Monaloca

The first half of 2009 has been absolutely ridiculous for our family. It started with Joey’s job loss on his first day back in January, and ended with my pregnancy loss just last week. In between we had an insanely expensive pipe break under our house (it was made in 1914 of terra cotta – tree roots finally broke through); a jumbled re-fi (lucky for us, it ended up working to our advantage); Joey’s four-month stint working for a narcissistic madman and his ensuing second job hunt in the worst economy in two generations; uncertainty about my own job; intermittent violence in our neighborhood (at least it’s brought us closer to our neighbors); and lots of little everyday craziness to fill in the gaps.

I’m still dealing with emotions surrounding the miscarriage, and those are either for another post or another medium altogether. But I can guarantee this: The feelings would be infinitely harder to deal with if Joey and I hadn’t both found job stability (and dare I say happiness) in the last month. I realized this over-arching need for security – of both finances and routine – when talking to a friend right around the time our pipe broke and the dishwasher failed. Things break, especially when you own a home. It’s an inconvenience on many levels, but you deal and move on. When you don’t have day-to-day job security (or are miserable in the one you have, or at worst don’t have one at all) everything feels exponentially worse.

Overall, things have started to go right for us again. It’s a trend I hope to continue. New (good) jobs, a trip to Alaska in just one week, happiness at preschool, and a more solid conviction that we do want to expand our family (and as a result, likely our house too). To a certain extent, all this is to the future to decide. As long as we’ve found our grounding again, we’ll be fine. And we have. The timing couldn’t be more perfect: The second half of 2009 begins today. Because I’m a firm believer in new beginnings and am slightly superstitious with marks on a calendar, I hereby declare this a special day.

Happy new half-year, to all of us who need to start anew.

The photos have little to do directly with this post, other than our children, bio and step, are always new beginnings. One relates a little more directly to special starts. Melina recently received a late birthday present from Linnea and Joy: the dresses they wore as flower girls at our wedding. Melina felt that instead of pink cowboy boots or sparkle shoes (which Joy and Linnea used to accessorize on the big day) she needed Mama’s new hiking hat. Just look at my lovely little girl.

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