My Excuses

So Many reasons combined and piled on top of many more reasons lead to me not blogging for nearly 4 months.
To start with we left Lethbridge, Sold the house packed up and all of that stuff involved with a major move took up my time for August.
From there Nathan, the Dogs and I moved to Caroline and stayed with Chris' Mom for most of September. Although I had an Internet connection out there- it was so incredibly slow in comparison to what I'm used to, I only used the computer when I really had too. That and I didn't feel like it was appropriate house guest behavior to commandeer someone Else's computer.
***In September (my birthday to be more exact) Chris gave me the most amazing new camera...so that added to not blogging- I had all these great new pictures that were such higher quality than my old stuff but the software for the new camera was installed on our lap top not my in laws computer- therefore no Internet access and no way to share these pics- thus what was the point.***

In the middle of September Chris and I decided that living apart was causing to much stress on our relationship. Between the job in Edmonton from May till August and then him working in Calgary for August and September, we had now been seeing each other maybe twice a month for the last 5 months.
The theory had been we could save up some money by having Chris living in Calgary with his brother and working and me staying out at the in laws...therefore we were paying no rent, or really much in household expenses other than a few groceries. But we decided that our relationship was struggling and it was time to put our family back together, and just do our best with the finances.
So We found a dingy little apartment in September and moved everyone in together. (well almost everyone* We we're there for only a few days before we realized we couldn't keep our little dog Kaylee in this place. We'd had Kaylee, for nearly 3 years at that point, but we had never ever been able to house break her. She would literally look right at you and take a pee on the carpet. If you turned your back she'd quietly find something (anything) to chew and slip off with it. She had to monitored constantly if she was in the house, unless she was in her kennel. But in the end I told Chris that I simply didn't have the ability to monitor 2 dogs and a 2 year old constantly- and she would end up spending most of her day in the kennel. Which I didn't think was a very nice quality of life for any dog- but especially for one who had spent the last 2 and half years almost exclusively outside.- and we simply no longer had a yard at this place- It was heartbreaking but in the end we decided that it was more fair to her to try and find a family that had the energy and attention that she needed than to keep her and basically end up turning her into a caged animal.***)
So After all that interlude-
basically moving into the Nasty Apartment in Calgary and getting rid of Kaylee we went into a hard downward slide in all areas of our lives. It was kind of the marker of where things started going wrong.
The apartment was horrible, dirty and had horrible neighbors in a pretty bad neighborhood.
Chris lost the job, in Calgary in October.
We then went for just over a month, job hunting (both of us-trying to figure out if I wanted to go back to work, and what I wanted to do if I went back. On top of that I had to find Daycare and figure out the finances - a balance between what I would make and what I would have to spend to go back to work in terms of the costs of babysitting and the cost of all new clothes etc.)
All of these factors and issues sent us into couples counselling and me to the doctor for anxiety attacks.
Chris was slipping closer and closer to a depression- It was obvious that the job market had changed- from everyone being desperate for workers- back to a case of having to jump through hoops and go for multiple interviews to land a job. He was landing interviews, even getting called back for second and third interviews but he didn't seem to be landing the jobs. He had assumed getting a new job wouldn't be a problem, so he was refusing to take something that would keep him from going to other interviews.
I was stressed that we were sinking further into debt, and taking something- any type of job, even a night job would be better than the rate we we're going into debt.
He seemed to think that a "crappy job" that didn't even pay the bills was worthless...and my argument was it may not pay all the bills but at least it'll pay some rather than living on credit.
*therefore couples counselling***
In the end he snagged a job back up in Edmonton.
and actually within 2 weeks that job wasn't working out either.
But he went back to the office of the his employer from this summer and basically begged for his position back.
They gave it to him
and now,
we're all back together in Edmonton.
Chris has a decent job, with lots and lots of hours and decent pay.
We have a nice little town house with some space and a backyard for the dog.
Nathan gets to see his Dad, which he desperately missed.
and things are starting to look up.

so if you managed to get through all that,
I guess my excuse for not blogging is I've been in a pretty dark place for a few months now, and haven't felt like I had a lot to say ( If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all)
but now I'm back,
and I intend to post some of the great pics I got over the last few months...especially all the great ones from our time out in Caroline with the in laws.
The kid and Dogs and I did have a good time there hanging out outside for a lot of the time, and snapping pics trying to figure out my new camera.
So if you see posts with past months in the title you'll understand why they are only being posted now!!!