Here in the Field with My Feet on the Ground and My Fate in the Air

So I was on a Broadway kick the other day and wound up listening to, among other things, Once on This Island, which I still love as much as I did when we put it on my junior year of high school.  (also among other things: discovered I still know the choreography for the entire opening number . . . going on thirteen years later.  did I mention I was on the tech crew, not in the cast?) (on another note someone really should put our version up on youtube.)

Anyway.  Did you catch the part where it's, like, the end of March?  Crazy.  And did you catch the part where we made it facebook official that we're moving back to Florida in May?  Yay!!!

Bringing everything together, I know I've said essentially the same thing for, like, all last year, but this song is totally how I'm feeling right now.  When we moved here we didn't intend to stay permanently (although we didn't know where we were going at the time) and we figured we'd be here for about five years, and it's turned out to be almost exactly that . . . but it feels like it's been so much longer than that at the same time.

Let's just say we're psyched. :-)  To move on, to get out of here, to get going with life . . . just everything.

It's a little weird to me to think we're moving back to Florida.  The last time I did that there was a lot I wasn't ready for.  Mentally, emotionally . . . spiritually . . . ecumenically . . . grammatically . . . seriously though.  I did not see a lot of things coming, and when we left I was so burned out on everything I couldn't even fathom a world where I would want to go back.  What a difference five years makes, eh?  Long story short, we leave in 58 days - and I'm the one who put the countdown on the calender.

Did I mention the part where we have an apartment and everything?  SO.  FREAKING. EXCITING!  It came available a little sooner than we'd hoped, and they can only hold it for so long, so we had to bump up our travel plans by a week.  So I'll be missing the last week of school and all the fun stuff that goes on that week, which is really depressing.  But what can you do, you know?  Besides, that means I'll be back to having a full time job one week earlier too.

And yeah- totally planning on going back to Disney.  So start planning your visit to us, like, now.  Like Ashli.  (seriously - she started asking me question about what kinds of discounts I could get her and her friends, like, three months ago.  and what time of year to come.  heads up - mid-January.  And I say this as someone who's worked at a school for four years . . . unless they're really struggling or something, get their homework, pull the kids out of school and go in mid January.  or early October.)  You know you want to. ;-)

So basically we'll be spending the next two months as a cross between this

and this

but it's kind of okay.

And perhaps once we get to the other side of the country life will get interesting again and I'll start feeling like I have things to blog about again.  So we all win!  (I think.)


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They're missing a lot of the best lines here but looking for the other Pirates clip totally had me remembering how I went to see At World's End the day I got back to Florida after the second time I drove out (did I mention this will be technically the fourth time I've moved cross-country?) because it came out while I was driving but I was dying to see it so I went that night anyway after, like, four straight days of driving and I really don't know how I stayed awake to watch it (especially since I went to, like, the very last showing of the night) but it was awesome.  Anyway.  The first three Pirates movies rocked.  And on of the first things we're doing is going on the ride.

You Live for the Fight When That's All That You've Got

So that song's been in my head for a couple of days now for completely unrelated but incredibly awesome reasons.  But it's a pretty good description of how we've been living around here the last couple of years.

Less so the last couple of months.

We haven't really mentioned it to a lot of people because there were so many potential ways things could go wrong and I got a little . . . superstitious, I guess is the best word.  But now, today, on Thanksgiving . . . it's too exciting a secret to keep.

 So apparently at Convergys they have this policy where if you're talking to someone and the calls drops for some reason you're supposed to call them back.  Except sometimes the policy is you're not supposed to call them back.  And it, like, goes back and forth.  Because that makes sense, right?

Anyway.

Back at the end of July Luke go this call from this lady whose internet for her business wasn't working.  And she was . . . rather unhappy about it.  And trying to do several things at once so she kept dropping her phone.  In fact, she'd previously been talking to someone else Luke worked with, and then after that call dropped she called back and got Luke.  And was not pleasant.  And the call dropped again.  And Luke didn't know what the policy about calling back was at that particular time, but he decided to call her back since he knew the situation and then no one else would have to get yelled at.

Long story short, he couldn't fix the problem but he was able to get the lady calmed down - to the point that she actually offered him a job working for her because she liked how well he handled things so much.  Which at first seemed to both of us a little To Good To Be True (tm) but the website she gave him was (and is) quite legit and the money she quoted was so good as to qualify for ridiculous, so in the end we thought, why not?  Worst case scenario, it's a total scam and we waste some time.

Long story shorter, it wasn't a scam.  Luke has been working part time for C Three since August, he left Convergys last week, and goes full time at C Three on Monday.  And that is what we're dedicating our feast to today.

I have no idea what exactly he does now.  It involves energy . . . and analytics . . . and stuff.  It makes sense when Luke explains it, but not quite enough for me to turn around and explain it to someone else.  So, you know, he's a transponster.  Or something. 

Anyway . . . we're kind of over the moon.  Like I mentioned back in April we've made a few changes to the way we money around here and a few other things too, and we're pretty sure this is the cosmic, spiritual, good-karmic result.  Honestly, this is the best year we've had since we've known each other.  Everything is falling into place, and thankful doesn't even begin to cover it.


Anyway.

so I'll just say that we've had these moments

and these moments

and there will probably be more . . . but for now we're just thankful to feel more secure, and like we really can move forward with all the plans we've been making for the last six years.  Because we're coming up on the six year anniversary of when we got engaged - which is almost as trippy as the part where high school was *cough*way-too-long-ago-and-we'll-not-mention-numbers-again*cough* . . . oy.

 And then there's the part where this is the first Thanksgiving we've ever had where neither one of us has to work.  That's pretty awesome.  (dude, we haven't even had Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving Day most years . . . )



Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!  (or Thanksgivukkuh if you're Eric)



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Such a tragedy that somehow we missed this one when I was a kid.  But we'll be watching it tonight while we eat our pie.  Someone decided we needed four.  For the two of us. (hint: it wasn't me)  On the plus side, at least we'll still have plenty of dessert if the orange-brownies-from-pinterest experiment I decided to go with this year flops.

Seasons of Joy

So I recently read this book and I may be a bit of a word nerd, but it was pretty fascinating.  Among all the other bits if trivia about how English is the biggest hodgepodge of borrowings from every other language known to man was the part where English has lots more synonyms than most other languages.  And the great part about that is the part where you literally have a specific word for almost every possibility.

For instance, sometimes "happy" just doesn't cover it.  Sometimes the only word for what you're feeling is JOY.

And that definitely applies today because WE JUST PAID OFF MY STUDENT LOAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, in this case there AREN'T enough words to describe how excited Luke and I are feeling today.  So I'll have to express myself this way:  (in no particular order . . . well, alphabetical order because I just went down the list of gifs I've been saving up just for this blog post)

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . I'm assuming your computer is now running like you're using dial-up circa 1992. And I probably should apologize for that, but I'm going to be honest instead.

Because seriously.  I could go on.

But honestly, today is by far the happiest day of MY LIFE.  Better than getting married, getting engaged, even the day I graduated from college.  Because on every single one of those days I had this stupid student loan hanging over my head.  Even if it wasn't something I consciously thought about, it was always there in the background.

In fact, to go back to the last time I felt so uninhibitedly happy would have to be high school graduation . . . and we all know how long ago that was.  Because that was one of the last days when I still believed I'd get a grant instead of a loan.  Well, actually the last day for that was when Ashli applied for her financial aid.  I mean, let's be real here - in what world is it logical for a family to add a college student to their roster and then the original college student not only doesn't finally get a grant then but gets their loan amount cut?!?!?!  I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, at least my loan was still subsidized - Ashli's wasn't - but seriously.  I have yet to meet anyone to whom that makes sense.

But I shan't get into my financial aid rant today because I am just too happy.  There is such a weight off our shoulders . . . it feels like we might actually be able to make a living someday.  Assuming I ever get a full time job, which I'm thinking is not going to happen as long as we're living in this town.  But in the meantime where we can take a few things off the back burner and start actually moving forward.  And it.  Feels.  Awesome.  This is seriously exciting and the only thing keeping me from celebrating in Vegas or something is the part where I don't get paid time off.  :-)

The best part is this time a year ago we thought we still had two or three years left before we finally kicked this thing to the curb.  But along about five or six months ago the numbers started looking do-ably small.  So we crunched some numbers and it turned out that with a few financial changes and ramping up the bare bones-ness from Def-con 4 to Def-con 3 we managed to pull it off.  And now it's over.  And that still feels a little surreal.  In fact, I almost don't know what to do . . . maybe we should go buy a house . . . on the moon.

In a word -

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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There are not many things that could make today even better.  Underwater kitty mews are one of them.  :-)