Updates, answers, and the like

Hello 2013! Excuse my absence from this little blog, I've been quite busy wallowing in the winter weather and sleeping 10 hours every night. Spring has reluctantly arrived and there are a few sunny days most weeks now which has given me extra energy to pour into this space.

Matt is still working for a local company as a quality assurance engineer and he rides the bus to downtown Seattle 5 days week. I was working part time at a local domestic violence agency, but as of April 2nd I will be a full time staff member of the part of the agency that runs a shelter for abused women and children.

I'm absurdly excited (and only a teensy bit anxious) about transitioning to full time. In my mind, this is my first "adult" job because I will be eligible for benefits, accrue vacation time, have sick pay, etc. It only took 23 months after graduating from college and 19 months after moving to Seattle to get here, but they say life is a journey.

I also applied for graduate school in January and finally heard back about admissions early this morning. I didn't get accepted. And while that distresses me a little, I'm also relieved. I had just accepted a full time job and I was unsure of how I would juggle both commitments. In addition, the path to become a licensed social worker isn't exactly a short one. It requires 2 or 3 years in school and 2 to 5 years to get all the supervised hours and then you've got to take a competency test before you're officially licensed.

The idea of starting a graduate program became this huge commitment hovering over me that I wasn't sure I wanted to make, but who says "no" to something they've already said "yes" to so many times? Not being accepted was a reprieve in many ways, but I was also majorly disappointed. Several times I have asked myself, "What the heck? Why didn't they want me? I am AMAZING." But more often than not I have said to myself, "Thank goodness, now we can move back home whenever we want."

I wouldn't mind committing to the PNW for another year or two, but the idea of being here for 2+ more years is stressing me out. I've had numerous anxiety attacks about being stuck here for the duration of graduate school, or being unable to get back to Texas if I became pregnant, or being trapped here by job opportunities we couldn't pass up. Now I feel like there is one less obstacle blocking our path to getting to where I see us in 5 years: surrounded by our support network of family and friends.

Work, work, work for the busy bee

Oh my goodness. Where to begin?

Things have been crazy hectic on my end, hence the lack of updates. Two days after Matt and I celebrated our anniversary, my mom came to stay with us for a week. We acted like tourists and took in all the sights and ate delicious food. White truffle pesto, Dungeness crab, a double chocolate cookie lavender ice cream sandwich, calamari steak, lavender lemon cookies, figs on pizza, and  the list goes on and on. It was an interesting to see my life and this city through someone else's eyes.

Immediately after my mom left town, I started working part-time on-call relief (8 – 24 hours per week on average) for the domestic violence shelter (DV) I had been volunteering with since January. New jobs are never easy, especially ones that deal with crisis work, and DV is no exception. This position has been amazingly exciting and absurdly stressful but I am incredibly happy to be with such a wonderful agency doing work that I am proud of.

My part-time serving job at Olga's has morphed into a full-time position with the change in management in May. We got a new general manager (who is wonderful) and lost half the serving staff within a few weeks (not everyone enjoys change). Olga's is in the process of hiring and training new people, but nothing happens quickly in a corporate company so until then we're all sharing the strain with fewer days off, busier work days and shorter breaks.

Between being full time at Olga's, part time with DV, keeping my volunteer hours with Planned Parenthood and commuting across the metropolis, I have been a very busy bee. It's fun to have a full planner again, but I'm ready to find a balance that leans a bit more towards the leisure side than I'm currently sporting (more hiking in my Seattle summer please!).

Matt has been wonderfully supportive and is often the only reason I survive the madness of daily life. Our kitten Ere and her adorable furry face being survival mechanism #2. When these things aren't quite curing the insanity, I take several big deep breaths and just let it go. Life moves on.

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and
absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall
begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
-Emerson