4 weeks and 4 years

Well, it's February 18th today. This is a big day for two reasons. First, Match Day is exactly 4 weeks away. Second, Joe proposed to me exactly 4 years ago.

I'm not going to lie, practically since January I've been an emotional rollercoaster. The whole month of January, I had problems sleeping. I couldn't fall asleep, then when I finally did, I'd wake up multiple times throughout the night. Fortunately, February brought a surgery rotation and I've been so physically exhausted that falling and staying asleep is no longer an issue, it's just getting enough of it. My consumption of peanut butter M&Ms has also increased. I recognize the times when I'm stress eating and it's unfortunately become a little more frequent. I feel much better when I get a workout in, so I'm trying to be more diligent about working out. I finished my bag of M&Ms tonight and will not buy anymore so the temptation is gone. But then, right now I'm also frustrated about working out because my knee's bothering me again.

I feel like things are hitting us all at once. We want to know where we're moving, but other than ranking my programs, we have no control of it. We are at the beck and call of an envelope delivered to us in front of my whole class on March 18th. We've been very fortunate with our living situation out here, but now it's time to sell our house. Worrying about finding a buyer and handling the process is an added stress. I really don't like strangers wandering through our house. While I know it's unlikely, they're seeing our belongings and I have this odd fear someone is going to try to break in and steal our computer, etc, and they'll know exactly where we keep it. I guess that's the Baltimore girl in me. (Not that I've heard of that happening to anyone I know.) On top of that, along with knowing what city we'll be living in, we kind of want to find a home to live in. Unfortunately, we can't do that until March 18th. So basically, we're planning on flying back East for a weekend and doing a marathon session of home viewings, hoping to find a house we love and can afford, put a contract in, and settle in a very short time. We're planning on leaving Omaha at the end of May, so at the very least we need a place to live after that. Hopefully Joe will be fortunate enough to find a job shortly after Match Day and may even need to leave Omaha earlier to start the job. But where is he to live if we haven't closed on a house yet? And, we need a mortgage for this house. We've never bought a real house before, so this is a little overwhelming. Oh the things to think about.

Whenever a friend asks for advice, I always say to take things one step at a time. I wish I could listen to my own advice right now. It's one thing to be prepared, it's another thing to try to control things that are out of our control right now. I hope these next four weeks fly by. I'm going to try to just take a couple steps back and let things fall into place, but I can't promise I won't have a good cry or two in the meantime.