Christmas is almost here, what?? I can't believe it. I mean, I can, but, at the same time, I can't, you know?

Don't mind my noodles, fyi. This is gonna be a crazy sort of update-y blog. (that took me almost a week to write, ha.)

Family: My parents bought a house in Nevada about a month ago, and my mom has started work on it. My parents are there now, thank goodness. Thank goodness because my dad's work visa was having all kinds of delays due to the project manager being stupid - but, they got it sorted out and so now he can come back to the States to see us. My sister finally has her cats with her in CO, after a few years apart. From what I can tell her boyfriend loves them - which is good, because he'd be kicked out otherwise.

Nix's family is good too, busy, though. His brother is living in MI now with his girlfriend's family. (Which, I'll be honest, I find a little weird, but, hey.) Now he's talking about going back to school in January and studying pharmacy... which... is... exactly what she is doing. I'm not going to try and understand, because I just don't. All I know is he wasn't the best student when he tried college the first time, and I don't know how this time will be any better. Pharmacy school is freaking hard, or so I hear, to get accepted in, and you have to be like the top 10% of your class or some nonsense like that. Anyway, his two sisters are doing well too, one is finishing up her first semester of college (crazy!!!) and the other is in her freshman year of high school. I can't handle them growing up, lol.

Our little family is good, we're talking about expanding! And by "expanding" I mean adopting a dog. If all goes as planned, we're going to seek out rescues at the beginning of the year and look for a pug-pug/mix to bring home in March/April. He/she will be our birthday presents for the year. And yes, we've been talking about procreating as well, but that won't be for a while. Earliest we're talking is the end of 2015 to start thinking about having unprotected sex. Insane that we're at that age where people actually want us to have unprotected sex.

Living: We've been in our current apartment for almost 5 months already, what? It's currently a huge mess, like, disaster zone kind of mess. I've come to the realization, and Nix agrees, that we just have too much stuff. So 2015 is going to be a year for decluttering and getting rid of the stuff we don't need or want anymore. Our least here ends on Aug 20, 2015, and so we've been casually talking about what may happen after the lease is up. We could renew, obviously, but we don't know if we want to stay in this area or maybe move back to the midwest. The concern, of course, is if we do move we won't have jobs. And if we get new jobs... what jobs do we look for?

I guess I'll lump "church" into living as well. Our church friends/family have been amazing to us. A couple that we love invited us over to have Thanksgiving dinner with her family. I made two pies! Salted apple caramel and oreo cream. Yuuuummmmmm pie. Anyway, Nix has been asked to basically run Christmas Eve service, which is awesome & he's really excited about it. I'll be helping him out and be his go-to if he needs anything done or something gets messed up. I have fun helping him with the producer kind of stuff, and I know that he appreciates it.

Relationship: It struck me the other day that Nix & I have been talking for about 4 years now. It's a little crazy to me that we've known each other that long - partly because it seems like it's been way longer, and also partly because it seems like we just met. I know, I know, everyone says that kind of thing. But it's about this time 4 years ago that he & I made our families grateful for unlimited texting, and I'm so glad for it. Things are, in case you can't tell, great. I love being married to this guy, and the only complaint I have is that I think he works too much. Sometimes I think he thinks I'm crazy - okay, more than just sometimes... the other day I was trying to wake him up from a nap and it turned into a wrestling match. And by wrestling I mean him laying cross-ways on me so I can't move or breathe. Sigh. But, I really am kinda crazy about him.

Work: Speaking of work... I've started thinking about "what's next" for me, since I know that this job isn't a forever job. And I have no clue what I want to do next. I'm not sure if I want to go back into construction. I don't want to live the way we are forever - I dream that one of us will eventually have a salary again and not be paid hourly. But I don't know if it will be me or him. I've thought I want to go back to school for a vet tech program, but I don't know if I really want to anymore. I'm honestly not sure what's changed. I like what I'm doing, but I sometimes feel like I wasted 5 years and all that $ going to school to only work in that field for 3 years. And at this rate, we definitely won't have our student loans paid off by the time we're both 30, which is a little disheartening. More often than not I am wishing for some magic answer that will solve all of our problems. Like where we should live and what jobs we should have. I know that won't ever happen, though so I guess we'll just keep on keepin' on.

Travels: We haven't been able to travel as much as I'd like due to work and finances, but I may be going to visit my family and the new house at the end of February! I don't think Nix will be able to get time off of both jobs, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. (I also don't know if we'll be able to afford 2 plane tickets, tbh.) But, we've talked and we're definitely going to go visit his family (& extended family) when they go on their big vacation in July, since I haven't ever been. His grandparents rent a house every year and his cousins all go and they hang out and spend the week together. Honestly, we haven't thought much beyond that trip in July because our lease here is up in August 2015, and we don't know if we're going to stay or if we're going to go. Where we'd go, we have no idea.