Can’t wait to see you there!

I cannot believe that this is it. So much of me wants to cry.  It was always planned that we would move somewhere else, but now I can’t imagine my little girl growing up without extended family around her. Most of me is aching with coming to the realization that we could have bargained harder to stay in Atlanta, but we didn’t.

I’ve found that the thing that bothers me the most is not that we’re moving out of SC, but that we’re moving out of the south. No offense to those of you from different parts of the country, but people are nicer in the South. Day to day life is more courteous – people hold open doors, make conversation on the elevators, and waitresses are actually nice to you! It’s going to be an adjustment, learning not to expect to have sweet tea with mexican food, couponing at Publix and scoring a lot of stuff!, driving through cow pastures for a few hours to get back home. No, the bridges we’ll be crossing won’t be over sea, but over rivers; the beach won’t be just a few minutes away, and there are fewer froyo places. Not sure why that is.

So now, we leave, and I have questions on my mind like… how long until we move back to Georgia? Will Zoe really know her own family well enough? Why did I buy a fro-yo Groupon for Charleston five days before we move with no chance of using it?

NOTE: I’ll most likely be changing the blog over to a different address with more info and pictures for our families, so they can keep up with us. Stay tuned for any updates!

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5

Someone posted this quote as their status on Facebook this past week, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Another person I follow via facebook and her blog posted this in regards to things happening in her own life, and I have to agree with this statement too:

You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand. John 13:7

There are so very many things we’re doing in the next month. Exactly one month from today, Chad will have been at his new job for two days. Before that even happens, I have two doctors appointments, a 4 day trip to Cincinnati to house hunt, Chad is getting a new car, I’m having a baby shower, we have to go to Athens to meet the movers twice and, on top of that, neither of us is working right now which means things are a little tighter budget-wise than we’d like.

I’m a worrier by nature, and all of these things are stressing me out. Coupled with horrible hormones, I’ve been to the point of tears so often… and then I read this. Every time I start to worry, I try to think of this now and start praying. Sometimes it just feels amazing that God knows what words to put into my life, that God knows the blessings I have better than I do, and that I need to recognize it more. I’m thankful that Chad and I have each other and even though we may not  be living there right now, we have a great house, many things we’ve been blessed with. We have a daughter who we are so thrilled to meet, who hasn’t had any problems during the beginning of her journey. While I am still worried about BP (and honestly, rightfully so – it’s a dangerous thing if it stays too high!), I’ve already been blessed with so much and I know God will carry me through this. The budget complications and the tight schedule are just his reminder that even though life is fraught with obstacles sometimes, there is so much to still be thankful for and he will guide us through.

Sorry if I got preachy here, I’ve just definitely been feeling the pressures of not only moving to a new state, but being a very hormonal pregnant woman.

As they got to spend some time with him, Muslims discovered they didn’t like him very much. They were looking for something else, something that didn’t show up in the polling data.

It showed up this spring. “All those people on the street,” says an activist who asked that we withhold her name and location for fear of government reprisal, “they don’t want democracy, they want to live, to live with dignity. They want something tangible, not an idea.” Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian who set himself on fire after repeated run-ins with local authorities, wanted to support his family with a fruit stand.

Bouazizi’s dream lacked the grandeur of a caliphate. He asked no one to die but himself. “In Egypt,” says the activist, “the tangible dream is to walk on the street without being harassed by a policeman. In Bahrain, it’s to live your life without being discriminated against. In Tunisia, the dream was to work.”

This part of the article was the part that truly got me. Bin Laden has long been dead among the less-fanatic Muslim people because they  were never looking for a jihadist war, but a way to just live their lives like citizens in the US. They may not like our actions, but they respect and desire what we have – a way for our citizens to live without fear, to make a living and to live their lives peacefully without family. Bin Laden could not promise this; in that way, they cared less about him than we did.

I recommend reading both, but especially the Businessweek article – it’s a great piece explaining not only the Arab Spring but Bin Laden’s flaws, too, and why now, his death does not even matter to anyone but us.

And… for a couple more interesting current event articles I’ve found interesting:

Somali pirates - why and how the trade is flourishing

The new Tech Bubble – this one is interesting as I keep reading articles on Facebook, Twitter and Google, especially how Google may be too big to sustain.

Treating and preventing AIDS – Researchers found that the sooner you treat and educate HIV infected people, the sooner it can stop the disease from spreading. This is wonderful news!

I don’t think there is a single greater substance on this earth than caramel. Plus, this totally beats my craving last week for an entire can of cold peas. (Side note: I only eat one type of peas, typically. It’s the one thing I’m picky about, aside from raw tomatoes. That craving grossed me out…)

So… the list of Amazing Brownies!

• The Caramel Brownies from Annie’s Eats, pictured above
• These Cookies and Creme Brownies use ice cream in the batter… that’s how you KNOW it’s good.
• OMG. Bacon caramel brownies. Yes please.  (Are more words really needed?)
• Cookie dough + Brownie + Ganache… drooooooool!
• Caramel cheesecake brownies, more of the golden nectar of the gods!
• When I say espresso Kahlua brownies, it seems like the name is even soooooo rich.
• So easy Symphony Brownies, yet so good!
• Finally, Bourbon Pecan Pie Brownies. Om Nom Nom is literally all I can say.

Well, these brownie recipes would make Cookie Monster a convert… so I’m dying to know if you’ve got any to add! If you try any of these, let me (and the authors) know… I think the Bacon ones, the Cookies and Creme, the Caramel cheesecake and Bourbon Pecan Pie ones are all on my short list!

The past few days have been a harder climb than I ever thought I would have to face during all this. My medicine finally started working, I could rejoice! No sooner did it start working than it brought terrible side effects… pain all over, constant drowsiness and the need to sleep more, on top of headaches and increased heart rate.

Even though I’ll be fighting through this until I can see my new specialists at MUSC, tonight I came to terms with the fact that I really am grateful for being so blessed. When I flip over in pain, Zoe flips over inside of me, she likes to stay upright. When I am feeling sick and tired from my BP being low, Zoe is getting more blood circulation and feeling twice as good as she usually does. I would do this until September if I had to, for her. I think my best first mother’s day gift is a gift from Zoe… to know what the love for my child is already.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there… just remember how blessed you are.

I swear, this week was like the jackpot of free and super cheap stuff. I spent $23 and got:

• 2 boxes of Total Raisin Bran
• 2 boxes of Wheaties Fuel (1.3 of the boxes were free, plus $5 gift card back!)
• 1 box Ritz Crackerfuls (I don’t normally eat crap like this, but hey, they were free! The crackers are whole grain/whole wheat, so there’s not as much guilt there.)
• 1 box Uncle Ben’s Whole Grain rice
• 3 lbs ground beef
• 1 jug Purex laundry detergent (This stuff is seriously awesome, and so cheap everywhere, even without coupons)
• 1 stick deodorant (free!)
• 1 Nivea men’s body wash (free!)
• 2 4-packs YoPlus yogurt (free!)
• 2 sweet potatoes
• birthday card for brother in law

Do you coupon? What free stuff do you get? Do you want to teach me the art of CVS free stuff (I hear it’s good)?

Aside from some very cheap eating out this weekend (we ate out twice for $30, mostly since my sis and her BF were visiting), we lived our new lives of “living simply.” Our A/C is out, but that’s a good thing… we got to keep the windows open to this nice weather all week. I don’t think I mentioned it before, but our cable has been out since some idiot screwed it up about two months ago… we get 21 channels, none of them being ESPN… and it’s nice. We watch some netflix, but mostly we don’t watch TV at all. I started couponing (not the extreme stuff… no, I’m just into the “get this for cheaper” type) a few weeks ago and it’s strangely nice to have a little project. We’re cooking lots of stuff ourselves from scratch and reading more. I’m making a list of (cheap!) baby projects I want to tackle, planning our move and all kinds of other stuff. I planted herbs and lettuce in a container garden today, too!

The only unfortunate thing about my new less-stress life is that we won’t be going to Charleston as much now – that gets expensive! – but that trade-off is well worth the things we’ll get in return… and Skype is free

Have you ever taken a major risk in quitting a job without a new one in sight? Any money saving tips you want to offer?

I’ll tell you what else:

from James Stapleton on flickr

That’s our new home. Two big colleges, one major league baseball stadium, a large river and situated on the border of two states… nearly three.

That’s right, we’re moving to Cincinnati, OH! We finally have a “permanent for now” home. A place where we can order digital cable without having to worry about that pesky two year commitment. A place where we can finally transfer licenses and have a basement. A place our child will be born (are we crazy for thinking we want to drive to a hospital in North KY so our kid will be southern like us? haha). We could be there as little as 18 months and as much as “indefinitely”.

So that, my friends, is the end of our long stretch of big surprising news updates. Thank goodness. Now I can go back to planning where we’ll live, baby stuff, and how many different places “near” Cincinnati I’d like to visit (Pittsburgh? KY? Indy?)

So Chad’s going through his interviews for two separate companies this week. It’s frightening how quickly the first is giving him an answer… on Monday! If it’s for the location that we would prefer (Atlanta) and the benefits are better than company 2, our choice is made.

Except… well, we had decided that we didn’t want to buy a house. Honestly, we really have no right buying a house. We’re barely out of college, about to have a kid, I have student loans and a job that isn’t considered “mortgage-worthy.” So what does this mean? We’re looking for rental houses.

Have you seen rental houses? They suck! I don’t know if it’s the time of year or what, but it’s been hard finding one that we like. Depending on where we go, we need to put a deposit down by the end of next month… that really puts the time crunch on. And I am getting more, and more, and more frustrated!