Cars, Houses, and Jobs

I realize it's been a long time since my last update. We've been quite busy, what can I say! So here are the three biggest updates from the past few months.

We moved! No more five hundred square foot apartment. No more dining table in my living room. No more computer in my bedroom. No more will I have to wait for the toilet. (sounds weird but you know it's true!) Back in August when we got our notice that our lease was up in October we decided that it was time to move. We liked our apartment but we felt that at this point in our lives/marriage we needed a bigger space. Only problem was that I refused to live in another apartment and while we don't know how long we'll be in Raleigh for, we knew for sure it wasn't long enough to be worth buying a house. So we (and by we I mean me) started searching for a house to rent, which proved to be a difficult task in this area. Most houses for rent (that are worth living in) were well over $1000 a month. Crazy. But we finally found it. The perfect townhouse at an affordable rate. In a beautiful and safe neighborhood, so that I don't have to worry about being by myself. It's 1400 square feet, two bedrooms, dining room, two and half baths, and the kitchen is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. It's privately owned and in a neighborhood of houses, not a complex. The owner's have been awesome, super nice, and they let us paint the walls. I have pictures, just need to get them off my camera!

In other moving news, my sister-in-law and her husband have moved to Asheville. Quinn got a job as a chef in a resturant in Biltmore Village. Sounds like he's enjoying it and I know that they are loving living in the mountains. Hopefully sometime we can go up for a visit!

Right after we moved Steven was rear ended on his way home from work one day. Big 'ol SUV smashed right into him. It was pretty nasty looking, but he was okay. The car is now fixed and everything's back to normal!

Now for the job update. First of all, I got a new job!! Friday is my last day answering the phones at the Volvo dealership. I can't even contain my joy. Don't get me wrong, I have really been appreciative of this job but the boredom is driving me insane. Starting sometime next week I will be working for our jeweler and friend Kerry Catherine. I've been doing some freelance work for her for several months now, but a couple of weeks ago she and her husband offered me a full time job. After talking it over with Steven and the four of us sitting down and talking about it together, I decided to take her up on it. They are still trying to come up with a title but I'll basically be doing all things creative. All the graphic design, advertising, marketing, photographing custom pieces, setting up display cases, etc. We are super excited about it!

Steven has a job update too. He has officially been released from the Reserves! Now he has to go back to a recruiter and sign a new contract with an active duty unit. He has until I think early Februrary to get that done. So when he signs his new contract he should (in theory) have the opportunity to do what's called "re-classing." Which basically means, train for a new job specialty. We're hoping that he will be able to re-class to 18X which is a Special Forces Candidate. That would be the ideal scenerio anyway! So we'll see what happends next.

Currently, Steven is at Air Assualt School. From my understanding he's going to learn many things, but the main event of the training is learning how to jump out of helicopters with no parachute, just sliding down a rope. Apparently that's fun. I got a chance to talk with him last night and they're kicking his butt. They had to complete an obstical course yesterday and a two mile run in 16 minutes, and anyone who failed it was sent home. Apparently they don't want just anyone jumping out of helicopters. Luckily Steven is in incredible shape and had no problem with it. He sounded crazy tired though.