1) Thanks, Veterans, for the labor and sacrifice on behalf of the country.

2) As I think about this move, I am realizing how important family is. So far, my mother, mother-in-law, and a cousin have visited and helped us pack. Additionally, when we get to the other side, I'll be staying with another cousin, and over Thanksgiving my brother and his wife are coming to help settle in. Between Thanksgiving and Valentines, it looks like my mother and in-laws will come again and possibly an aunt. All of them has been fantastic in being helpful in a time of general chaos.

3) Umm. So in case you only get news about me from here, yea, we're moving. N over the summer decided to get in touch with his old headhunter and put feelers out. This would probably have been a good move in general just because the timing felt right on many levels. However, Monday a public announcement was made that his company will layoff over 1000 workers and there are rumors his entire studio will be cut. So it's a nice feeling to have a job offer in hand ahead of the uncertainty.

N's new job is ironically in a field that I was looking into earlier this year, serious games. Serious games are oriented toward training and outcomes. I am interested in validating claims of cognitive improvement that some games advertise. N's new job is at a place that is developing simulation software for the military and emergency/first responders. We both hope that this new job will have less "crunch time" than the last one.

And about the move, it's out of state to a city neither of us has any familiarity with. However, in the past year, both of us have had friends move there which we hope will ease our transition. We visited it in the fall and it seems like a pretty chill place. I think we're excited about moving there, but mostly we'd just like the move to be over.

I'm finally back on Xanga cuz it's 5AM and our Lil L is not asleep and not willing to be left alone. So I'm awake sitting next to her crib while she plays around with stuff.

Being a new mother has involved some standard new baby change, but in my case also come with a major stage of life change when I finished my degree a couple months after the mini was born. I've pretty much been a stay at home mom since I filed all my paperwork. I've kind of talked about doing research, but I haven't really. At times, my lack of academic productivity has sent me into the abyss of existential angst. However, there are some things about now that I'm really enjoying.

As much as I sometimes freak out about how much attention and care the mini requires, I'd rather be available to her than not. Pretty much everyday there's a moment where I feel it's pretty awesome to be with her. (There's also often a long hour of wailing.)

Because the mini is a chill baby, I have a lot more flexibility than I expected to be available to people. A couple times a week, I have the opportunity to be an encouragement to someone by spending time with them. Where it is really difficult to find a chunk of time to focus on research, it is pretty easy to find chunks of time for people, even spontaneous time. Oddly enough, phone time is difficult, probably because it requires having a hand free to hold the phone. But for face to face interaction, I haven't yet spent time with someone who seems bothered that I'm holding or even nursing a baby while talking.

For most of the past three years, the goal of finishing my degree has prioritized my time for me. And basically, saying "no" was the default choice and any "yes-s" had to be carefully considered. Now that I'm done, after taking care of my family, I'm pretty free to be available to others. I really like that. If I didn't feel responsible to my degree, I think I'd really enjoy continuing to take care of my family and build up the people around me.

Lately, I've been away from scriptures but longing for Jesus feeling that he above all else must be at the center. So I've decided to get back on the Bible memorization horse. My senior year of college, I memorized Phillipians with my roommate and haven't really gotten back to memorizing since then. I started Mark after college but didn't really get anywhere. So I'm going back to Mark and again using the suggestions from the pastor of the church I attended in college. At three verses a day, six days a week, with a 10% slush fund as the pastor suggested,  I should finish memorizing the book of Mark around my 31st birthday.

So feel free to ask me where I'm at but be careful because if you ask me next spring, you will hopefully need to be prepared for a l-o-n-g recitation. If you want to join me, that'd be all the cooler.

Also, I'm working my way through the couch to 5K running program which I started in late May. Technically, I should have completed it already, but it's been hard to work around the mini's schedule. Nevertheless, I'm on "week 7" running 25 minutes continuously. Given that I'm lugging around an extra 20 pounds and was really out of shape with squishy post-pregnancy hips, I'm pretty pround of my progress.

Feel free to ask me how that's going too. My goal is to get out of the house and run 3 times a week. I let going out of town last week throw me off, but I'm determined to get back to it.