The job search isn't going too well. Josh heard back from several companies, but they weren't offering him the pay and benefits he'd like. He makes pretty good money here (with some awesome benefits) in San Diego and they're offering him jobs for $12 and $15 per hour with little to no benefits. That's a huge pay cut and I can understand why he doesn't want to do it.... Even if it all balances out in the end. Less pay, less cost of living and less rent. We'd be almost as well off as we are here. However, we're moving to Saint Louis in hopes of being be one step up from where we are here. We don't want to be stuck in a little apartment forever.

It's looking more and more like we'll be staying here in SD for the time being and saving every penny we have. At least until Josh gets a good job offer. He's applied to and contacted (via me) almost 200 different companies in Saint Louis County. So we're still crossing our fingers that he hears back from a good one.

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In other news, I heard from the Ex yesterday. I guess we screwed up our 2008 taxes and we're being audited. :( He said we owe them quite a chunk of change. I'm worried that since Josh and I haven't received our return yet that they're going to take the money straight out of there. (Darn you EX... and doing your taxes in mid January! He already got his back...) We'll still have money left over, but it would definitely affect our plans to move. Less money back on the return = more money we are going to have to save up... If we have to stay here for a bit longer I'm gonna want to move out of this apartment which probably means having to sign another lease. We'd stay where we're at, but I'm really not liking this apartment any more. There's so much awful going on here that I just don't have the energy to list it all. (Just to name a few: Leaky fixtures that they don't seem to know how to fix. Neighbors that party and smoke RIGHT outside our door. Dog poop every where you look - and step! Never any hot water - We take luke warm showers. Washing machines that only do half loads -Sick of paying $60+/month to do our laundry!) The only real upsides to living where we are is that it's only a 5-10 minute drive to work for Josh AND we have central heat and air.

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I'm still on my mini blogging break. I just felt like updating. Not sure if I'll ever get back into blogging as much as I was. It was taking up a lot of my time and I'd much rather be spending that time with my kids and Josh. :)

*By the way, weight loss is going pretty well!! Lost about 6lbs so far!*

I feel like Josh's secretary. Not even joking. For the past week I've been searching out every.single.HVAC.company I could find in the Saint Louis area. I've been googling them. I've searched yellowpages.com. I've been checking craigslist for HVAC job listings. Searching Yahoo Hot Jobs. I've even been reading posts in a forum called HVAC-Talk (completely BORING!). I know waaaaaay too much about heating and air conditioning than I've ever wanted to know!

All in an attempt to help Josh find a job in Saint Louis.

He works 40+ hours a week and I've got nothing but time on my hands. (Ok not really, but nap times and when they choose to play quietly in their room I do...) I've e-mailed every HVAC company I could find on the internet. With his help I've typed out a resume and a cover letter. I've filled out applications. I've printed out several cover letters and resumes ready to fax to companies. When he gets an e-mail from any of the companies, I'm the one e-mailing them back.... as Josh of course.

I should be getting paid for this.

So far I've e-mailed, faxed, contacted via a web site or applied online to about 50 different companies. So far we've heard back from about 5. One is actually hiring for his job position.

Please send some prayers and good vibes our way that one of these companies like him enough to want to interview him!

Kind of.

I think I'll be taking a little mini-blogging break for awhile. I'm sure I'll be back, but for now almost all of my free time is being spent preparing for our move to Saint Louis.

Right now Josh and I are sending out his resume to HVAC companies in the area. So far we're not having much luck... As soon as he can land a good job then we're outta here! We were approved for the townhouse that we applied for as long as he can prove that he has a job set up out there prior to moving.

I'm thinking that the actual move itself will be taking place in about March or April. Wish us luck! I have so much to do before we leave San Diego!

I was 19 when I first got married... When Ronnie and I got our first apartment together my mom was really excited... Not because I was actually leaving, but because I could now take all of the crap I had been storing at her house with me!

One day shortly after I moved out she decided to clean out my old room and pack everything up in some big plastic tubs. The very next day she unloaded them all at my new apartment. We had hardly anything in our apartment at the time and these huge plastic containers went straight into my closet... and there they sat until we moved.
Each and every time we moved to a new place (I believe it was a total of 5 different places... plus the few times we had to put our things in a storage unit...) I would just haul these big tubs along with us. One time I decided that I wanted to go through them. We were living in a 3-story townhouse in military housing. The bottom level had the garage and a HUGE pantry/storage area. (I miss that place... lots and lots of storage there!)

I know I've been a bit MIA from the blogsphere this past week... That's only because I've been super busy doing some research on what we will be calling our new home. Remember when I mentioned moving to Saint Louis, Missouri awhile back? (No? Ok, well I did... lol) Josh and I have been talking about moving to Saint Louis for awhile now....

And now, it's actually starting to become a reality!

Our good friends who just moved back there were finally able to get their own place in these cute lil townhomes. We took a look at them online... liked the location, loved the pictures, loved the surroundings... so we decided to go for it.

On Tuesday I e-mailed the property and told them our situation and let them know that we couldn't be out there until July. I mainly wanted to know if our dogs were going to be accepted. I know out here it can be hard to find any where that will take a dog over 30 pounds... and even harder, one that will take two dogs! (Not to mention that Harley is still a puppy...) Anyway, I got an e-mail back telling me that we can apply for a townhouse as early as that day! I talked things over with Josh and we applied online last night.

This morning I e-mailed them all the necessary documents and now I'm playing the waiting game. We should be able to find out today if we're approved or not. If we are then we can be put on a waiting list for a 3 bedroom. They don't come up often so we're able to get first dibs if one pops up around the time we'll be moving. If there's none open we'll just move into a 2 bedroom. Both have washer/dryer hook-ups in the units. (Very excited about that!)

Once we have this place secured Josh can start looking for a job in the surrounding area. We might be doing things a little backwards, but I will feel better knowing we have a place to move into... Now he has about 5 and a half months to figure out where he'll be working.

Oh my gosh, we're really doing this... Starting to feel a little bit more real now... I'm so ready though.

 Well, in San Diego county at least. :)

Today Josh and I took the boys to go see snow for the very first time. We drove about 40 minutes east of where we live to the little town of Julian, California. Since we've been having some pretty crazy weather here in Southern California this past week we figured that it probably snowed in Julian. Today the forecast predicted pretty clear skies.... So off we went to find out! About halfway there the snow started showing up....
I started to get excited because I hadn't seen snow in about 10 years. How crazy is that? I live 40 minutes away from where it DOES snow and I haven't driven up here since I was a teenager!









 It was absolutely breathtaking! The skies where a bright, bright blue with very few clouds. The snow was freshly fallen. I just kept saying, "Oh my gosh. Oh! Oh my gosh! How gorgeous is this?! Oh my gosh! Oh man, I have to blog about this..." Josh just kept laughing and making fun of me. I couldn't help it though! It was just fabulously GORGEOUS out there!





Seriously, doesn't this just take your breath away?!












Ok, this could be on a stinkin postcard. AHH-MAAAZING!











First time seeing snow in real life!! They had a blast!












On the way back home I couldn't resist taking a few more pictures...












We tried to bring some back home with us and this is all that managed to make it.











So now I'm realizing what an awesome place we live in. I kinda get why we're paying outrageous rent on a tiny 2 bedroom/1 bath apartment. Today we spent a day in the snow... Tomorrow we could be going to do this: (like we did this past summer....)

I feel like I'm stuck in a rut...


Hmm... Actually, I don't think that's what it is. I think it's more like I'm just really, really bored. Not so much with my life, but with myself. Clear as mud? Thought so. I think I'm just bored with my routine. I need some variety in my life. I need to get back into my hobbies and probably make some new friends/reconnect with old ones.

I used to think of myself as someone who hated change, but I've learned that I actually thrive on it. I love the unknown. I love doing new things and going on new adventures... If I can ever manage to get out of the house. I love learning and trying new ideas. The only problem I have with this is that I never really finish what I start. I love change so much that I don't stick with something long enough to finish it. This mostly applies to my hobbies. (Don't worry, Josh, I'm keeping you forever and seeing this through to the end lol.) Take my sewing for instance... I got a sewing machine for Christmas in 2008. I taught myself to sew, made a few things and then I haven't touched it since. ....I have a blanket that I began knitting back in September and it's sitting half finished on my dresser. ....I have several scrapbooks started, but none finished.

Ok, it just hit me.

I need to be better organized. If I was organized and had a weekly schedule I could probably get more done and get myself out of this funk that I'm in. Maybe I could schedule in some of my hobbies on different days of the week... It might take longer to get anything done, but at least I could finish my projects! Better than letting things sit, left untouched for months on end. It will also help me with my need for change. So for example I can knit on Mondays, scrap on Tuesdays, sew on Wednesdays, work on my Cafepress store on Thursdays and work on Looney Girl Designs on Fridays....

Hmm... I think this could work.


Now I just need to tackle my social life...

That is basically the question that one of my blog readers wants me to ask myself. Should I be writing about the issues that are going on in my family right now? ...Sharing it with the public blogging community?  (And also with the people I know in real life... Which by the way, very few IRL friends and family know about this blog.) My response is this:

While I appreciate each and every comment and opinion I receive on the topics I'm writing about, I don't necessarily agree with all of them. This being one of them. Obviously, this is my blog... my space.. where I can  write about pretty much what ever I want to. In this blog I'm choosing to share my life with everyone. It's no secret that I do post a lot about the hard stuff I've gone through in my life. It wouldn't be a fair representation of my life if I just posted about the happy-go-lucky times. That's not me and that's not what I want my blog to be about.

I suppose you could argue and say that it's not the same because I was posting about my life and not about someone else's. Well, this is my life. What my mom and step dad are going through is not just affecting them. It's affecting me and my family too. My mom knows about this blog. She's seen it. She's read it. She knows the web address for it. I've read to her what I wrote about her and my step dad within the past couple weeks. If she had a problem with any of it... If she would have asked me to take it down... I would have respected her wishes and done what she asked. She hasn't done that. (And just to clarify, my mom and I have a very open relationship where we do speak our minds... she definitely would have asked me to take these posts down if she wanted me to.) She knows that I've always written things down as a way to vent my feelings. Before there were computers in our home I've always had a diary... or a journal.  Even though I do write stuff down I don't usually keep my feelings or opinions to myself. When I feel the need to let someone know how I feel, I'll say it to them. In my previous post I talked about how I felt about my mom and step dad getting back together... Before I wrote it, my mom and I had talked on the phone about it. Everything I wrote about... she heard it first. She knows my feelings. She knows that I still love her and support her regardless of everything. She knows that from now on I'm staying out of it.

I don't want to offend or make anyone uncomfortable with my recent blog posts. I'm sorry if I did. I know that I was talking about some rough issues and depressing stuff. If you don't like what I'm writing about I won't be offend (or even know) if you decide not to read it. If you are reading them I still won't be offended (or even know) if you decide not to comment. You also have my full permission to click that little red 'x' at the top of your screen. ;) I promise, I won't get mad.

I wasn't planning on posting anything today, but felt like I should respond. I know if one person thought it, so did a handful of other people...

My mom and step dad got back together last night.

I don't really know what to think of this... She's told me that she never wanted any of this to happen in the first place. She didn't want to get a divorce. He kept telling her that it was over and that divorce was the only way. Friday morning she did what she thought she had to do in order to protect herself and that was to file for divorce...

Apparently, reality set in when he was served with the divorce papers. I'm sure it made him realized that my mom was trying to move on with her life. They spent 6 hours on the phone on Friday night. On Saturday they spent 8 hours sitting in my mom's car talking about everything. He's still giving her a hard time. She's still having to prove to him that she didn't cheat.

Last night she called me to ask what the Sprint username/password were for my account that her phone is under. She wanted to figure out if she could get the actual transcripts of the texts that were sent over the past couple weeks. He was trying to see if her and her co-worker were still carrying on with the "affair". Of course, I'm just guessing at the reason... she didn't actually tell me why she wanted to see the transcripts.

In my not so humble opinion, I think that them getting back together is a huge mistake. He's done and said some really horrible things that I just can't forgive him for. Not right now anyway. He's called my brother a lot of names and said that he's never liked him. He's said some bad things about my sister and her husband. He left my niece homeless for several days starting on Christmas Eve.

(Funny because my mom was trying to tell me last night that despite what I might feel about him, he's a really good grandpa and loves his grandchildren.... Hmm... kicking out your granddaughter and her parents and refusing to let them come back in for them to get her clothes, diapers, food, etc... Yeah, what a great grandpa he is. I don't care if he was mad at my mom or not. No reason to do that to a child.)

Josh doesn't want H to have anything to do with our kids. He doesn't even want to take them over there to see my mom. If she wants to see them she can come over to our house (without him). My mom is upset about this... I'm not going to argue with my husband. I support him in this decision. Not saying it's right or wrong. I just support him. If H wants to talk to Josh about it, so be it. Leave me out please.

Oh and the worst best worst part about all of this is that he will probably be disabled for the rest of his life. (Which is the reason he's still here and never returned to work in Las Vegas.) My mom thinks it's going to be great because he's going to be home all the time now. Isn't she realizing that he's going to be home and making her life miserable? He's going to hold all kinds of things over her head. He's going to constantly be questioning her on where she's going. Who she's going with. He'll be checking her e-mail and her phone records... And my mom will let him do all of it. She wants to keep the peace. She just wants her husband back. I don't think she cares about the price she has to pay for it.

I know that it's her life and I don't get a say it. I know this. I just had to get it all out of my system.