vintage re visited.

This girl is ready to come back. A year or so has gone by and my life is a bit different - but a lot is just the same. Here's a bitty update to getcha' up to speed:

House- so, we moved from the Clear Lake house and our rented homestead to become first time home buyers. In my weak defense, buying a home can be a bit daunting. There are so many things you have to keep track of and even more you need to look for. If I had to choose one mistake that we made in the home buying process, it would have to be the abandoning of all our ambitions and ideals. I've got to tell you that that is probably not something a person should overlook. Oops. We do not have a homestead - actually we cannot even call it a yard. No pity party here, I'm just saying. We do have a nice big 'ol house that needs a lot of work and there does not seem to be light at the end of the... oh shit, there is no tunnel.

Kids- They're still here.

Dog- Oh yes, there is now a dog. A very big dog. Mokie is what we yell when we are wishing her to ignore us. She is a lovely eight month old Saint Bernard. She weighs a crap ton and likes to destroy things (Troy would say his soul). She also has kidney disease which makes her drink 4 gallons of water a day, which makes her do the obvious A LOT, which makes the irony that we lived on 40 acres with no dog and now live in a house sans yard a tad bit more annoying rather than haha.

Pursuit of happiness- It goes well. We have continued to live like penniless paupers and create our own fun from scratch. This has more to do with us actually being penniless paupers and less to do with me being trendy. I have to say that it is kind of fun to be back in this place of forced creativity. When I think back to the years where Troy and I, newly married, could barely afford rent on our 250 sq. foot apartment, slept on a mattress on the floor and window shopped for entertainment - I miss it. I miss it in a don't REALLY want to go back there kind of way, but nostalgia nonetheless. Back then we lived on less because we had to and now we face the same reality. Not for the same reasons this time around, but the result is the same. We moved to this lame ass bodunk little town a few miles from Troy's job. In the dead of winter, underneath a blanket of snow, it looked charming. The Christmas lights, the historic downtown - it was all very romantic to my old soul. Unfortunately the snow melted and I now find myself in a sea of un cared for, could be beautiful homes and a dying economy. There is nothing doing well here. Sadly the school system has followed the trend also. This happens to be bad for me. After two weeks of (FREE!) public school, I could take no more. Marnie would come home with pictures of shapes that she had traced and print outs reminding her that apples are round. This after an entire summer of learning how to read and other educational pursuits. There was no where to increase her skills the teachers told me. The program was not set up that way. Students are taught at one pace regardless of their level. We pulled her out and entered the charter system. A charter school, for those who do not know, is a school, funded by the public school system, but teaches using a non traditional method. We chose a Montessori based school due to the way we feel children learn best. Since it is part of the school system, it is free. That is EXCEPT for the preschool, that is still considered private and cost almost as much as my house payment. There is an end to this however - next year Marnie will be in kindergarten and she will be able to attend free of charge, but for the next 7 months, we have to suffer without 25% of our take home pay. Doable, but not really ideal. But then I had an idea - always dangerous - that since we have to bare bones it for seven months, why not really cut back, suffer through and be better off in the end? Why not go back to school myself? Sounds like a good idea to me, so I am. Beauty school that is. I start Tuesday.