We own 2 homes here, and the economy and real estate market were completely against us as far as being able to walk smoothly away from either of them.  Renting seemed to be our only possible option, but it was not a reassuringly good one.  Essentially, the only piece of the puzzle missing to make our Arizona life flow more smoothly was me finding a job.  Whereas, the only piece of the puzzle that we solidly had for the New Jersey scenario was that I did have a job... but that's it. 

We decided it would be more wise to stay here and hope that I'd be able to find employment.  And, fortunately, I did!  I had been saying for at least a year that I was pretty sure that the only people finding jobs these days are people with connections.  If you have a friend at a company that is hiring, your chances for getting that job are far higher than if you're just an anonymous applicant.  In my case, this was exactly how it went down.  A friend with whom I had worked several years ago told me that her company was looking for part time help.  She gave my resume to her supervisor, and he gave me the job.  I worked part time for about a month before mentioning that I would like more hours.  The next day, I got a full-time schedule.  My life insurance, health insurance, and 401K are all now in full-swing and I am feeling so justified in the decision to persevere here in AZ. 

Life is certainly different now that I am a full-time employed mom!  I'm still working at getting better organized as far as keeping up with household responsibilities.  It is definitely not easy, but I'm getting into a groove and Paul is extremely helpful.  Life is good.