New Love(bugs)!

I've been a terrible blogger. Not a single post from March to December. And in that time, some things have changed (or I should say, some things have been added) in my life.

Introducing......

Charlie

AND

Leo

My new little lovebugs!

It's been quite a jolt of energy in my home; two kittens = a lot of kittens! These photos are of the boys in their foster home before they came home with me. They are now 8 months old and HUGE! I'll post updated photos soon (because I've got at least a million photos of these guys!). And I'll have to update on the challenges that have come with parenting one of these kittens. Can you guess which one is giving me a hard time?

In other news, I've applied for a new job. I LOVE my current job as a child therapist but the politics and administration of the program I work in is too much lately (well, for the past year). It's definitely outweighing my love for my work and another opportunity may be in the works. It's a huge new grant to provide mental health consultation with a focus on children birth to 5 years old to child care centers, doctor's offices, and other agencies. Depending on which agency gets the grant and whether I get the job, it will hopefully give me a chance to take a break from the intense clinical work and, more importantly, from the office politics of my current program. I'm also hoping for a substantial raise with the new position but it's still non-profit so I'm not holding my breath! I should know more in the next week.

In the meantime, all is well. Christmas shopping will start and end this weekend for me and hopefully I will have everything that needs to be mailed/shipped ready to go by Monday (or Tuesday). I'm not going back to Iowa this year. There's too much going on here and I just need a break- no traveling this holiday season. Thank goodness.

Winter Dreaming?

In 1994 I moved to Arizona as an 18 year old college student. And I'm still here. And I'm not sure why.

I finished college. I got a job. I bought a townhouse. I worked. I changed jobs twice within the same agency. I went back to school (and kept working). I earned my master's degree. And now? I work.

My life primarily consists of work, dreaming of winning the lottery, and (my very favorite part of my life) being a total homebody whenever possible and spending time with my girls Sophie, Sally, and Lucy.

I'm not sure I'm super happy. I don't think I'm miserable either. But I'm not where I want to be (mentally, physically, emotionally, geographically?). I'm not there yet. And I'm not sure where there is.

This last year has been a challenge, somehow inexplicably feeling more challenging than the three years that I was working full-time AND going to graduate school AND completing 20 hour a week internships. Don't get me wrong, that was an incredible challenge from which I am still trying to recover. But somehow, right now, things in my life feel a little unbalanced and feel a lot uncertain.

Sally suddenly became sick on May 9th, 2008. She was put to sleep that evening and my heart was broken (and it's still broken). Lucy has been sick forever it seems although she is finally responding to a new medication. And Sophie is Sophie; she's 14 now and going blind and has arthritis. Recent tests indicate she may have a type of cancer but she is not showing any symptoms yet.

I love parts of my job and I do not even kind of like some parts of my job. The state of Arizona recently lost our blue governor as she joined Obama's cabinet. She was replaced by a red governor who wasted little time completely destroying services and resources for the most vulnerable in our community: children, people with disabilities, the elderly, and low income families. These insane budget cuts have touched the lives of my clients and my agency. Friends have lost jobs. Children have lost much needed services. I still have a job but I've taken decreases in reimbursement and increases in caseload. So I'm working more and getting paid less. And I wasn't making that much to begin with.

Another thing that has me off balance is a completely random, bizarre, scary event that literally happened at my front door about a month ago. I don't feel like going into it all but to summarize, a mentally ill man showed up at my front door, said scary things, and had to be physically carried away by the police. And it turns out that he is a neighbor. Suddenly my safe, secure homebodyness is threatened by scary insecurity and I can't quite regain my balance.

I might move back to the midwest. But then I think that I might be crazy. I left as an 18 year old with teenage reasons for leaving. And now I'm a 32 year old thinking about moving back. But I just can't shake the feeling that I'm still running away from...something.