2007 Wrap-Up

Now that the new year is here and things have settled down since the holidays, I've actually had time to think about what 2007 was for me. I guess it was a pretty eventful year! Here are some of the major events!!
Career/School/Life
Early in the year, Josh and I made the decision for me to work full-time and for him to go back to school for graphic design. After many months of discussion, we finally agreed that looking for a ceramics teaching job needed to go on the back burner for now because we had finally come to the realization of everything that was involved in trying to obtain one of these so called "university teaching jobs". Just out of sheer coincidence and to our own naivety of the situation we already had many things going against us in this venture. We've spent so many months and weeks and hours and minutes scrutinizing reasons why this wasn't happening for him after all of the effort and work and heart he (we!) put into school and working towards this goal. We decided that we needed to, in a way, accept what was happening and move on, but there is so much more to it than that. Josh went through a definite period of mourning and loss for one of his first and most important passions in life! So we will never give up on attaining one of our most loved and important goals in life. In a way, it is kind of a blessing because we realized what is important to us and specific things we want in our life together.
1. We want a family, and while we're young, and with all of the traveling and "internships" Josh would need to do before even being considered for one of these positions, it wouldn't be feasible, financially and/or emotionally.
2. We love to be close to our friends and family, especially while we're young and have young children. Again, with traveling and basically having to go wherever it takes you; not something we want to do right now.
3. More schooling. Unbeknownst to us at the time, and apparently to Josh's professor's, he needed an MFA not an MA and probably additional schooling. Most of the people who get these jobs stay in the program for years until they are basically "given" a job.
I guess those are the three BIG reasons why we made this decision, plus Josh is talented in art either way, and he's already doing awesome with graphics and he loves it! SO, wow, that was a big thing for us in 2007!

On the other side of the spectrum, I started out working full-time and finally fell into a job that I can actually say "I like"! I learned autocad and am becoming pretty good at it, and also i get to "consult" in design ideas with people who come in that are building or remodeling their home. Oh, and a HUGE realization for me since I was going to school for interior design!!...I now am very sure that I DO NOT want to be an interior designer. I work with them all the time here, and they are crazy people!! And the clients they work with are usually very rich, very snobby, and very insane! So, recently, I entertained the thought of going for the autocad/drafter thing as a career move. I like it cause i get to be alone :) and I'm good at it.

Personal
Josh's brother Zach has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. and to all of our great regret and shock, the cancer keeps coming back, even after many treatments. Zach had a bone marrow transplant last year (using his own marrow) and the cancer came back even after that. Josh was tested and we were shocked to learn that he is not a match for Zach, however, Zach apparently has thousands of matches on the national registry. He and his parents will be on their way to the Mayo clinic in about a week or so, to talk about other treatment options. Please pray for Zach and keep him in your thoughts!!

On a lighter note, yay!!! we are having another baby. Not something that was "planned" but obviously we aren't stupid so we knew there was a chance. Anyways, we super excited to have another awesome little baby in our lives, and also for Ethan to finally have someone to play with!!!

In conclusion...
Unless it's completely awful, I usually tend to see the brighter side of things, so at first I thought 2007 wasn't such a great year. But after thinking about it, I really believe it to be a blessing in disguise. We made some really big life decisions that are really starting to pay off and definitely will help us in the future. I learned a lot about our relationship and who I am as person and what I want to do with my life. It actually was a huge year for me. Maybe, there wasn't a whole lot of really big things "happening" but I did a lot of learning and growing, and hopefully we will begin to reap some of the rewards this year that we worked so hard for in "07!!!