Hola!

I saw Boo’s blog entry and figured it was a good time to update.

1. My marriage has survived the move in tact. We are happy and back to normal. There are still a few small wounds but we’ll survive.

2. I am working for the same peeps that I worked for in NY. Can you believe that? I never thought I would end up in another of these places but here I am. I started in April (3 weeks ahead of schedule) doing what I did back up north, sans the supervisory duties. I am just going to leave is as “it wasn’t a good fit.” You can’t take someone with 12 years of experience and have them supervised by someone with virtually none. Another position opened up, more money, WAY more opportunity and REALLY exciting!!! I was approached privately and was asked to apply for it. I did and I got the job. It is a much more independent position which I love. I am one of those -just leave me alone and let me do my work- kind of people. There are a lot of pluses to this new position; skills I can take with me, especially being in the second largest financial hub in the US (the position has to do with finance). Plus, if they are willing to teach me a whole new field while paying me, who am I to turn them down?? Knowledge is money in the bank. I don’t want to say here what the position is so, if you want to know, email or pm me.

3. I can’t even believe it but the other TEE? (there were two if you guys recall, the Big TEE and her toadie), wants to come to the Charlotte office and actually had the nerve to email me asking me about the office. I didn’t answer.

4. I still feel I need to clear up my views re: the stay at home v. working thing. I think I was a little too harsh in Boo’s blog but I think I was also not as clear as I could have been. For me personally, it was awful because it wasn’t a choice. I wasn’t a stay at home wife. I was UNEMPLOYED. I think there is a MONUMENTAL difference between two spouses deciding together that one is going to stay home and the flipside of one spouse working (expecting the other to get a job immediately) while said other frantically searches for a job and comes up empty handed time and time again. It was humiliating and wreaked havoc on my self-confidence. I used very little time to enjoy myself and spent most of my 9 months off looking for a job or moping/crying about not having a job. Now I have Friday off while I switch between the two positions and technically for the day, I’ll be unemployed but you bet your butt I’ll be at the pool enjoying a sunny day with 90 degrees temps.

5. DH is doing really well in his position. He made 6 figures for the first time. He’s pretty excited about that and he’s being considered for a VP slot. We work WAY more hours down here than we did in NY but I think the experience is invaluable.

6. Strangely enough, we have a much more active social life here that we did in NY. I made a point to actively try and make friends, something I really didn’t do when I moved to Albany. I have met some great folks that we go out to dinner with, play dates with the dogs, picnics, dinner parties, etc.

7. Our neighbors on one side are great. (Well, if I am going to be honest, they are great on all sides compared to the hell that we lived next to in Albany) However, since two of the sides have kids and we don’t, they kind of shun us. The woman directly across the street is my age and has never, not once, said hello to me and it seems as though she goes out of her way to look away if I am outside. I spoken to her husband a billion times (he kept bringing me stray dogs he’s found) but nothing from her. Not a huge deal but it does bother me a little.

8. OMG. I love having a neighborhood pool! *waves to Boo*

9. We’re going back up north at the end of August. I am so homesick for Lake Ontario it makes me physically ill at times. That’s really the only thing that I struggle with these days is the home sickness. When I was in NYC I could just drive home on the weekends and now it involves vacation time, plane flights and dog sitters, etc. *sigh*

10. I have gained weight from quitting smoking, my injury and being severely depressed this winter and this really bothers me. I am just too freakin’ tired when I get home from work to work out. Once it cools down, I am going to start walking at lunch as I did in NY.

11. There’s a little neighborhood theater in the NoDa district and so far we’ve seen .moe and Dickey Betts play there. There’s only about 700 seats so it’s like partying with the band. So fun! AND? We’re going to see the Black Crowes two nights in November!!! WOOT!

12. I have a bunch of pics of the view from my office and Speed Street that I need to resize and post. I’ll do that tonight when I get home from work.

How’s that for an update? And btw, I read the blogs almost every day, I just don’t have anything of value to add, with the exception of thinking that Mark is one of the best and most thoughtful fathers a girl could ask for. :)